Graham Gristwood

Kenya!

2012-01-29T16:23:00.000Z

So it is now the end of January, and I am back in snowy Sweden, but I spent 4 fantastic weeks in Iten, Kenya. I did some great training, I met some amazing people, and it was a top experience. I would highly recommend Iten and the HATC for any athlete as a training venue.

Pictures can say more than words, so here are a small selection of my pictures from the trip.

The edge of the Rift Valley

Local wildlife

Christmas day

Eldoret Market

Safety in Kenya

Relaxed seat-belt laws....

How a you? How a you?

'The' track

Shoe4Africa prizegiving

Christmas dinner

Exactly what it says on the tin

Sorry, where?

Hitting the trails

Hitting the track

And finally a movie - one minute on the track in Iten, count the runners! (all training at 3 mins/km or faster - ish)

Iten, Kenya - University of Champions

2011-12-14T12:27:00.001Z

At least, that is what it says on the gate! Just arrived in Iten for a 4 week altitude training camp run by Lornah Kiplagat and her Dutch husband Pieter Langerhorst.

Here are some pictures of the centre, which is 2,400m above sea level, just on the edge of Iten, a town of about 4,000 people (of the Kalenjin tribe) in the Great Rift Valley which runs through Kenya. Iten is about 45 minutes drive from Eldoret, which is quite a big city, 45 minute flight from Nairobi.

Iten is a big centre for training for Kenyan athletes, with many of the best Kenyan runners living and training here on the plethora of dirt roads and 2 (dirt) athletics tracks. The HATC itself has a swimming pool and a gym, and lots of athletes from all over the world staying at any one time.

After a long journey without much sleep, we went out for a 30 minute jog to explore the town yesterday, and this morning I ran 50 minutes. You can really feel the altitude on these first runs - even small hills feel like crazy hard work...

I am looking forward to the next month!

Brutal!

2011-12-14T11:23:00.001Z

Before heading off to Kenya, I took part in a race called the Brutal 10km at Bordon Heath. It was advertised as the toughest off road 10km in the country, and I guess it probably was. 10km of hills, waist deep marshes and swamps, mud, icy tank wallows, sand and tussocks. All in all pretty good fun for an orienteer! There was some fast running too, as transport between the tough sections.
I went off fairly hard, but had Harold 'Warwick' Wyber for company for the first 8km before slowly getting away at the end for the win. Really good fun, and can highly recommend the series which continues in January.

Website here with loads of pictures and movies from the race.

Smålandskavlen

2011-10-31T15:55:00.000Z

Smålandskavlen 2011 2nd place

Itwas always going to be tough to match winning Smålandskavlenlast year, but we came pretty close, finishing second to the mightyKalevan Rasti. I ran the second leg, my first night race for a while, and I did a decent race, pulling SNO up to 2nd place overnight. I had company for a lot of the race, mostly from Jonas Gvildys and Thomas Carlsson, and in the end Topi Anjala. We quite often had different gaffles, but always came back together. Jonas had the fastest leg time, and I was second.

The terrain was tough, not unlike some Scottish areas, and hilly and stony. Nice way to finish a successful year for SNO, although it would be nice to start turning the top 5s, top 3s and top 2s into wins!

Results here

Swedish Champion! 2011 round-up

2011-10-24T14:00:00.000Z

So it has been an interesting couple of months. Firstly, I am now Swedish Champion! Rehns BK were disqualified from the Swedish Relay Championships, elevating SNO to the gold medal. You can read about the disqualification here and see the updated results here. I don't really have anything to say about the disqualification other than that rules are rules, even if they are stupid, and that I am happy to be the champion!

Since SM relay, I went to Berlin to watch my girlfriend run in the marathon, and I went to Switzerland for a WOC 2012 training camp followed by the World Cup final. Unfortunately I strained my calf muscle training in Berlin, and then continued to run on it during the training camp, and the tough racing at the WC final was too much for it, so I could hardly run since then, and in fact I have had almost 3 weeks now without any running. I also had some stomach problems at the WC final weekend, meaning that I had pretty poor results, but as always they were some excellent races.

I have now been selected for the GB performance group for 2012, and I am about to start my winter training in build up to the 2012 Championships. I am always quite motivated at this time of year to start base training, and put into practise all the ideas I have been noting down during the year.

It is also time to look back at what I have achieved (or not achieved) during 2011.

Positives

Joining SNO, getting a really nice job and place to live in Södertälje with my beautiful girlfriend!

4th - World Championships sprint distance
11th - World Champs middle distance

3rd - Tiomila
5th - Jukola

Gold - Swedish relay champs
Gold - British middle distance champs
Silver - British sprint distance champs
5th - Swedish sprint distance champs
6th - Swedish middle distance champs

5km personal best (15:02)
10km second best time (31:54)
Gold - Bellmanstafetten

Negatives

Major foot injury in January, and consequent knee problems for much of the spring
I missed many Swedish races, British long distance and student championships due to injury
Poor World Cups including NORT and WC final in Switzerland

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

2011-09-21T12:53:00.000Z

Good day for SNO - 3 medals in SM relay

Last weekend I ran the Swedish Orienteering Championships in Middle distance and Relay, and in both races I had a good chance to win, and in both races I failed to do so.

Friday - Middle Qualification

Much more difficult both physically and technically than expected. Very bushy terrain with low visibility and wet marshes made this pretty tough. I was pretty scrappy, especially early on, but held it together to qualify 5th in my heat (top 6 to the final).

Results here

Saturday - Middle Final

With my usual cautious start in difficult terrain, I was slow but steady initially but I caught Jesper Lysell and Petter Eriksson at the second control. I probably didn't take the best route choices to the 3rd and 8th, and at the half way mark I was about 1 minute behind the leaders. Then after passing the competition centre and taking a new map, the course suddenly got really interesting again. Petter took a couple of controls before me, and our pace increased such that at the 15th control (after 31 minutes running and 7 minutes left) I was in the overall lead by 20 seconds. Then disaster. The speed was very high across the slope to the 16th. I was a little higher than Petter but with everything under control. We came to the hill where the control should be, and for some reason things didn't quite fit what I was expecting to see. Petter turned right, but instead of checking or following him, my instinct told me I needed to go left. I did that, ran 20 seconds, realised I had made a mistake and turned around. By then it was too late, I had lost 1 minute, Petter was away to the next control, and I had missed my chance to win the Swedish champs. I even made a 15 second mistake on the next control, probably losing a medal, when I almost ran into a forbidden area and had to go back on myself. Still, it was nice to see that my shape is quite good at the moment, and that I should get some confidence in my ability.

I spent a long time thinking about that 16th control after the race....

Results here

Map here

Varvning - photo SOFT

Sunday - Relay

After the middle distance, it was decided that I should ran the last leg, in the SNO first team with Erik Liljeqvist and Jonas Leandersson on the first 2 legs. They both did a really good job, sending me out in 2nd place, 1 minute behind William Lind of Malungs, and just in the front of a group of another 6 runners. The first control was really long, and when we got there, the group had tightened up considerably. I was happy to let others do the work initially, but I was not afraid to do my own thing (for example the 5th control I took a different route choice to the others, and came back out with the leaders). From about the 5th control, a smaller group of myself, Lysell, Johanson, Troeng and Lind had a gap to the others, and we maintained that to the spectator control. Then there was the biggest forking so far, and I took my controls well and was able to get a small lead. Then I pushed as hard as possible across the fields and through the next few controls. At the next radio control I had a 40 second lead. I was really nervous, especially through the technical controls at the far end of the map, but I managed with only some small hesitations to get through them. I could hear the group behind me, and at the end of the loop (which was forked), I caught sight of Troeng and Lysell. Lysell caught me at the 17th and then ran behind me until the second last. I was hoping we would have a different forking in the end, but he had the same as me. Then on the way to the last control, he changed gear and gave it everything. I put everything I had left into following him, but it was not enough, and in the end he won the sprint comfortably. I managed to stay clear ahead of the chasing teams though, for a 2nd place and Silver medal - my first in Swedish Championships.

Results here

Map here

Prispallen - photo SOFT

I was frustrated by my mistake on Saturday, but in general it was a really good, positive weekend, and now I am looking forward to watching my girlfriend run the Berlin Marathon at the weekend, and then to a nice training camp and World Cup Final in Switzerland.

WOC reflections and winning Bellmanstafetten

2011-08-28T16:37:00.003Z

Photo: Jeremy Green

So World Orienteering Champs is over for another year, and I'm back home in Södertälje. After a tough spring, I had to readjust my goals for WOC, and my main aims were to perform to the best of my abilities regardless of positions. I managed to do that in both the Sprint and Middle distance finals, taking personal best placings of 4th and 11th, making it my best individual World Champs ever. I started conservatively in the middle distance, slightly fearful after watching the start of the long distance, but perhaps it was a good thing, allowing me to get into the map, and have a really strong last 2/3 of the race. I was slightly frustrated to be 1 second outside the top 10, but there is always next year!

The relay was obviously a disappointment. After 4th place last year, we had ambitions to fight for a top 6 again. Matt had a really bad day on first leg. It happens some times, especially in this terrain, so we were out of it before me and Scott ran.

All results and maps from WOC are online here

Bellmanstafetten

Yesterday I ran my first race for Enhörna athletics club in the annual 5*5km race in Stockholm. I ran the last leg, passed 2 teams near to the end to take the victory. There is a nice write up here (in Swedish).

Exciting few days! 4th at WOC and Scotland for WOC 2015

2011-08-18T15:57:00.008Z

Photo: WorldofO.com (athlete profile)

On Tuesday I achieved my best ever individual result in orienteering, finishing 4th in the World Orienteering Championships sprint distance in Chambery, France. I ran a safe qualification race in the morning, finishing 8th in my heat (with 15 to qualify), without exerting myself too much. In the final, I had a near perfect race, and paced it perfectly to pick up positions in the last few hundred meters to get myself into the top 6 for the first time.

Apart from 2 bad route choices (to the 10th and 14th), where I lost a couple of seconds each time, I had a clean race with no mistakes or even real hesitations. I really enjoyed running through the crowded streets and narrow alleys, and I was able to push myself hard all the way.

Many people have asked me if I am disappointed to miss out on a medal, but I am really happy to have performed to the best of my ability in a World Championships final and taken 4th place! The medal will just have to wait for now :).

Here are my route choices.

The result is especially satisfying as I have had a poor season due to several injuries, and I was not confident in my physical shape in the build up to the championships, but my preparations in the last weeks were good, training hard with my team mate Scott Fraser. He had a great chance to fight for a medal in the race, but was screwed over by a qualifier disqualification debate, only finding out he could even run the final less than an hour before the start, and then having to run through all the crowds as the marshals in the town didn't know he was running after the main start block.

Results here

Splits here

Scotland for WOC 2015!

Today it was announced that the World Championships will he held in Scotland in 2015. This is really exciting news, and hopefully will provide a real boost for UK orienteering at a time when funding for sport (especially non-olympic) is being dramatically reduced. Details here.

Scotland for WOC 2015

2011-07-28T16:13:00.002Z

Scotland is bidding to host the World Champs in 2015, and the decision will be made in about 1 months time. Check out the facebook page here and a leaflet with bid info here (at least to check out the gorgeous guy on the left).

Support the bid for a really cool World Champs in some of the best terrain in the World in the heart of Scotland!

(NB. Scotland may also include haggis, whiskey, ceilidh dancing, bagpipes, kilts, Irn Bru, Loch Ness monster and Scottish people)

SWEDEN - Sprint champs, Stigtomta, 3rd at Tiomila!

2011-05-02T11:19:00.003Z

2 weeks ago I moved back to Sweden, to my new apartment in Södertälje. Immediately I went away for the weekend to Gotland for the Swedish sprint champs in Visby, where I was very happy to come 5th.

Last week I ran in Stigtomta relay, I ran the 5th leg and was doing an ok performance running with the leading group until the TV control, then I fell and hit my knee and struggled round the last 15 minutes, losing a little over a minute to the front 2 teams. Unfortunately Scott missed a control on last leg and so we were disqualified.

My knee actually felt ok for a few days after the race, but 4 days after I had some swelling and inflammation., it was really painful even walking and so I had to see the physio - he told me there was no tissue damage, just fluid causing the pain. So it was not particularly good preparation for Tiomila doing no running for 5 days and being unsure if I should even run.

Anyway, I did run, and with some strong pain killers I was able to run the 9th leg for SNO. The boys did an excellent job to send me out with Kalevan Rasti in the lead. I couldn't follow Hertner though, and I finished 2 minutes after in 2nd place. I had a fairly good technical performance and was satisfied with my race.

Matthias Muller did a good job and we finished in 3rd place! A new personal best for me at Tiomila.

Live GPS tracking comes to Britain - weekend of top racing in July including Harvester Relay

2011-04-18T20:15:00.002Z

Live GPS Tracking comes to Britain

Sheffield University Orienteering Club (ShUOC) invite you to an exciting weekend of racing on the 16th-17th July 2011. The Harvester Relays return to Ecclesall Woods and Limb Valley, the birthplace of the Harvester - a complex woodland in the suburbs of Sheffield. A middle distance race on the Saturday and an urban race on the Sunday add to what shall be a spectacular weekend of racing.

The event includes a UK first with Live GPS Tracking shown through the night for speactators both in the assembly area and at home.

Even if you’re not intending to run in the Harvesters why not come along for a summer weekend of high quality orienteering. With a Middle and Urban race and informal ultrasprint on the Saturday afternoon it promises to be an unmissable event.

Harvester entries are now open and individual entries for both days will open in May. A new Ad-Hoc class will be available this year for individuals unable to form club teams, see the website for more details.

www.harvesterrelay.co.uk

Well who would have thought it....

2011-04-10T19:45:00.004Z

Photo Rob Lines

Today I took my first British middle distance title (after 3 silvers!). I made a 55 second mistake at the 3rd control, but after that had a close to perfect race and I was able to win by about 50 seconds in front of Rich Robinson and Oli Johnson. It was a nice race - fast running with enough technical challenge to make it interesting, although there were a few very simple controls

Results here

Routegadget

Silver in British Sprint Champs

2011-04-09T19:26:00.003Z

Photo Rob Lines

Today the British Sprint Champs were held near Brighton on the south coast. After a pretty terrible winter and early spring, I have finally managed to start to get some running training together, but as this week was really busy in university and I also moved house, it has been a bit stressful! Anyway, I was looking forward to the champs, as I seem to be running ok, and you never know what will happen in the championships situation. I felt really good to start with in the qualification, when the orienteering was more important than the running, I was flying! The latter sections required a bit more leg speed and there was some climb - that is when my body started to struggle, but I managed to win my heat. Perhaps pushing a little harder than I needed to in retrospect.

