Senior Home Internationals

Double Rainbow on Studland beach after the Caddihoe Chase

The family (minus Alice) at the Compass Sport Cup

Since Euromeeting, I felt like summer was officially over & the winter was settling in with shorter days & the temperature dropped. I planned out my training out for the winter with a small increase each week to try to get to a good volume without an injury (fingers crossed!). I was also feeling happier with my navigation with a solid run at the Compass Sport Cup in Tankersley even with a dodgy ankle from the previous weekend attempting to run on Agglestone Heathland in Studland for the Caddihoe Chase (ridiculously unrunnable area!). Slight bum that I wasn’t selected for the Elite Development Squad for 16/17 but I was happy with my own plan for the year and it saved me a lot of money!! Next on the agenda was the Senior Home Internationals…

The journey up to Anglesey took six and a half hours as it took a while getting out of the south but Sarah & I chatted the majority of the way. Mostly about orienteering but it was really interesting and in a way a confidence boost that I could relate to how she described navigating! We spoke about the way it just sometimes works, using multiple techniques in conjunction and breaking it down/analyzing this takes the magic away from the experience. Also some interesting points on how best to learn & improve in orienteering relating it to exams which I use to do with RTFM!

The view driving onto Newborough Sand Dunes

SeaHorses at the SeaZoo

We arrived about half ten so straight to bed for the half seven breakfast, which redeemed itself being so early by the cooked breakfast and croissants. It was a lovely day - the start was on the beach and I was really looking forward to the forested sand dunes. My excitement didn’t last long as the terrain was actually pretty tough with brambles, some fern and lots of grassy bobbles underfoot which made it a really draining race. I felt pretty fit which was good but my navigation was pretty lazy – I knew I was reverting back to my old technique as I kept having to relocate near each control. Afterwards I worked out I needed to take the time to READ the map near the control instead of running to the area and hoping to find the control (which worked a couple of times!). It meant my race was very stop start until about half way round. From here I was tiring & going slower so could read the map a bit better & start to use my control descriptions more. Overall I finished in third which I was really happy with, it sounded like most people had a similar race – all very tired! The day was still gorgeous so we stayed at the area and I went for a walk with Áine on the beach. On the way home we stopped off at this SeaZoo which was great fun :)

After a quick shower & nap it was time for dinner in the dark as there had been a power cut! Luckily they came back half way through. Prize giving next – where I got a Terry’s Chocolate Orange but gave it to Rona. Even though the W21 got 1,2 & 3 something about the scoring meant we were in second to Scotland & needed to place 1 & 2 in the women relay and 1 & 3 in the men’s! I was really tired & had a headache so went up to bed early.

The Winning Team!!!

After a much needed good sleep it was the relay – we unfortunately only had to women’s teams as Julie had injured her Achilles the previous day :( I was with Sarah & Tessa so pretty confident in the team that we would smash it! It was A LOT colder than the previous day and with a long winning time (we were all hoping for a short course!) I kept my clothes on for as long as possible. Sarah came through spectator in in a group with Meg & Fay and held second place to the finish. I went out pretty happy & taking time to read what the map was showing so I stayed in touch with the features, ticking them off & pretty much spiked every control – it helped I was on my own as then I could slow down without feeling guilty as I had no-one around to tip me into racing fast mode which wasn’t best in this terrain. I took the lead and extended it giving Tessa a 5 minute lead who extended it further to about 10 minutes! The men also ended up winning after a Scottish disqualification but a third in their next team & a fourth in the woman's meant we couldn’t pull back the lead. We shot off pretty quick after the race to ensure we wouldn’t get home late late & made good time!

It was a fab weekend, learning more about my orienteering & reinforcing what I know I need to do but it easily gets pushed to the back of my mind when I want to race!

