Monday, 25 August 2014

World University Orienteering Championships




GBR GIRLS

So I had a little apprehension for this competition after JWOC but after conversations with my coach and squad coach I was going to try to have fun and enjoy orienteering in a competition where the expectation was as high as I wanted it to be a.k.a. non existent. After a COMPLETE TREK of a travel day - staying with fellow team mate Tamsin and her family, getting a lift early morning to Heathrow, the flight to Prague, bus to Prague Central train station, train to Olomouc and then finally a tram to Olomouc university halls; I was absolutely exhausted. BUT we did all have matching bags which was very cute and I decided the kit (from Kukri) was the nicest ever - even nicer than the Swiss who always have sick kit.

Our team manager, Ed, got us upgraded to accommodation where we didn't have to sleep in basically a double bed with someone else....#completehero and we settled in quickly; the team taking their time to realise how much I use snapchat and trying to get used to having rice and chicken with a bowl of grated carrot for lunch AND dinner. I was also asked by Ed and Dave if they could, 'have a quick word'...I don't know why, straight away I was like shite. What have I done, please please don't tell me off. I'm 20 now anyway, I can't be told off ;) I am an adult right? We just had a nice chat about the week and I told them I might seem unprepared and un-focused but that's what I wanted to try out. I wasn't going to overthink it. Keep things simple and easy. And as Bex dropped out of the sprint relay team due to injury I was asked to take her place. YAAAAYYYYY. Which was super exciting - running with boyssss yaya hahahaha.
 
On the coach journey there, Kirstin and I managed to speak about food practically the whole way and then once inside quarantine we killed a good hour distracting ourselves with the fundamentals of love…which the boys said was a balance between finding a girl that wasn't crazy but still fun and also hot. Apparently for girls, we just care about money and cuteness, but if they are rich and ugly well still go for them. We are charming, promise.

Compulsory Post-race Ice Cream
SO THE RACE...we came 7th :D top work hey hey! Everyone had solid runs and I loved it. The majority was in a park land so I did better than I thought although as soon as the course came back into the town I lost loads of time to the rapid people.
Afterwards we got ice cream and returned to the accommodation. I got priority with the physio (Sarah - a complete legend) woop as I was the only one of the team running the relay and then the long the following day.

I had a relative early start for the long which meant I didn't get any tracks to follow in the grassier parts but I didn't mind. It might have been the early wake up but I was incredibly grumpy in the morning. We were sharing a tent in quarantine with the Irish and French so they got to listen to my ranting too...apparently before a race I should be: ‘buzzing’. I HATE THIS WORD. I don't buzz. I was not buzzing. I was tired and wanted to sleep, not run a race with a ridiculous amount of climb in :( and everyone kept telling me I would enjoy it?? ENJOY RUNNING UP A HILL TOO STEEP TO ACTUALLY RUN UP? Oh sure. Easy. But I was quite happy being a grumpy little monster and I was so relaxed at the start, all I could think about was how my nail varnish looked awful.

The race was decent, I picked most routes to go round the hills but I wasn't physically fast enough to make these much better than the straight line. I again really enjoyed it and ended up 31st, which I didn't really know if it was any good. After the spectator control I lost a lot of time because of some stupid route choice but executed all the routes I chose pretty perfectly :) there was a pretty long wait for the buses back so for the rest of the afternoon we watched the rest of the athletes finish - many with ankle injuries :(

The following day was a rest day for me!!! So Charlotte and I had a lie in and ate pastries for breakfast :P oh and we also went into Olomouc to see the town.

Next day: middle race. In quarantine Alan got asked to be interviewed for Eurosport! Peter threw a pinecone at his arse AND EVERYONE THOUGHT IT WAS ME? :O I was just sat there looking innocent. After running on the warm up map I was like OH MY GOD THIS AREA IS SO NICE. Everyone was stressing about how they couldn't find the ditches on the map...but it was fine, it was like the south. Fast and flat with loads of spot features so you just have to run really really fast and have all your fingers and toes crossed that you find the control :P my kind of terrain!! ALSO it started thundering. Hahahaha I think I am now a thunder baby; I ALWAYS do well in thunder.