Results here

Routegadget here

For the final I was quite aggressive, going out hard. The first half was again very tricky and the orienteering speed was more important than the running. After 8 minutes and 17 controls I had had a perfect race and was in the lead by 24 seconds. Then the course changed character, with longer legs and more route choice (and a big climb back to the finish). I started to struggle a bit, and made one bad route choice decision (15 seconds). With 4 (simple) controls to go I was in joint 1st with Murray, but he destroyed me over the last 300m to win by 9 seconds and take his first title. Ralph Street took a creditable 3rd place, with Oli Johnson only 1 second behind. Really good area, map and course, and fantastic weather! I have some vest shaped sunburn now...

Happy with the performance and the result, considering my lack of running this year.

Results

Routegadget

And now for something completely different

2011-04-05T13:29:00.002Z

I don't often post non-orienteering related items on my blog, but every now and again something come along that is worth pushing the boat out for, and I felt that this fantastic effort by my clubmate in Sheffield, Daniel 'run-in king' Hartmann is definitely worth it - enjoy. :D

New year, new club

2011-03-20T19:23:00.002Z

This year, after 5 years with IFK Lidingö, I have decided to change club and run for IFK Södertälje-Nykvarn Orientering. It was a tough choice, as I have had some excellent years and made some good friends with Lidingö, and experienced racing at the highest level in some big competitions. The best memories are winning Smålandskavlen last year, and 7manna the year before, and coming 4th in Jukola in 2008. We also had quite a few races where we did not achieve our potential too.

I lived in Lidingö for 2 years, and it was a great experience, but the last 2 years I have been living in Sheffield. Now I have again decided it is time for a change as I am coming to the end of my masters degree, and I am moving to live in Södertälje in April. I will work part time for Scania, and try to improve myself as an orienteer in a really good training environment. Team Scania and SNO will provide some great resources to aid me in my preparation for national and international success. I am looking forward to training with, among others, World champion Matthias Muller and my GB team-mate Scott Fraser.

So thank you to all in IFK Lidingö for making the last 5 years so good, and watch out in 2011 for the SNO team!

Poms at POM etc

2011-03-20T15:44:00.004Z

I went to Portugal for 9 days with some British boys and some of the SNO guys and girls to get in some nice training in the sun, but as when I left I could not run, I wasn't hopeful so I rented a bike for the whole trip.

I ended up being able to do some running, and by the end of the trip, I even ran a middle distance quite fast. I did do a LOT of cycling though, and I really enjoyed it - hundreds of km around small roads in lovely rolling hills, mostly in nice weather. The highlight was a 100km from Vale de Seda to Evora.

Day 3 of POM (WRE) - cruised around, a few mistakes

Day 2 of POM, jogged round, lots of mistakes!
Sprint training in Evora
SNO camp night champs, 2nd place after M. Muller. Pretty happy with my run - 31mins for 7.2km in the dark!
WRE middle distance - raced this one and was doing ok until I got tired in the end and started making a lot of mistakes.

I did a lot of training in Portugal, but I did a little too much, and unfortunately I got a cold on my return to UK. This weekend I planned to run British Student champs, but I decided with my cold and my foot injury, that a 60 minute race in rough Scottish terrain wouldn't be the best bet.

Instead, my club put on 2 events around Sheffield, so I took part in both - an urban race in Hathersage in the Peaj District, and a middle distance on a new, really interesting and unique map called Hugset - I had quite a good 'race' but I wasn't running very fast, just a couple of small mistakes (it was really technical!)

I now have 3 weeks until the British Sprint and Middle championships in Brighton, and then I am moving to Sweden, to run with my new club, SNO.

Comebacks and setbacks

2011-03-01T09:42:00.002Z

2011 has been a frustrating year so far. I have actually trained quite well, it is just that 90% of that training has been on the spinning bike. I started running again after my foot impalation about 2 weeks ago, slowly building up to running a little each day. On Saturday I decided to test if I could run fast, so I entered the local weekly 5km park run. It felt so good, that after I ran 5 times 3 minutes fast as well. So it was my longest and fastest run since the injury, and it felt good. However, the next day I woke up and I could hardly walk for pain in my other foot!

It seems that I have some sort of compensation injury in my previously good foot, and I have stiffness in my plantar fascia and an inflamed tendon. Basically that means I am back on the spinning bike, and unless there is rapid improvement, Portugal this weekend is looking unlikely.

First steps

2011-02-03T19:27:00.002Z

This morning I ran for the first time in 1 month. I did some intervals. 3 times 30 seconds easy jogging with 1 minute recovery. My foot feels very strange, and doesn't really work like it should at the moment. I hope over the next few weeks I will see some improvement so I can get back to training normally. In the meantime I am still getting 2 hours every day (almost) on the spinning bike.

My new home

2011-01-27T08:57:00.007Z

For the last few weeks I have been living here

Due to the fact that I can't run because of this

Which happened because of this

Running through the dunes in Barbate, this sharpened root was sticking out of the ground, and went straight through the sole of my shoe and 2cm into my foot (it would have gone through almost any shoe, it certainly was not the fault of the X-talon!).

Trips to hospital every day to get treated and dressed, and it was very difficult to walk at first with the bruising and the BIG HOLE in my foot. Almost 3 weeks on I have still a lot of soreness and bruising, the would is healing nicely, but there is no chance of running yet, and weight training seems to be quite painful still, so I am training a lot of hours on the spinning bike. I have also lost some sensation in the side of my foot and my big toe - apparently I might have damaged the nerves which could take up to a year to grow back - it is very strange not to have any feeling in part of your foot!

My season has had to be reassessed, as obviously I won't be running for a while, and certainly won't be racing for a few months yet. No cross-country this year.

Anyway, apart from that, Spain was lovely - good weather, good training, good company. Here are some pictures.

Read more about my 'accident' in my training log here

Recently discovered footage of orienteering from 1973

2010-11-16T15:45:00.000Z

England regain the crown from Scotland in the Senior Home International

2010-11-08T15:40:00.003Z

After several years of Scottish dominance, it was finally time for England to take back the bragging rights in this annual competition. Saturday was the relay competition, and although Scotland took the win in the men's class, England were 2nd and 3rd and the girls 1st and 2nd to give England the overnight lead. I had a good run on 2nd leg, going out about 3 minutes behind in 4th place and coming back in with a 25 second lead.

Sunday was the individual race, down in the New Forest, combined with the November Classic. The men had 17.2km, my longest race since WOC 2009! I won in 80:58, 30 seconds ahead on Matt Crane (nice 4.30 per km pace!). England had another good day to take the overall victory.

Results here

Routegadget here (something funny going on with the course at the moment but I am sure it will be fixed)

Victory in Smålandskavlen and fast at the FRA Relay Champs

2010-11-02T11:37:00.003Z

The last few weeks of the season have been productive for me, first up running the fastest time on leg 3 with Andi Davies at the FRA Relays in the Lomond Hills in Fife (both in X-talons) as our club Mercia came 4th overall.

Results

Here is the map from my leg - quite simple navigation, and fast running! 14.3km 620m climbing, 67 minutes.
This weekend, as many others were running the OMM, I headed over to Sweden for the traditional orienteering season closer Smålandskavlen, a 5 man relay with the first 2 legs held in the dark and the other 3 run as a chasing start in the daylight the next morning. My club-mates did an excellent job in the dark, actually getting a 2 1/2 minute lead over the 132 other teams! That meant on 3rd leg, I was heading out on my own into the forest with a 2.34 headstart, being hunted down by 132 guys including a chasing pack 2 1/2 - 4 1/2 minutes behind of about 10 really strong teams including Halden, Kalevan Rasti, Kristiansand and OK Linne. I have to admit, I was pretty nervous! But I actually had a really good race, with only one technical problem of about 40 seconds over the 40 minute race, and I was able to actually increase our lead to a little over 3 minutes. I had the second fastest leg time, around 25 seconds down.

Anders Skarholt and Fredrik Johansson, my Norwegian and Swedish respectively team-mates did a really good job too, to keep our approx 3 minute cushion all the way to the finish, and we were able to celebrate our first big team win of the year (and last!).

Results

Map here with my route

Second place in World Cup Final!

2010-10-11T07:34:00.004Z

The culmination of the orienteering World Cup was held in Geneva, Switzerland this weekend. The top 40 runners in the world qualified for an urban sprint race around the old town of Geneva - a labyrinth of small alley-ways, staircases and back passages. I qualified as I was 18th in the World Cup going into the race, but I knew I had a great chance to improve my ranking and get a good result.
I started well, and allowed the navigation to dictate the speed. As I passed through the arena for the second loop, my coach shouted that I had a big lead (although with all the top ranked runners starting after, I could not relax!).

The second loop was tricky, with a lot of climbing and descending narrow staircases. I held it together though, passing the athlete starting 1 minute in front, and catching sight of the one 2 minutes in front (despite having a pretty hard collision with Øystein Kvaal Østerbø at one point running around a tight corner) and I sprinted into the crowded finish arena with a new leading time. Then it was a nervous wait on the leaders 'red sofa' as one by one other runners came in withslower times. With only 2 runners left, I was still on the sofa - so it was my first World Cup medal! Then Muller appeared, with a dangerous time. As we counted down the seconds, he crossed in exactly the same time! Then there was less than a minute to wait for the World number 1, Daniel Hubmann. Sure enough, he appeared with a good time, and took the win by 9 seconds, pushing meand Muller down into equal 2nd.

So, silver medal in the World Cup Final - my best individual result, and it pushed me up to 9th overall in the World Cup 2010 and 17th in the World Ranking.

Results

I was interviewed for the IOF website for the first time

My World Championships

2010-09-26T15:54:00.026Z

I realise that World Champs in Trondheim were more than a month ago, but I haven't written anything yet about them here. Partly that is because I have been busy / lazy, but also partly because I wanted to reflect on the championships and my performances before writing anything.

I think this is the year that I have been best prepared physically and technically for a World Championships. I had my best ever training winter, I had a good spring with nice results in the European Championships, NORT and the World University Champs, so my confidence was high. I also had 3 weeks in Trondheim in June and July with Oli Johnson, Matt Crane and Jonn Are Myhren, doing some excellent training and joining in some training with other national teams.

I had an early set back when I was selected for the middle instead of the long, but apart from that, my preparation was close to what I had planned.

Then the championships kicked off with the sprint....

Map for qualification is here

I have run the sprint 6 times now in WOC, with results 33, 9, 12, 22 and 17 until this year, and I knew that I was capable of a top 6 and maybe a medal with a perfect race. I was confident that I could perform and I was ready for any challenge that the course setters could manage.

What I wasn't ready for was what happened during the qualification. I started very well, and at the 9th control I was in 6th position, 9 seconds behind the leader. I then started to run to the 10th control - I had chosen the route to the right, through the forest. The first part of the route was to leave the control to the north, go through a small gap in the fence into the field, then out into the road. However, I came to the 'small gap' only to find a fence taller than me where the gap should be. The first instinct is to assume that I had made a mistake, as this was the world championships, and there could be no chance that the map was wrong - maybe in some local competition, but not the World Champs! So I started to think about where I could be, but there was no other place I COULD be. Then I started to think maybe the race will be cancelled, or anybody with this problem can qualify to the final, maybe I should quit the race and complain. Then I decided to carry on. I tried to climb the fence, but I couldn't or changed my mind (I don't remember) and decided to take another route choice (you can see my route here)

Then the rest of the race I was really stressed and just thinking about this time loss, and how losing 30-40 seconds there could be the difference to qualifying or not. I therefore ran at maximum the rest of the race. This is not the ideal thing to do in the first of 2 races in a day! Actually, looking at the split times, I lost 42 seconds to the best, and I was 43 seconds behind in the end, in 10th place.

When I finished the race, I was so angry with the organisers, calling for the race to be cancelled and demanding to speak with the people in charge. Luckily my coaches managed to calm me, but there was also some problem with the results system, so I had no idea for 1 hour after I finished if I would qualify anyway, or if we would have to make a protest, or whatever. This meant I was really stressed, didn't refuel or recover as well as I should with only 4 hours before the final!

I can see now that there was nothing I could do, and I should have just continued as if it was normal - control the things that you can.

Well, I did qualify, but instead of being top 3 or 4 as I would have expected / hoped, I was 10th - starting earlier in the final, with less time to recover on top of the extra stress and exertion of the morning qualification. It is no surprise, therefore, that I was not able to get the best out of myself in the final. My 14th place is vindication that even with 'bad' preparation, I can still get a 'good' result, but I am far from happy with the performance or the result, and I put most of the blame not on the organisers of the qualification (although I am disappointed that such a mistake could happen at the world champs) but on myself and how I dealt with it.

Results

Anyway, then it was time for the middle!

Historically, this has been my weakest discipline, certainly internationally, but this year I have been running quite well, and I was confident to at least improve on my dnq, dnq and 26th from my previous attempts! The qualification was the toughest race of the week, both physically and technically, and I struggled after the physical challenge of 2 sprint races the day before. I made a big mistake on the 1st control, and Thierry caught me 2 minutes at the 4th control. I was just about able to stay in touch with him, and then towards the end I was able to stretch out a bit and finish before him to qualify comfortably, and about 1 1/2 minutes down on Nordberg. Then I could have 4 days rest before the final!

During those 4 days I was able to recover completely, and get in a couple of good sessions, so when the final arrived, I was back feeling good and ready to race. For the first time in middle at WOC, I was actually confident that I could get a top 10 with a good race, and I actually managed to have a really good race. I didn't chose all the best lines, but I didn't make any mistakes and was able to push hard, certainly in the second half of the race. As an 'early' starter, I was able to come through the arena and finish in the lead, but then I had to watch as runner after runner came in in front of me, and although I didn't manage to achieve my top 10, I was very close (16 seconds) and I felt I had performed to my ability on the day. 13th place and a good feeling - much better than 14th in the sprint!

Results

And then to the relay

After a year away, Jon Duncan had returned to the fight, joining myself and Scott in what we knew to be a very strong relay team. We knew that with 3 good races, anything could happen - as we proved in 2008! I was running the first leg, and followed the usual tactics - don't do anything stupid, don't lead unless you have to, use the other runners and run like hell at the end! I managed to have a good race, and with 1km I was hanging on the lead runners, and I decided that I wanted to push the pace a bit, so me and Khramov made a small lead, and I changed over 1m behind him in 2nd place. JD had another great WOC relay run to set Scott off with the leaders. He performed fantastically against the real best runners in the world to finish 4th! Another great day for the British team, to go with Scott's 6th place in the long distance.

