BUCS 2016

So BUCS orienteering again was on my birthday weekend. Even though I wasn’t at university anymore the competition was a selection race for the World University Orienteering Championships. Unfortunately as I was a guest it meant an early start so I travelled up in the morning, picking up Harry’s friend in Lydney. After the initial buzz of seeing everyone I needed to make a decision on whether to run – for the two weeks previous I had been struggling with a stress reaction. Although there was no pain when walking I hadn’t run since the a session on the track which resulted in achy pain around my ankle and a very sharp pain when pressing the bone L As I have been building the volume up, mostly on tarmac or hard surfaces, since January it wasn’t much of a surprise.

I made the decision to run helped by Adam and a text from Mum which basically said, ‘You only live once…go get it’. I jogged cautiously to the start over analysing any feeling in my ankle and surprisingly I felt pretty good J Starting at the same time as Dave meant I could have a joke before my start. In my brain I was still trying to work on getting to each control perfectly – actually reading the map and using the information there. I remember when I was younger and use to tell myself there was absolutely NO REASON AT ALL why anyone should EVER make a mistake as you have everything you need to get around the course perfectly. I mean the map tells you EXACTLY where to go you just need to use it! So for this year I am really looking to get my confidence back by making no mistakes before I begin to be cocky and start running faster!

The course was well planned and I loved the forest as it was runnable. I was happy with the first few controls before being an indecisive headless chicken with a route choice of straight and contouring or uphill but then beasting it on the path. I ended up doing a bit of both which lost me more time I thought! For the rest of the course, I was able to build my confidence on each leg as I made good route choices, executed them well and enjoyed finding each control. At control six I turned out of the feature after punching to see Jo Shepard chasing my tail – after the initial: ‘What the hell, I thought I was doing really well!???’ I realised she was a speed demon and I simply couldn’t keep up. The rest of the course was spent trying to focus on my orienteering whilst not letting JO get too far ahead – although WAY faster than me an occasional mistake meant we kept meeting at controls. After the spectator control I could feel my ankle brewing and had a moment to think if I should carry on, followed by: ‘No, stop being a pussy – just because Jo has caught you up!’.

The end of the course I was flagging majorly, hanging on to any energy with all navigation thrown out the window I was simply running (if you could call it that!) in the vague direction and waiting until I was closer to the control feature to see if I had to navigate more (hoping instead the control would simply jump out and wave at me :’)). At the finish I was really really pleased with myself for not making a big fuck up and also enjoying it! I had a lot of respect for Jo as I’d seen her in the forest – to be honest if I hadn’t seen her but come back to her time (4 minutes faster than mine!) I would have been pretty moody questioning if a good run for me was actually a good run!! Stupid I know. At least I am aware of these competitive mood swings which is the first stage to tackling them right?

I iced my ankle (although it was already cold enough from the wet terrain!) and waited for my favs to come in. Adam finished complaining about his mistakes but I was really happy for him as his runs are getting more consistent (and the week previously he even beat me to about a third of the controls :O). Need to watch my back now. Once Aine and Mariama finished we snuck off to Bristol to have showers and chill out at a café before getting ready for the night out.

As I’m an old lady with a job now I took advantage of a night out and covered my face in facepaint to be Tigger from Winnie the Poo. The meal at Cosmos was (by far) the best BUCS meal I’d ever been too and we all happily stuffed our faces before the night out. As it was birthday the following day I stayed out until midnight before going back to the freezing hall to find Harry lying face down with no blanket or sleeping bag on the thinnest rug ever L I gave him a blanket and pillow before trying to get some sleep myself. I wasn’t expecting a great sleep so wasn’t surprised after waking up to drunkards walking in throughout the night and random noises from people’s beds :P.

The next morning when everyone went off to the relay I drove home to the family to spend my birthday with them. Whilst they all went orienteering I had a bath to relax. For lunch we went to a pub in Breamore which provided crocodile & ostrich meat! It was a great birthday and Mum made the best cake I’ve ever had. We also turned back into five year olds with the helium balloons :’).

