Europe Time!

Yes once again it has been a long time since the last post...but I am here now!!


I have arrived in Europe and been here for nearly 2 weeks now. This was a different trip to Europe as I have a one way ticket and a permit to live in Sweden for 2 years. A big change in my life is happening right now! But first I have to compete in the World University Orienteering Championships in Spain, and the World Orienteering Championships in Switzerland. It was super sad to leave everyone I love back home, but I will be back home soon (hopefully as soon as December for the World Cup races in NZ!).


I flew into Geneva where I met with Ross, Tane, Greta and Amber where we did a few days of training around Lausanne. My bag was delayed and I would have to wait till Friday to pick it up, but there was a slight problem of me going to Spain on that same day. So off to Spain on Friday we went! (Greta, Amber and I) We were also on the same flight as Lilian Forsgren, it was a nice catch up :-)

WUOC!

Once we arrived in Alicante, we had just till Tuesday to get used to the terrain and taper with our training before the first race on Tuesday. It was a bit of a shock arriving into Alicante as the weather was so extreme!! I think the first day we got there the temperatures were rising close to 40 degrees! Quite a different climate from the NZ winter...
Another thing to look forward to once I got to Spain was that Rassmus was running for the Swedish team, so I would be able to see him after 5 whole months apart!!! :O

Finally got my bag after 3 and a half days without it!

The NZ team at the Opening Ceremony

Amber (coach/sister) and I at the opening ceremony

I was racing in the Long Distance, Middle Distance and the Relay, so had a rest day when the Sprint was on. 


The Long Distance was super challenging! It was so incredibly steep, and the heat did not make that climb feel any easier. I managed to have a steady race. A few mistakes here and there, so a bit of time lost, but most of my time was lost on the route choices, in particular the long leg after the ravine crossing. I should have taken an easier running track route instead of changing half way and trying to go straight. I was totally smashed doing this route choice and hit the wall very badly! So in the end it was ok and I ended up 39th out of 67.

Chilling before the Long Distance

The Middle distance was on totally different terrain than the Long distance, and I had actually had some practice on the maps which are similar to this map. I felt rather confident on the warm up map just before my start, but I still felt nervous. I managed to get off to a steady start to number 1, although overshot number 2. The next two legs are where I gained confidence in my good route choices! I went rather straight and kept stopping to check my compass direction along the way to 3, and 4 I decided to take the bottom route even though it looked green. I caught the Czech girl who started 2min ahead of me around #3, so we managed to stick together for a bit. She was making mistakes, then I would get in front, then I would make mistakes and she would get in front. At the second to last control, I lost my direction into the control, so was stuffing around for a minute, but I knew I had not stuffed it as much as the Czech girl and a few other girls that were in the same area. At the finish, I knew it was a safe race, but not too sure how it would have placed? Turns out I was 10th!! :D That was a pretty cool feeling! Top 10 from a NZer is always a good thing :) Looking back at the results, 5th place to 10th place was only 35seconds! I easily lost that at that last mistake! But hey, everyone else had mistakes too, so it is what it is...just exciting to see when you get so close!! 10th! Yay! :-)

Top 10! :)

The Relay was another steady race from me...ran 1st leg and managed to stick with the pack for most of the race, although got rather tired in the end, so was going a bit slower...I made a few silly errors and went to a few other split controls, but nothing too major. Ended up about 2.35min behind the first finisher. Angela was 2nd and Greta ran last to place our team in 12th, 30min behind the Swedes.
Was a pretty fun week, and am very happy with some of my racing :) I loved the terrain, and would love to go back to Alicante sometime in the future.

The NZ girls before the Banquet

Now I am back in Lausanne where most of the NZ WOC team are here training for the competition next week. It is all so exciting, but a little scary at the same time as I make my debut on the senior level! I am racing in the Middle distance and hopefully in the Relay. The Middle qualification is on the Monday, and the Final on the Tuesday. The Relay is on the Saturday, so in between I will be trying to do a little bit of running/orienteering, but still taking it easy in case of a Relay position. We have a pretty big team this year, 5 men and 5 women, and we also have around 20 NZ spectators coming to cheer us on! It will be pretty wicked and I just can't wait!
But for now I am trying to familiarise myself with the terrain along with tapering for next week, whilst recovering from last weeks tough races! :P

One of the Middle training maps terrain

Dieter shouting Tane, Lizzie and I a nice drink in the hills after our morning training session :)

All is going good, and I have also found out that I have passed all my exams, so I am now a qualified Scientist in Geography and Environmental Science! woop woop!!

Au revoir!

It's about time!

Wow...so this has been a long time coming! I must admit, I have been extremely slack on the blogging...I guess I just didn't have the summer of training I expected, so was thinking there was no need for a new blogg post.

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

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...