Results

After WOC

After WOC I took the opportunity to explore Norway a little with some friends, so we drove from Trondheim to Oslo via lots of mountains, fjords and everything in between, seeing some amazing places and doing some good running.

London City Race

2010-09-23T19:03:00.004Z

At the weekend I took part in the 3rd London City Race. Every year it has been growing, and this year there were more than 750 people including more than 100 overseas runners taking part. The weather was perfect, and many people combined the race with a weekend in London, either sightseeing, or taking part in the race on Sunday as well (or both).

The race itself was really fun - a mixture of high speed, high concentration orienteering, and some parts in for the tourists! We warmed up over Tower Bridge, started at the Tower of London, ran past St Paul's Cathedral, the Gherkin, had a route choice over either Millenium Bridge or London Bridge, ran along the South Bank, past Borough Market, and even through London Bridge Underground station! The finish was on the bank of the river Thames, right by City Hall. And there were a lot of really difficult controls on multiple levels - lots of bridges and underpasses.

Results here

Routegadget

If you haven't been - make sure you go next year!

Park World Tour comes to Scotland

2010-09-16T13:48:00.003Z

Photo Scottishorienteering

For the first time since 2005, a major international race was held in Great Britain at the weekend. Athletes from around the world descended on Perth in Scotland to take part in the Park World Tour. Friday was the prologue, held at Scone Palace just outside Perth - it was a really tricky race with many controls and lots of changes of direction. I seemed to be the only one to keep it together and not make any big mistakes, and I was able to win by over 30 seconds.

Prologue results

Photo www.compasssport.co.uk

The final was held on Saturday in Perth city centre, to the amusement/bemusement of the local public out shopping. Another high quality race with loads of controls. Maximum concentration was required with almost every leg having some route choice or navigational challenge. There was no time to rest or plan ahead, and I made 2 big mistakes - one time I ran into the wrong passage, and another time I took the wrong route choice, and also couldn't find the same steps that I had just run up! My speed matched Oystein's, but he made fewer mistakes and deservedly took the victory. I was happy to take the second place.

Final results

Photo Scottishorienteering

The whole weekend was fantastic - run very professionally with international speaker Per Forsberg, big screen in the arena, light gate timing - the best event set up I have seen in Great Britain, or indeed in most countries! The courses were very good - challenging and contrasting, and the social atmosphere was also amazing, with entertainment including talks from several top runners and a ceilidh.

Bring on WOC 2015 in Scotland!

Maps with routes

Final

Prologue

Bronze in World Uni Champs middle

2010-07-22T20:15:00.003Z

Today I took a bronze medal in the World University Orienteering Championships middle distance in Sweden. I was really disappointed with my performance in the sprint (12th place), so I was eager to do well today. I actually had the worst possible start, losing almost 90 seconds on the 2nd control, but I ran well after that and climbed back up to 3rd place, about 1 minute behind Matthias Merz. Now I am looking forward to the relay competition tomorrow.

Photo David Rosen

First Individual World Cup Podium!

2010-06-24T09:32:00.002Z

It had been a long time coming, but I finally managed to take my first individual top 6 in a senior international race in Stockholm on Tuesday. The race was a new concept - a round based knock-out sprint with a straight qualification race and the quarter, semi and final races through the day.

My goal for the day was to qualify for the semi-final so that I had a chance to run in the streets of Gamla Stan (old town Stockholm). I ran a good qualification race with just one bad route choice to finish 7th. Then I managed to win my quarter-final in front of Hubmann, Novikov, Rost, Johansson and Kerschbaumer. In the beginning I just stayed behind the leader, and with 3 controls to go I moved to the front and ran flat out to the finish.

After a couple of hours rest it was time for the semi-final - up against Khramov, Muller, Weltzein, Haldin and Hubmann again! I felt I had nothing to lose and nobody would expect me to go through, and I had the same tactic as for the QF. I just ran behind Daniel and then ran like hell from the last control! I managed to pass Hubmann on the finish to win my SF as well!

Then it was really strange to have so much adrenaline and lactic acid, with only 45 minutes before the final. I was much more relaxed (maybe too relaxed) having surpassed my goals for the day, and already from the first metres of the final I was not feeling so strong - I think also Fabian was setting the fastest speed of the day, and I had some problems to follow him. The race was really cool, but I could not rely on my speed to pass the other runners, and after half the race I realised I needed to try some different route choices to have a chance to get a medal. I did this, but every time I reappeared in 5th place behind the other runners, and I was just run out of it at the end by some really strong athletes!

It feels slightly strange to have beaten the world's greatest orienteer 3 times in one day and not get a medal, but I am really satisfied with my performance, I gave 100% in every race and I had 4 almost perfect races. I really like the concept and I think it suits me well, especially in the urban environment, and I look forward to more competitions like it in the future.

My 5th place gives me lot of confidence for later in the year.

Photograph from British Orienteering.

Nordic O Tour World Cup and Jukola

2010-06-18T14:38:00.002Z

So last night was the first race in the Nordic Orienteering Tour, part of the 2010 World Cup. The concept was a 25 minute middle distance followed by a map change and a 15 minute sprint race in an urban forest and town just north of Helsinki.

My preparation wasn't ideal, with a meeting at university the day before, and arriving in Finland 10pm the night before the race, but I ran quite well without feeling fantastic. Only 2.02 behind the Hubmann but 17th place! The standard in the men's class is just so high - 45 guys in about 4 minutes! Another stable top 20 - want something a bit better next week.

Can see the tracking here and the results here

Now it is time for final preparations for Jukola. For the first time I am running for a British club - my new home club South Yorkshire Orienteers, based in Sheffield. We have talked about British clubs running for years, but finally this year we made it happen, and we have 3 mens teams and 2 womens teams taking part.

Both first teams are quite strong, with all national team runners (current or former). The men's team has 3 of the British 2010 WOC team, 1 of the 2010 JWOC team, and Jamie Stevenson as well! It will be really difficult to do well in Finnish forest at night, but we hope that a) we can be the best British team, b) we can get the best British team result ever (currently 43rd) and c) that we can be top 25 and get a plaque at the prize giving. I am running the last leg.

The team is sponsored by Inov8 and Smartwool.

Sun, dolphins and PBs in European Championships

2010-06-10T10:23:00.009Z

2010 European Championships, Primorsko, Bulgaria

So another championships is over, and I am feeling pretty satisfied with my work. PBs in every distance (by a long way in 2 of them), and 5 good performances out of 5. There is always room for a better race or a better result, but I would have taken this if offered 2 weeks ago.

I came into the championships with a niggle in my calf, so there was never any doubt that I would not run all 7 races, and I decided to drop the long, especially considering the hot, humid conditions.

The first race was the sprint qualification. I ran a good controlled race, apart from the 11th control which was on a boat! Didn't understand my description or the map, and punched a different control with a similar code, but recovered and qualified comfortably, 14 seconds behind the best. Really nice mixture of super-fast woodland, scrappy urban and sand dunes made for an interesting start to the week.

Results here

A couple of hours later the final took place in a really interesting venue - I have never done an international sprint race like it. There we good route choices, difficult controls in low visibility forest, very fast running on roads, and more sand dunes. I was satisfied with my performance, I made good route choices, and my only real time loss (other than the normal couple of seconds here and there) was on the 9th control where I was too busy looking ahead at the next control, and ran a line of buildings too far - lost about 15 seconds. I was really fast in the sand dunes in the end, taking quite a few places and finished 10th (but behind 6 Swiss!). Bodes really well for WOC and I consider this to be better than my 9th at WOC sprint '06.

Results here

I was really excited about the middle qualifier - I always enjoy the different stresses of qualification, and I thought this was going to be really interesting with difficult orienteering and lots of other runners everywhere. Actually, it was a lonely race as the qualifiers were very different and I hardly saw anybody. I again ran a safe race, pushed hard when I could, but really tried hard not to miss a thing, and I was really happy to be a minute down on the best of Thierry and Novikov.

Results here

After some last minute changes due to various injuries and illnesses, I was asked to run the last leg of the relay - something I have not done in an international since JWOC 2004! I was really nervous at the thought of going head to head with Merz, Novikov, Gueorgiou etc... - was more nervous than I usually get. Scott did the business on first leg, and Oli kept in touch with a really strong pack to send me out in14th just behind Novikov, Bortnik and Mamleev and with Osterbø and Krapivko. The pace was really fast immediately with Novikov and Mamleev stepping on the gas. For the first couple of controls, Osterbø and me just tucked in behind. As the gaffles started to hit, we also caught Haldin. On the 6th, Novikov had the shorter forking and got a little gap, but I really pushed it on the longer 8 and caught him again. I had a different gaffle to everyone around 8,9,10, but we all came back together for the spectator run through. I was right at the front of the group, but stopped for a drink so Novikov came past. I was feeling strong sat so sat on his tail up the hill to 16, then he had a different 17. We re-grouped on the way to 18, and I was no longer aware of Mamleev / Osterbø or anyone else. Running along the road to the second spectator, Novikov was looking over his shoulder and I could sense he didn't really want a race to the finish. I started to push the pace and took the front, then really kicked up the hill to the 3rd last. Really pushed the pace to the 2nd last and then gave it everything down to the last control. By this time Novikov was gone and he was looking over his shoulder for the next guys, so I could cruise into 8th place, but 6th nation and a new best ever result in the relay for GB at the European Champs!

That is probably physically and technically my best ever international race. I made maybe a 10 second mistake on the 10th control, but nothing apart from a couple of hesitations apart from that. I had 3rd fastest time on last leg after Merz and Gueorgiou. Looking forward to World Champs relay now!

Results here

Last race of my week was the middle final, and although I was mentally and physically tired (especially after the relay), I was determined to put in a good performance. My plan was to be as aggressive as possible and control the speed when necessary. The terrain was much easier technically than expected, and so it was more of a physical race, and I was struggling in the 2nd half to maintain my speed. I had a good race technically, although I am not sure I always took the best route choices with respect to the gullies and the green areas.

My 18th place is satisfying in some ways and frustrating in others. It was close to being my best middle distance performance at international level (definitely in a championships), so I am a little disappointed with the result, but on the other hand, it was quite an easy race and there are a lot of good guys! 1 minute faster would have been a top 6, and the way my body was feeling, I do think that on a different day I could have run that much faster even without taking out errors. Again it is really promising for World Champs, where the terrain will be tougher and more difficult.

Results here

World Champs Test Races

2010-05-17T10:28:00.003Z

So, 2 weeks before the European Champs and 3 months before the World Champs, we had our test races for the World Champs. A really good set of races in Glasgow, and up on the west coast of Scotland near Oban. I didn't really try and peak for these races, rather take them as preparation for the Europeans at the end of the month. I was really satisfied with my performances in the middle (2nd, 10 seconds down) and the long (3rd, 1.50 down), but not with my sprint race (2nd, 40 seconds down). Especially in the middle, I feld my orienteering was going really well, and with a couple of weeks taper, I hope to be in really good shape in Bulgaria.

Sprint routegadget results

Middle routegadget results

Long results, routegadget

I have been selected for middle and sprint for WOC - I was hoping for long and sprint.

British spring season building to a climax

2010-05-12T09:38:00.003Z

My spring domestic season entered its final week this week, with a trip down to the Harvester relay in Kent. The 'Jukola of British orienteering' - a 7 man night relay. Bit of an anti-climax after Tiomila, with about 50 teams in total, and not very many challenging for the victory. In fact, the trophy was ours to throw away, and quite a lot of the team did their best to try and do that, but in the end the might ShUOC managed to pull out a win despite letting a team 30 minutes down after leg 1 finish leg 6 20 seconds behind us. I ran the last leg and ran in winners by about 15 minutes. The B team also won their race so it was a successful day to end a very successful spring for ShUOC, with 3 wins from 3 in the relay league - JK, British and Harvester to complete an unprecedented treble and win the UK Relay league after South Yorkshire dominance for 3 years.

Results

This weekend is the test races for the World Champs team up in Scotland, sprint on Friday, then middle and long at the weekend up near Oban. Will be hard to beat last year...

Tiomila

2010-05-12T09:08:00.004Z

High hopes again this year for Lidingö, with many talking of us challenging the 'big 3'. Well it didn't quite work out that way, and 4 of the team will feel a little disappointed with their performances. We failed to get to the front early on, were not in the leading pack on long night, and from then on it was all chasing and overtaking the other teams dropping off. I ran the 8th leg, and went out in 14th place, a long way behind the leaders but with lots of teams not too far in front to chase. I ran really aggressively from the start, and picked up a number of teams. My orienteering wasn't quite clean enough, and I wasn't quite strong enough to pull away from the other runners though, and I ended up running in a bit of a pack with about 5 other teams. At the end though, I managed to get a small gap with the gaffling and managed to change over in 7th place, and I had the 3rd fastest time on my leg which was pretty satisfying. The last 2 boys held on to 7th, but it was a big ask to take any more places. The potential is there, and one day we will have a good team performance and the result will come.

UK Cup

Thanks to various people doing various things like not entering races, I managed to retain the UK Cup without running the final races :)

British sprint champion

2010-04-21T12:47:00.002Z

Photo Dave Rollins

On Sunday I retook the British Sprint title in Chorley. Scott Fraser wasn't there to defend his title, so I won by a big margin from Murray Strain and Matt Crane.

Really nice couple of races with fast but difficult orienteering in the qualifier, and then really fast high concentration orienteering in the afternoon.

Routegadget and results

On Saturday I was 2nd in the middle champs behind Oli Johnson. Good course on a great area, I threw it away on 2 controls.

Routegadget and results

Wheally nice mini o-tour taking in Devon, Cornwall, London and Nottingham

2010-04-12T15:15:00.012Z

So after the JK I went on a little tour round the south west, taking in Lynton, Lynmouth, Barnstaple, Lands End, Penzance among others.

I took part in a really fun race at Wheal Florence (map extract below) - an old tin mining strip. I enjoyed it so much I ran two courses.

Wheal Florence results 1, results 2

The next day there was a race at the Eden Project near St Austell. Part of the race was in the Biomes (bio-domes), so we were running through rainforest and 35 degree heat!

Eden project results

Then it was back to Surrey to finish off the map of Guildford that I am making for a city race there. Saturday I took part in the South East sprint championships, which turned out to be really fun! Maps below, I also took in a lap of Richmond Park which is one of my favourite places to run.