Warm (ISH) weather training

In preparation for the camp we were asked to run a 3km time trial to help us pace the intervals and running sessions. Whilst this isn’t an far-reaching task, I still managed to struggle: giving up after 5 and ½ laps and setting a wonderfully high self-confidence before the camp -_- *JOKE*. I was beginning to get tired of training – not actually doing it – but from doing it and never getting better. For a few years, to be honest, I’ve stayed at a relatively consistent level of fitness which I’m finding it hard to break out of and therefore have faith in any training that I actually do.

Moving to the week itself, I arrived at around midnight on the 2^nd (flying into Faro before travelling to Punta Umbria near Huevla in the South of Spain). In the morning we had to take our resting HR and wee into a tiny bottle to measure our hydration levels. Unfortunately not only was I dehydrated on the first morning (with a measure of 680 instead of between 400-600) I’d peeed all over my hand to start the morning off. Then it was on to an interval session (4x2km on the track). I only did 3 sets as my lactate was getting too high and considering the week reached 90km in total I think it was best.

Cutie little dog <3 complete trooper!

In the afternoon a few of us (as Forest athletes are now a dying breed: with only Graham, Jess and myself sticking solely to forest – as Charlotte and Holly were injured) travelled to Matascalans an area on sand dunes for some orienteering. I was actually really excited for this and couldn’t wait to orienteering properly by concentrating and reading the map to ensure I had map to ground and ground to map contact the majority of the way. This meant I made NO MISTAKES!! And I even had the distraction of this tiny little dog following me around for the whole 7km :’)

The rest of the week continued like this: waking up, peeing on myself, eating far too much healthy food with a distinct lack of cake, training, more eating, maybe a little nap (which on one occasion turned into a sleep meaning I missed afternoon training OOOPS), followed by more training, food and sleep. AND i forgot to mention the early mornings :O where we ran around the underground car park, hopping, skipping and jumping for 45 minutes when it was STILL DARK outside! Although it might seem like i'm complaining I actually enjoyed it all and it was good to get going good habits of eating and sleeping - especially with it being New Year and all that. 

As the amount of meetings was drastically less than normal there was quite a lot of free time to kill which was a new experience without university coursework to fill it up with. It mean’t instead I had lots of time for Facetiming important people back home and watching far too many episodes of Game of Thrones. Unfortunately my favourite character died (Ygritte – ooops spoiler ß) and to my dismay Hollie and Charlotte didn’t watch it so I had no one to complain about it – although to be honest that didn’t stop me trying.

Throughout the week I managed to get my hydration levels down to 500 (WOOO) but in doing so meant I was getting up in the night to pee. Additionally my confidence in both running and orienteering improved. For the running we ran another interval session on the Tuesday which comprised of shorter efforts which suited me a lot better (for completely unknown reasons?) but helped to make me feel capable. Additionally I managed to chat with Jackie about my worries and we went about altering my weekly structure to hopefully get a bit more out of the sessions I do.

The orienteering was also working well as long as I kept my concentration and after a chat with Liz and later with Eddie I was able to articulate how I orienteered (just) which is always difficult. SO BASCIALLY long story short, previously where I’ve been breaking my orienteering technique down to work on the skills individually it has never worked as I used each skill in balance with the other ones. So when I’ve deconstructed the whole orienteering technique I’ve disrupted the whole balance of my beautifully woven orienteering peace circle and found it hard to peace it back together. Therefore this week was about back to basics, doing it all nice and slow to build up the confidence and get the orienteering peace circle back J

All in all a pretty successful camp even with a tiny bit of sun (although i still had my much loved favourite item of clothing: a poncho. Or did we decide it was a Pashmina. Or rug. Or even carpet? wrapped around me most the week to keep warm) and magical moments with nature *see caterpillar photo: credit to Graham for spotting the infested tree which clearly smelt like chocolate*.