Oceania's

It has been nearly 2 weeks now since I have been back in New Zealand since running at the Oceania Orienteering Championships in Australia.
Overall, it was a rather disappointing week :(
I managed to get rather sick after the first day of competition. It was an extremely cold and wet day, and even after I had tried to warm down and get changed into completely dry warm clothes, I just could not get warm :S

The race was not that great. I managed to have a few mistakes in the beginning of the course, then a massive one at number 9 where I just did not see it for so long (can see on the GPS here). After that I had lost a lot of motivating and had a few mistakes here and there...
So, not off to a very good start...

The middle distance was so much fun! So much contour detail as it was set in an old gold mining area. I felt very blocked up and had a sore throat, so I just tried to make sure I could navigate well...this plan did not work as well...turns out I should have even slowed down a lot more! I was just running too fast for my navigation and then was getting really tired and making more mistakes...overall not a great race, mistakes everywhere!eek...

During the week we did a bit of travelling and ran the public race for the Schools champs, and the Australian Relay champs...was still sick during the week, so was a mission to run, so mistakes everywhere again...but we ended up winning the Relay in W21E with Tessa Ramsden and Jean Cory-Wright which was pretty fun :P
We ended up in Cooma, NSW for the last few races. Friday was the Oceania Sprint (forest sprint) which was ok...just a small mistake, but hard to run once again...Saturday the Long..was a good start, although stuffed up 6 and totally ballsed it up in the end...felt rather lethargic and really light headed...think this is a combo of trying to push and being still stick :/ later that night I just felt so bad, sore kidneys and felt rather nauseous...so was unsure if I would run the relay the next day.
I decided to run the relay, although I still wasn't feeling that better :S I managed to do ok, not many mistakes, I just found it so hard to run ...

Was a really fun week, but probably not the best week of orienteering for me :( Just wish I felt good as the terrain was so cool and I really enjoyed running in OZ after 3 whole years! Oh well...these things happen...just have to push on and think about the good parts of the week and apply them later on :)

The last 2 weeks I have had sooo much uni work! Had a presentation on my Research paper and the whole report due a few days ago..I had an entire resting week from Monday to Sunday straight after OZ, which was so good to do...especially with all the uni work...
In the last week I have been for 2 jogs and 2 orienteering trainings out at Woodhill with some of the Auckland O'ers and Johanna Lönnkvist who is here from Sweden for 3 months :)

Just ran the Auckland Champs Sprint which was fun...although rather fast for my liking! :P I managed to make a 15sec mistake at #15 as I went a weird way around the building, but other than that it was good...guess a bit slow on the pace...but it was just so long and fast for a sprint race! Didn't know when it was going to end! Long tomorrow and Rugby World Cup Final!! GO ALL BLACKS! and then the Middle on Monday... Keep ya posted how the rest of the long weekend goes :D

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!

Poland so far...

So it has been a while since I have written on my blog, but i have a little bit of time right now to fill you in on whats been going on.
So last week I had exams on Tuesday and Wednesday then flew out just before 10pm on Wednesday night...so yeah, a very busy week with hardly any sleep and not the greatest training, but I guess I managed.
After a 13 and a 1/2 hour flight, 6 hour stop over, 10 and a 1/2 hour flight, 2 hour stop over and a 90min flight, we arrived in Gdansk! I think all up I got about 2 hours of sleep/dozing? I really am not good at sleeping on flights :/ But I have managed to get in some really early nights :)
The first few days I managed to take it a bit easy with training, as I was definitely feeling the jet-lag quite a bit...although I am feeling a bit better every day which is good :)
We have been on some awesome terrain (hopefully i can put up a few pictures and descriptions of the maps in a few days:), and I have really got the handle on a few things pretty well :)
It is extremely fast running in places and also very dense and green in places too, so you have to know what pace to speed up and slow down to very carefully.
The weather was pretty rotten the first few days we were here, but now it has fined up a lot and we have had almost 30degree temperatures :)
Everything is extremely cheap here which is so awesome for most of us poor students :P And as we discovered, it is not alright to drink the tap water from the bathrooms...eek...so good thing big 6L bottles of water are very cheap :)
Anyway, I will leave you with a picturs and hopefully I can write on here before JWOC to let you know how it is all going :)

Running through the Polish terrain :)

Queens Birthday Weekend Summary

Well...what a week it has been!!
A 5km PB, last week of uni lectures, last assignments and tests and probably some of my best racing in the elite women grade ever!