Race 1 results and routegadget

Race 2 results and routegadget

Yesterday to complete the tour, I took in the Nottingham City Race on my way back to Sheffield.

Nottingham city race results and routegadget

Selections have been released - I am selected for European Championships, Nordic World Cup Tour and World University Championships - it is going to be a busy summer!

Fun in the sun (and the mud)

2010-04-12T15:04:00.012Z

Pictures speak louder than words....

JK festival, Easter weekend, Devon.

3 races, 3 victories

Maps, results and routegadget below

Photo credits - Peter Guillaume, Wendy Carlyle, Christine Robinson

Sprint results and routegadget

Middle results and routegadget

Relay results

Disappointing season start

2010-04-12T15:01:00.003Z

The first elite races of the year were held up in Scotland, and I had high hopes after a good winter training. Unfortunately things did not go to plan, and I felt heavy legged before they even began - perhaps indicative of the the tough nature of the terrain and the quantity of training I have been doing. The middle distance was no disaster, finished 4th, 1 minute down on Scott, but I was disappointed with how I felt and how many small mistakes I made.

Touch routegadget and results

The classic never got going for me really. I made bad route choices and was scrappy, and I was off the pace from the start. Tough motivationally at the start of a long season, and only 4 days to pick myself up before the JK

Trossachs routegadget and results

Student Champs

2010-03-18T10:18:00.002Z

It's that time of year again when the British domestic season really starts. Only 8 days until our first test race, 2 weeks until the Easter JK festival, and a month until the British Championships. The first major test was the University Championships, which were down in the Forest of Dean. A lot of the top British guys were there, including 3 of last years WOC team - so a decent field, and my first time running for Sheffield Hallam University.

My preparation was pretty mixed - while I wanted to do well and I was really motivated on the day, I didn't want to sacrifice my training for the upcoming season, so I didn't rest at all in the days before the race. I also decided to drive to the race on the day - almost 3 hours each way - not the best pre-race preparation!

I had last start, 2 minutes behind Fraser, so I set off pretty quick! I thought he might sweep up the runners in front of him, leaving me to have lonely race, but I caught and passed a couple of runners, and when I came to the spectator control I was about 30 seconds down on Scott in 2nd place. I ran pretty fast after that for a few controls, catching Matt Halliday. Then I started to get some pain in my stomach and some cramping, and the course became more physical. I also started to get some fatigue in the quads - too many squats in the gym! Anyway, the last 2km I lost 2 1/2 minutes to Scott - I was tired and stared making some stupid small mistakes, so I ended 2nd place, 3 minutes behind!

Results here

Routegadget here

Still, my best ever performance in this competition after 4th in 2003, 3rd in 2004 and 3rd in 2005. Must be time for a win next year then....

I didn't stick around for the relay (I didn't have a team) or party, back home to sort my stomach out and back into training the next day.

Tomorrow I am travelling up to Scotland for 10 days, taking in a SEDS weekend, then a camp with the national team leading up to our first test races and World Ranking Event in the Trossachs - should be fun! The Trossachs have almost a mythical quality in British orienteering - fantastically physical and technical - the contour interval seems to be 10m even though it is 5, and running under 10 minutes per km is a good achievement.

Inspiration

2010-03-05T20:35:00.010Z

Very early season

2010-02-01T20:23:00.003Z

So January has been a really good training month for me. It is hard to compare with last year when I spent the whole month in Dullstroom in South Africa, but here is a comparison anyway!

January 2009

55okm running, 55 hours aerobic training, 6 hours strength and conditioning

January 2010

390km running, 40 hours aerobic training, 14 hours strength and conditioning

Quite a contrast! A huge amount more of my training this year has been in the gym and in terrain, and so my average running speed has been lower and I have run less kilometers. This is a big change in emphasis as I prepare for WOC in Trondheim which I think will be a lot more about leg strength and less about running speed. My plan is to increase the running hours a little in February and March, and maintain the strength training at about 4 hours each week.

We had one amazing training camp in the Lake District with a really good group of athletes - there was some ice and snow, and the forests were really tough and slow!

Couple of maps below from that, as well as from a couple of local recent races.

Northern Champs this weekend, we had a middle on Saturday at Beeley and a long at Big Moor.

Middle results, routegadget

Long results, routegadget coming soon...

Last weekend results, routegadget

Lakes training

I claim dodgy map and gps signal!

Northern Champs middle

Last orienteering of 2009

2009-12-28T16:08:00.005Z

Today I ran my last 'race' of the year, a local event put on by my home club, Mole Valley. I had good memories of the area from the last time I ran there about 10 years ago, and the area lived up to expectation. Really nice forest and a good course.

This is the end to a mixed year - the highs being top 10s in the World Champs Long and World Cup Final, and lows being missing NOC and World Games through sickness.

I started the year living in Stockholm, and now I live in Sheffield. After 1 term of my Masters degree, I am already enjoying it more than my previous degree, and I look forward to carrying that on in 2010. I am also enjoying Sheffield life, with plenty of training in the beautiful Peak District - perfect physical training for Trondheim!

For the first time in 4 years, I am not going to South Africa in January, instead I have 2 exams, and assignment, a training camp in the Lake District and lectures to look forward too. I am off to Portugal though, for POM and NAOM in February.

I have finally drawn my routes on the maps from the Sheffield City race, which was probably the best orienteering I did in the UK this year (although there were some really good races!).

Routegadget for prologue here and final here

Here are the maps from today.

Venice and a quick catch-up

2009-11-19T16:27:00.002Z

Been a while since my last post and I have been busy!

In the last 2 months I have found a new place to live and started my degree. I am now sharing a house with Marcus Pinker (Irish number 1) in Broomhill in Sheffield, and I am taking an MSc in Sport and Exercise Science at Sheffield Hallam University.

Winter training has started well, and I have a really good program in place including strenght and conditioning at the performance centre at Hallam University.

I have been doing a little bit of orienteering too (not much!). Winning street orienteering races in Cambridge and Oxford. I also went to Venice last weekend. Unfortunately I was a little sick in the week before, so I wasn't quite in best shape, but I was satisfied with my 5th place, about 2.40 down on Mamleev. Not bad for a rookie in the streets of Venice.

This weekend I am doing my last race of the year, the Sheffield City Chase which should be really exciting! Sheffield is my new home, but I haven't explored it much yet, so hopefully I will know it a little better after the weekend.

Some other exciting new developments include a new job - lead coach of South Yorkshire Orienteers - probably the most successful club in the country, and last night voted Sports Club of the Year at the South Yorkshire sports awards, and a couple of new sponsors who I will write about soon.

And that's the end of that chapter....

2009-09-20T15:58:00.003Z

My new playground

On Tuesday I moved out of my flat in Sweden and headed back to the UK. After 2 years in Stockholm it is time for a change, and I will now be living in Sheffield. Sheffield is the home of outdoor sport in England, and I think it will be a great place to prepare through the winter, both physically and technically. Close by is the Peak District, with endless hilly terrain running. The Lake District is only 2 hours away, and being right in the middle of England, I will be well positioned to travel to races. There are also many other top orienteers living in Sheffield, and I look forward to training hard with them.

I will start a part time Masters degree in Sport and Exercise Science at Sheffield Hallam University on Monday, and I will do some part time work as well (coaching and mapping).

WOC Long Distance top 10!

2009-08-25T10:47:00.002Z

The culmination of the World Champs this year was the long distance. 17.5km with 750 metres of climbing, and some big route choices. This was the race I was really aiming for this year, and after my great qualification race I was relatively confident that at least my fitness was good enough for a top result. It also meant that I was starting 3rd from last, with only Thierry and Baptiste after me. Realistically, I was always expecting to see one or both of them, and I managed to stay in front for more than 50 minutes. To be honest, when Thierry catches you and you have the same butterflies, it would be more than a little stupid to ignore him - my speed definitely increased after then. I had no problem to run at the same speed as him though, and passing through the spectator control with 2.5km to go, I understood that I had a chance for top 10. I could not stay with Thierry after that though, and he was out of sight on the steep rocky slope to number 30. I really gave everything I had, and I don't really know how I found the last couple of controls! The tough climbs were a killer, but it seems like others had even more problems than I did, and I actually took some places on the last loop, despite feeling like I was going backwards.... As I sprinted into the finish, I heard that I was running to 9th place!

Before the championships, my goal had been top 20. After the qualification, I had small dreams for a top 10, but it was still unbelievable to actually do it. I had a good race technically, losing some time to the 5th (lost focus while taking a gel), and then a couple of little wobbles towards the end (24, 26 and 31).

This was a really nice end to WOC week, after a mediocre sprint race, and a decent run in the relay. I am really happy for Thierry that he took his first medal in the long - he really deserved it after both the problems in the relay last year, and also his selfless act in the relay this year. I will be cheering for France in the relay in Trondheim (after GB of course!).

Results here

My route is shown here - although it is not exactly right in some places!

Will scan some maps in soon with my routes

Photo Richard Baxter

World Champs Relay

2009-08-22T07:14:00.003Z

The Dream Team! (In a couple of years...)

It was always going to be tough to live up to last year, and I think that it shows how incredible last years performance really was. Matt performed pretty well to come back just over a minute down, but then me and Scott were taught a lesson in just how fit you need to be to fight for medals. Both of us felt good for long parts of the race, and were fighting with some top teams, but as the courses got more physical and the race was coming to a climax, both of us struggled physically on the tough climbs. I started really well, and after 35 minutes running I could still see Francois Gonon in front of me (who came back 1st on the leg). But then the last 20 minutes I had problems on the seemingly endless climbs, one after another, and not only that, coming off the climbs I was in oxygen debt so 3 or 4 times I made small mistakes 15-30 seconds. I changed over 9th, 3.59 behind. I had the 8th fastest time on my leg, 54.51 to Prochazka's 51.55. I should have run about a minute and a bit quicker to be satisfied with my race, but I don't have the physical capacity yet to run like the leaders (although I am getting closer!).

Scott had a tough day against all the big boys, and we finished 9th (but that doesn't include the 4 teams involved in the 'stick incident').

Results here

Map when I get home

World Champs Sprint

2009-08-22T07:08:00.002Z

17th place. Disappointing. Had high hopes before the race, but blew all my chances at the second control. My route choice was fine, but my execution was terrible - I didn't have a clear way to find the control, either I should have run down the fence to the corner, or aimed off to the left. Anyway, 30 seconds gone. Ran well after that except for running down one dead end corridor in the zoo (a popular mistake) which cost about 10 seconds. Was 32 seconds from the podium. 17th is by no means a bad result, but I know my potential is so much higher.

Map on routeagadget here

Photo Richard Baxter

Sprint Qualification

2009-08-20T09:54:00.002Z

No problems this morning during the sprint qualifier. I was confident before, and I qualified comfortably without pushing my hardest. Really nice terrain, all forest but mostly open beech forest. Quite a lot of short sharp climbs, couple of tricky controls in the green but everything went well. I caught Christian Teich at the 13th control and we raced the last part a little together.

Results here

WOC Long Qualification

2009-08-17T13:40:00.003Z

I started my 2009 World Champs campaign today with the long distance qualification. After a frustrating spring - missing most of the Nordics and the World Games through illness - I was excited and nervous. I had a great winter training, but two illnesses this spring and early summer set me back, and I was unsure how my shape would be in the championships. I had a great start draw - second last, starting with Tero Föhr and Martin Johansson, and it was a good boost to be able to run parts of the course with them. The courses were quite close, so I saw a lot of them. Coming to the spectator control, Martin was just in front, and they announced he was leading his heat, so I was confident I was running well, and although the speaker didn't say anything about me, Dave Rollins told me I was right on the pace. After that I was a little more relaxed, running really well, apart from 2 controls. The 15th I didn't understand the green area at all, and I thought I was to the left of the control - I turned right and was searching for 30 seconds before I realised I had turned the wrong way. I ran back to see Simonas Krepsta (started 2 minutes before me) coming in. I had passed him at number 7, but my mistake allowed him to catch me again. I lost around 1.20 at the 15th, and after that we ran together. We were both hesitant at 17 - I didn't understand the shape of the ground, and lost 20 seconds. Then I was chasing him to the finish. When I took the last control, Dave shouted to take it easy, that I was safe, so I jogged into the finish, happy that I would be maybe number 5-10 in the results, but as I came to the line, the speaker said I had a new leading time! It turns out I was also leading at the spectator control. A real surprise and a good confidence boost for the week.

It felt like I had an almost perfect first loop, maybe losing 20 seconds on direction out of number 4. I was running fast and clean. After the spectator control I was more relaxed, and maybe a little too relaxed for 15 and 17. Total time loss around 2 minutes, but really happy with the physical shape and obviously the result! Probably my best international result to date, and certainly if you discount my sprint results.

I am realistic enough to know that a good race today does not equal a good race in the final, and that a top 10 result is still going to be really tough, but I am also happy and confident after today's race.

Respectable day for the team, Scott ran well and Sarah and Helen B made it too.

Results here

Cheesy photos below courtesy of Steve Hale

Post race interview

New leading time!

Proud team mates

Poser

Karst master (?)

2009-08-04T16:47:00.009Z

After a disrupted spring season with too much illness and not enough competition, I decided quite late to go to the Karst Cup in Slovakia - partly as it is a little relevant for World Champs, and partly just to do some good races in some cool terrain. It was a really fun competition, really fantastic (hot) weather, and some good other runners to race. We were staying in the same hotel as some Norwegian WOC runners, and there were also runners from Hungary, Finland, Slovakia and Czech racing. Not all the best runners were running every day, and some were just taking the competition as training. I was trying to get a good feeling after a long period without racing, and my goal was to push each day a little harder than the last. That plan lasted about 15 minutes! Just after the 4th control on day 1 I twisted my ankle quite badly - enough so that every step was hurting, but not enough to stop. I continued, but really carefully - especially on the downhill and stony parts. I lost around 6 minutes on this day, maybe 1-2 minutes from mistakes with 72 minutes. In the evening Pippa and I did a sprint training. Day 2 was probably my best day technically. I ran well with maybe 1 mistake of 30 seconds, and then 1 bad route choice on a long leg, and I was 2 minutes behind Krepsta after 72 minutes.

Days 3 and 4 were away from the Karst terrain, and hour north in 'Slovakian Paradise' which was really steep and rocky - very technical and physical terrain, and a little Norwegian. Day 3 was a middle distance, and for the first time I was trying to push really hard. I made a couple of small mistakes, but the big problem was looking after my ankle in the rough terrain, and I was a little under 2 minutes behind Weltzein. In the evening, Pippa and I did a training in an open/green karst terrain which was really different to anything I have done before - awesome!