Caterpillar Fest

Me in my much beloved 'Poncho'

Lillomarka Kick Off weekend

I knew it had been a long time since I last went out to Norway after checking my purse which holds all the random currencies that I have collected finding to my disappointment only 7 Norwegian krone (about 70p). It’s probably been over a year since visiting Norway which, considering I am part of a Norwegian Club, is pretty shocking. Therefore I was so excited to finally get on the plane Thursday night to travel over to Oslo and join Lillomarka for a weekend of training and to celebrate their 30^th Anniversary.

As soon as I stepped outside the plane in Oslo could see my breath due to minus temperatures so was grateful that Vidar swiftly came to pick me up, taking me to his gorgeous house in the Eastern part of Oslo. It was around midnight Norwegian time so went straight to sleep preparing for the busy day tomorrow – consisting of morning orienteering training, physiotherapist screening, a VO2 max test and a night race in the evening! The morning training went well for me – the pace was really slow but it meant I actually orienteered and had such good contact with the map I made very very small mistakes – relocating quickly and never too far off which gave me a heap of confidence. It was also pretty enjoyable as I actually felt calm and capable instead of running off like a loony and panicking trying to relocate quickly. Although it was slow I wasn’t worried knowing I would quickly get back into the hang of navigating and be able to speed up my processes without adopting the rushed, headless chicken style of orienteering that all too often resulted in disappointment.

Following this the club each had 20 minutes screening sessions with a physio where we did a serious of exercises – apparently being ‘exceedingly good’ (that’s right ;) ) on the single legged squats – (Peter Bray - this will be from all our Durham Gym work *sob sob* which we are both missing out on now!). I obviously had weaknesses too which involve the fact I can’t touch my toes L. The VO2 max was not so enjoyable, after getting over a small language barrier as the instructions were all written in Norwegian (and after informing the physician he’d entered my gender incorrectly as I was actually female :’)) I was ready for 5 minutes of running until exhaustion. A shorter test than I’ve previously done in the UK as they don’t mess around – adjusting the treadmill up to 10.5 hill gradient and setting you off running for a minute an increasing speeds. At the end I was literally bent double, peaking my VO2 at 53.8 – 2.4 of my previous in the year but really pleased in all. With shakey legs Andrinne and I made it to the car – unfortunately there was very little power on the little electric car meaning we couldn’t turn the heating on and were driving at the speed of two old ladies on buggies to make it back home.

The evening was the thing I was looking forward to the LEAST. Night orienteering had drastically reduced on my list of ‘fun things to do’ since I watched a zombie movie before a race, spooking myself out horribly, getting lost and wondering around a pitch black forest waiting to be eaten alive. I gave up in that race. So this time I went slower, like in the morning to make sure I didn’t get lost and took my time – clamping down on any thoughts of the undead. Although again slow I made it round and was so happy with myself at the end. It was SO COLD that my shoe laces froze solid however it gave me a chance to wear the most attractive item of clothing I wear: my thermal leggings.

The next morning I couldn’t stand up – my calves were so tight I couldn’t straighten my legs properly from the maximal calf raises we had to do in the screening. So hobbling to the club hut I managed to pick my legs up enough to jog round some more orienteering training which was again slow but all part of the plan to build my confidence in my orienteering back up. This was shattered when andrinne and I decided to go from 4 – 7 so we could get back in time for a shower. We spent about 20 minutes wandering round this slope which had half of the map blanked out – eventually we relocated off the northern part of the map to stumble onto control nine. The last section was a lot more successful before a hot shower and meeting in the Club Hut. The afternoon activities finished with a quiz – partnered with Nico (teamname of Nico’s Butt) – that we managed to pull ourselves up to 6^th from a bad start due to our impressive selfie taking skills.

