JK Entry...

BIG NEWS. This has got to be my best JK to date (since my first one in 2002 back in Lydney forest where I was running W10B – Aged 8 years old (CUTIEEE..haa not, I was a fat child)!!) I’ve attached the map which I managed to find (1.7km in 28.45 - impressive ;)) and looking at the splits, took 17 minutes to get to control 7…a 150m leg! But thankfully a lot has changed since then and I can now orienteer in sub 16min/km :P In fact this JK was down in the lovely southern terrain so I could get my minutes/km down to 5-6m/km for the all events :D.

It started with the sprint, which isn’t my favourite discipline as I’m worst at it…but I accept that and went round to enjoy it. As it was 3km, optimum route, I decided to boss it from the beginning (:P) and started nice and speedy…as exciting as this was I didn’t have the fitness to keep going at this pace (annoying that I didn’t have my Garmin to tell me exactly what my pace was doing) and was slowing badly by the end. AND YES, for everyone curious I was actually wearing shorts for this race ;)

Saturday was the middle event, not a world ranking –so I could wear my Garmin YAAYY- and I was positive about the event as I had been to the area around four times before :D I reeeaally enjoyed this race..was so fast and fun :D I was scrappy at the end and got carried away with how well I was doing on the way to 6; I was soon brought back down to earth, struggling to find the control :( HOWEVER it was still enjoyable and I came back in 2^nd (3^rd including the W18E). Afterwards I was feeling pretty tired and went to see Rach who gave me a massage <3 and listened to my rants <3 BABE!

The last independent racing day was on Sunday, the classic event. I WAS DETERMINED TO WIN. After the previous days, I really wanted a win but almost as soon as I had started the race my confidence dropped below zero. I was getting SO distracted so easily…on the way to no. 1 I found another control which obviously wasn’t mine (on a different feature, about half the distance to my actual control) but decided to stop, check it wasn’t mine and try to work out where it was on my map before realising it DIDN’T MATTER!! I then panicked thinking I had done a 90 degree error or something equally retarded and ran around a bit before re-assuring myself I was doing perfectly…and carried along my route to no. 1 :D. I was a bit shakey to the next couple of controls, but soon relaxed before I began to get tired…like REALLY TIRED. I was falling over everything, missing features, beating myself up and walking up EVERY INCLINE (and there really weren’t many of them!!) I was gradually making my way around the course…grumbling the majority of the way, before near the end I spotted Zoe!! She had started 3 minutes ahead of me and I felt horrible (knowing if I was hating the course and had caught her, she was probably hating it x10 as much). We ran around the last part of the course together, pushing ourselves right to the run-in. There was a little wait before Charlotte came in (the winner from Day 1 by 51 seconds) when the commentary informed me I had beaten her by 58seconds!!! I waiting until the results had been printed to ensure I hadn’t heard wrong, and then celebrated by eating a cheeky easter egg ;)…adding both day 1 and day 2 times together I had beaten Charlotte by 7 seconds :S SORRRYYYYY!!! <3

There was then an EPIC wait around for the prize giving (especially as it was freezing temperatures, i was wearing ALL MY CLOTHES, sat in the tent with Florence trying to keep warm – started snowing at some points – pretty sure it was anyway :P) 
Monday, the last day, was the RELAY DAY!!! WOOOHH and I was in a team with EUOC…felt like a bit of a traitor to my club but it gave me a good last leg run around, especially as the team I was in  came 2^nd beating the competitive EUOC team ;) heehehe SUCKERS :P My brother's team had also done well in the Men’s Short (little brother this is - Harry), coming 2^nd – not doing quite enough to retain their trophy – but still getting on the podium! I finished the day by spending most of my winnings from the days before at Ultrasport before travelling home. It was an awesome weekend for me, running four tough races in 4 days and getting a top 2 position in all of them :D Results can be found here: http://www.cix.co.uk/~neper/jk2013/day3/index.htm The competition is also selection for the Junior World Orienteering Championships later on this year in Czech so fingers crossed for this (and everyone else!!)…selections are out on fridayy!!