Day 4 was a chasing start, and I was 2nd off after Krepsta (who actually went home and didn't start) and chasing me was Weltzein. Unfortunately Audun had problems with his ankle tape and quit! So I ran alone and took the trophy :). I was satisfied with my race. I ran around 66 minutes and was 3.30 behind Carl Waaler Kaas. I missed maybe 1-2 minutes.

Overall a really nice training camp - good terrain, good maps, good courses. Swam in some lakes, saw some nice mountains and ate lots of nice food. Won some good prizes too!

Maps and photos below.

Results here

On the run in day 4 (Mišo Krajčík - also photo above)

Tatra mountains

Me and Pippa in the Tatras

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Cool different karst training area

Day 4 - tough and rocky!

Sat at home watching the World Games

2009-07-17T08:59:00.002Z

Not where I want to be really - I would much rather be in Chinese Taipei with the Great Britain team racing round parks and museum gardens. After my test race victories, I took a few easy days, did a little mapping work etc, but somewhere along the line I picked up another cold. The tough weekend combined with some stressful events during the week must have lowered my immune system enough so that by Friday/Saturday I was feeling really rough. On Saturday I was lucky enough to be at Matt Crane and Grace Elson's wedding in Sheffield, but all I could do on Sunday was drive back to my parents house, drop out of the team and get into bed.

So far this year has had 2 major international championships, the Nordics, where I was sick, and now World Games, and I am sick again. Hopefully I will not make it a hattrick for the World Champs....

My plans are now simplified, I will return to Sweden when I feel better, take part in the Swedish Sprint Champs, then 2 weeks before WOC I will take part in the Karst Cup in Slovakia which I feel will be a relevant challenge for the Hungarian forests. Then I will finalise my preparations back in Stockholm (trying not to get sick!).

UK Cup final and WOC test races

2009-07-06T14:44:00.010Z

This weekend was the last round in the UK Cup, with sprint, middle and long races which were also the test races for the British team for the World Championships in Hungary. The races were held in the Forest of Dean, near South Wales. The terrain is quite relevant for Hungary, although the vegetation and mapping in some areas made finding controls tricky and possibly resulted in all runners making more mistakes than usual.

Friday was a forest sprint like Hungary will be, although it was probably too 'foresty'. Everybody made a lot of mistakes, but I ran quite well, taking my time to read the map and not make mistakes. I passed Scott Fraser already at the second control, but he caught me again at 5 when I overshot slighty, and we ran some of the race together. I was in front until 10, when I rushed and didn't take the time to read the map, and he was ahead until 14, when he tried to run straight through the undergrowth (big mistake). I won by 40 seconds, and I estimate I lost 30 seconds, 10 at number 5, and 20 at number 10.

The middle distance was similar to the sprint, with most runners making mistakes. Again I managed to minimise my time loss, and took the victory, only 14 seconds ahead of Speakey. I was really hesitant to the first control, and indeed round the first loop, and I lost around 45 seconds on number 6, and at the 6th control I was 1 minute behind the fastest (but a lot of people lost more!). Then I ran quite well except for small misses at 12 (misread the vegetation crossing the track and lost ~20 seconds), 15 (control was on the same level as 14 in reality, so was too low!) and 16 (deep bracken made contours hard to read and flag very hard to see). At 16 I was 1 minute behind Speakey, but from there to the finish I ran almost perfectly, and I won the long leg and the tough uphill leg to 22 taking a lot of time out of most runners.

Sunday was the long distance, perhaps the race I had been most looking forward too. I was a little worried that my recent illness might affect me most in this race, but I felt strong until almost the very end. My focus was on really reading the map well, trying to avoid the undergrowth and find eady ways into the controls, and really push the pace on the longer legs when I could. I started quite well, and took the lead from the 2nd control. I lost around 15 seconds at the 3rd, when I stopped a little early and the control was a little hidden in bracken, and I lost 45-60 seconds at the 4th, when my route choice took me into a part of the map which I don't think had been updated recently. The open area never finished and I ended up running much further down the fence than planned. I had a nice line into the control though, and although I didn't see him, I heard my 3 minute man, Speakey running away from 4. I caught sight of him coming out of 6, although I didn't get close to him until much later. Wobbled a little on 8, then had a slightly bad patch through 10-15. I didn't really make mistakes, but I was just hesitant and slow reading the map, and I lost maybe 1.30 through that section to the best.

I don't know if my route to 16 was the best, but I won the split, passed Matt Crane and caught sight of Speakey again. From there to the finish I gained on him, taking a better route to 20, so that I punched 22 just after him, but I had nothing to beat him into the finish.

Another victory, 2 minutes ahead of a very impressive run from 21yr old Rhodri Buffet, and 3 mins in front of Speakey.

3 races, 3 wins, selected for my preferred races at WOC which are sprint, long and relay.

And I won the UK Cup for the first time since 2005 with 4 wins and 2 seconds.

Results and splits from the weekend here

UK Cup website here (not updated as of writing this)

WOC selections here

The only orienteer in Stockholm

2009-06-13T15:16:00.002Z

At least that is what it feels like this weekend. While the orienteering world descends on Finland for Jukola, I am sat at home trying to get over the virus that has been affecting me for almost a month now. After a 2 week illness, I tried to prepare for the Nordic Championships, but it was too much too soon - I managed to run ok in the relay, but I was a little off the pace, but in the middle my body did not respond at all. Running on the flat felt bearable, but as soon as there was a climb, my heart rate rocketed, my breathing got worse and I just could not get enough oxygen into my body or brain. I don't remember feeling so bad as I did in the last kilometers of the Nordics middle distance - running up out of the spectator control I had big problems, and at the top of the hill I had no idea where I was or what I was doing. Before I knew what I was up to, I had come off the hill in completely the wrong direction, and my body refused to run any more. I didn't want to quit, so I walked and jogged the rest of the course.

After the race I had a headache and felt pretty rough mentally and physically, and I made the decision to skip the sprint, go home and forget about Jukola. Now I am just concentrating on letting my body recover, just doing some easy training, not thinking about fast running for a week or two. My next goal is the WOC test races in 3 weeks, but if my body is not ready, well, we will see....

Really disappointing after some really positive performances in the last months, I obviously picked up something pretty serious after the British champs around the time of the Hungary camp.

Change of plan

2009-06-02T13:58:00.002Z

After a fantastic training camp in Hungary after the British Champs, where the forests were beautiful and the weather sunny, I have now been sick for the last two weeks, including 6 days in bed with really bad flu. I have finally started to recover, and I did my first fast training last night at a club sprint race. With the Nordics and other championships fast approaching, it is not the ideal time to get sick, but it could be worse. I have therefore decided to not run the long at NOC on Saturday, and will focus my energies on the relay, middle and sprint, and then on Jukola after where my club has a really strong chance of a great result.

There is a real new look to the British team for NOC, with no Jamie Stevenson or Jon Duncan to lead the line. We still have a strong team though, with good competition for places in the relay teams. I will probably be running the second leg in the first team on Sunday.

At the weekend I took a boat cruise out into the Stockholm archipelago.

Triple Silver

2009-05-24T12:31:00.002Z

3 British Champs silvers in 8 days. Long, sprint and middle. Frustrating. Looking positively, it is a good indicator that I am running well and performing in some important competitions, but I also had the chance to win all 3, and threw them all away with small mistakes. In all 3 the margins were small, and I will try and improve before the international season begins.

Maps u

I have been selected for the Nordics team

Sprints results here, routegadget here for qual and here for final - cool area and good courses

Middle results here, routegadget here - cool area and cool course

13 seconds from gold in British Long Champs

2009-05-08T15:24:00.003Z

Sunday was the British Long Distance Champs in the Forest of Dean in South West England. I was confident of a good result, and I had prepared well for the race. Unfortunately I didn't understand the map from the start, and I missed the first and second controls, so I was already 2.30 behind after 2 short legs. I then ran as hard as I could and really well for most of the course, and I was in the lead for the first time at the 17th control after 50 minutes. I then lost 1 minute on each of the 19th and 21st controls, again not understanding the mapping style in that area. I finished the race really strongly, and although on the loop after the spectator control I took almost a minute on Oli, it wasn't quite enough and he beat me by 13 seconds. Frustrating!
He also made a lot of mistakes, and it was amazing how close it ended, but nobody went round the course cleanly - it was that sort of area/map.
Another silver! Getting to be too much of a habit these days. But congrats to Oli. Middle and Sprint champs this weekend for revenge.

Map on Routegadget, with my route for part 1
Map of part 2, route when it lets me

Results
Splits

In the dark at Tiomila

2009-04-22T19:19:00.005Z

After 7manna, I stayed in Skåne until Tiomila with some Italian and Swiss runners. We spent some time close to Tiomila terrain, taking part in Elitserien and a night competition during the week, but also some time in åhus close to Kristianstad on the east coast. It was the first time I had been there, and it was a nice contrast from some of the rough Skånsk forests to run in the perfect sand dunes there.
But soon enough it was time to come back to Perstorp for the big one. Confidence was high in the Lidingö camp, and despite a slight scare when Emil had a small cold in the build up, all the team were in good form to fight for a top place. I ran the 7th leg, and before me the team had all run perfectly. We had been close to the top all night, and I started in 9th place, 3 minutes down on the leaders, but Fredrik Löwegren who ran the 6th passed on the info at changeover that he had had longer forkings so mine would be shorter. I started just behind Södertälje and I had his back to the first controls, but then as I took a different route choice to the 3rd, I was running along in the forest when my lamp cut out and I was in the dark. Not good. After some playing around with the lamp, I continued on my reserve lamp, a really small LED lamp powered by a single AAA battery. Not ideal, but I knew that I had no choice but to get round the course and lose as little time as possible. I ran 10 controls and half the race like that, and luckily I was able to change lamps running through the arena, so I finished the race with a strong lamp and very stressed.
I lost around 8 minutes to the leaders, and a little more on the best on the leg, but unbelievably I actually gained 1 place!
Jonn Are and Klaus ran really well after me to set Emil out in 6th place, and despite not having a great race, he was only passed by 2 world champions near the end to give the team a pretty respectable 8th place. Bittersweet - decent result, but with so much time lost on my leg, who know what could have happened if Emil had had the chance to fight for a medal.

I have written about my race in much more depth on my training log here

In other news -

I have been selected for the GB team to travel to the World Games in July, and I hit the top spot in the Great Britain ranking list for the first time!

Swedish Eliteseries kicks off

2009-04-22T18:55:00.003Z

So last week Elitserien, the premier elite series in Sweden, kicked off in Skåne. First up was a middle distance with a chasing start based on a qualification race the day before. I really like the concept, but I don't feel this race worked very well in the circumstances. There were 260 guys entered, running a straight qualification for 40 places, which meant that while qualifying should be no problem for the top guys, it was obvious that the time differences were always going to be really small. I was disappointed with my qualification race, making lots of small mistakes, and I ended up 26th, only 2.37 behind, but 40 guys finished in 3.20! That meant the chase was really manic, and around me people were started nearly every second. Unfortunately the chase developed very much into a running race. Maybe at the front runners were trying different routes to win, but around me, everybody was just running in a line on the same route choice as the man ahead, and just trying to run past people. I decided early that while this might be the best way to get a result, that any result would really be meaningless in the context of my season. Therefore as early as the first control I tried to do my own thing. I took different route choices to the pack on the 1st (bad, lost time), 5th (bad, lost time), 12th (very good, took quite a lot of places) and 19th (very bad, the 'dry white strip' turned out to be knee deep marsh, so I lost a lot of time, and maybe 10-12 places). Finishing the race I felt very frustrated, my tactics were not conducive to a good result, and while I ran a very good race technically, I did not get the result I wanted.

Qualification map
Final map

Sprint race

Later in the week was the second race of Elitserien, and after the middle distance, I was keen to get a good performance and result under my belt before Tiomila. This race was a sprint race in Helsingborg, and a quick look at the start list showed that this was more than just a normal Elitserien race - many top runners from around Europe were in town for Tiomila, and using this as a warm up. I was really pumped up for this race, more so than any other race this year I would say, and I really put a lot of effort in.

I started well, taking a good, but safe route to the first, and I took the 2nd well also. I made a poor decision not to run through the field to the 3rd, and lost a few seconds there, but the 4th and 5th were perfect. To the 6th control I never even saw the route out by the sea, and at the end I made a poor decision to run down through a really rough area rather than run a little further and through the white. I also lost around 7-8 seconds here. But most importantly I caught sight of my minute man, Mats Haldin. He was still a long way in front, but I had certainly gained a lot of time on him. I ran through the spectator control and the speaker said I was around 15-20 seconds behind Wingstedt, and I really tried to push the pace on the long flat section after that. I took a good route to the 9th, and I could see Mats a little more than a control ahead in the forest area - close enough for me to really drive, but not enough to be helpful finding the controls. The extra motivation obviously worked as I won the splits to the 10th, 11th and 12th controls. I wasn't sure about the route choice to the 14th, but I could see Mats about 200m ahead on the road, so I used that information to confirm my route choice decision. He was much to far ahead to catch, but I ran strongly through the last few controls - I knew I had run really well and gave everything to the line, and crossed in 3rd place only 12 seconds behind Wingstedt! My last loop had been really strong, taking 10 places, and after I finished only Kramov came in in a faster time, to give me a 4th place, and my best ever result in Elitserien.

I was really pleased to have only lost 18 seconds to the World Champion, and most of that on the 2 small route choice errors in the beginning. That was the feeling I wanted to get before Tiomila, a really good indicator that my training has been going as well as I thought.

Results

Victory in 7manna

2009-04-11T18:34:00.002Z

Lidingö's preparation for Tiomila has started to go really well, with podium places in the last two relays in Måsen and Rånäs, and now we went one step better and won 7manna, only a week before the big one. Many of the teams we were racing were not at full strength, but we were missing a couple of runners too, and although not everyone performed as well as they would hope to next week, we managed to take victory by about 3 minutes.
I ran the 3rd leg (the longest night leg), and I was satisfied with my race, starting in a pack from 2-10th around 4 minutes behind the leaders, and I came in in 3rd place, with 2nd place, only 1.10 behind the leaders. The forest was very scrappy, with lots of fallen trees, and it was often hard to run in a straight line. I lost little bits of time here and there but I didn't make any big mistakes more than 20 seconds. I ran most of the race with Christian Christiansen from Göteborg.
The boys on the day legs ran well and got away from the others to leave us with a comfortable victory - and our girls won too!

