BUCS Orienteering

 23-24^th February

Okay so this weekend started with the earliest morning :/ Meet at the DSU at 7pm…COMPLETE JOKE, I had still not caught up from my Birthday on Wednesday night so wasn’t feeling fresh at all! Luckily I managed to sleep on the minibus there (as did most of the other athletes in Durham University Orienteering Club - UDOC) so when we arrived, helped by the FREEZING WEATHER we were all a bit more awake! Not having seen a lot of people at the event meant there was A LOT of catching up, not something I have a problem with and soon it was time to get ready to run, wearing my Durham Vest with pride! Haa I had a pretty decent start time, being the second to last so I was quite comfortable, with Linnea Gustafsson 1 minute in front of me and Bex Harding a minute after.

I started well and was enjoying the course, with the open moor appealing to my orienteering style and so I was relaxed and happy. A few little fine-O mistakes didn’t trouble me too much and I was quickly at the finish, knowing I hadn’t done too badly by catching up a few other athletes starting in front of me J Near the finish, I’d run past Abi (a friend who I’d grown up with in the South West squad) who had injured her ankle and was hobbling back so I grabbed a coat and ran back out to her helping her through the last bit of the course. She was gutted not to have finished and worried about her ankle which I could understand, having had frequent injuries to both ankles. Luckily there was enough snow to mimic an ice pack and we’d got her to her car! Once everyone was back results clarified that me and peter and both come 2^nd (WOOOOHOOOO!!), earning Durham University lots of BUCS points for the championships and maybe, just maybe, a little respect after being constantly slated by the Orienteering University ‘top dogs’ – Edinburgh and Sheffield (Sheffield especially, who are way too cocky to realise in a couple of years Durham will be annihilating them :P).

The evening, as predicated was hilarious with dinner and then drinks being consumed happily until we made it into PopTarts (a Sheffield nightclub). Here the party continued with the theme (Rubix Cube) getting into full flow! Although the night was decent, it made Sunday morning a struggle for the most of us having to face an early morning and then the relay :S Nonetheless, we all again braced the cold and soon found the relays underway. These were hilarious…I appeared to be after the first km in the lead with Charlotte Watson and Sophie Kirk (which I remember having a conversation on our course about how rough we were feeling and our safest bet would be to just follow Charlotte :P) A prime example of our GREAT NAVIGATIONAL SKILLS :P Anyway it worked out well with Charlotte and myself pulling a lead, a sprint finish at the end where I handed over to Aine in first (WOOP WOOP – only just though ;)).

The relays seemed to last forever while standing around in the cold but once the majority of teams had finished, prize giving was underway and over both days, DURHAM HAD FINISHED THIRD!!! SUCH A GOOD RESULT that UDOC was so happy with!! Everyone in the team pulled their weight and helped secure the place J The best way to celebrate…was of course with food so on the way home we stopped off at some services and I brought a Chicken Burger and crisps :D LOVING LIFE!

PORTUGAL!!

13-17^th February 2013

While Durham was covered in snow and absolutely freezing cold I had arrived in Portugal which despite my pessimistic attitude was actually sunny! Woooh, so I met the team out there on Wednesday with enough time to get a little training done. Most of the team had already been out for the Portugal O-Meet races and so to my dismay, Florence had a better tan than me (Absolutely gutted…this never happens!!) Anyway, the training was AMAZING…the terrain was so rapid, and at the beginning my orienteering was a bit messy, just loving the fact I could run. After some epic relocation, I decided to navigate and control my orienteering a bit more and was prompted by Liz Campbell to have an aim for each training session. During the week, one of the main aims of the training camp was to ensure all training exercises were focused with a target which I always find hard as I have never been very good at articulating how I orienteer. Throughout the week and after a chat with Liz (which always helps settle my head) I’d roughly worked out how I get to each control...that I am going to call rolling relocation :P not the most efficient orienteering, I KNOW but it works (so far) and I know that it can be improved which can surely only be a good thing!

During the week we also had the opportunity to use a head camera which was interesting…definitely useful although I don’t know how similar my orienteering was to my natural orienteering when being shadowed with it on, it was a good laugh to watch back anyway! Also during the week we had a sports psychologist, Neal Anderson who was so useful, especially when talking to 1:1. Me, Charlotte and Florence also got together to speak with Neal about relays, especially as we were going to Denmark a month later to focus on relay training. This was also useful and the reality of getting to JWOC and performing in a team began to take shape.