So basically I did well. It was so fun. I wish I could do it again. ALTHOUGH I caught this woman up, don't know who she is or where she's from but basically she was so so so so annoying and I wanted to scream at her because she followed me the whole way.... I knew I was getting distracted and I kept being like ‘Lucy, it's your race, control it. Don't let her fuck it up for you…’ etc etc but two times when I didn't re-adjust my running line meant I looped in to two controls and ran straight past one costing me more than two minutes. Absolutely raging. I lost her in the green at the end because she didn't have a good beetling running style - when you basically run bent over so the branches don't slap you. I finished in 12th and got pushed down to 17th, which was okay BUT I WAS SO HUNGRY FOR A MEDAL!! At the end, even though I had had a decent run I still needed to shout at someone - I don't really understand why. I think I just like ranting after my race.

That evening I was craving chocolate and crisps so went with the girls to 'Globus'. I bought a share bag of Pom bears but ate them all myself on the walk back. Oooopppss. The following day was the last race of the week: the relay. The coaches had already asked what legs we wanted to run...I'll be honest I didn't really know: first leg would maybe have suited me best as you don't have to rely on your team. I would find it easier to run and do awful so I could only blame myself, rather than get annoyed with team mates. But I had it in my head I wasn't fast enough and would get eaten by the others (I think I have this from the big races like Tiomila and Jukola where I was just destroyed when I ran first leg). Second leg was 'alright', didn't have any beef with it but with both second and third leg you could be in the position when the runners before you fuck up so you're left to watch the time tick by and the other teams come in before you - which I seem to have had plenty of experience at. But then third leg ('glory leg') is super exciting if your teammates don't fuck up - so it all comes down to trusting your team mates. WWWWAAAHH I DONT KNOW.
 
In the end I went second leg, Charlotte and Bex, my team mates said they'd be happier with first and third so it therefore made sense I went second :). Although Charlotte made a mistake early on in the course, I went out 7minutes down and absolutely loved it! It was the terrain, I suited it so well. It was the kind where I have no idea how I find the controls, if asked I would only be able to reply: 'Eeeer...I just kind of ran and found it?'
Also *rant alert* I was feeling pretty smug I was southern. In orienteering  (WARNING: massive stereotype coming up) all the northerners have this arrogance that their terrain is the best. Congratulations, you guys have contours. You say orienteering in the south is easy. But you still need to be able to do it...especially if a world championship is on our 'easy' terrain ;)

OKAY. I'm done I promise. Post relay there were some em...fun events, involving a little bit of orienteering and copious amount of *hydration* drinking. The Brits obviously won. Our universities are the best in the world not only for preparing us academically ;) I was in the winning team with Will and the physio - Sarah. As I'd only drunk once before at the JWOC after party in the last seven months I found eating dinner a little tough and realised I still had to pack as we were meeting at 6.20am the following morning to get our tram. The rest of the evening was great fun, there was an organised party in this disused cinema thing, except some retard had broken the floor so everyone was falling over and I came home with cuts all over my feet :'( after a sufficient amount of selfies with Rhona we moved on to the nightclub before coming home.


The following morning was horrendous, half of us were still intoxicated but somehow we all managed to awake and make it up for the 6.20 morning. There was then five hours of travel to the airport and I didn't make it home until five that evening – although I know I had it relatively easy compared to most other athletes who had to get up north :( I got picked up by both my mum and dad at the airport which was cute <3 and I was thankful to be home even though I'd absolutely loved the week and already can't wait for the next one!!

I know it might be a gay way to finish but I really want to say thanks to the best university ever: Durham University for their support: especially Quentin (the head of sport) and Jon (my S+C coach). Also to our sponsors: Kukri for our sick kit!! To the team managers and coaches for putting up with me and keeping me happy, my club and region (SARUM and SWOA) for helping with funding. And my parents - as always <3. 

