The Updater

So this post has definitely been a long time coming!! I have been rather busy with getting back into the swing of things and I guess a little lazy with keeping up with the blog site.
I arrived back into the country on the 3rd of August...it was not the easiest day, but I knew that after my time in Europe I would have to come back to NZ and back to reality...sigh...
So I guess this post will be about my time in Europe and settling in back home in Auckland again.

NZ JWOC team 2011

JWOC
Such an awesome week! I felt prepared and ready to race the best races of my life! :)
I will briefly explain each race and how it all went..

Opening Ceremony

Sprint- had a long morning of waiting as the first starts were in the afternoon. I was in the last starting block so I had to wait even longer than the  rest of the team, so the nerves were definitely building up! I just tried to relax and drink a lot of Raisey's Hydration formula so I felt fit and ready to race in the arvo.
My warm up was pretty good and I felt fresh and ready to race! At the start, I was trying to concentrate and throw away most of the nerves so I could have a really clean start.
Once I heard that last beep for the start, I was away! Start of the Junior World Orienteering Championships 2011 :)
I had such an awesome start for the first 3 controls...I even looked at the splits after the race and I was in the lead alongside Swedish Orienteer Tove Alexandersson. Then... :( I really stuffed up number 4! It was probably the most easiest control on the course. I guess because it was so easy, I decided to read the next leg to 5 so I had a really quick exit out of the control. So when I totally spike #4, I checked #5 description on the control descriptions!! ARGHH!! F#@$! That is the most stupid orienteering mistake ever, and I did it! And it happened at JWOC too! :(
After I realised what was going on, I soon corrected myself and went back to the original #4, then boom! fastest split to #5 by about 5sec! (must have been so angry at myself :P)
The rest of the course was really good apart from #17 which I went such a silly way to it, and I guess I just knew I had lost so much time, and was pretty damn angry...
Overall, probably my most disappointing JWOC performance and I was terribly de-motivated from the entire week, but...I chose to have a cry about it for a while and get it out of my system and just move on. And that's exactly what happened. Even though it was such a terrible race for me, I was able to take out a few good things out from it. I had 3 fastest splits over the entire race, which I have never done before, and to have 3 in one race, especially the sprint is super motivating :) I also compared my time if I took of my big mistake in the start and my extra oopsie at the end, and I would have placed 4th! So that is pretty cool to see how well I can go, but I guess I just need the practice of racing in big events for this to actually happen. I believe a lot more experience will be the key to get me up there with the top girls.
The highlight of the day for me was definitely seeing Angela get on that podium! 6th!! First time NZ has been on the podium in such a long time! Was so awesome to see and and even brought another tear to my eye, this time a happy one :) We were so proud of her!

Comparing Long distance route choices with GB Julia Blomquist and SWE Johanna Olsson

Long- After putting aside yesterdays race, I managed to have a pretty reasonable sleep and focus for the days race. It was pretty awesome to have Rassmus put positive thoughts in my head and boost my confidence for the rest of the week after yesterdays race. So glad that he was there :)
Once again, I was in the later starting block which meant we were starting around 1-2pm. A really annoying thing about JWOC 2011 is that we all had to be in a quarantined building from the first start of every race apart from the relay...that meant that some of us were in there for about 4 hours before we even got on the bus to go to the start to then wait for another hour or so before we actually started.
I got off to a safe and rather slow start to make sure I adjusted to the course well. The first long leg was pretty good and managed to take a really good route. I made a mistake on my second loop at one control by about 2min...without that silly one, I could have been top 20 overall!
Towards the end of the butterfly loops, I became so tired, and just felt like there was no energy left! I kept pushing through the rest of the course, but was walking in some places where I really shouldn't have been :/
Overall I finished up 35th, which is actually my 2nd best JWOC placing ever, but not my best long distance result (finished 22nd in 2009). I wasn't very happy with how I felt over the race, but I guess the result was better than expected.

Long Finish

Long Distance

Middle Qualification and Final- Before the middle qual I was actually quite nervous as I had made 3 A-finals before, so the pressure was on to make it in for my last JWOC.
Lost nearly 2min at the first control as I drifted onto the wrong hill system, so then the stress started to set in. Without freaking out too much, I managed to focus really hard for the rest of the course and didn't really make many mistakes.
The waiting part was definitely the hardest! I knew that I had had a safe and qualifying race minus the mistake, so that mistake really did determine whether I got into the A-final or not. I was also in the first starting block, so I had to wait around until the end to figure out whether I made it or not...and I did :D yay! In 16th place...pheww...
In the final, I got off to a good start, but just before the spectator control, there was a route that was marked out, but hard to see on the map, so I ran to the gate that was marked as open, but as I went there, an official yelled and said I couldn't come through here, so it confused me completely! I took a while to figure out what I was doing and how to get to the spectator, and once I did, I had lost about 50 or more seconds just stuffing around because of that stupid unfair gate. Later in the race, Angela was DSQ as she ran through it, and there was no one stopping her, which totally sucked and was completely unfair.
Anyway, after the spectator, the last loop was crazy messy for me and just kept doing some stupid errors here and there. One of my route choices went straight through a field of stinging nettle as I didn't quite find the track in the middle, so that was rather painful afterwards. In the end I really wasn't too happy with the overall race. Ended up 49th, which is my best Middle result, but not the end result I was aiming for.