Results

Rånässtafetten

2009-04-06T10:17:00.003Z

Nice 5 man relay in Upplands. Lidingö had a strong team, but we had no chance against the impressive OK Linné team, who finished a massive 10 minutes in front of us! We were 3rd though, not far behind a pretty good Kalevan Rasti team.

My race was ok, but not as good as it should have been. I ran the 2nd leg, went out in 9th, at the 4th control I had run to the lead, but on the second half of the race I was really scrappy - I never lost more than 25 seconds on any control, but I lost 10-20 seconds a lot. Came back in 3rd, around 2 minutes behind the leader, and was about 1 minute down on the best time on my gaffle, but I would have liked to have been 2 minutes quicker maybe.

Results and splits

This week in 7manna and then Elitserien down south, then some preparation before Tiomila. Time to do some night training :)

Lännasprinten

2009-04-04T16:19:00.002Z

Ran a nice short/middle distance today up near Uppsala. Was really happy with my race both technically and physically. Finished second, 40 seconds behind Jan Troeng.

I love these smaller elite races, perfect technical training with good competition, good prizes and could even sunbathe!

Results and splits

Third place in Måsenstafetten

2009-03-30T13:03:00.002Z

Yesterday I ran in my first competition of the Swedish season, Måsenstafetten. A five man relay competition down near Nyköping, about 90 minutes south of Stockholm. Lidingö decided to field 2 even teams, and there was a mix of good clubs doing the same, but also some with their strongest team. All 5 legs ran about 8km, and after 2 legs my team was doing quite badly, already 8 minutes behind the lead! Legs 3 and 4 ran well though, and I went out on last leg about 2 minutes behind Holmberg in 2nd, 45 seconds behind Emil in 3rd for our other '1st team'. I started 2 seconds before Skogtjärn and 45 seconds before Millinger. I ran well to the first control, and caught Emil who missed a little. Then I had a longer gaffle than him and Skogtjärn to the second. I followed them towards their control then had to go further east to mine, so they were both out of sight on the way to the 3rd (which Emil missed and I got in front). Running across to the 5th control I could see Holmberg and Millinger about 100m in front, so I knew 2nd place was up for grabs! I really stupidly pushed really hard to catch them, and followed them in overshooting the 6th control. I ran within 5m of it, then ran 100m too far, turned round to see Emil punching it and running away. Ran well to the 7th, different route to the other 4 guys, but then to the 8th, 9th and 10th we were all pretty close (with some small gaffling).

The 10th control was a common radio, and Holmberg took it just before me and Emil. Then he had an extra control and me and Emil ran away up the hill to our 11th. He was running real fast and I struggled to stay in control, so I let him get a small gap. Unfortunately I couldn't close it again! He had a different 13th, and after I plunged into the cold green marsh I didn't see him again. I dropped 10 seconds on the 14th control with a dumbass route, and he was out of sight. All the other boys were out of sight behind so cruised into the finish to take 3rd.

Cool the have 2nd and 3rd places for our teams! And our 2 'even' teams only finished 32 seconds apart. It was an awesome relay training to be up against 3 Swedish internationals and one of the best last leg runners in the country pushing on the last leg.

I took second fastest time of the day, but 2 minutes behind Peter 'local hero' Öberg!

Only disappointment was how far ahead Södertälje were

Results

Back in snowy Sweden

2009-03-08T14:50:00.004Z

Finally I'm back home after more than 2 months away training in South Africa and England. It's good to be back, even if it means lots of running in the snow. I have got back into some really good technical training (some maps below), and some British juniors came out for a long weekend to get some experience in Scandinavia. As well as some tough orienteering training, we also had time to do some night sledging on the Lidingo ski slope and have a bit of a birthday party.

Last week I did an interview for an outdoor gear website, you can read it here.

Labyrinth Orienteering

This interesting sounding training was as complicated as it looked. 75 minutes to score as many points as possible, 1 point for a red control, 2 for blue, 3 for green. Double points if you are the first to a control (it was a mass start). Minus 1 point for each time you cross a 'wall', and for every minute late. I was RUBBISH. The map was old and the vegetation was out of date, but that is no excuse. I started really fast and made a huge parallel error trying to be the first to the green control. I crossed about 5 walls on the way there! After that was much better, once I had relocated, and I only touched a wall once by accident and once on purpose on the way back when I was running out of time.

Really cool training, but I was pathetically bad!

I ran this course from last years club night champs with Jonn Are, nice medium intensity training in quite an urban forest.

Today I ran in the Vinterserien race in Nacka - one of my favourite places to run in Stockholm. Really beautiful terrain, pretty nice course. I made one mistake at number 10 - the control was really tucked away and I ran right past it. Apart from that pretty happy.

UK Cup race 1 and British Relay Championships

2009-03-03T08:50:00.007Z

The very early British season continued this weekend with the first elite races of the year. First up was the first UK Cup race, the British equivalent of Eliteseries, including all the top races like the JK and the British Champs, and some stand alone races like this. It also doubled as a junior cup race, so there was some pride at stake there too!
The race was held at Hampton Ridge in the New Forest, which is an absolutely beautiful place, but could never be accused of having the most challenging orienteering terrain. The main challenges were understanding how the gorse bushes were mapped (failed utterly at the first control and lost 1.30), keeping direction across featureless heathland, and working out which of the many small parallel ditches are the one which is marked on the map.
After the first couple of controls, I had a close to perfect race, and I was able to push the pace quite well. Towards the end, I caught Peter Hodkinson, one of the top juniors at the moment (he had a pretty good race, less than 3 minutes down!), but I couldn't run away from him, and a tactical falling flat on my face in the mud at the last control meant I didn't have to sprint finish against him :)
I managed to take the victory, but Duncan ran really well until the last part when he was a bit scrappy and let me back in. Great to see the juniors doing so well!
Results

Sunday was the British Relay Championships - the first weekend in March! Bit early for some, and the start list was weaker than previous years. The timing of the race affected my club too, with several of our best runners unable to come. Unfortunately my training mate from when I was back in the UK, Jules Simpson, hasn't been training quite as he used to, but he was doing a decent job on first leg until the technical green area towards the end when he dropped almost 5 minutes! He came back in 15th, 7 minutes behind the rampant favourites, South Yorkshire and Nick Barrable. Matt Halliday, our rising star and junior team member, ran really well to bring us up to 7th place, and in a pack up to fourth place. I started fast, and quickly myself and the South London runner, Ralph Street (another really fast junior!) were running away from the other guys in the pack. We ran at a high speed, and pretty accurately too, and half way we caught the 3rd team (although actually Thames Valley were actually 3rd at that stage, they were ineligible with a foreign runner, Bertuks, in their team). Coming back into the woodland, and the technical green area, I was able to get a gap to Ralph, and caught up with Bertuks at the second last control. Again a tactical tripping over my own feet meant I didn't have to do a sprint finish, although to be honest the effort I put in to catch Bertuks over the last 2km meant I had absolutely nothing in the tank as he sailed up the hill to cross the line. Luckily (for us) they were not allowed to take a prize, so Octavian Droobers took their first relay medal in a couple of years (we won in 2003, and have taken one bronze since then I think, but apart from that it has been a lean couple of years). British Champs bronze to start the year - pretty good! South Yorkshire were run away winners as expected, but it was good to see Sheffield University take second with 3 solid performances. I had the fastest time of the day, and if Jules hadn't made the mistakes at the end, it could have been really interesting to see if I could have caught Baker on the last leg.

Results here

First racing of 2009 - English Cross Country Champs and Interland

2009-02-22T17:50:00.009Z

This weekend I kicked off 2009 with the national cross country championships and Interland. First up on saturday was the xc, and after a 2 year break I was ready to resume mudrunning with a new club - Aldershot, Farnham and District AC (one of the top clubs in the country and close to my hometown). I was quite nervous before the start of the 12km race, partly due to my large training load this winter which simultaneously made me feel that I should not be at my best, but also that I was running more and faster than ever before. and also because after 2 years, I could still remember how much these races hurt. 1500 men lined up on the start line on a beautifully sunny day on Parliament Hills in northern London. My goals were to try and run a smart race, finish as the best orienteer and come easily inside top 100. The first 400m were all uphill, and I had decided to take this easy and then push off the top as most people kill themselves and get into oxygen debt for a good start. I felt this really paid off, and although perhaps I could have had a better result pushing from the gun, I ran the whole race feeling 'comfortable' (although that word doesnt really apply!). Easily outside the top 200 at the top of the hill, I was then able to stretch out, and spend most of the first 7-8km overtaking people. The course was pretty ideal for orienteers, very undulating with some pretty steep climbs, and very deep mud after 9 other races before hand and then 1500 guys! Part was even in a forest round some trails. On the second lap, I had settled into a position just outside the top 50, and overtaking became much harder, but with a couple of kms to go and some big climbs I kicked in and got up into about 42nd on the last bend. Unfortunately a combination of no really fast work this year, a high training milage and those last climbs meant I had nothing in the home straight and was killed on the run in to finish 48th (41.23). Despite this disappointing finish, overall I was very satisfied with my race. I was 6 seconds from top 40, 33 seconds from top 30, and 61 seconds from top 20, so I feel that with some decent prep for the race, and maybe a couple more xc races under my belt, top 20 is an achievable target. I was also top orienteer, with Rob Baker next in 86th.

My legs then had 18 hours to recover for the first international race of the year - Interland. An annual match between England, Holland, the various parts of Belgium, and sometimes (although not this year) the west part of Germany. This year the match was held in England, very close to my hometown, so I couldn't turn down the opportunity to run in one of the forests I remember from my childhood. Despite the exertions of the previous day, I was really motivated to have a good performance, and although my legs felt a little sore when I warmed up, in general I felt strong and was able to run fast. I had a good race, only losing some time at the 22nd control when I lost my direction a little, and finished the 15km in a little under 74 minutes. I was the first finisher, and I had to wait for all the other runners to come in. Craney and Barrable were a couple of minutes behind, but Fabi was ahead of me at the radio control, and it was a nervous wait for him a the finish. Finally he came in, having lost time to me in the last part of the course, finishing around 1 minute behind me, but he had been running so fast in the start! At the 16th control he was already 1 1/2 minutes ahead and I had been running really good!

Anyway, a nice race in a beautiful forest, a good performance and another victory for myself and for the England team :) A good start to the year.

February- back in the UK, new look GB team, starting to prepare for Tiomila

2009-02-22T17:30:00.006Z

Sweden - just like South Africa

So I got back from South Africa to wintery Europe and quite a shock. Seeing the sub zero temperatures in Sweden, I decided to stay and train in the UK for all of February (although we had some record snow in the south east of England too!). First up was the new look GB team Planning Weekend, which was the first opportunity to hear our new performance director talk about his plans for the year and the future - exciting stuff! Although we still don't have a coach...

My parents garden in Surrey!

After that I have been visiting a few friends, doing some really good training and enjoying being in the UK for a change. Things I have been doing include some running in the Peak District, joining a new running club, Aldershot, Farnham and District Athletics Club, getting back into some climbing, and last weekend I went out to southern Sweden for a TIOmila camp with Lidingö. It was a really good camp with some quality training sessions and a really good atmosphere, but unfortunately there was 5-10cm of snow, and it was bloody freezing! Down to minus nine in the mornings.

Running in the peaks-

Kick start to 2009 in South Africa

2009-01-29T17:51:00.006Z

Just as in 2008, I have spent the first part of the year in Dullstroom in South Africa. Dullstroom is a small town in north east South Africa, 2000m above sea level. The temperature there in January is a steady 20 - 25 degrees, and although there are sometimes storms, the conditions are very good for training. There is a good gym with spinning bikes, a forest close by which is beautiful to run in, and endless dirt roads and rolling grassland hills to run in. This year I travelled with Rasmus Soes, and we were joined by 9 orienteers from Switzerland, 4 track runners from Norway, Bjorn Eriksen from Halden, and Emil Lauri joined us for 10 days.
My training month was close to perfect. Some injury problems with my calf in the autumn did not stop me training how I wanted, and I had a really great month - my best training month ever. In 30 training days I did 540km running and 200km cycling. More than 61 hours training in total.

We aslo spent one night in Kruger Game Reserve (pictures below), and Emil and I took part in a race in Johannesburg Zoo, which was said to be the largest orienteering event in South Africa for 20 years.

I am back in the UK now, for the first weekend training camp with the new look GB team. Then it is back to Sweden for a few weeks. I plan to spend a couple more weeks in the UK in February and March, doing some good training and taking in some early spring races.

New website

2008-11-25T11:33:00.000Z

I have a new website for the new season. Check it out at www.grahamgristwood.co.uk

October Update

2008-11-03T11:54:00.002Z

Well October wasn't a great month for me, I injured my calf on the 1st October, and since then I have managed 3 hours of running. I also picked up a really nasty cold, which I haven't been able to shake off for almost 2 weeks now, which is getting annoying.

Despite (or maybe because of) me not running, Lidingö managed to pick up some decent end of season results (after a disappointing season) with 5th at 25manna and 4th at Smålandskavlen.

But now I am looking forward to November. I will not start winter training properly until December, but I plan to train a little in November as well. I am going back to England for 2 weeks, to do some work, see some friends and family, and go to a conference.

I have also spent a lot of the time I haven't been training thinking about next season, and how I am going to make it better than this season. I have just booked my flights to South Africa for a month training at altitude in January :)

London City Race

2008-10-16T17:38:00.000Z

Premature season end

2008-10-02T07:43:00.002Z

Week from hell-

Last friday SM middle qualifier. Bad race with two big mistakes, not enough to qualify for the final, but worse I slipped down a crag and jarred my shoulder quite badly so I couldn't sit comfortably or sleep very well that weekend.

Sunday SM relay. Team-mates ran badly, and mispunched before I ran.

Monday. Went out for a long run, got to half an hour before my lunch came back out and I had to jog home.

Wednesday. Natti natti night sprint relay. I ran last leg and we won, but felt something in my calf on the warm down, woke up this morning and couldn't walk. Hobbled to the physio and it turns out I have torn the top of my right calf a little. Not too serious, need to rest a few weeks, and running could risk making it a lot worse, so that is season over, no World Cup Final this weekend.

Balls

SM Long Qualifier map plus some nice Stockholm training maps

2008-09-24T19:41:00.004Z

SM long qualification race - small mistakes at 2, 4, 13, map at 14 was dodgy as can be seen by me stopping too early in 'not green'. Scrappy on 15 also.

