PORTUGAL!!!

The year before I had travelled to Portugal with the GB squad for an orienteering event which was good but not amazing. This year however I went with Lillomarka and I had so so much fun!! I travelled down to Stansted with Kris Jones and Joe Woodley as the flights from here were a lot cheaper. We arrived into Lisbon, and  after a bit or issues with the car hire we travelled to our accommodation which even though asked by many people where abouts in Portugal I went I am still not too sure....Coruche maybe...no clue. Very bad I know.

Anyway, next day we were up bright and early for training. Travelled twenty minutes tops and arrived at this beaut area- open, sandy forests. We had some long training there which was lovely as a warm up back into orienteering and IT WAS HOT!!!!  Although the terrain was lush, for the first couple of trainings I was feeling pretty lethargic but after the rest of the team arrived and we did some faster relay training I felt a bit more like a runner and not just a little troll bashing through the woods. So I just bumbled around the course, already feeling tired but just from the travel the day before. 

So anyway training carried on being awesome, racking up some great distances in the mileage ;), I was in a room with Helen and Rina  who was joining us even though not part of Lillomarka and was just getting back into training after breaking her coxikz - I know this spelling is poor but I feel phonetically it is ideal.  That evening we had some 'bonding' where Helen and myself quickly made a game up which actually didn't turn out to be that much of a fail with us having to get into partners and tell the other as much about ourselves before the group gets to test the opponent, asking any question they like. I was paired with Helmut who had a memory like a sieve- typical boy really ;)- answering the easiest question (given to us possibly out of pity as we were losing badly) of 'How many siblings does Lucy have?" incorrectly too.  COMPLETE RETARD

Whilst at this accomodation, Helen decided she’d found me a perfect man who had a 'Cute smile' and worked at the place where we ate - not sure if I can call it a restaurant? However we never talked so those dreams quickly faded ;)

THE MOON!!

We trained in Evora for a sprint- turned out to be more like a bloody urban race but it was decent to get some fast threshold training in :) took us a while to find a supermarket, Gaute took us for a drive right around the whole town before. We also did some sick ass training on the moon...and it was Joe’s birthday, however this was near the end of the week so it was more of a training walk for me. Very rocky and I didn't want to injure myself. The other training we did included some relay stuff which was AWESOME! The first relay area was a nightmare though and my legs go so scratched up...i fell in multiple piles of brambles, but the following relay training was sick. 

Relay training

Birthday Cake

In between trainings I was working and we seemed to spend a lot of time in supermarket car parks - mostly eating rice crackers with chocolate on which I was told was cancelling out the goodness of the rice crackers or trying to learn Norwegian from Ingvild! Pretty soon it was time to fly back for BUCS orienteering but not after a birthday celebration for Joe and myself with some interesting party games AND CAKE! The way home was pretty traumatic with Kris having to go to the hospital at 5am but me and joe managed to make it in time for our flight...in my birthday -14hours of travelling was NOT FUN but it was helped with copious amounts of chocolate and a chocolate cake meeting me at Florence's house when I got to Ilkley <3

Chilling in the Car Park

Some Yoga after training...

WOC 2014 Training

Not really too sure what I was expecting for this camp in Scotland as it was my first orienteering since JEC- which did not go well.  I was focusing on getting the 'enjoyment' of orienteering back and trying real hard not to focus on the result which let's be honest is what everyone/anyone actually cares about. ANYWAY had a great accommodation in Dolphin bay suites, sharing with Helen and Charlotte, my Lillomarka budddiiieeesss :D

After the initial reminder of GB squad meetings and presentations, the training was awesome and I loved training in the mornings and having the afternoon to sleep and do training later- I literally could have lived how I lived in Scotland - sleep, eat, train, eat sleep, train, eat sleep. I also managed to cram in some university work!

Training was alright, wasn't feeling as fast as I wanted but everything was working and I was enjoying the fact it was training so I wasn’t getting wrapped up into the whole  competitive side- none the less I was still wanting to race everyone and obvs win, unfortunately when we first did some head to head relay stuff Charlotte twisted her ankle putting her out for the rest of the week :/

The weather stayed bright and I went to Rosalie - undebatably MY FAVOURITE PLACE TO ORIENTEER! It is unbelievably sexy...fast forested sand dune with technical parts too :) so I flew around some training there which was just what I wanted! We did a fair amount of WOC relevant training too which was a bit tougher than Rosalie showing the weaknesses in my strength but good for my body to get back into terrain running - which was tough at the beginning of the week!!

