The only orienteer in Stockholm

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

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

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

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

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!