Really nice training south of Stockholm with Tom Hodel who is staying with me this week. We regrouped every 3-4 controls. Very detailed map in places, especially at the end. I ran pretty well, except when I tried to miss one control out at the north end, and had to run back to the previous one. The last loop was fantastically technical.

I was pretty tired after the weekend so I hung some tapes for Tom and Erik on the map next to 25manna terrain. Pretty nice, standard Swedish city forest map. Fast but still requiring a lot of concentration.

Went to an organised mini - training event on Nacka this afternoon. I ran the middle length course as I am preparing for SM middle on friday. Ran really good except for a 1 minute mistake at the first control - didn't really understand the map so well. Wasn't pushing very hard, but a nice training after falling asleep by the lake after lunch. Bit cold for a swim after though...

First time I have used pin-punching in about a decade. Forgotten all about control cards and how to attach them to myself.

Swedish Champs Long Distance

2008-09-21T17:10:00.002Z

8th place today in the final. Really happy with my performance - I ran well almost every control. The course was quite 'easy' and fast, but that is good for me. I caught Martin Johansson half way and ran together for some, but then I chose a different route choice and got a little behind (the 18th - he ran to the road). Then I was really pushing to catch him and I made a bad route choice to 19 and missed 20 a little. I saw him again the last few controls though. I didn't make the best start, with small mistakes at 3 and 4 (came out of 3 through the stony ground and lost time), but then I had a really good section from the 7th (spectator) to the first radio, only losing 15 seconds to Peter Oberg in 30 minutes running. I felt strong at the end - I think this is the best classic distance form I have ever had, and almost definitely my best ever classic race performance, both technically and physically. I lost around 2 minutes technically, and around the same physically, so that is very positive.

Now I am looking forward to next weekend middle and relay. The only slight disappointment is that I was only 1.17 from a medal which would have been really sweet. Maybe next year....

Winsplits

Swedish Championships Long Distance Qualification

2008-09-20T15:28:00.002Z

No map yet because the final tomorrow overlaps today's race, but I ran well enough to qualify second in my heat, 1 1/2 minutes behind the winner Michal Horacek. Looking at splits, I was running very fast, but was also scrappy in the circle, with 6 small mistakes close to the control (totalling 3.40). I need to improve this for tomorrows race, but in general I am satisfied with today. The terrain was nice, fast and detailed, except for one area near the finish where I didn't like the mapping of the vegetation (surprise surprise). I felt strong and had good split times in general, so I can be confident especially with a nice start time around some really good runners.

Splits

District Long Champs

2008-09-14T15:37:00.002Z

Only 4th today, I had a really bad race, and finished almost 6 minutes behind Emil (nice return to form for him just in time for SM!). Maybe it was the change of scale, or I was trying too hard, but I spectactularly failed to orienteer well for the first half an hour, missing 4 minutes on the first 6 controls (15 secs at 1, 1 min at 3, 45 secs at 4 and 2 mins at 6 where I was amazingly stupid). I ran better after that, but lost some time on my route to 11, and then a small miss at 12 was followed up by a 90 second mistake at 14. As can be seen from the track, I ran right past it twice without seeing it! I was caught at this point 6 minutes by Jacob Jansson from Jarla. That was the mental slap I needed, and I had a fantastic race after that to the finish, losing only 34 seconds to the best splits (and half of that was on number 21) in the last 30 minutes.

Much tougher terrain than yesterday. Bigger hills, and really broken ground with lots of fallen trees in places.

Now it is time to rest up for SM. I have had a fairly hard few weeks, not high hours, but the intensity has been very high with a lot of hard running and races, so I need to try and let my body recover as much as possible before the long distance champs next weekend, middle and relay the weekend after that, and then the World Cup final in Switzerland to round off a tough month.

Results

Splits

Stockholm District Middle Champion

2008-09-13T15:04:00.004Z

Today I won the district champs in middle distance to go with my district sprint title in the spring. The race was down in Södertörn in some really nice terrain. It was quite varied with the first controls in lightening fast no so detailed terrain, then parts were on very detailed hill tops. It was important to stay in control all the time in these parts, and trust the compass in the less detailed parts. I had a pretty good race, pushed from the start, and only lost control once on the approach to number 12 when I was distracted by a runner punching a different control on a similar looking feature. I relocated quickly and lost around 40 seconds. Apart from that I was pretty satisfied with my race, but looking at the splits, I lost around 20 seconds on the 2nd control, and a few seconds at 10, 14 and 22 (maybe 5-10 seconds each), but I think it was that kind of terrain where you can go the wrong side of a hill and through a rocky patch and lose a few seconds.

The main competition, Holmberg, Lowengren and Lauri all ran pretty badly, and it was Näsman and Peter Hemmyr who took 2nd and 3rd, about 50 seconds behind me. Tomorrow is the DM long distance, so hopefully I can take that too!

Results

Splits

Debut half marathon

2008-09-06T17:49:00.003Z

Today I ran the Stockholm Half Marathon. I've never run the distance before, and it was my first road race since May 2007 (I think...). My goal was 70 minutes based on the fact the weather would be good and the course would be flat and fast.

It was pissing it down....
And flat my arse, felt like only about 5km was flat, the rest was up and down over and under bridges and loads of small climbs.
Managed to just about keep warm before the start, and stuck to my tactic of starting slow and trying to keep a steady pace. Ran the whole race overtaking people - I don't think a single person passed me!
Ran 16.34, 16.46, 16.20, 16.39 5km splits, and 3.42 for the finish. Fluctations due to hilly bits / flat bits. My finish time was 70.03, but I am sure I crossed the finish line 5 seconds quicker than that :(.

Anyway, really pleased with the time and the way I felt. The first 10km in 33 mins felt easy, it was tough after that, but I felt really good around 12-18km, then the last 3km was a real struggle.

I feel on a nicer day and a flatter course I can run maybe a couple of minutes quicker.

Results here

Edit
They have now changed the results online, so my official time was 69.58 :)

Eliteseries weekend in Vimmerby

2008-09-01T12:16:00.004Z

This weekend I went down to Vimmerby for 2 Eliteseries races. The first was a sprint in Astrid Lindgren's World, which promised to be pretty exciting. It turned out to be a great venue, and a good race in all aspects except the map, which was shocking. It seems to me like the map was updated from its old incarnation (pre-ISSOM) without anybody checking it, ie. just changing some symbols without leaving the office. Not only is the drawing really bad (very untidy - eg. path junctions), but it is also plain wrong. Leaving the 5th control, there is a potential route to the west, but there is marked a building in the way - actually an arch-way. So can you run there? Not according to the rules...
Also basically any white 'runnable' forest on the map was green swamp jungle, and I can't see that it can ever have been white. I made the mistake of thinking white meant runnable, and I lost a lot of time - 20 seconds on number 6 alone! The forest outside the park (around the first controls) had really high vegetation, and I would have used green stripes there. People were also complaining about other things, and rightly the race was removed from the Eliteseries after a number of protests (here if you can read Swedish).
Apart from that it was a nice venue for a race, and I ran ok. I seem to be in really top shape at the moment and I had a number of fastest and good splits. Finished 7th though, about 30 seconds behind.

Results
Splits

Sunday was a long distance race with a mass start and with butterflies as forking. It seems to me that butterflies really aren't effective - many times they have the opposite effect, bunching runners up, and so it proved this time as well in my opinion. Far better were the really long legs with big route choices (not that there were many in this race). I ran quite well, trying to stay near the front without doing too much work. I actually took the lead on the way to the 6th, and then lead on my forking from 10 to 15. I lost a little on 14 and 15, and dropped to around 8th. Then on the way to the 19th I decided to run on my own to the south and up the track. That was really good and at the top of the hill I was alone with a huge group behind me. Then I made a stupid error (around a minute) approaching the control and I was back behind chasing. I was chasing what I thought was the lead group (although actually Haldin and Karlsson got away with a better route to 19) all the way from 20 to 25 (despite their shocking route choice to 23), and I caught them again in the butterflies. Although by that point people behind taking a better route to 23 had caught us also. Then it was a bit manic around the second butterflies. My group ran the first one well, but messed the 2nd up, especially 31, so we came back to the central control maybe 30 seconds behind a big group from the other forking. The fastest of us chased them down and there was a sprint finish from number 35 to the finish. At control 33 I was 17th, and then I took 4 places to 36, and 6 places on the climb to 37! I finished 7th, 20 seconds behind a lightning William Lind.

Good tough race. Fun to do these occasionally, and nice to know I have the fitness to fight to the finish.

Results
Splits

New pb for 10,000m

2008-08-27T08:16:00.002Z

Last night I smashed my 10km pb at Stockholms Stadion. I ran 30.59,08 to finish second in the Långlöparnas Kväll. I was pretty nervous before the start as I worked out it was my first race on the track for 6 years! The last one was when I was in 6th form. I ran at the back of the lead pack for most of the race, around 5m from the front, and gradually runners dropped out or dropped away. The last 4km was just me and one other guy, and we were lapping in 74-75 seconds pretty steadily. With 4 laps left he started to ramp it up, throwing in some 73s and 72s. I managed to hold on, but be ran 70 and 65 for the last two laps and I could only manage 70 and 71 to finish 30m behind. I did manage to get under 31minutes though which I am really happy about, and I took 1.16 off my old pb.
First 5km 15.36, second 15.23 (new pb also!)

Results here

Kicking off SM training

2008-08-26T09:09:00.004Z

After the French 6 day I was knackered and had some problems with my thigh and my knee, so I had a week with no training - something my body really needed after WOC, Oringen and France in 4 weeks. But then it was time to get back into training for the Autumn season - primarily for SM (Swedish Champs) long, middle and relay, and the World Cup Final. I will also do some running races and some of the autumn relays like 25manna. Below are some of my recent race/training maps. As you can see, some of them have colourful routes on from my new toy - I bought myself a GPS and have uploaded my routes using Quickroute.

This was a really fun technical training - Started off with a line course, then 2 loops in super technical forest - really tough orienteering!

This was an elite middle distance. I missed 2 minutes at the first control - d'oh! Didn't understand the map and Linus K caught me up. We ran together (not perfectly) until number 6, then I ran away from him. I ran really good after that (almost perfect) and finished 8th, 1.50 behind Fredrik L. Disappointed about the 1st control, but pretty pleased after that.

This was a long distance training, I ran 3 longer intervals with some jogging between (2km, 2km and 4km). Really nice terrain relevant for SM.

This was a relay training with some guys from Gothenburg. I ran quite good except the 3rd control when I lost contact about 75% along the leg and climbed up onto the wrong hilltop. Lost a couple of mins but ran well after that.

This one was the club middle distance champs. I missed 30 seconds on the first 2 controls each, but after that ran almost perfectly to win by 2 minutes.

France - Auvergne 3 day and Aveyron 6 day

2008-08-12T10:13:00.007Z

After Oringen, I went to France for a 'holiday', by which I mean I went to do 10 orienteering races in 11 days and some other running and kayaking. I flew to Paris to meet up with Pippa and Duncan who are living there at the moment, and then I had a day sightseeing before we drove down to the Auvergne. First up was a 3 day competition in Aydat, very close to where the World Cup Final was. There wasn't a high standard of competition, but the races were good, with a sprint, a long classic and a 'middle' which I won in 80 minutes. The last race especially was amazing, and one of the most enjoyable races of the year.

Results from sprint race, splits

Classic race results, splits

'Middle' race results, splits

After the 3 day, we drove down to Aveyron for the French 6 day. We started off getting very lost on the training map, and going kayaking near Millau. The 6 day itself had quite a lot of elite runners, including Mr Gueorgiou himself. The terrain was incredible, with fantastically detailed maps showing every bush, stone and cave. This was the kind of terrain where relocation is almost impossible, and big mistakes are very possible. The best way to orienteer is to stay in full contact, and try to pick lines in the terrain which make that possible and easy where you can. I managed to have 3 really good days, 2 quite good days, with only one disaster on the second day. My results were 4th (9 minutes down on TG), 15th (11 mins down), 2nd (3.15 down), 6th (12 seconds down in the mass start), 5th (9 minutes down) and 3rd (4 minutes down). All the races were won in 59-66 minutes. I finished 2nd overall, but a massive 40 minutes down on TG. The last day was a chasing start, and although Oli caught me, we both caught Lucasen and I beat them in the finish.
Results / splits
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Overall

Some maps from the 6 day

World Championships and Oringen - maps and photos

2008-08-12T10:12:00.004Z

World Champs

So I'm a World Champion :)
That feels nice. I didn't run to my full potential in the middle or sprint, my results were ok but not what I wanted, but I ran pretty close to perfectly in the relay, and Jon and Jamie did the rest. Now it is time to work out how I can change that into top individual results.

Proud parents

Oringen

My head and heart wasn't really in the sprint at Oringen. The long distance went well until I had some stomach cramps and was forced to walk/jog the last 3km. The middle race was really good, my best ever World Cup middle distance (13th), and I ran ok in the chase without much motivation.

Fantastic 56th place at Oringen World Cup!

2008-07-22T19:13:00.002Z

Ok so not my best day.... bit hard to motivate myself after Sunday and long travelling day yesterday, but it is beautiful up in Sälen running in the fjälls. Tough course, but I am looking forward to tomorrows long distance.

Yeah baby - World Champion!

2008-07-20T15:15:00.000Z

Memorable middle distance at WOC

2008-07-19T06:53:00.003Z

What an amazing day of orienteering! My third attempt at the middle distance at WOC, I finally qualified for the final which was a nice start. I had a good race, my only time loss was a safe route choice to the 3rd control. I was 1 minute behind the best on that control. I finished 2 minutes behind the winner of my heat in 8th place.

The final we suspected was going to have something special, and that was proved right as soon as I picked up the map at the start. I reverted to point to point navigation, and I was doing really well for the first 8 controls. I caught Tsvetkov up 6 minutes at number 4 which was a nice boost, although I lost him at number 7 already. Number 9 I just lost contact slightly, and had to go almost out to the ride to relocate. 1 minute lost, but almost acceptable in that detail. Then we left the rock labyrinth and entered the more familiar stuff. I identified immediately that 13 was going to be possibly the hardest control on the course, and then read everything along the slope until I got to the green - then at the last minute as I plunged in, I misread the clearing before the green, thinking I was just below the wrong one, and hence 50m too high up the slope. Nice little parallel error in the green/white veg changes, then out to the ride to relocate. 2 minutes lost. After that stormed round, maybe lost 10 seconds at 22, but otherwise really pleased. A quick split analysis shows that I dropped from 11th to 27th at number 9, and then down to 36th at number 13. I managed to climb back up to number 26, including 5 places from the spectator control to the finish, and 2 of those on the run-in! On a really tricky course, I nailed 23 of the controls, lost 10 seconds on 2, and then had 2 bigger mistakes which really punished me. Physically I was really happy, and my best splits were mostly in the last loop, so there are a lot of positives even if the result is not quite as good as I would have liked.

