Elitserien och Siljankavlen

This weekend I made my debut in a Lidingö shirt at the Leksand Elitserien race. I will put my maps up sometime but results are here, splits here.
Sunday was Siljankavlen, a four person relay with the same event centre. I ran last leg and pulled up 4 places to finish 7th. Results here, other details available here.

I ran pretty good in both races, but I still made a few small mistakes on Saturday, and one big mistake (about 2.30) in the relay.

I am now staying in Stockholm until Wednesday, then we are going on a training camp in Finland in preparation for Jukola.

Nordic Champs

Preparation

Being ill after the JK meant that my preparation for NOC was far from ideal. With about a week and a half to go before the first race, I resumed training and felt awful. I ran a short fell race and came 3rd (feeling awful). My housemate won it - the first time he has ever beaten me in a race. I finally started feeling better at the weekend. Liis and I went up to the Lake District to chill out and do a couple of small races. Saturday was a short race on a really hilly area - Lingmoor. After the race we sunbathed on the top of the hill on the map (SW corner). We also saw a sheep giving birth to two lambs.

Sunday we took part in a race on Harrop Tarn. I felt really good, cruising for the first 3/4 then pushing it towards the end.

Liis and I also went to the wedding of Jules and Becca Simpson, who live in our town and we train with every week. They got married in York and we spent the weekend there.

The Champs

I arrived on Bornholme on Monday evening, with plenty of time before the first race on Thursday. I missed TIOmila to concentrate on NOC, and that meant I was able to be fully recovered from my sickness. I did a couple of good sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday, and by Thursday I felt pretty good.

I ran a good sprint race, and I think I picked all but one of the best route choices (missed the best route to number 12 by the sea front). I finished in 11th position which I was pretty happy with.

The relay was the race I was most nervous about. Running first leg with Jon Duncan and Jamie Stevenson, it was the first time we had had a full strength GB team since I broke into the relay team. The start was manic, with the first 2 controls forked in some green forest. I managed to get through them, then it was a case of keeping up with the pack through some really fast open forest (very spring cup like). I didn't miss any controls and just kept up, then suddenly approaching the 11th control everybody seemed to be heading the wrong way. I assumed there was a forking and ran to my control. After that I seemed to be pretty much alone. After the next gaffle (in the green again) I was running on my own. I made a small mistake to the spectator control but went through in the lead. I really didn't want to mess it up after that and slowed down a bit - letting some other runners catch me up. I managed to make it to the last control first, but was overtaken on the run it. Jon and Jamie ran OK and we finished 6th.

The middle race was a disaster, I was hopeless and lost time at lots of controls.

I decided to take the classic easy, and maybe not even do it all after being ill before the champs. I just cruised round, and I was enjoying it so much, I ran the whole race (although I was well behind the winners). I really enjoyed the orienteering on Borneholm, although the island itself is a bit sleepy.

NOC Website

After the champs

Monday - rest

Tuesday - 10km

Wednesday - gentle orienteering training

Thursday - to Sweden

This week Liis is moving back to Estonia, so we are spending a few days together. Then I am going to Sweden for a few days before a training camp in Finland with my club.

New 10 km pb

Last night I ran a 10km road race around Silverstone Grand Prix track. The course was exactly 2 laps, and the surface and lack of climb meant it was a very fast course. The only problem is that it is exceedingly exposed, so the runners really suffered a buffeting from really strong winds for a lot of the course. I wasn't sure how tired I would be after the Nordic champs, and I just went with how I felt during the race. I sat on the leaders in what I thought was a comfortable pace for most of the race, tucked in on their shoulders, then as the pace started to wind up at the end, I took the lead at about 8.5km. I went throught the 9km marker with maybe a 10m lead, but one guy had a really fast last km and destroyed me to the finish. I held on to 2nd place and knocked almost a minute off my PB to run 32.15. Without the wind, I like to think I can get well under 32.

Liis ran well as well to get under 40 mins for the first time, finishing as 10th woman in 39.40.

Results here

British Sprint Championships and GB Selections

Scarborough in North Yorkshire was the venue for this years British Sprint Champs, with the middle champs just down the road. Unfortunately I picked up a bad cold after the JK, so my weekends activity was limited to 'jogging' around the sprint and watching the middle race. The sprint race was really good, with a top new map made by Neil Northrop. The qualifier took us to the north of Scarborough, up and down a steep open slope, then back through town to the finish and assembly on the beach. The final started near the assembly, started in some intricate gardens before taking us into a really detailed parkland on a really steep slope. There were some good route choices and some really tough orienteering.


