Eric on the long

Eric gives us a personal account of his run in the Long Final yesterday:

I ran the Long Distance Final race at the World Orienteering Championships today, placing 61st of 84 men. I knew the race would be tough, at 16.4km straight-line distance and 820m climb at altitude in hilly alpine forest terrain, but it was made tougher when I started running out of energy pretty early on, after only 75 minutes running. A couple gels helped get me through the next hour of running, but I experienced dizziness, narrowing of my visual field, walking up hills that I normally would run, and some stumbling and a few falls; it wasn't my best physical performance.

On the plus side, I navigated very well today, losing probably no more than 2 minutes on navigation. Also, I still nearly made my goal of a top-60 finish, and I took top honors among the two North American men in the race by a few minutes. I've been looking forward to this race all year, and while I was hoping to put in a better performance, I am still very honored and pleased to have had the opportunity to race, and I'm happy about the many things that went well about the race, including the great support I received from my wonderful teammates, our excellent coach, Tom, Orienteering USA and all the supporters at home, and of course my dear family and friends.

The photos (by Zarina Parpia) are of me approaching the final control point and then running up the finish chute.