Posting for the first time

Hey everyone!
I see blogs are the new trend, so...I decided to make one for myself! This blog will include postings of my training progress and in general what I get up to. 
I am currently in my 3rd year of study at the University of Auckland and am aiming to finish my Bachelor of Science degree in June 2012. At the moment I am training for the Junior World Orienteering Championships in Poland during July. I fly over straight after my last exam on the 22nd of June at 10:05pm. Although we only have 9 days to recover from jet-lag, I will still ensure that I have the right preparation in order for me to perform at my highest level in Orienteering. My goals for JWOC this year are to:
-make the A-final in the middle distance and place in the top 25.
-top 25 in the sprint.
-top 15 in the long.
-podium in the relay.

Sprint Podium W20, National Orienteering Championships 2011.

The ultimate goal would be to get on the podium in any of these races. I know that I can achieve this ultimate goal regarding my recent performances at the New Zealand National Championships in April. Winning both the Middle distance and the Sprint distance in W20 elite gave me that confidence boost in which I have been seeking for for the past few years! My motivation is high and my strength to push harder in training is definitely working at the moment. Not only winning W20 at nationals in the sprint, I was also able to beat all of the W21E grade. This boosted my motivation even higher than it was before! I know now that I can really do it, and can definitely achieve my goals I have had in place for JWOC easily. 
I am sponsored by Raisy's Orginal Sports Nutrition who help me on my way to achieving my goals at JWOC this year.

Raisey's Original

Last year was definitely not a good year for me. First off I decided to take 3 papers in semester 1 instead of the usual 4 papers so I could focus a bit more on my training as my goal was to do really well at JWOC in Denmark. Unfortunately, my races were terrible and it definitely showed on the results board. I felt rather tired when I was racing definitely not 100% at all! It felt like all my preparation had just gone out the window. I went on to run at the World University Orienteering Championships in Sweden, and then O-Ringen. Both of these competitions also reflected how my form was not quite there. Even though I was sorely disappointed with my entire Europe trip in 2010, I guess I did gain experience on racing and how I can improve. 
I also had another highlight to my trip which was meeting a very nice young Swedish gentlemen who helped me see the positive things about my trip. Rassmus and I got to know each other throughout my trip through Denmark and Sweden. He then followed me back to New Zealand in September to train and enjoy the New Zealand summer till April this year. 
Soon after I arrived back in New Zealand at the start of August, I became very ill and was shortly diagnosed with Glandular Fever. This was a major set back for me, as I was very motivated from my Europe ordeal and wanted to just train and train. I had a few months off not doing any exercise at all,  and missed weeks of uni. It was hard to stay positive and I was always feeling a little depressed. Once I was on the way to recovery, I decided to take it easy and just start again with building up my training. I was unbelievably unfit and found it so hard to even go out for a small easy run, but I stuck to it and just tried to get back to where I was before I got sick. I have Rassmus to thank for my positive attitude in getting fit and fast again. He helped me and even ran with me (i was painfully slow!) to ensure I felt good about myself once again. 
I could go on for ages about my eventful year, but it is more important to talk about the present and what to look forward to in the future. 

Leading the Middle Distance at Nationals 2011

Over summer I managed to build up a pretty big base for my training. Over the past few months I have been sustaining this strength whilst adding a lot of speed work into it. In Auckland we have an awesome group of athletes in which we do interval sessions and hill tempos together to make sure we push harder in every training. As I advance towards JWOC, my speed sessions will become shorter in time and larger in quantity to ensure my speed is there for racing hard in Poland. 
Since I have been training more effectively and efficiently, it has remarkably been seen throughout some of my results. In the end of February, I managed to win Course 5 at the Kaweka Challenge in the open woman grade. This race is the highest mountain race in New Zealand, which definitely reflected how my base and strength training had paid off. Earlier this month I ran the O'Hagens pub 5km series. The conditions were not ideal as the ground was wet, it was very windy and it was very dark. I had no idea of how well I could go. I had not really run a 5km race since the previous year in May. I managed to do a time of 18.42min which is a personal best for me by about 1min or so. I was extremely happy with this time and it gave me a huge motivational boost to better it next time I do it before I go to JWOC.
As this post gives you a summary of my life in the past few years, I will now keep you updated with a post on everything I get up to.
Hope you enjoy reading about my progress through my sport and feel free to make any comments :)