Middle Final

Relay- The last day was here! I pretty much had about 3 hours sleep last night, and the same with Jaime as our legs were on fire the whole night from the stinging nettle from the middle final. It was so frustrating! Lying there all night knowing that you have to sleep but you just can't!
Despite the lack of sleep, I guess I felt ok and it was finally a sunny clear day :)
I was running first leg, Jaime 2nd and Angela 3rd. This was definitely a strong team, and we had the potential to get on that podium, so we were definitely pumped! :D
Standing on that starting line with 45 other first leg runners was definitely scary! The nerves were so high! I remember feeling like I was about to fall over and cry I was so freaked out! But it kind of felt good :P
As soon as we took off, I had this massive rush of energy and took the lead towards #1. The first control was around 1.5km away, so it was quite a long run with all the first leg runners. There was a split to #2, then it went straight back to the spectator area before heading out on the last detailed loop. Heading to the spectator area, I was with the first group and felt really awesome and still felt like I could keep up with the first pack for the rest of the race. Just after the control after the spectator control, we had a long leg, and I  stopped a bit too early along with some of the other first leg runners. We were stressing a bit and a lot of the other runners were catching us back up. After a lot of mucking around, I realised what I had done and I boosted around the rest of the course! Apart from one mistake, the rest of the course was really good. Jaime and Angela both managed to have a decent run, but both made a few errors losing a little bit of time just like me. Although we were not totally satisfied with our races, we actually had the best result ever from a NZ women's team which was pretty cool :) We ended up 9th being not too far from 6th, so the podium was definitely in sight for us, but it was a shame that those small errors added up...

Relay Start

Relay Finish

Overall, my final JWOC was ok, but I guess with my good preparation I had expected a bit better of myself. I guess if I look on the positive side I had 3 fastest splits in the sprint, my 2nd best JWOC placing ever, my best middle final result and we had the best NZ relay team result ever. So it was actually a pretty good end to my Junior years.

The team before the Banquet

After JWOC the whole team split up and some went to Croatia, and some to Finland for some extra competitions. I met up with Rassmus and his 2 brothers as we caught the 19hr ferry ride from Poland to Sweden. After we arrived in Nynäshamn, Rassmus's parents came to meet us and big up Jonathan and Oscar. Rassmus and I repacked our stuff as we were waiting for the evening ferry to Gotland, the small Island off the East coast of Sweden. We were not taking a car for the whole week we were there, so we had to carry everything on and off the ferry which was quite a mission. When we arrived to Gotland, we stayed with Rassmus's friend for the first night. The next day, we picked up our bikes (well actually a bike as we had a tandem bike which I did not know about) and started our journey about 25km across the Island to where the 3 day competition arena was. Once we got there it was raining and all we wanted to was quickly put up the tent and have our dinner.
The 3 day competition was pretty fun as I have never run on terrain like that ever before. It was tricky as there were hardly any features at all on the map, so the compass was one of the most important things to concentrate when orienteering in this terrain. It was really fun, but I did get progressively worse each day :P Guess you need a bit of practice in this terrain before you can really get the hang of it.
After our time on Gotland, we travelled to Rassmus's parents house where we stayed with his family for the week before O-Ringen. It was such a nice week as we could relax a little and I got to spend time with such an awesome family :)
Unfortunately Rassmus was sick for the whole week, so we couldn't train as much as we wanted to and I just had to go exploring on my training runs.
O-Ringen was such a fun week, but extremely difficult for me as always :P I managed to have a pretty good run on the first day, although made quite a big mistake towards the end and lost about 6min or so. The rest of the week was very up and down, and especially on the 3rd day it was very very down!
I managed to start in the chasing start which was cool, and ended up passing about 12 or so girls to get 39th overall. My Orienteering wasn't that good over the week, but I guess it was pretty fun :)
After O-ringen, Rassmus and I stayed at his flat in Uppsala for 2 nights before I flew home. It was a nice 2 days, but as usual, it went way too quickly! It was definitely the saddest moment standing at that airport not knowing when we would see each other again, but we knew that we can do it, even if it is one of the hardest things we have ever done.

Rassmus and I in Gdansk

Playing Kub, a famous Swedish game with some friends on Gotland

Smultron, Swedish wild strawberries :)

hehe our tandem bike :P

Rassmus took me on a picnic to "re-celebrate" my birthday as he wasn't there for mine earlier in the year :) so sweet!

Oringen 3rd stage

Now back in Auckland, I have been catching up on all the Uni I have missed and had a bit of a resting period, taking it a bit easy with the training for a while.
Last week I went on a field trip to Ohiwa where I had to gather some data for my 3rd year research paper.
This weekend I coached a lot of Auckland Orienteers out at Woodhill which was pretty fun and always rewarding.

When I was overseas my back injury came back and was really quite painful. Since I have been back, I have still had problems with it, some days worse than others. I am now seeing a Chiropractor every 3rd day or so. I had some X-rays last week and they showed that my pelvis is rotated, and there is also some bending in my back because of this which caused a disc to be a little squashed, causing the lower back pains. The focus is to loosen up all my muscles in my back and my psoas muscles and my piriformis muscles as they are all effecting the rotation of my pelvis. The manipulation by the Chiropractor is quite harsh on the injured areas, but I am hoping it is helping. I also see the acupuncturist after the chiropractor to help with the loosening up of the muscles in my back.

In less than 2 weeks, I am off to Australia to compete in the Oceania Orienteering Championships, so I have to knuckle down and get on top of my uni work whilst squeezing in some quality training at the same time.
Link for Oceania...watch the video! Its going to be awesome!! :)

I know this is pretty much a novel, but I guess it was in need of an update :) You can also read more (or google translate it) on Rassmus's Blog too.

See ya!