South Africa and February

South Africa

Had an awesome 10 days in South Africa, staying near Belfast with the GB team for most of it, and then a few days in and around Jo'burg sightseeing with BJ.
The team were staying in Lakenvlei Lodge, and we could run, row and cycle from the front door.

When the rest of the team left, BJ and I stayed on, and spent a day in Sun City (mostly in the Lost City pool complex), and a day in the Pilanesberg Game Reserve trying to see as much wildlife as possible. We also went to a place called Predator World which had loads of snakes, wild cats and other predators. It also had a litter of 4 month old lion cubs which we were allowed to play with and have our picture taken with.

Our last day was spent with our host in Johannesburg, Pieter Mulder, who gave us a brief tour of Soweto and Mandela Square.

Cross Country

Last Saturday I ran my first (and actually my last) league race of the year for my club. It was a really good warm up for the big one, the Inter-Counties Cross Country which is later today. The course was a long 10km, running through boggy fields, ankle deep mud and pretty hilly in places. We also had 4 stream crossings which some people had real problems with. I was still a bit tired after South Africa, but I ran pretty well in the group from 3rd-7th places from fairly early on, and finished 6th in the sprint finish. My club had a good day finishing 4th on the day which pulled us up to 6th overall in our league.
Results here

As I mentioned, later today I am getting my Warwickshire vest for the first time, and taking part in the biggest cross country race I have ever done (the next biggest was the South of England Schools Champs about 6 years ago). The race is around Wollaton Park in Nottingham, and to be honest I don't even know how far it is (12km?).

Everything else

Quickly mention a few other things. Saw Ash last night at Warwick Student Union. They were pretty good, I put them on a par with The Automatic, but not as good as The Subways, and nowhere near as good as Muse.
Tomorrow I am running in the first National event of the year, in White Downs. Somewhere I used to train a lot about 5/6 years ago so I am looking forwards to that.
Apart from that have just been working a lot. Have had a few deadlines for mapping contracts so have been desperately drawing maps on OCAD and not doing much else. My mapping company is going from strength to strength and I have more offers for work than time to do it.
Website

Off to South Africa

This evening I fly to South Africa for 10 days. I will spend the first 7 days training with the British team near Dullstroom at Lakenvlei lodges, then me and BJ are heading off to Kruger National Park to see some lions and things.

Last night I did a night race on Esher Common. Organised by South London Orienteers, it was a fun event based in a sports club with showers and a bar. There seemed to be loads of people there and it was well organised. I really enjoyed the course, splits, results and RouteGadget here.

Selected for Warwickshire Inter-Counties Cross Country Team

After coming second in the county champs, I have been selected for the Warwickshire Cross-Country team to take part in the Inter-Counties Championships which are on 24th Feb somewhere near Nottingham.

Maps from training camp in Lake District

2007

I haven't updated my website for over a month for various reasons (away/busy/internet broken), but I have been pretty busy and had, for the most part, a good December and January.
Christmas
I spent Christmas with my parents in Woking, and did quite a lot of training in the forests around Guildford and Aldershot. I did a lot of running with Dave Rollins, and also Jez Edwards.
Liis went home to Estonia for Christmas, but she came back in time for New Year, and we went to a party in central London.

Long-O
On 30th December, the British Army OC hosted the 3rd 'Round Aldershot Long-O' with bike and foot orienteering on a number of areas linked together by footpaths. I did the longest running course, which was about 18.5km (although I measured it as over 20 with GPS), of which maybe 1/2 was in terrain, and the other half was paths and fields. I really enjoy this event, having run the first one last year asa well, and while there is not an elite field, it is a good opportunity to do a nice long race at the end of the year. I won easily, but I had a good race at the end when I caught Rob Little up and we were running head to head for the last 5 km.
Results here

Cross country
On January 6th, I ran in the Warwickshire County Cross Country Championships. I had no expectations as I didn't know how strong the field would be, but I was hopeful of a top 8 finish to make the Warwickshire team for the Inter-Counties XC. The course was mostly flat, but very muddy, and in places we had to run through knee deep mud across streams. There was also a short steep hill (maybe 25m climb) which we had to run up and down 3 times.
I ran strongly from the start, and found myself in the lead pack of 4 runners after a few hundred metres. After 1 lap, one of the group dropped off, and the leader upped the pace. The other runner stayed with him for a while but then found the pace too much and droppe back to run with me again. I ran in 2nd/3rd for a while, but gradually pulled away. I was especially strong on the downhills compared to the other runners and eventually finished 2nd, which is my best XC achievement ever, and my team came 3rd.
So hopefully I will be running for Warwickshire later in the spring.
Results here

Lake District Training Camp

Straight after the xc, I drove up to the Lake District for 8 days training in some amazing terrain (see maps). The camp was a mixture of GB team runners, top juniors, some foriegn national team runners, and some keen elite and close to elite runners (ie. open to anyone). We did technical training twice most days, and people also went climbing, running in the mountains and night orienteering. The camp was supported by the GB Team, and all the planning was done professionally by Martin 'Bilbo' Bagness.

The weather was mild, but it did rain. A lot.....

On the best afternoon, we took the opportunity to get up into the mountains.