Me and Helen cemented our relationships with lots of Singing- including Bonnie Tyler and Brave ;) the GB boys chat was of an exceedingly high standard as per...press-ups given out to any shit stories. Ralph got hold of my camera at some stage in the week...and i feel he has brought it upon himself for this photo to be shown online ;)

At the end of the week we were asked to fill in questionnaires on the week, this is difficult for me...I DONT KNOW HOW I ORIENTEER I JUST DO. One of the questions which caused a fair amount if abuse was 'what will I do differently do become excellent’. Having full confidence in what I'm doing and where I am going with it I simply said: ‘Nothing, I am on route to excellence.’ The boys thought I was being lazy and that this meant I was not striving to constantly improve...I took it merely as I am happy with what I am doing and the need to change it would mean I am not happy with it.

Me being cocky...

My one to one with Pippa was also interesting with my goals and aims for the years performance based although knowing this wasn't was I was 'suppose' to be aiming for i decided we should stop beating around the bush and just admit that EVERYONE WANTS TO WIN. That's why we are in the squad, that's why we are training, that's why I miss parties, that's why I've given up drinking...not to have fun. To win. Makes sense to me.

Finding everything a bit tough...

Being in the development squad for orienteering means that I get subsidised physiological testing at Manchester university. So on the 18th of September I had my 5th VO2 max test. I stayed overnight before the testing with Will and as ever had a pessimistic view on the whole thing. It's not that I didn't like them, I am perfectly happy doing the testing if only my body did what I was training it to do- show improvement. Although I know my training had been reduced after JWOC, I was still training more cross-training instead.

So anyway I got drawn on, measured and pinched, blood taken from my fingers before I finally started running on the treadmill. The test as per went pretty awful, starting the test at a lower pace than previous ones and finding it difficult and challenging even at paces I knew I could run comfortably in the forest. At the end of the test I was feeling pretty neutral knowing that it wasn't incredible but then I wasn't expecting it to be. Only after speaking with the coach did I begin to get really frustrated with the whole thing as everything had got worse. I'd put on weight, lactate threshold was very lower, I accumulated lots of lactic acid quickly, HR was sky high and my VO2 max had got worse.

Although being told not to compare with other people, I obviously did as I knew that the coaches would be doing it, deciding it hypocritical to tell me not to. Instead they said I should just compare it with myself. So I did. This was even worse as I fished out my previous results, comparing them and realising I had become worse at running than I had been 3 years ago? Not understanding my body, feeling fed up with training, especially after the disappointment of JWOC I seriously considering throwing in the towel as it was pretty clear in that instance I just wasn't enjoying it. The results weren't there, the explanations weren't there and I realised I wanted to live my life as a normal teenager at university instead of training and committing to something that I wasn't getting the rewards from.

For the following month, before I started back at university, my head was neither here nor there with orienteering. I was still training as it seemed I would get more depressed about not training but then I was confused about what I was training for. I was also getting obsessive with the fact I'd put on weight, never really being completely happy with my body and this just securing the fact that my body wasn't optimum. This messed with my head even more as I got my priorities of what was healthy mucked up, eating little and then binging and then feeling so bad and guilty and it was just feeding into a negative cycle.

My mum told me to get a new focus, away from orienteering...so I did some swimming and entered a triathlon! Although it was a super super short sprint one or something I was still excited for it, entering with my work buddy and old primary school friend, Emma Chambers. We had to get up really really early as it started at like 6 down in Boscombe! My brothers and dad came along to support which was so lovely, not expecting it at all! The swim, definitely my most hated part was a 300m swim in open water around some buoys and back to the shore. I felt stupid at the start, not having a proper wetsuit so using one that we used as kids when we went to Cornwall which had brightly coloured stripes and made me, quite frankly, look like a whale, we also had to wear bright orange swimming hats adding to the 'joke' look I had going on. So the swim...was horrifically traumatic, I got kicked in the face about 10 times, swallowed a gallon of water and couldn't for the life of me swim in a straight line as I could never lift my head high enough out of the waves to see where I was supposed to go! At one point, after finally getting into some sort of rhythm I lifted my head to realise I was swimming in a 90degree error to everyone else! Complete fail. Anyway, coming out of the water, I made a quick transition and was soon on my bike :) the bike and run ran smoothly and I pulled up loads of places. However I had shorts on, and after the water and the size of my thighs led to extreme chaffing and to this day I still have scars on my legs from it!

In conclusion, it was a pretty fun experience, only wishing the run and cycle was a bit longer but to get triathlons with that the swim also gets longer which I don't think I can handle!

I then headed back to Durham the following week where I had decided, after support from my parents to do whatever made me happy. As it was my last year junior, I knew it would make me happy to win (obviously) so I was decided to give it a go...give up (and yes it feels like that) another year of my life to get what I've wanted and been training for all this time.