 

 

 

EUROMEETING 2016 Latvia

After World University's, I had been trying to get my training back up to normal volume but was really struggling each week with sessions, feeling like I was almost going backwards :( I decided to just hold on until Euromeeting and then have a week easy after before building back up the volume for winter. I had taken a half day on Wednesday so got a series of trains through London up to Stansted and my Ryanair flight across to Riga. Landing late and waited for Chris, Will & Kirstin to land with Matt. We couldn’t find the car hire which added more time to the journey! It didn’t take too long to get to the accommodation (over an hour) and it was great to catch up with Kirstin & Will Rigg. The end of the journey was down this deserted, gravelly, dusty road which could have been the start of a horror movie, turning up at what looked like an abandoned shed – which was in fact a lovely warm converted stable however without curtains.

The next day, Thursday, was a crisp morning and we walked over to the food house, a little warm cabin with some old sassy dinner ladies serving up porridge. In the day we all went out training on the forest where the accommodation was. Very green & scrubby terrain! After Kirstin & I sat next to the wifi router for about an hour, refreshing the wifi with no luck! We then trekked into town to pick up Will Gardner – finding a supermarket predominantly filled with alcohol. In the afternoon we chilled out and watched DUFF.

We managed to get on the wifi a little bit in the evening to do some geeking before bed. The following morning we saw the rest of the team who had arrived late the night before. It was the middle race, but not until later in the afternoon. As a lot of people in our team didn’t have many world ranking points, we were all off pretty early (matt starting first in the Men’s BOTH days, even before the coaches, Tom & Ed. Before my race I kept thinking I JUST needed to orienteer – interested to see how my navigation fared when I tried to do it perfectly in a race. I was pretty happy with my course, with good speed after some slow first controls & only two BIG mistakes that pulled my time down but I was really happy with the overall course. That afternoon I was really tired and probably had a nap but talked to Eddie about my orienteering very realistically about where it was going & my goals. With no easier senior event (e.g. WUOC) I was unsure if there was any point doing WOC and set a target of doing really well at the national races.

After dinner, and a slightly weird desert which had the texture of frogspawn we played some pool before bed. The next day was the long race which used the same arena as the middle. As I warmed up there was a rustling from the bushes and just in front of me a terrified wild boar came storming out the forest and shot across the road into the other side, closely missing Peter who was warming up in front! As I was in the box, I caught a glimpse of the map which looked disgustingly green!

I took the first legs slow, hitting them bang on in the green and after a slightly faster leg made a 90 degree error on a hill side. It really through me as I had NO IDEA where I had got to & found it so hard to relocate. I had to listen to what I would say to Adam before he races: If you don’t know where you are, go back to the last place you knew where you were’ and so trudged back up this hill to realise what I had done! After correcting this mistake I felt really tired & drained but there was a long leg into a nicer patch of wood, a butterfly loop & then some longer legs where I could run faster & perked up. Toward the end I made another mistake as I was being cocky and not giving the map enough attention but stayed in a relatively good mood as I felt fit & had spiked A LOT of controls! We had lunch in the arena (soup, rice & chicken), going over routes & waiting for everyone to finish before driving home.  On the way home we stopped to look at some of the caves as the area we were in was a national park with loads of caves hidden into rock faces. Back at the accommodation Tom ran some analysis before we had a stretching session in the boys room which was hilarious with lots of grunts & moans as we tried to stretch after a tough long race.

 

 

The last day was the sprint in Cesis – after driving through the area to the parking (OOPS) we went into quarantine which was on a VERY OLD track (which was rubber/gravel/broken up) and shared with the public races meaning there was a huge toilet queue! I had a pretty early start time with no ranking points but really enjoyed the race, trying to navigate properly instead of being lazy and fluking it which worked really well. I was slightly apprehensive before as I was worried I would find it hard to slow down/stop as you realise the time you lose more in a sprint as every second counts more! Anyway, I was happy and ended up positioning higher in the long or middle (17^th!!).

After we went back to the accommodation & chilled there before going to Riga for dinner at the pizza place with HUGE family sized pizzas each. We got to the airport and I skyped Adam as it was our 2 year anniversary! The rest of the evening was long – a plane & then a bus & then a lift with TOM back round the M25 to work to pick my car up before home at about 1am!! And off to work the next day! The Joys!