Last week was very hectic. I was studying for a 35% test on Wednesday, so was up late studying almost every night over the weekend, Monday and Tuesday. The last O'Hagens Pub 5km series was held on Tuesday night, so most of us Auckland O'ers decided to head on down and compete in it for the last time before some of us head over for JWOC. It was a really nice evening, a little on the cold side, but we still decided that we could race in singlets :P I was unsure how this would go as I have had hardly any sleep the past few days/weeks. I managed to get off to a really good start and keep a good speed. It started to rain about 7min into the race which was really annoying as it made the ground so slippery! At the turn around I managed to be at 8.50min which is really good for me, although I was a bit scared I would not be able to hold the pace that much longer. I managed to keep pushing, but not as hard as the first half. My time was 18.35 which was a PB by 7 seconds for me. I was so happy with this result, especially with the lack of good preparation! Poland is looking more and more hopeful every day :)

After the test and last few lectures of the semester, I guess I was able to relax just a little bit before the gigantic weekend of races!! In this time, the JWOCers from Auckland Uni managed to set up a meeting with the Uni in regards to any sponsorship. After hearing what we had to say and how much we have to pay for the trip ourselves, they generously gave us $1000 each in order to help us with our endeavours! We are so extremely helpful as this will definitely help us with our trip!

Queens Birthday Weekend...
This weekend consisted of 5 races; 3 multi-day long distances and 2 events put on by some of the AUckland JWOCers, a sprint and a superseries relay.
I was running up in Elite womens this weekend as I decided to have some competition practice before JWOC, especially since the Aussies were over for the Pinestars/Bushrangers test match. I was also selected for the NZ Pinestars too, so that was another reason for running up a grade :P

DAY 1:
The first race of the day was at Telephone Track. We had an 8km course with 150m climb. As I warmed up, I just said to myself to take it careful as this map is tricky and requires a lot of work with your compass. When I started, I realised that to number 1 I was not quite following exactly where I was, so I told myself to slow down just a little bit as I believe I was running a bit too fast. This helped a lot as I was checking on winsplits later that I was getting the fastest times on the first 5 controls. Number 6 was pretty terrible as I must have lost concentration with my compass direction and started doubting myself so much. I soon realised after 1.30min what I was doing, and corrected myself and went to the control. At number 7 I managed to catch Anna Sheldon and Angela Simpson. We were running together for a bit on the legs 8 to 9, then soon after it was just Angela and I battling it out to each control. I managed to keep my concentration pretty well after catching Angela and managed to run with her as well. She took a different route choice to number 19, and I think she may have stuffed it up a little. I was by myself on the last loop, but managed to miss 1min on #20, 2min on #22 and a further 30sec on # 23...so a very poor ending. Even though there were a few mistakes on this course, I still managed to keep them quite small. I felt pretty strong when I was running today and was very happy with my win in the elite grade! What made it even more satisfying was that I won by 7min! Very happy :)

Day 1: Morning course

In the afternoon we had the sprint for the JWOC fundraising events. I think I was running a bit too fast as I kept making too many mistakes. Was a really fun course though :) I tried to get a picture of this map, but the quality is not so good..

Angela and I after the first race

DAY 2:
Today we had a longer course of 8.8km and a bit more climb, so I was expecting quite a tough run. I was not very happy with my run today as I just never really had a good flow. My direction out of most of the controls was seriously shocking. The first 2 controls were steady and good for me, and even running to #3 I was running really fast, although I read the map pretty wrong when I got closer to 3 and managed to stuff it up quite a bit by about 3min or so. After 3, I didn't make too many mistakes, just little ones here and there. I was extremely tired towards the end and was actually walking up some of the hills. I think the felled tree areas were really draining as I was so tired of picking my legs up high for a lot of the race. Was a fun race, very excited to run a long distance with quite a few long legs in it :)

Day 2: Morning course

In the afternoon, we had the 2 person superseries relay. Ross and I were in a team together. I managed to boost it up the really steep hill to the triangle, and even to the first control. Number 4 is where I really lost it for myself, I stuffed the first pivot by a lot and many people passed me :/ not so good...after this I managed to orienteer and run really fast to catch up a bit, but probably not enough. I was hesitating at so many controls as I kept checking Ross's control descriptions as his map was on the back...grr..I don't even know why I kept doing it! eek. Anyway, Ross went out in about 5th behind Tom and 3 Aussies. He absolutely smashed it! I think he mentioned he did under 5min per km for that tricky area! Pretty crazy! We ended up winning the superseries relay which was cool :)

Superseries Relay

DAY 3:
Last day of racing today. Felt pretty average when I woke up in the morning, but knew that every one else would be feeling the same way :P
Managed to get off to a good start again today. Didn't make any mistakes really until number 9. I totally misjudged my compass direction which then lead me into the wrong tricky contour detail area. After I realised, I managed to get myself back to number 9. Am so angry as I lost at least 3min here, and at number 8 I was winning by 2min! The rest of the course was good, no really big mistakes, so was pretty happy besides that one bad control. I won 9 splits, which was the most in our grade, so I am pretty stoked.

Day 3

Overall a really good weekend for me, especially running up in Elites :) Enjoyed myself thoroughly, and am now having withdrawals from orienteering! I want to do some more!