Saturday, 9 August 2014

JUNIOR WORLD ORIENTEERING CHAMPIONSHIPS 2014

THE TEAM :D
The programme for the week of racing had reverted back to the original structure after Czech Republic; so began with the sprint followed by the classic race, a rest day, middle qualification, middle final before finally the relay.

I was looking forward to this structure as I have never been particularly good at sprint races so considered it a good 'warm up' into the week and let me soak up the atmosphere and get excited before the classic race which I was aiming to podium. Even though I was less focused on the end result in the sprint I still knew I was going to go out there at max and try my hardest - I was still trying to win just knew it wasn't incredibly unrealistic!

Quarantine
The quarantine for the sprint was in a sports hall! Which meant warming up was on a lower level basketball court - although a bit weird I loved it! And the floor was spring loaded so I felt fast and springey :) the pre-start and call up (where they hold you in marked areas where you collect your control descriptions and clear your SI card) was along a hallway. As it is supposed to be a silent start, I was bouncing around, my feet echoing down the hallway and making small talk with the marshals to distract myself. In -1 you reached the end of the hallway where I told myself to calm the fuck down and read the map. If unsure JUST STOP. So then the start beep counts down five seconds before I could take my map, turn at the end of the hallway and out into Samokov town. It was an exciting start, and I felt like a greyhound at the start of the race bursting out of the gates. This feeling quickly disappeared and I reined in my pace so I could last the 3km.


Loving the attention at the spectator run through



Technically I was perfect, I made maybe a 10second route choice error but I was so happy at the end - I felt tired when I finished but strong and not mucking up gave me confidence for the following day. Zoe did incredibly well, coming 11th and as we had early start times we stayed until the other athletes finished running. The weather took a nasty turn for the worse at midday and thunder and heavy rain flooded down which made the town incredibly slippy, affecting the later runners ability to run around street corners and cars without falling over. I finished in 26th place which I was pleasantly surprised with, the year before I'd come 53rd so I had halved my previous position!

We were quickly whisked off by the team management to rest and recover for the classic which was a little annoying - although the weather was grim, we missed the prize giving and the opening ceremony. After I was told by a few friends in other teams that all the other teams turned up except Great Britain (just had Ralph and Ed as representatives) - a little embarrassing and I would have loved to be there. However it meant we got wifi at the hotel as there weren’t millions of people trying to get on it.

I didn't do much geeking before the long, I had done some before the sprint day - just going through routes but as the map was relatively old I knew the vegetation would have changed a fair amount. In the team leaders meeting before we were told we would have a butterfly loop and map exchange which help predict the general direction of the course but I was a little unsettled as I knew this meant an extra distraction on the course to deal with and immediately began fretting I'd pick up the wrong map/run the wrong way around the butterfly loop. Unfortunately this make me nervous and seemed to push me off confidence (which I need!!). Nonetheless I recognised the next day with Adam, I'll just follow the course on my map and nothing will go wrong.
Ha best team coach...kept us all happy!!

It was a relatively early wake up - about 6.30 (as we had to get a bus to quarantine before 9am) so I was going to have a snooze as I wasn't running until 14ish. On the bus Adam and I had bare chats instead, putting the world to rights. I was in quarantine for about four hours, playing cards with the Irish team, trying to get a massage train going and painting Ralph (the team coach)'s nails. There was a warm up map, but I am a little wary of using them just before I race - I mean what if you can't make it fit, panic, lose confidence and then have to race. And you're not going to learn anything in the warm up area you don't or shouldn't already know.  So I walked around it before stuffing my pockets with jelly babies, putting a spare compass down my sports bra and heading to the start with Ralph.

