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 :)