We were staying in a cute little hotel near the seaside, so it was just a 5 minute walk to the sea where we went a couple of times after training to paddle soak up the teeny bit of sun that was around!! The evening meal was always a surprise…with some puddings comprising of a knife and fork to help us eat bananas, which of course most of the team took up as a challenge to eat a banana solely with the knife and fork!! We were also staying with some Finnish people and the Swiss Squad providing famous people to gawk at :P

So after a few days training we were onto the weekend in which the squad competed in two races, a long and middle. The long was especially tough as it was 11.5km (the furthest I can ever remember racing!!), so going out at my usual pace I died just after the spectator control and even found the run-in hard (I am going to blame the sand for this…tried sprinting in sand?? Well it’s NOT EASY). The middle day was a bit of a rush as we all had to leave quite swiftly to get to our flight from Lisbon at 3.30pm (some of the squad even cutting their races short) but we made it with plenty of time. The actual middle race went better for me than the long as I tried not to worry about HOW I was orienteering and instead decided to just orienteer normally. Overall this week helped me understand a lot about my orienteering whilst giving me the opportunity to analyse it under race conditions, against some of the best orienteers around!

Edinburgh Big Weekend

26-27^th January 2013

Florence Haines promised me it never rains in Edinburgh. SHE LIED. It rained when Durham University took a group to Edinburgh Big weekend (Urban race on the Saturday and two sprint races – one urban, one terrain – on the Sunday).

We arrived Saturday morning, having got the train up and had a short wait until the first of us started. I was a bit wary  of the urban race…I have never really enjoyed them, finding them boring and pointless as you end up running double the stated distance and (in my case) hurting your shins from the hard pounding! However, I enjoyed this urban, knowing not to go too fast at the start but letting go at times when I was feeling fresh. It was exciting, with longer legs and some testing navigation before entering the meadows just before the finish. Although I felt tired, I’d paced it really well so could still push at the end J Overall I’d come 5^th, which frankly I was over the moon with it, even though a lot of my age group hadn’t actually ran (they were helping out organise the event!!).

In the evening Durham athletes went to Sambuca (an Italian restaurant) for a meal before heading to an organised ceidhl and then onto a nightclub where there was an event: The Big Cheese..playing OLD SCHOOL music which was so much fun!! We left before the club shut at about 1pm and me and Aine (BESTY FROM DURHAM <3<3) headed back to Florence’s for the night (Me and florence go waaay back...been orienteering together since we were little) Luckily me and Aine had a tiny bit of a ly-in before our start, whereas Florence had to leave early to help out at the starts again hahaha (UNLUCKYYYY!!) although we still very nearly missed our starts!

AND they made cagoules compulsory just as we were arriving as some freak windy, rainy patch hit Edinburgh. For the record, I HATE RUNNING IN CAGOULES!  They just flap about and don’t keep you warm at all…and if they do, I overheat (much prefer being cooler when I run rather than hotter) and have to take them off, tie them around your waist which is SUCH a nuisance as they then ride up and you have to tie them back up every ten minutes. GAWWWD…such a palava..AND THEN I got to the start and the sun came out. TYPICAL…I decided to take it off and left it with Florence!! The race was then fine…raging a little at the downhill (the bit I LOVE) as it was sooo steep you couldn’t actually run down...had to shuffle/fall/slide! The next sprint (the urban one) was a chase and it was eventful with Kirstin Maxwell planning a godly course which caused about half the field to mispunch with a crazy surprise gaffle going on at the end. And yes they can complain but they have no right to…it was a good course and they should have run their own courses and checked their control codes. Rule 101 ALWAYS CHECK YOUR CONTROL CODES PEOPLE!!

They day finished with some chips :P YUM and then a train journey back to Durham, but all in all a successful weekend :D Results can be found here: http://www.rstrain.ndtilda.co.uk/results_13/euoc_bw/

Durham City Relays

13 Jan 2013

So  after arriving back in Durham on the Saturday, I’d already clogged my weekend up by saying yes to run in the Durham City Relays along the river! I decided to race in my BRAND NEW SPIKES that I was given as a present by my parents for Christmas, so was super excited to see how they would turn out, as well as a tad wary that my feet were feeling a bit battered from a muddy/wet run the day before which had caused my feet to develop a whole new set of blisters :/ Anyway I was first leg, running for Durham City harriers (So also sporting my relatively new BRIGHT ORANGE running vest-which I have got to say I LOVE, even though it goes against all fashion trends :P). Not knowing the standard of the field I started with was hard…so I set of WAY TO FAST and having to do two laps of a set route killed me, being knackered after the first.