I collected my GPS and was in the perfect state of mind, incredibly relaxed, happy but aware I was about to run the race I'd trained (let's make this dramatic...) my whole life for :P after a cheeky fist pump and four words from Ralph that I had written on my hand: Read The Fucking Map I began the 15 minute call up where I walked up the mountain side to the start boxes. In these I recognised some of the helpers from yesterday's start procedure and shared some more conversation, including taking the piss of everyone who start a race in their zones that comprise them glaring into nothing, looking like the world is about to end.
The woman's course...what the map should look like...
In -1 I controlled my thoughts, visualising navigating perfectly to number one, knowing after this I would be able relax and 'just orienteer'. Literally feeling the nerves and adrenaline hit me as I stood waiting for the beeps to count down to 13.49. On the minute, the marshal removed their hand from my shoulder and I picked up my map, rushing to make sense of the paper in front of me; tracing the course to find the start triangle, orientating the map and quickly making a plan for one whilst running, already eating up the distance to the first control. As I was conscious I wanted to nail number one I was a little hesitant and incredible reflexive - so I’d see a feature and immediately think:

 'Shiiiiiittttt, where the fuck is that on the map...is it there? Or maybe it's there. Oh god oh god. Okay chill, look at the map. Clearing. Right it's that one. Keep going'.

I then saw a man sat in the forest, clearly a marshal ensuring no public moved or damaged the control. However I hate seeing them as I know I'm close to the control, and then go into this state where I forget to orienteer and just run around the immediate area, hoping to catch a glimpse of the control. BOOM, finally I get my act together find the control, bosh it to control two and am already on my to three before I realise I am running along a path, planning the long leg and checking out the controls near the end (as I know I'll be too tired when I get to that stage of the race to navigate properly). The problem was, I was running on the wrong path. SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT, quickly doubling back, dropping down the side of the mountain to meet the path I should be on. I then chill out, getting into my more natural comfortable orienteering. This is quickly disrupted when I drop off this path, running down what I thought was a vegetation boundary which should take me pretty much to the control. I stop at the correct distance down the hill, keeping my head up and can't see any sign of the boulder my control is hidden behind. Similarly to one, I continue to run around the vague area trying to realise where I went wrong until I bump into the control.

By now, the doubts are beginning to creep into my head, eating up my energy: 'good one lucy, you've already lost podium - it's not going to be a perfect race. Therefore you're not going to do well. Great.' Nonetheless there was still a significant amount of downhill which I was running fast down, feeling really strong and had a good plan to four (the long leg). I continued battling the forest down the mountainside, the map was covered in green: thick vegetation. But I was tough, falling over, getting back up, getting hit by branches, turning my ankles on the rocky underfoot but I felt good. My plan: to run along a valley until a re-entrant was perfect - I just didn't have the confidence to carry it out, realising after a while of running I should be nearing the point where I need to cross the valley. I suddenly bailed on my plan without discipline or a second thought to reassure myself I still needed to keep going. Crossing the river and entering a vague area I realised it was harder than expected to relocate exactly, realising my confidence and the podium was slipping out of reach with the seconds I took running around trying to find a feature to relocate off.

I eventually plucked up the confidence to make a decision and stick with it, but not enough to stop the hesitations becoming more and more frequent until I found the marsh which I needed cross before my control on a crag. Whilst my head was distracted with this, and only when I checked my map to refresh myself of the route to five did I realise in my previous battles with the forest I had tore my map bag, meaning the paper had a hole directly next to/on control five and around the hole the plastic over the map was steaming up with condensation, making the map inside soggy.

What my map ended up looking like...check out 3-4 and 4-5.

I persevered, not letting myself fully comprehend this meant the certain end of any dreams and goals I had held for the past three years. Running to five, I tried the best I could with half of the leg missing and after a few minutes of staying optimistic that I was close, I took the map out the map bag to try and piece the hole back together. Finding no luck with this and losing hope whilst watching guys run through the terrain around me, it hit me that I was useless, lost and never ever going to get a podium, or anything close now. Thinking that even if I complete the rest of the course perfectly I will be a nobody, just another shit athlete filling the results board between first and last place.

As I began to beat myself up, already knackered from the tough terrain I couldn't stop the tears and felt unbelievably pathetic. Soon I spotted another girl athlete and chased her down as she found control five. FINALLY. The rest of the course before the spectator was tough mentally for me, knowing I had been out about the same time as the organisers planned the winners to complete the course but after leaving seven I realised I wasn't ever ever going to give up.