Before the party in the evening I slept, feeling the from running 22km the previous day and preparing my body for a late night. Arriving bang on 7pm, we collected a piece of a map where we had to find the person with the other part of the map to sit with for the dinner. Unfortunately my partner must have ditched me as I never found my other half – instead being saved by Joe who was in the same situation as me. After piling food on my plate and talking biomed with joe it was time for a singsong – in Norwegian – proving difficult to keep up but it ended up well with everyone stood on their chairs, popping balloons and making noise. The brits (Joe, Dane, Ali, Kris and me) then lead a series of games to entertain the club including trying to get a biscuit in your mouth without using your hands starting from your forehead, lacing a piece of string under everyone’s clothing to tie the teams together and passing an orange down the lines using no hands, just your neck – keeping up with Lillomarka tradition of being a ‘close club’ with a few awkward situations :P Following this is was cake time before a boogie and then home and bed.

 I travelled home on Sunday, but not until the afternoon which meant I could participate in the long run. Again pretty slow but we went for around 2hr 20 minutes and there was some orienteering involved. After the great weekend I was so tired but it felt good to be back in control with my orienteering and get some good mileage in J

I'M BACK HI HI HI

So after a year – where I’ve written some logs but never gotten round to uploading them I’ve finally got the motivation to start up my blog again. After another summer of mediocre and therefore disappointing performances I was pretty wary that I’ve begun falling off the radar for being an orienteering beast. I’ll get round to uploading some of my last years adventures but not many have been orienteering related with other distractions such as finishing university, getting into a PROPER relationship (woo go me) and living in Uganda for over a month doing volunteering :).

Since coming back from Uganda I’ve been a busy bee travelling up and down the country to see Adam before starting my new job as a Junior Buyer in Novartis for one year. Starting this meant Ive moved up the M3 to Camberley so I was super close to the offices – although I could have stayed at home saving money, the early mornings and dark evenings would have left me with little motivation for training or anything else! I started on the 1^st of October and since then have been trained up to work on purchasing services and goods in the procurement team. Now we are in November I’ve started on a few projects which is exciting and will hopefully help my confidence as I’d say my strengths are more scientific than the job role. Although I think I’d want to branch out into a more scientific roles in pharma, the one now is perfect to build relationships in all parts of the company and the experience in business is already far more than I’ve learnt at university! The days are pretty consistent at work but I am enjoying it knowing I can help the team out a bit more without being a hassle/stress to train me up; however the rest of my life has been a bit haywire whilst I’ve put this new 9-5 commitment on my hours!

Again, not listening to advice I dived straight into making my life as busy as possible and soon committed myself to a new running club – Aldershot & Farnham District which had me struggling with some BRUTAL sessions. Additionally the long distance relationship with Adam and issues with the house I’d just moved into meant after a few days of starting work I was already so knackered and run down that I needed two weekends with the family to help me rest! The house I moved into was alright but not much better than a student house – the previously owner of the room had decided not to clean it leaving hairs and dirt in the drawers, dust and dirt EVERYWHERE and a lighter and mud under the bed. This meant visiting the doctor to sort out the mass of allergies I had including a new inhaler. The room never got sorted – landlord was an arse who did not give a shit so I had to give the room a big clean out and has ruined any respect I’ve got for landlords.

Not seeing Adam whenever I wanted was also hard, especially after 5 weeks in Uganda without him and with no friends or family in the area meant evenings were pretty lonely.  It has meant lots of facetiming and support from everyone to ensure that I rest and look after myself so I’m not this grumpy miserable hermit :’). Although all sounds pretty grim – Julia Blomquist – Old ex-orienteering friend lives close and we organised Wednesday date nights ;) even making it to BodyPump at her old gym which was hilariously tough making me realise I needed to get back to the gym! So I joined the gym at work – not especially fancy but just what I needed for some body weight exercises and opportunities for cardio if the weather is grim (which it is already starting to be!!). We tried Box Jumps after our last session - where Julia took about 20 (probably more attempts to do it ;)). Got it first time woop woop.