I ALSO FELL OVER. IN MY NEW SPIKES! Raging. Spikes are supposed to STOP falling over from happening…especially in the muddy fields I was running around for this event! I realised it was because of my running style and that I heel strike, so, with there being no metal spikes on this part of the shoe, I had no grip and ended up finishing the race with mud up one side of my leg. ATTRACTIVE. Also being new to the club, I hadn't yet met my second leg running…which meant I was a bit hesitant at the finish, when I couldn't spot another bright orange person at the finish, however she quickly noticed me and sprinted off! The team did pretty well, with our first team destroying the whole field so overall a good (but muddy) day and good start to the university term!

GB SQUAD SPRINT WEEKEND

3rd-6th January

FIRST ORIENTEERING OF THE NEW YEAR. And I’d already decided it was going to be a good year, and what a weekend to start it off!

It was a slightly longer than the normal GB weekends, and was in Aldershot, The SOUTH, so it was bound to be an awesome weekend ;) haaa, so things kicked off with some night sprinting Friday evening where Charlotte Watson (fellow team mate, who’s been on shed loads of tours and event with me, so a lot of love there) and Katie Reynolds (complete welsh babe ;)) went round together. This ended badly, with the training turning into a MASSIVE GOSSIP and needing regular relocation! However it was good to enjoy the company, and familiarise ourselves with sprint orienteering techniques again!

A word of warning: The food on these trips is INCREDIBLE! I would just go on these for the food…it is STUNNING :D So Thursday night was no exception with so much food...I couldn't help but go up for seconds of practically everything :P Anyway, so Thursday was the travelling day, with everyone arriving and chilling out before the proper training started on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Highlight on the Friday was having an extended lunch with Katie and I going a bit crazy in the playground...wishing we were five again ;)

The training was really, really structured with a massive variety on offer with the help from local clubs J On Saturday morning we had a forest sprint…ONE OF THE TOUGHEST THINGS!! I was useless at it…trying to run at sprint pace, through terrain, up hills and across ditches I found, practically impossible!! I died even before half way round, getting caught up by numerous people and losing a decent flow and structure to my navigation! I was glad for it to end and decided to stick with forest orienteering OR sprint orienteering…not mixing them (my head and body couldn’t cope!). That evening we had a drill session, talk and question and answer time with Mike East, an ex-Olympic athlete who’s talk was really useful, especially helping understand a competition at an incredibly high standard and the differences between a sport with more support than orienteering!

Sunday, we had a structured Qualifier and Final Sprint Course which was a good way to end the weekend and there was A LOT of positive feedback from all the Squad athletes!! Even though it was sprint training I was still reaching 10-15km a day from each small course/exercise being further than stated due to having to run around houses. It was an intense weekend, as it was high quality, fast orienteering but in quite a vast quantity so my calves became INCREDIBLY TIGHT (they are very temperamental…getting tight randomly even after days of rest) so I was constantly monitoring, stretching and massaging them to reduce the impact on my shins!

The beginnings...

OKAY!!! I'm starting a blog. EXCITING. The main reason for starting it is to keep track of my life, this year (2013) I have already done shed loads of orienteering and training and want to remember it all!

So for some background detail, I started University last year in October in Durham and have been adjusting to student life over the past few months. I'm studying Natural Science (which yes, you can call the most indecisive degree ever...) where I am specifically interested in Biology, Geography (HUMAN geography...don't have time for rocks!) and Psychology (although I am dropping this first chance I get...not interested in how pigeons and rats can be trained!).
Orienteering has been pretty MASSIVE in my life..ever since I can remember...soooo basically a long time. I  have hated it at times, thinking it grossly unfair that my parents were making me go running around in mud and the cold for fun but i appreciate it now and am not too bad at it. Best result was last summer where I went to Junior World Orienteering Championships in July in Slovakia which was AN AMAZING EXPERIENCE and am hoping to top my performances this year...so high hopes for the Czech Republic this July!