Trying to keep going...
That point onwards was really really tough. It was hard to fight for something when you had no chance of reaching it. The orienteering side from then wasn't too bad, pretty sloppy but I didn't make any big mistakes because I was moving so slowly through the terrain! I was absolutely knackered and over the winter I hadn't been training for 90minutes of tough terrain running so all I wanted to do was curl up and never get up again. Falling over, pushing through branches and trying to pick my feet up over vegetation was sapping all energy and I kept bursting into tears whenever I tried to get back up. Finally reaching the spectator run through, I didn't want anyone to see me. I didn't want people to look at me and think: 'Fuck, look at Lucy, she's doing awfull'. I didn't want people to think I was shit, I wanted to give them a reason to praise me and tell me I was good. I hated running past all these people that were out to support me, that had supported me, expected me to do well and it was killing me that I wasn't awesome, and I wasn't even close to awesome. The last part of the course felt like a lifetime, I could barely run in a straight line and as I was a late starter, tracks that should have been beneficial had turned marshy parts of terrain into mud baths sucking my feet down, taking twice the effort to lift each leg. It really wasn't a pleasant experience and along the finish straight I felt like I was running backwards. Crossing the finish line, I couldn't even now describe how I felt. Like I was completely exhausted but I had no excuses for my performance and wanted to fly home, curl up in bed under my duvet and never ever speak to anyone ever. I didn't want to answer the questions of how I did or see my expectant team mates waiting for me.
Finishing :(

I took myself away from the crowds and cried my eyes out. My family crept over and sat round me, knowing at this point there was no hope in trying to make me feel better, instead just letting me be a big sweaty mess to cry and shout about being the world’s biggest disappointment. After a good half an hour of hugs and the attempt to reassure me they still loved me, medals or no medals I was taken off to warm down, not really caring if my legs were too sore to run in the following races. In my head that was it, JWOC over. It's a little scary how 86minutes was what my whole year of training came down to, and even scarier how that was all it took to make me want to give up with everything I cared about. The winning time was 68 minutes so I was positioned 30th out of 135. I've already been told it but if anyone dares tell me 30th in the world is good I will hit them.

Family kept me going <3
After the race I stayed in the arena, in a weird mood of wanting to forget my race, wanting to forget about orienteering all together and then being reminded of my situation and wanting to cry with the feeling of being completely useless. I had no idea at all how to get over the race, I knew I had to...and quickly before the middle qualification but felt like I'd have this weight of disappointment with me for the rest of my life ha. The coaches soon wanted me to return to the hotel to begin recovery etc but if I'm honest I should have stayed with my family, unloaded to my dad, which even though we might not have found a solution would have been helpful so it wasn’t just not in my head. I felt like a little kid who had to leave their family for boarding school; I wanted to stay with them and forget all commitments/pressures of races. I didn't want to go back and face everyone trying but not knowing what to say to make things better. But I knew I'd have to go eventually, bursting into tears again when I said goodbye to my mum as she told me she came to support me, irrelevant of medals; that she was still proud.

Eggs kept me happy <3
Back at the hotel, everyone was feeling pretty low; Zoe hadn’t managed to complete the course, Katie lost her SI card and the other girls finding it similar to me: IT HAD BEEN A TOUGH RACE. I had an ice bath, and had a little chat to Ralph about the race, finding it hard to find a solution without it getting deep and even if we had, would a solution help? Should I really change anything before three more races the day before? Or just stick to what I was doing (which yes was shit) but did I really have anything else to go off? So now looking back I couldn't say what it was, I was happy and relaxed before the race, physically fit and ready for it. It might have been confidence, it might have been the fact I needed to find a way to orienteer for the terrain before instead of just relying on and not panicking that my orienteering isn't good enough. Still gives me a headache trying to work it out.

That evening, we were fed chocolate and pizza and towards the evening we began as a team to get through it :) I had my moments and was in two minds: to be happy for the team even though it would be a show for everyone, or keep mulling the day over. I think I ended up doing both and the following day (the rest day) I began to forget about it, knowing I had the whole summer to beat myself up but needed to refocus my head. At this point in the week my body and legs felt pretty good, it was my head that was absolutely exhausted and I spent the afternoon of the rest day at my parent’s hotel, swimming, chilling and getting happy until dinner.