Unfortunately since joining the gym I’ve only actually been once as I got ill two weeks ago from doing too much -_- Not a surprise really but it still pissed me off as I was resting way more than I would normally do! Since then I’ve managed little except the Robin Hood Red Bull event which I won last year: coming 8^th this year. I won’t go into details but I basically decided on the worse tactical decision – to collect all the controls which massively overestimated my running ability leaving me at the other end of the forest to the finish with about 10 minutes left on the clock and half the controls still to get! I was happy with my physical condition- running 13.5km!- although I still had the next 5 days off as I was still struggling to get the balance around work and life sorted :(

Thankfully the past weekend has been really good and beginning to get a bit excited about orienteering again – cannot truly remember when I was last ‘excited’ about orienteering!! I travelled up to Crewe for the first GB Development Squad Camp of the 2015/2016 season with, I’ll be honest, a pessimistic attitude knowing that I normally come away pretty tired and questioning my ability as a runner and orienteer. However I was in a room with Julie which was great once arriving as we had a little dmc and chuckle about the state of each other’s lives – especially mine which has recently resulted in buying a colouring book to help, ‘Relax and Free My Mind’.

My TOP colouring in

The weekend was nice and chilled – definitely needed as weekends are suddenly incredibly precious to me as they mean I can just lie in bed and do nothing if I wanted :’). In the morning we had 1 to 1s which was good to get facetime with Ed and make sure we were on the same page concerning what was sensible for me to be aiming at and the next steps to help get some balance (more training and less illness) into my life. I also have begun to wrap my head around the last four years where I’ve trained relatively consistently without any feedback of top performances or warm fuzzy feelings of achievement -_- This is helping to be more positive about the future especially as I’ve joined AFD which has already helped see improvements in my physical condition!

 In the afternoon we had a session, focused around VO2 testing (which I haven’t done OOOPS) and lactate levels to ensure we knew the correct paces for training. It finished with 2x 600 meters to push our lactate as high as possible – pretty gruelling but rewarding when I got mine to 15.8mmol!!! Pretty pleased with this although I know it’s not the best to be producing that much lactate when the other athletes could run at the same speed and produce half my level :S. The evening meal was good to help relax and I felt pretty happy and like my ‘old self’ before the hardships of work ;).

SURPRISE :)!

The following day, a few of us drove to Cannock for a long, steady plod before I went to Sheffield to Surprise Adam for his birthday on the Monday. Although previously convincing him that I wouldn’t be able to get the time off work I turned up at his house around 2pm Sunday to his little surprised face<3 We went for a MASSIVE meal out at the MudCrab in Sheffield which was incredible – I adored the food and as it was a Sunday it wasn’t too busy :) On his birthday we just lazed around and watched Game Of Thrones which was a much needed rest. It was so good to see him even if it was just for a day but the whole weekend has set me up well for the winter training which I am incredibly excited for :)

Senior Home Internationals

On Friday I left Durham ,starting a six and a half hour journey up past Edinburgh (where we stopped for pasta at Zoe's, picking both Zoe and Charlotte up) and on towards Ballater where we were staying in this hostel type accommodation where me and Zoe managed to get a room for eight to ourselves :)

The Queen's Castle!!!

Although there was lots of heavy rain in night, I slept well; I stuffed my face with crunchy nut cornflakes in the morning and headed off to the event which was located right next to Balmoral Castle! In The Queens grounds!! Me and Zoe had a cheeky selfie with the castle before running off to the start. Although the first two controls took us straight uphill my legs just about coped and for the first half of the course I felt good, strong in the terrain (even though there was heather, moss and stones to throw you off line) and my navigation was holding up well. A few slow uphill legs and a route choice mistake saw the lead I'd conjured up quickly slip away but I still felt good having caught up some fellow orienteers.

Then I decided to cross this river - I'd looked at the leg earlier and with the scale of 1:10000 the route on the path round looked too far, so I'd already planned to cross it. However when I got to the river - which was deep, fast flowing and spotted with large boulders - my sense of self preservation disappeared and I stubbornly tried to cross the river. I tried in two places thinking: "No way can I cross it here", when losing my footing a few times and feeling the current against my legs. So I tried a little further up where I saw some rocks that I could wade between. Wading turned into controlled (ish) falling/being swept by the current from rock to rock; at one point I was sat on a rock in the middle realising this was a stupid idea. I was almost at the far side when I got caught in the current and swept down stream a little bit. I WAS SO SCARED. Grabbing a tree I pulled myself out and tried to continue on the course, shouting at myself with glee that I was still alive and CONQUERED THE RIVER.

