NORWAY - NightHawk

Not really too sure what I was expecting from this trip…first orienteering after JWOC and I still wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy it again/wanted to be doing it. Hahaha had a complete mare getting to the airport, waking up at 5 getting tom to give me a lift to Southampton train station cept we couldn’t find Southampton Airport Parkway…went to Southampton Central instead. Then we couldn’t get out of Southampton quick enough, so tried to chase the train down to Basingstoke but failed so Tom ended up taking me all the way to London Gatwick :S WHUPPSS…the rest of journey went smoothly and the plane to Oslo was A MASSIVE one!! With nine seats to a row and TV’s and everything!! Never ever been on one like that before J

Landed in Oslo and got the train to  Lillestrom where I was staying with Matt and Elin. That evening there was Lillomarka training in an area similar to that of NightHawk (Il Tyrving), so ran on that along with some other clubs J That was good fun, terrain pretty similar to some parts of the lakedistrict/scotland and by the second loop I’d got the hang of it J watched a bit of Sherlock that evening with Norwegian subtitles, helping me learn some more of the language before bed. The next day I had the house to myself as Matt and Elin both had work, went for a run on a local area (Skjettenkollen) which was ridiculous that there are areas so close!! Literally nothing like that here in England, and if we do the areas are a pile of crap and not worth going to! I came back from that and then moved into a different part of Oslo to stay with Ingvild and her family J In the evening we watched some TV series ;) and took their dog for a walk – again around a local area which was gorgeous!! And then before bed had oh my gosh BROWN CHEESE! Which I love…miss it so much :L The following day (Friday) was the first day of nighthawk but it wasn’t until the evening so I went for a little cycle ride around the area we walked around before and having been used to road bikes, was not used to a mountain bike and how hard it gets on the up hill :L Showered and chilled out in the day…also had compulsory ice cream to help with Ingvilds sore throat ;) In the evening we made pizzas…which I failed pretty badly at, couldn’t make the base work. It just stuck to everything!! Stupid thing! They turned out pretty yummy and then Ingvild worked her magic on my hair..doing some crazy ass braiding before Siri picked me up for the race that evening.

PIZZAAA :D

Hair braidingg..

It was the first Nighthawk Event and I was running in both the night and day in a 5 man relay with a twist. The night part was a massive mass start with three runners from each team all starting together with their times added up…giving an overall time which then set apart the teams for the chasing start the next day.

The race itself was 4.7km in the dark – so I had a headtorch and the area was SO WET and muddy! I fell over loads and in the Lillomarka relay white suit it didn’t go down well! At one point I was wading around in this river trying to find the edge again without getting stuck in mud and marsh! It went well, really enjoyed it, especially in the parts where you could pick up the pace a bit instead of battling the green and crawling around on the floor. As a team we had done pretty well and headed off home after the race, looking and probably smelling like a drowned rat :P The next day I was the middle leg runner and we were racing on the same area as the day before. Siri had done well pulling up a couple of places which I basically lost again as soon as I left :P it was at control 3. I was basically there and then had a sudden lack in confidence convincing myself I was completely lost and had run in the wrong direction so then ran 90degress wrong before realising I was a fool and running back to the control. 

Event Area

The rest of the course was pretty solid except I was so so tired from the race the night before as well. After Linn had run and finished we ended up 4^th which I thought was pretty good :D and we won a waterbottle woooohhh, which I think they were handing out for free afterwards anyway -_-. The winners got running shoes!!! I was very jealous :P That evening I went to Nightflash where we ate the winners pig :P and there were challenges for groups to do, while everyone was drinking :L pretty amusing but I was knackered and happy when I got to bed!

Andrine and Vidar picked me up the next morning and we travelled to Rauland where there was a camp for juniors in areas similar to JWOC 2015 (which I will be too old for but decided it would be good quality training to do anyway!).