Thursday was the middle qualification which I was relaxed for and all I needed to do was qualify. I was pretty grumpy in the morning, no idea why...having a few little rants in quarantine and after Adam made a small comment of how we should all be like Zoe after she lent him some ankle tape I snapped and shouted at him hah. I was in one of those moods where I wanted to piss someone off to make myself feel better...very bitchy I know. I wasn't too nervous, just focused on trying to make myself recognise and really belief that I 'didn't need to do anything special to be someone special'. The beginning of the race was pretty shabby, I ran down the slope on a bearing which ended up being far too far left, overshooting to a path and needing to run back up the hill. Apparently I worried my parents, at this point coming 26th (only top 20 qualify) but managed to pull it back through the race to come 9th. Although when I finished I had no idea!! It wasn’t that good a race, making many many errors where I looped too far to one side of the control. Nonetheless it was reassuring I could actually qualify and helped settle my thoughts for the middle final.


So the middle final. If I'm honest after the long I was preparing for it to go tits up. I'll give you three guesses what happened - actually you get one, it's not hard. Take my long performance as the norm and the middle final followed suit. ALTHOUGH it wasn't as soul destroying, my map didn't fall apart and on most legs I was decent. It was a few legs that I fucked up, in the later part of the course I relocated well! But in the beginning it was incredibly difficult to relocate - you could match any re-entrant and spur to any of the hundred on the map/hill side! It was lack of confidence at the beginning, I was incredibly hesitant and it took a lot to reassure me I was where I was supposed to be, every 10m I ran I had to check my map, feeling I'd already got myself lost. Although I could find solutions to my mistakes, and happily say without them I would have come top 6 (so more positive than the long distance) I finished the race, resigning to the fact I, once again, was a massive disappointment.
 
Middle Final Course


What was scary, was I didn't care. I was upset obviously but I was tired of trying to convince myself I was good, I resented the fact people believed it without me being able to proof it. I ended up 35th. I had a better chat with my dad this time and the coaches realised I needed to stay with them, letting me have as long as possible with them :) whether it was the chat with dad or the fact that Zoe had got 6th place; I managed to pull myself out of my gloomy hole by the evening for the prize giving presentation. Zoe's 6th place definitely helped, the team was brought together and as her name was called out, she walked up to get her diploma and the team went mental! I have a 30 second video of us cheering for her - as we rarely get podium positions our cheering was THE BEST, THE LONGEST AND THE LOUDEST. Everyone was looking, we didn't care. Zoe was our hero.

Zoe and the GBR team!!!

With the individual races over there was one more race - the relay. My team, Julie, myself, Zoe (running in that order) was strong and we were excited and happy. On the day there was thunder which I loved. Every time there is thunder and lightning I have the best races - European youth orienteering champs where I came 3rd, my 7th place at junior world champs in Slovakia, the sprint earlier in the week - all races on days with thunder. Julie set off and unfortunately did not have the race she wanted, finding the week of racing catch up with her so she came back off the pack in 30th place. Obviously I was annoyed but ran my own race, catching up 11 places and feeling good picking off other team’s second leg runners. I handed over to Zoe and finished my last race of the week. I was happy with my run and realised as Julie came over, upset and apologising: the position is irrelevant when people are unhappy. Like my mum had said to me earlier in the week a smiling face is better than a medal, it was crushing to see Julie beat herself up on my behalf. After the middle I realised it doesn't matter how hard you try, you could train every day of your life, make sacrifices - but it doesn't guarantee you with anything. And therefore you might as well enjoy the journey and the performances otherwise it will literally be for nothing - no medals, no praise, no happiness. What is the point of that!?