My legs however seemed to have frozen up and with the next leg up hill, my top now weighing an extra stone with the water it soaked up I took a while to get going. The last five controls were okay, not as smooth as the first half, knowing I'd lost time in my near death experience.

Finishing in the lead, the time in 1st was short lived when Zoe came storming in to the lead, by two and a half minutes. Although annoyed with myself, the English girls had got 1st and 2nd which was great for the overall competition; although there wasn't as much success across the other age categories and after the individuals day England were second behind Scotland by four points. Wales and Ireland were on equal points which was setting the relay to be all to play for.

Food food food....

That evening there was another ceilidh but before we had A FEAST. No joke - an actual feast. Normally orienteers just want vast quantities of food, and aren't as fussed with quality but that evening we were waited on with silver service and treated to a hugeeeee hog roast and a gorgeous dessert before coffee and fudge all within the grounds of Balmoral castle!!

With a quick dance it was off to bed, with an early wake up the next morning to get to forvie - the sanddunes area allocated for the relay. As I had nicely drenched my top in the river the day before it wasn't that disgusting to run in the next day; but even so my levels of happiness weren't exactly high. I wanted to be in bed, resting my bruised legs instead of facing the wind, about to run against not only the best seniors in the United Kingdom and N. Ireland but also some top international athletes from Czech and Sweden. So 6.2km in sanddunes sounds okay - I enjoy sanddunes but knew the pace would be rapid so when we started at a pace I was comfortable at, sticking with the top dogs I was really happy! And the sand dunes ended up being THE TOUGHEST EVER. At one point running down them was harder than uphill as my legs got swallowed each step by the tall marram grass, marsh and heather. I made a small error in the control circle and was quickly dropped by the leading pack with the first England team, a scottish team and the rest were foreign athletes.

I ran the rest of the way with Katie and another foreign woman. Near the end I was UNBELIEVABLY TIRED, being pushed over by the terrain - luckily it was a relatively comfortable landing everytime on the soft terrain. I handed over to Bex Harding, who caught up the scottish second leg runner, meaning England were once again in positions one and two! :) the last leg runner of my team - Cat Taylor absolutely destroyed everyone and even came back before the other England team which meant a WIN for my team. YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY :) unfortunately the boys weren't as fortunate with two of the first leg runners not really loving life - some speculation about this possibly being down to the selection of attire...cough Adam Potter cough...;)

 

With a win, I was obviously transformed into a happy human :P and after a quick stint on the podium (where we were awarded with a scottish porridge spurtle (wooden stick which you stir porridge with!!)) we soon left - starting the six hour journey back home! The whole weekend, and the one before: collectively making the event RaceTheCastles was INCREDIBLE and I absolutely loved it! The organisation and planning was awesome and it was great to compete against some of the best without having fly off abroad! 

Race The Castles

 Before this weekend, I'm not going to lie, I was pretty stressed, run-down and I desperately needed sleep. First week back at university after the Junior European Cup was killing me. Camilla Bevensee, arrived in Durham on Friday morning ready for our early morning (5.45am) on Saturday to get to Edinburgh in time for our starts.

Love this crazy one <3

We went for a casual run with fellow orienteers Peter and Aine on the Friday afternoon, had a top notch spag bowl...which camilla decided to add apple to? Claiming it tasted good...and turned the house upside down to find my phone. Which was finally found, sat happily in my food cupboard? Obviously the next morning was not fun but it meant we arrived in Edinburgh at half eight, with plenty of time to prepare and get into quarantine before the race. I hadn't really considered how good the competition would be until I was sat in quarantine; looking around me and EVERYONE had been at a WOC or JWOC. Repping my England top, I jogged to the start for 10.16 and was in my usual relaxed, happy mood - turning round in the start box to wave at Ed who just replied: 'Focus Lucy'. HA.