Bring on the relay!

Results and splits from qualifier
Results from final

Final map

Qualification map

Very disappointing WOC sprint

2008-07-14T08:58:00.002Z

WOC sprint final, 22nd place. Very disappointing performance and result. I didn't feel great warming up - legs felt a bit heavy from the morning and felt a bit tired and lethargic. Warmed up well and tried to get myself worked up. Guess I was slightly worried about the will there be a thunderstorm / won't there. I decided there wouldn't be and put on my racing flats. The thunderstorm hit me at number 2 and continued nicely for the majority of my race, including all 8 'technical' controls in the gardens. Picked the correct route to the first control. but I was obviously off the pace immediately, losing 14 seconds to the best. Started well in the gardens though, and when the heavens opened I was doing ok. Got a bit stressed coming out of number 4 and made a rushed panicy decision to go up and over which was a big mistake. Started to get a bit flustered but managed to calm myself down. Ran ok through to number 10, but I picked the wrong (longest but simplest) route choice to 11. 12 - 14 was simple, but I lost a few seconds on 14 on running speed. 15 I had planned, but then coming out af 14 I started to rush a bit, and bananad big style. Corrected myself, but that combined with the less good route choice anyway cost me at least 10 seconds and probable around 7-8 places. Dammit.

I let the storm over - affect me. The lack of grip was a problem, but it seems like my running speed in the technical part was ok - lost a little time running on the longer legs.

Need to think about recovery and refueling between two races in a day a bit more, especially before Thursday.

Summary- I was definitely one of the worst hit by the weather, but I should have dealt with it better. Very frustrating performance and result, but on the plus side, it is really positive that I consider 22nd a disastrous days work at the World Championships. The qualification was basically perfect, and I had the potential to take a place on the podium or even the bronze on the day with a good performance.

Splits here

WOC Sprint Qualifier

2008-07-13T11:53:00.003Z

WOC got off to a good start for me this morning with the sprint qualifier. I had an early start, and finished 5th in my heat - 14 seconds behind the winner Lubina. Looking at the splits, I lost 10 seconds on the 13th, and 5 seconds on the 14th controls. This is probably because I chose to cross the fence at the crossing points rather than climb it - it was pretty high for a short - arse like me! Apart from those 2 controls my speed was good enough to win the heat, so that is a good confidence boost for this afternoon.

Results here

WOC here we come

2008-07-11T16:06:00.002Z

Last night the GB team arrived in Olomouc, Czech, for the 2008 World Championships. The excitement starts on Sunday with the sprint, the middle is on Thursday, the long and the relay next weekend. I am running sprint, middle and relay.

The boys room
View from the balcony - WOC accommodation

View in the other direction
The team hit Sumperk for some sprint training

O-Festivalen and last Czech WOC Camp

2008-07-03T08:06:00.005Z

After some really bad middle distance results in World Cup recently, I finally had a decent race. No big mistakes, just a couple of small errors in the circle gave me 16th place, which was my best middle distance result since the World Cup Final in France when I was 15th.

Results

The long distance was a bit manic, chasing start based on the middle distance results. I had a long line of people to chase to start with, and I managed to catch a few places by the butterfly. Unfortunately I made a 2min mistake at number 8, and then another big mistake at number 17, and after that I ran the rest of the race in the pack of runners from position 13-20th. On the way to 31 I started getting cramps in my hamstring, so I had to slow down, and I couldn't fight with the rest of the pack. I managed to just stay in front of the next runners so I finished 20th.

Results

After O-Fest it was off to Czech for the final WOC preparations. We took part in the Swedish long distance test race (but I didn't run), and also the Finnish and Czech sprint and middle test races (maps below). I had a really good race in the sprint (beating all the Finns), behind only Dlabaja and Smola, but the middle race was a bit of a disaster. Really cool technical area, I managed to make 2 big mistakes - one 5 minutes! Can't remember the last time I made such a big mistake. Now I am back in Stockholm for 2 weeks before WOC.

Good performances at Forssa and Jukola

2008-06-16T09:15:00.011Z

Jukola

Jukola! Once again I was running the first leg for Lidingö. This time the forest was a bit rougher though, and we watched the girls make mistake after mistake. Everybody went off hard as usual, and I hit the first control fine. Then I made my biggest mistake - instead of taking the nice track route round to the left with an easy way into the control, I ran straight with Peter Öberg through the green area. This was a bad idea, and we compounded it by missing the control quite badly. Luckily I relocated pretty quickly, and within a few controls running really fast, I was back at the front. I ran in the front pack for the next few kilometers, and slowly people dropped away until I was only aware of 3 other people. At 19, 2 of them forked off to a different gaffle, and then it was just me and Peter. We had some different gaffles, but I ran well and at the TV control with 800m to go I was just in the lead. He was seriously motivated to win the leg, though, and the came sprinting past me - I was too tired to respond, and so he took the leg victory and I was 2nd, but almost 2 minutes in front of 3rd. A good start. The rest of the team was a bit up and down, some guys ran really good, others lost a bit and we finished 11th. It is disappointing to be outside the top 10 in both Jukola and Tiomila this year when we showed so much promise.

First leg results here
Relay results here

You can see my full map with tracking here (select 1st leg and Lidingö)

Forssa Games

Thursday was the Forssa Games, a high quality short distance race in Finland which many runners use as preparation or just some fun before Jukola. I made a bad start when I didn't pick up control descriptions and got to the start wondering where they were - not on the map either so I was slightly cautious. Didn't get a great line to number 1, but ran well to number 2. Number 3 I missed maybe 30-40 seconds, and then Jörgen Wickholm caught me at number 4 running really fast. We took different routes to 6 and 8, but we came together at the controls, and we had a really good speed. He missed number 9, so I took that first. I was a bit confused at the last control (actually there were 3) - especially without codes. Really pleased with 8th place, 1.10 behind Pasi Ikonen. I won a gas barbecue!

Results here

World Championships Test Races and Selections

2008-06-11T08:11:00.002Z

Photo: Digisport

At the weekend it was back to the UK (Shropshire to be precise) for the WOC test races. I had a bit of an epic journey, with my flight so delayed I had to buy a new ticket at the airport on Friday night, and drive up from my parents house in Surrey on Saturday morning in time for a 9.20 start time in the sprint.

First off was the sprint around Shrewsbury - a really nice old town sprint, reminiscent of some races in Switzerland or Italy. I (along with about 25% of the field) ran down one dead end and lost 30 seconds, but apart from that I ran well and finished 2nd behind Scott.

In the afternoon was the middle distance on Weston Heath. That is a beautiful area, but not at this time of year with head high bracken. I was really tired and made lots of mistakes, and finished 6th, around 3 minutes behind Oli.

Sunday was the long. I was struggling with motivation at the start, felt low in energy and my achilles was a bit sore. I made quite a few mistakes, but then I had some energy gels and caught Speakey, and started to push quite hard. When JD caught us both, I ran really well racing with him, and I finished 4th, about 4 minutes down on Jamie.

Results for sprint and middle here

Long results here

I will put some maps up sometime soon

UK Cup final standings here

WOC selections here

I have been selected for Sprint, Middle and Relay which was my goal.

Maps and pictures from European Champs

2008-06-05T17:28:00.004Z

Well it wasn't my best championships, DNQ by 1 second in sprint, 27th in long (new PB in long), DNQ bye 30 seconds in middle, but ran well in the relay after a mistake early on to come in at the back of the 2nd to 5th place pack on 1st leg. Team finished 7th. Maps and pics below.

Long final
Long qualifier
Middle B final
Middle qualifier
Relay

Mixed start to EOC

2008-05-27T13:53:00.003Z

Well I didn't qualify for the sprint which was disappointing. I could point to the fact that my calf was a bit sore, or that the EMIT without most recent version cards doesn't really allow for fast punching and I fumbled a couple, or that I was in the toughest heat (within 30 seconds of leader to qualify compared to around a minute for the other heats), but at the end of the day I wasn't fast enough and I missed out by 1 second. I ran well and I thought I had good speed. I missed maybe 10 seconds on 1 control but I was surprised to miss out.

Today was much better. The calf was sore during the warm up, but felt ok on the course. I had a good race, lost around a minute and finished 2 minutes behind to qualify 8th in the long. Ran some of the course with Baptiste and Erik Ohlund. Times were much faster than expected, but the forest was nice, tricky in parts, but very fast running. Looking forward to the final tomorrow.

EOC Website

Second place in first Stockholm City Cup

2008-05-15T06:45:00.004Z

Last night was the first race in the Stockholm City Cup, held in Humlegården near Stureplan in Central Stockholm. As you can see the area is tiny, the race was a bit contrived and still the winning time was under 11 minutes. I finished 4 seconds down on Anders Skarholt, having not missed anything really (pretty hard to miss in that park). Didn't really have enough grip on the wet grass in racing flats.

Just looking at the splits, Anders and I had the same time at 16, but I lost 8 seconds to him from 16-19 and that was game over.

Results here

On Saturday I ran a 12km 'cross-country' race. Results here

On Sunday I ran middle distance at Roslagen, was pretty nice. I was very scrappy. See map above and results here.

Stockholm Distriktsmäster!

2008-05-08T09:37:00.003Z

Last night I won the Stockholm District Sprint Championships. My stomach was a bit bad during the day, but I felt good on the warm up and decided to run hard. The course was good, with some interesting route choices and a good mixture of urban and forest orienteering. I was a bit scrappy on a couple of controls (3, 5 and 6), losing 5-10 seconds on each, but in general it was good and I chose good routes. I finished 5 seconds in front of Peter Hemmyr.

Results here and splits here, Winsplits here

GB training in Latvia for EOC

2008-05-05T15:17:00.004Z

On Thursday I flew to Riga for a short training camp with the British team. We based about 30km east of Riga in some cabins really close to some fantastic sand dune terrain (see some map samples below). We also did a session with a couple of the Norwegian team which was good.
So what did we learn about Latvia (or at least the terrain near Riga)?
Fast, vague in places, but the dunes can also be large and obvious. Where it is sandy it can be really sapping, and it will be very easy at high pace to lose contact, especially on the longer legs.

I can't wait for EOC!

Getting into the eastern european groove

Some training maps

Sprint KM and back into good training

2008-05-05T14:51:00.003Z

So I was feeling much better after Tiomila, and started to train hard again. On Tuesday was the club sprint champs. I got the fastest time, but I can't claim victory really as I made the map about a month ago...

Here are some other cool trainings from last week, a large scale sprint and a really technical forest north of Stockholm.

Tiomila map

2008-04-28T09:14:00.002Z

This weekend I ran leg 9 for IFK Lidingö at Tiomila. The club ran well through the night and I started in 8th place. I had been sick the previous week, but I knew I was in good shape, and my cold was feeling OK. I caught up 7th place by the first control, but Simonas Krepsta started just behind me and he caught us as well. I ran quite a lot of the race with him, although we had slightly different gaffles. I made a small mistake at 13, when I misread the contours slightly. Simonas got a small gap there (maybe 30 seconds), and although I ran well after that I didn't see him. We passed the TuMe team on the way to the 8th control, so I changed over in 7th place.

My team finished 13th, which is a little disappointing as we had very high hopes, but it is still a massive PB for me at tio.

Results here

Selections and sick

2008-04-22T09:39:00.002Z

Yesterday Lidingö's Tiomila team was picked, and as expected I have a nice day leg (but not last). Our team is really good, but a couple of guys didn't make it due to sickness and injury which is a real shame - hopefully they will be back for Jukola. Follow / watch online here.

Today selections came out for the British team for a few things, I was selected for everything I wanted - EOC, EOC training camp and World Cups.

Downside this last week - on Wednesday I picked up some stomach bug. Tried to do a race in the evening, felt terrible, ended up walking quite a lot, got a bit cold and tired. Then after the race I felt awful and basically got sick. Spent the last 5 days in bed, missing British Long champs in Scotland (gutted). Started to feel a lot better now though, should be fine for the weekend.

Czech training camp

2008-04-14T18:20:00.004Z

Last week the British team had a training camp in Czech, in preparation for the World Championships. We stayed in the Pension Athena, about 20 minutes east of Prostejov where the sprint qualifier will be. We had a hard training week, training with some of the Russian and Estonian teams, and at the end of the week we took part in the Moravian Championships. The terrain and competitions were very relevant and there were many national and club teams taking part from across Europe. I ran very well in the two sprint competitions, placing 5th and 4th against some strong runners. I was too tired to run the classic, and I was still tired for first leg of the relay, in some really hilly terrain. Event website here. I am back in Stockholm now, but on Thursday I will fly to Scotland for the British long championships. Unfortunately I cannot run the relay championships as I intend to run the Swedish champs later in the year.

JK and Gothenburg

2008-03-30T14:15:00.008Z

A bit late I know, but I have been in Gothenburg with the British junior team all week, preparing for JWOC. The JK long distance went really well for me, I felt very strong for almost 90 minutes, and it was my best race technically of the weekend. I chose some good routes, and I missed less than 1 minute on the whole course. This was partly a reflection of the course, which was not overly difficult, without many shorter technical legs. It is a lovely place to run though, and I was pleased to get past the 14th control before Daniel Hubmann (my 3 minute man) caught me. I hadn't really decided on a strategy for when he came past, but I decided to stay with him for a bit (to 15 and 16), then I ran straight to 17 when he went along the road. I missed the control a bit and got about 15 seconds behind, but then I caught him again on the long leg to 19, and it was easy to run together from there to the finish. I finished 2nd behind Daniel, and also for the weekend overall. Only slight problem was I strained my calf a little bit towards the end of the race.

Results and routegadget etc here

The relay was the conclusion to the weekend. My team OD finished 5th (3rd British team) which is pretty good. Luckily I was able to cruise last leg a bit as we had a bit of a gap, so I could rest my calf a bit.

Then it was off to Gothenburg, where there was about 30cm of snow. I did some control hanging etc, trying to protect my calf a bit, and now I am back in Stockholm. I am going to rest my leg for a few days now, so it is better for the GB camp to Czech coming up soon.