GBR Relay team



Post week pout with the coach <3
So with Zoe finishing in 11th place I was content with my performance and if honest relieved the week was over! Well almost...there was still the party ;) oh and coaches relay which we stayed around for to support those that had supported us :). We then went to a bowling alley and chilled out for the afternoon - I went to the pub with my family although in my head there was still the seed of disappointment that they'd come all the way to support me, spent LOTS of money on me and I had nothing to show for it.

So before the competition the international orienteering federation had removed an official banquet (Party) from the programme as it has been messy in the past. However the athletes organised something separate which ended up being approved by the coaches so they could still have some control of the athletes :P. After dinner everyone began drinking before all the athletes headed out to Iceberg Nightclub. It was a quality night but the following morning was hilarious at breakfast watching everyone wander in and join the table to share their stories from the night.


GBR girls before the party!!!
So that was it. My last JWOC. To those of you who have read it all - congrats! I can say with all my heart I tried my absolute hardest. It didn't work. And that's destroying. However I realise now the importance of psychology and although still pretty muddled with it, have learnt shit loads about how I am and need to be when I race – take the start procedure - by the end of the week I had made best friends with the Bulgarian marshals, by the middle final they knew my face and always wished me luck <3. Although it was my last JWOC, I have one more junior competition - Junior European Cup at the beginning of October which I have set some hopes on now so I have all my fingers and toes crossed for this. Let's hope my map bag stays together hey ;) 

Friday, 8 August 2014

PRE-JWOC

After seeing the Kiwi and Aussie teams at the airport when dad and I arrived in Sofia I ended up joining in with some of their training sessions the week before the racing. I went to a fair number of middle training sessions as this terrain was pretty unique with re entrants everywhere. As mentioned in my previous blog I tried over the week to solidify a plan of how I was going to tackle the middle which consisted mostly of a really strong attack point and a heavy reliance on compass bearings. This helped settle my head and see a way to orienteer through the muddied sea of techniques in my head. The long area I was excited for, although at first it looked pretty plain and standard it was similar to the south of England (more hilly) but required navigation by vegetation and spot features and would be mostly a downhill race (YES).

Throughout the week I stayed at hotel lion in Borovets. It was a lovely hotel, I managed to get a king sized bed which I couldn't touch the sides when spread out and my dad had the sofa bed! We had breakfast and dinner included which was a lot better than we’d first expected. After junior worlds in Poland and Slovakia, I was preparing myself for dill, potatoes and grilled chicken but they had loads of variety and even cooked breakfast in the mornings which I just about managed to control myself not to have them every morning. There was also a spa (which had these cocoon structures which you could lie in and chill out, described by Katie as: 'bubbles of comfort and joy') a gym, pool and saunas.
My HUAGE bed...


The ridge leading up to Mt Musala





Half way through the week I took a day off from training and went up to gondola with my dad (first time on a Gondola!!). This took us to 2360m in 25minutes and then we went for a walk up the ridge to the top: not quite making it all the 2925m to Musala before the clouds rolled in and we head back down. Throughout the week, my dad was a hero and drove me around everywhere, waiting for me to train before we headed back to the hotel to watch the tour. Completely truthfully he is undoubtedly the best dad AND coach only complaining infrequently about my mess...which was EVERYWHERE.

On Thursday evening the GBR team flew but I didn't join them until Saturday evening in hotel Iglika, the event centre for the competition. This also had a pool but the Wifi was a lot more dodgy and the rooms were pretty small but compared to Poland, where we stayed in a school and had one shower for 14 of us, I was not complaining. The food was also pretty similar and they too had boiled eggs which I'd become a fan of since eating them ALL THE TIME at uni!

Debrief with Coach Ralph
It was nice to be out with the team and I was feeling pretty comfortable with Bulgaria at this point and the training had been helpful to calm my head before the racing. With the team I did some long training where Ralph shadowed for a part which really helped as I kept getting lapses of confidence; as my way of orienteering seemed to involve hitting the controls first time, bang on. Instead I needed to be wary that I am not this good, and need to just aim off slightly or allow myself some lenience when I don't find every control perfect as I don't exactly give myself much chance by just: 'running and hitting the control'.