I had a great run, well it was okay - felt a littttllleeeee slow trying to 'sprint' up at least one hundred stairs I reckon. I was hesitant here and there, taking a few wrong turnings. Nevertheless it was great fun, especially along the main street with the alleyways running off as you had to dodge between the tourists, surprising them when you randomly appeared out of an alleyway. I saw Florence in the final part of the course, coming up a steep grassy bank, discussing the length of my shorts...'I can't even see them Lucy!'.

Finished in 6^th - aware the best were still yet to come in, so I was pushed down to 19th in the end. The sun was out, we were given goody bags (these should be compulsory at every event - I don't care if I sound like a five year old but I love them) and I was pleased with my run. After finding some Wifi so I could work (boringgg), we left to find Isla and Kristian's flats: some EUOC athletes that had offered us floor space to save on accommodation costs. Me and Peter went for a little bimble of a run round the meadows before showers, a cuppa and then off for a Durham meal; where Camilla had her first Fish and Chips :P the ceilidh, I was explaining to the people in Durham who hadn't done one, was a sweat fest - although not as bad as some I've been to. It was pretty decent, even got a cheeky dance with Martin Hubmann - GULTAAAYY.

Misty and cold race...

The next morning was another early one - 5.45 wake up, although this time I managed to stay awake on the journey (to Stirling) and worked. Yes...worked. I am so productive! With starts an hour earlier than the previous day it was freezing and misty!! I started at 8.54, running into Stirling castle full of confidence, before stopping and thinking: Nothing matches up. Like nothing. 

Part of the course in Stirling

The run-in

I spent the rest of the course if I’m honest running fast, relocating, running fast, relocating etc etc. Embarassing myself later on in the course where I punched control 14 (the spectator control) before I’d been to 9, 10, 11, 12 or 13…WHUUPPPPSSSS. I finished with a smile and absolutely loved it, even though I had really done badly! IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!

The afternoon I went off again to find some WiFi, before saying goodbye to Camilla L and starting the longgg drive home! 

Junior European Cup 2014

 

The team :)

 With a relatively early (10am) flight to catch on the Thursday morning from Manchester airport with part of the GB team I stayed in Sheffield for the night with my BOYFRIEND (yes I have somehow managed to get myself one…) before, getting him up at 6 to drive me to the station ❤

The journey was smoother than the year before as I'd remembered my passport this time...GOOD ONE LUCY. I bought myself two meal deals with Adam and Ben to last me for the journey; we then boarded the plane which I fell asleep for the whole duration. YES :)

We met with the whole group in Brussels and travelled across to Sunparks holiday camp where I had a snooze before dinner, a meeting and then bed.

Happy with my Sprint Race

We were staying in little cabins, six per cabin so I was with the W20 girls, staying in a room with fellow Durham girl Julie Emmerson :) the beds were ridiculously comfy and we both slept every night SO WELL. Before the sprint, which was late Friday evening, we went to the model map for the long/relay. FORESTED SANDDUNES YES YES YES. I was pretty tired so only did five minutes of orienteering and then a little easy jog, knowing I was going to race hard in the evening. And that's exactly what I did...maybe a little bit too hard; I started off RAPID. Although not making a mistake it meant I died later in the course; but just about held the navigation together (it wasn't that difficult if I'm honest). I finished up in 19th, another sprint I was surprisingly happy with - second GB girl behind Tamsin Moran (a complete tank, who I hope is beginning to realise her potential :)) - although I couldn't help comparing it to how the JWOC sprint went and the complete mare I had the following day :S

Again, I slept like a log – as well as sleeping a lot in the day - planting the seed that I wasn't completely healthy and on the edge of coming down with something. However I could take a while to get up in the morning with a late start of 11.46.

Quarantine was standard banter: worriedly panicking about 30minutes before my start that I hadn't brought my top - but realising Dan had rudely stole it, thinking it was his ;) in the warm up I felt pretty tired and obviously tried not to think about this going into the start boxes with Adam.