Scott Fraser won the race, well clear in the end from Oli and the rest of the field. My jogging round qualified me for the final, and then I got a bit excited and while it would be wrong to say that I jogged round the final, I certainly wasn't pushing the speed at all. I tried to just have a clean run and keep up a steady pace. It was actually the kind of race where those tactics pay off, and I came 5th despite making a 30s error. I will put my maps up soon, but results and routegadget are here.





Yesterday was the middle, and I decided to sit it out and try and recover. Oli Johnson and Helen Winskill won, and I was reminded of how hard it is to watch a race when you want to be competing. It was a beautiful day though and I did some sunbathing anyway.





Today the selections for GB team for lots of things came out. I was pre-selected for the Nordic champs, but I have also been selected for the Ukraine training camp in May and the first World Cup race. I have decided not to go to the World Cup race in Norway, and will rest / train instead.


Selections here

JK

Sprint race

The weekend kicked off with the sprint race on UWE campus near Bristol. I had a good race, but I felt a bit sluggish after a few weeks hard training and the exertions of the weekend before. No mistakes, but a few places where I could have saved time. 3rd place, 19 secs behind Østerbø, 2 seconds behind Oli Johnson.

Results here
Routegadget here

Middle race

Feeling much better - legs feeling fast and good, orienteering flowing very nicely. Beautiful fast open forests and a really nice course with lots of changes in terrain, leg length and direction. Only time loss control 16, green on slope not mapped very well - the boundary was really not very distinct. 1st place, 18 seconds in front of Oli Johnson and 1 min 24 in front of Matt Speake.

Results here

Classic race

The big one. 16km and quite a lot of climb. I started last as the middle winner, and I started well, catching a glimpse of Oli as I ran up to number 4. I was leading the race at control 12, but then it all started to go wrong. The good feeling in my legs from the middle race was gone, and suddenly running was hard work. I got a thorn in the base of my foot which dug in more with every step. Then we were launched into the complex mining detail around controls 13 and 14. I knew it was going to be the most difficult part of the course, but I still struggled to work out what was going on. There were a few clearings around number 13, and I couldn't believe that they weren't on the map. I lost around 45 seconds there and took 14 very slowly. I also was very careful on 17. Then it was time to stretch the legs again, but I was starting to run out of energy and starting to be a bit scrappy. I chose a poor route to 19, and then proceeded to climb way too high up the hill and having to drop down again. 20 I was just slow, and 21 I really couldn't work out what was going on in the circle - the control was really tucked away. 22 I ran to a control that wasn't mine and I was starting to rush things. Wobble at 23 as well, then it was a long slog up the hill to the assembly area. The commentary confirmed what I already knew, that my run was far from good enough, and I just tried to have a good last loop. By this point my feet were getting really sore (not worn o-shoes much recently), and I was getting tinges of cramp in my hamstrings. 27 was a bit of a bingo control and I wobbled a bit, but 29 was a real bingo control, and I lost direction and lost over 1 minute there (my biggest mistake). I ran really hard after that and was getting really good split times, except for the penultimate control where I banana-d it to the right.

My shape was good and at times I was orienteering very well, but I made far too many little mistakes. I was running around the same speed as Oli and Speakey (1st and 2nd). I finished 4th, 6 mins behind Oli, and I was 3rd overall.

Results here

Relay

With quite a lot of hesitancy about the strength of our team, we decided that I should run first leg. I had a good race, I was very tired and didn't feel like I was pushing very hard, but I was nearly clean and I came back first, about 20 seconds ahead of Ewan McCarthy. Jan-Egil Wagnild ran a good second leg, holding on to the lead (although a few teams gained some ground). Andy Simpson was less than thrilled to be going out in the lead, but despite that he ran a good time for the third leg. At the spectator control, he was in 2nd, just behind the leading Edinburgh team, and in the last loop he was passed by the Wing team and came in in 3rd place, just in front of the Halden team. Julian Simpson ran our last leg, and it is fair to say that he was the weakest link in our team. Tired after a hard weekend, he ran bravely to come in in 6th place (and 2 teams in front of us were later discovered to have mispunched, leaving us in 4th place - our second best result ever at the JK!).

Results here