Boshing out the reps before the sprint (NOT)
Although in previous JWOCs I seem to remember team leaders meetings standing out as a substantial part of the week, we didn't have many and the team was happy and relaxed. One night we played 'never have I ever' with water as a 'hydration game' which was hilarious and bought out some secrets, which of course Adam loved ;) we went to the sprint model the day before the sprint, the team was happy and chilled ready for the week of racing :D

Lake District Training


View from the cottage in Halifax
With JWOC around 5 weeks away and after a prompt from the team coach: Ralph Street to consider getting in the orienteering training I decided to take a trip across to the Lake District. At the time, university was just about finishing up for the year and I was in Yorkshire helping my brothers and Dad as they cycled the first two days of the Tour de France. This was pretty exhausting and involved lots of driving and looking after tired, hungry boys. However I got the chance to go for some runs around Halifax on the moors and it was nice to have no expectations to do anything work related!




Cooling off...icing the calves
I got a train across to Lancaster where I was met by the hero, Zoe Harding and stayed with her and her family for a few days - where we had some great food, my favourite definitely being Quentin’s homemade lemon meringue ice cream which was just incredible. Like the best ever and I've eaten a lot of ice cream in my life ha. That evening we ran a small score event where I tried to enforce my 'only run after you have a plan' rule. Although I didn't make mistakes, it felt ridiculously slow and I hated breaking up my running, feeling a little like I could never get any flow going. None the less I still wanted to get the control back and stop making mistakes with my orienteering and knew this would take time - a small seed of doubt started to grow that maybe I didn't have enough time before JWOC?
Me and Zoe - Post training

For the following trainings, I continued with this and began to get more happy with it. Realising if I planned ahead I could recognise the parts of the leg when I could run fast and when I needed to rein in the speed and focus a bit more allowing the happiness of running fast to stay with me. Obviously this makes sense, and I'd like to think I have been doing it but just getting carried away with myself, or overlooking difficult parts. The last day we trained on Haverthwaite with tricky contour details which was very JWOC relevant. As it is hard to plan in the tricky parts, with too much going on form an accurate plan that wouldn't require my pace to drop rapidly I relied more on my compass so I could still be speedy. Although I finished happy with the training I think now looking back, I flooded my brain with all the ways to orienteer. Which was good, as I wanted to break my orienteering parts down, make them better and put it all back together; I think I found it hard to see how I would be able to do all the skills, in a coherent accurate way that would get me to the controls fastest.

I remember after each trainings having the need to write everything down about the training as my head seemed a little clouded with all the things I had to do to get round the course. In retrospect, I think when I wanted to have more control of my orienteering and so began to analyse it I became too aware of things I would do self-consciously, tipping my navigation off balance. Therefore the past year, when I've been doubting my navigation hasn't been good enough....it was almost the opposite of the problem – it’s been plenty good enough I just haven't had the confidence that it is. And so in doubting myself, I've gone to basics and tried to relearn these skills where I have only needed to remind myself they are there and I can do them.

Whilst in the lakes I wasn't aware of this and so JWOC was a little unnerving. However the following day I travelled with Zoe to Sheffield early on Saturday morning for our pre-JWOC camp. Here I settled my head after some meetings, by basically consciously choosing the skills that I would use at JWOC. And I decided if I did these I would be fine, ignoring the fact that I've orienteered all my life and never before have I had to consciously choose the skills I need as my head normally filters through them without me realising.


I only spent a day with the team in Sheffield though, we did some sprint training which was fineee. I took me a while to get my head in sprint mode but I didn't care as much for sprint distance so didn't feel the need to analyse everything! I spent the Sunday with my family, waiting for about four hours by the side of the road for the tour to come past; trying to keep warm and fighting with my brother Thomas to pass the time...First time I'd seen my mum in ages but everyone was pretty tired as Harry had crashed his bike the day before and had to go to hospital. Afterwards, we travelled home (trying to stay calm and avoid the massive queues) where I had a week before flying out to Bulgaria with Dad for JWOC!!! 
Winning against Tom...
Dory keeping warm with newspaper!