Like the sprint, I started really well, felt good and I was spiking most the controls! Knowing this was the race I really wanted to perform in, I didn't feel too overwhelmed with pressure like at Junior Worlds so I was relaxed and my orienteering was smooth :). I also started steady (or what I thought was steady) but looking at splits afterwards, realised maybe I had set off too fast as my times to the first few were rapid yayayay :D happy that the orienteering was working, I just continued at the same pace and although feeling tired wasn't worried. Although making  a mistake at four, I considered my first large mistake (out of many :/) at control eight - starting the trend for the rest of the course. I had run into the area it was in, didn’t find it and then ran off before trying to relocate and double back with my head up (although I swear the map wasn't quite right in this part...).

After this I was a bit flakey to the following controls, tiredness began to creep in and I still had another 20 controls to go. With patches of greatness ;) still appearing amongst a range of mistakes I made it round to the spectator control and then had ten remaining controls. In total I clocked up 14 (yes 14) minutes of mistake - I was having a great time..., with my largest mistake of four minutes at control 30; here again I was so close first time, missing it by meters but then panicking and running backwards and forwards in the vague area. With both Miri Thrane and Mathilde catching me up I knew I wasn't going to do great in the results and was resigned to that fact as I crossed the line.

Kept missing those controls :(

 Post - race phone call to my parents ended up in tears and deciding I am truly shit at orienteering and with no long distance race all summer to say otherwise; I wasn't believing my parents attempts to comfort me ❤

I stayed away from the rest of TeamGB until I knew I was going to be happy, and not force them to try and deal with a miserable Lucy. SASHA CHEPELIN THOUGH. OH MY GOD. SECOND PLACE. YES. Complete hero and I think everyone from GBR was very proud :) in the afternoon I slept again yaaaayyy, before dinner, team meeting and then the party wooohoo; although with the relay race the next day it was tame and people headed to bed pretty early. I rang my dad again which helped and although not having spoken that much over the summer about training it was so nice to still feel the love :P again, like after JWOC I was to go into the relay for enjoyment - realising I run best when happy :)

In a strong relay team with Tamsin and Florence, I was confident before that we had the possibility of finally getting a decent relay result. I was last leg, which although I would have preferred first for reasons mentioned in previous blog entries, it was what was best for the team. Tamsin started well, sticking with the pack, although knackered from the previous days; although warming up now, I was told Florence came through spectator also with the group - the other two GB teams just ahead. Going into the box, waiting to hand over, I watched the two GB girls from the teams just ahead come through. But then unfortunately Florence had made a mistake in the final loop and came in some minutes down, setting me off with the rapid French girl: Lauriane Beauvisage.

Although I am aware I was running with basically no pressure, I had a FLYING first part of the course. I was literally rapid - call me cocky but it was amazing. I mean I was amazing hahahah. I felt good, the French girl wasn't running away from me (instead I was leading her); then we got to spectator control and in the last loop I did the same as Florence, making some mistakes and losing some places. Again I was running perfect most of the way to the controls, losing confidence when not finding it straight away and running around instead of just STOPPING AND RELOCATING. Naughty naughty; very bad technique. Need to work on this.

Our best GB team came 5th WOOOOOOP WWWOOOOP. Which must be the best in relays we have done in a while! Although they were unlucky, missing out on the podium I think honestly I would have been bummed (as well as happy for them obviously), mostly because I am a jealous bitch and would have wanted it for my team! :/

Post relay we went back to the accommodation, with hours to spare for a quick swim and time to pack before starting the journey home. With copious amounts of pizza and garlic bread and some great chat with Adam and Joe in the plane to Manchester, I hadn't had ANY sleep during the day :O so crashed when I finally arrived at Jack Benham's who is at Manchester Uni :) good weekend, yes - didn't do as well as I wanted but technically I was seeing some positives and knew what the weaknesses were, unlike with Junior Worlds. Again thanks to the coaches that helped: Jackie Newton, Mark Saunders, Alice Bedwell and my parents - again; they are the ones that get me through ❤