SPRING!

Summer in Hawkes Bay :)

Spring is definitely here, with Summer soon on its way! Two weeks ago I competed in the Auckland Orienteering Championships. I ran elite women as the grades were rather small, and it was more of a challenge to do W21E. I treated this weekend as a sort of training/fun event. I previously had a whole week of complete rest and a week of taking it easy with training, so I was not expecting to have an awesome weekend of racing, just to have some fun :)

As said in the last post, the sprint was quite fast and long, but still pretty fun. The Long was ridiculously stupid on my behalf ;) It was a pretty fun/challenging map and course, but I guess my brain was definitely not there today...made a massive mistake at #1 and was contemplating just finishing the race after that, but decided that I should keep going for the training...but then #2 was terrible again...I didn't really make a mistake, but I just could not get down the right cliff to get to the control!! Then, I was so tempted just to come back, but again I decided to keep going :P The rest of the course had a few little errors, but nothing major, just slow I guess as I had been out there for a while...Overall, a terrible, terrible race from me, but it was still fun to do :)

The terrain at the end of the Long Distance

That night was the Rugby World Cup Final in Auckland with NZ vs. France, and of course we were all going to be down town when NZ history was made ;) We had a few drinks, and got into our All Blacks spirit! We watched the game down on Queen Street where there was a rather large screen set up in the middle of the road. Was so epic! There were so many people! It was pretty much a sea of black! The game was so close, but we won 7-8 :D yayyy!! Was such a cool experience to be in the City when we won... everyone was so excited and just went so crazy!!

In the City on such an awesome night!

Rassmus and I with the Cup in the summer, before NZ won

Anyway, the next morning was the Middle distance. I was feeling rather tired from such a long race yesterday and the celebration last night. The race went ok...I only made a few little mistakes usually around the control circle, but nothing too major...The most of the time i lost was on the long running legs and the extremely long grass legs which were so tiring to run through...was rather slow by the end, but I thoroughly enjoyed the course and the diversity of terrains on the map :) Angela was first, 3min ahead of me, and Johanna 2nd , 1min ahead of me. Here are the splits. As you can see, I loved the beginning, but as it went out into the open, I was a tad slower :P

Middle Distance, Auckland Champs

During the past two weeks, I have been trying to do a bit of study as my exams start next Thursday. Both of my exams are so late, so it is quite hard to study so far out for it. I have managed to do a bit more training in the last week as I am keen to get back into it again. Well, I want to do a bit more longer slow runs to get my endurance going again. 

I recently found out about this awesome inspirational Spanish athlete, Kilian Jornet. He is a long-distance runner/'skyrunner'...he is amazing! You should read about him on his site: http://www.kilianjornet.cat/en/index.html or even look at his videos on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/SalomonTrailRunning ...He is just so determined and very motivated to train and compete. He just loves being outside on the mountains every day...I wish I could be training on all that too :)

Overall, it has been a cruisey past few weeks. Have exams next week, then I drive down home on the 16th for summer and pretty much start work at the Cafe immediately. I am really looking forward to summer as I will be able to save up a bit of money, catch up with friends, Sprint the Bay, do some awesome training, and of course, Rassmus comes for one month!! It is not long, but it is sooo much better than nothing at all :) I can't wait!! 

Sprint the Bay 2012 Preview

Vi ses för nu...