So to wrap up the summer...I worked down in Hawkes Bay at 'At Ease Cafe' as a waitress/barista. I attempted to do some training, although had a few niggly problems with my foot which has turned out to be a bit of plantar fasciitis. Have the best podiatrist in NZ working on it, providing me with orthotics, exercises and recommendations to new shoes. Some days it seems to be good, although some are not so good. Rassmus came over for 1 month over January which was pretty amazing! I still had to work, although we did have a bit of a vacation up to Gisborne for a few days which was rather nice :) Also had a nice Swedish gal Johanna staying with us for a bit which was really nice.
At the end of the summer came Sprint the Bay which was organised by my brothers and Matt Ogden. It was such an awesome event! So many entries, and a huge group of helpful volunteers. I went into this competition feeling not so great due to the lack of training and speed. I even contemplated just doing a few of the races, but then I decided it was good training if I just did it with no pressure. Amber strapped my foot pretty good for the whole weekend to prevent any further injuries which worked pretty well. Each race was fairly consistent, although some had more errors than others...managed to be in 5th place going into the last race, although Angela missed out a control and Greta picked up the wrong course, so because of those unfortunate events, it bumped me in to 3rd place overall in Women's Elite.
So after summer, I moved back up to Auckland where I am currently completing my last semester(finally!) at University...YAY! I have a few catch up papers, so some are rather cruisy, although some are quite challenging and interesting at the same time. I have started to train a bit more, although still not back to normal because of the foot, so my lead up to nationals was not as I expected, but I was just glad to be doing some training.
Nationals were held in the weekend by North West Orienteering Club. Apart from a few unfortunate glitches, it was a wicked event. Awesome areas, courses and organisation. For the first time at nationals, I was running W21E as I am an elite now!! Was a bit daunting, but was still racing familiar people, so it was fine.
Sprint was ok...made a 30sec early on as could not quite read the map well enough in the area where the control was. Then towards the end, there were a few hesitations and poor route choices. Although these things occurred, it turned out I had actually not lost as much time compared to what others had lost, so this was quite good for me :) I managed to place 2nd, 11secs down from Greta. Thanks Tom for an awesome course!
The next day was the Long Distance. This was right up the top of Woodhill on a steep map called Waioneke. It was a pretty wicked map with 7.2km and 480m climb for womens elite! :O I had a pretty good start, although hesitated too much on the first long leg and lost a bit of time. Made a bit of a route choice error to 11 and 12, and stuffed up 12 quite a bit. After the spectator leg, I was really smashed! Not used to this long in a race I guess. The forest had less visibility in the last loop and there were certainly some tricky controls to mess with our already 'smashed' state. I made quite a few silly errors due to being rather fatigued. I needed to have my concentration really firing in that last bit, but unfortunately it didn't. Through the spectator, I was only 6sec behind Greta, then she put 3 and a bit minutes on me in that last loop. Just shows how much concentration I really lost! In the end I was 4th. Amber won, which was so awesome! She really deserved it as she is a fighter and super strong for those long distance races. Very proud of her :)
The middle distance was on 'Middle Earth', a new map in Woodhill. It was a hill slope with some very tricky intricate detail. I knew that I really had to focus and use certain middle distance techniques if I wanted to place in the top 2, which I was aiming for in this distance. I took it quite easy in the start and tried to be as clean as I could. If I had any doubts on where I was going I would stop for a sec to re-adjust and carry on. I would rather be clean and slower than usual on this map, then running fast and making small errors. Through the spectator and the next few controls I was leading, but then my hesitation and concentration got a bit to intense and slowed me down on the last few controls where Greta managed to overtake me for the win, 23secs ahead of me. It was close, but I was happy I was 2nd as I had aimed for either the win or this position. Was such an awesome course and an even cooler map! Can't wait to have another race there in the future. First map here, and flip map here.
Relay day. This was out at Stags Roar in fast Woodhill. I was in the 2nd team with Hamish Goodwin and Devon Beckman. We all managed to have pretty good runs, but not quite up there with the crazy teams which are made up of elites and junior elites. We had a map change, although I managed to pick up 173 instead of 172...STUPID! I couldn't believe I had done that when I had finished? I was so certain I had got the right map? It was only one control which was pretty close to the one I was supposed to get. So unfortunately I managed to MP for our team :S I felt rather bad. At least I managed to get the map I had picked up by accident back on to the fence before that team came in for their map change. Had a few mistakes out there, so was a bit back than the other girls. First map, second map.
Overall a pretty consistent weekend which I was super happy with for my first year running Elites with the big girls! Made my confidence boost a bit, knowing my orienteering technique is fairly steady at the moment, although still room for improvement. Fingers crossed now waiting for the selectors decision on the NZ WOC and WUOC teams...eek!
Another cool thing happened. I had a surprise 21st party thrown for me on Monday night. I had no idea whatsoever that this would happen. I got such a shock! It was so thoughtful of all my friends! There were some funny speeches including one from Ross and one from Rassmus. Very comical. Had such a wicked night, and am so thankful for everyone who came. And an even bigger thanks to all the people who got me a Garmin watch! ahh!! So excited!
So that was a wrap up of the last...AGES!! Hopefully less of a break before the next post! :P
Vi ses!
Photos from the Summer...
 |
| Christmas Time |
 |
| Enjoying the Summer sun |
 |
| NZ Fish and Chips! |
 |
| Shine Falls |
 |
| On the way to Shine Falls |
 |
| Strength Training with Rassmus and Johanna |
 |
| Catherines 21st |
 |
| Sprint the Bay Stage 2 |
 |
| Nationals Sprint Podium 2012 W21E |
 |
| Superseries regions at STB 2012 |
 |
| Working hard at the cafe |
 |
| James and I at New Years |
