Sprint Scotland 14-17th July

Get the date in your diary!

Whether you are an aspiring World Champion, or just want a fun trip with your friends, come to Sprint Scotland!

• 4 days in beautiful central Scotland
• 5 sprint races with electronic timing
• 4 sprint training sessions
• New and updated maps
• Ceilidh
• 3 talks about sprint orienteering from World Class athletes

Sprint Scotland (http://sprintscotland.co.uk/)

pic Wendy Carlyle

British Champs, Jukola and World Champs preparation

Couple of months since my last blog - I have been busy racing, moving apartment (again) and preparing for World Champs!

Harvester Relay

Photo FVO

In the middle of May I traveled the length of the country to run for Forth Valley at the Harvester Relay (UK's answer to Jukola). I ran the longest night leg, and made a big lead for the team, which it held to the end. My third victory in the competition, with 3 different clubs! FVO article.

Scottish Champs

Photo FVO

The following weekend was the Scottish individual champs at Dalnamein - a really beautiful area (map here). I had a good steady run to win. The following day was the relay at Newtyle Hill (map here). I ran the last leg starting 2nd about 2 mins behind Murray Strain. I met him in the butterflies, but he was obviously well ahead. I managed to pull 30s back to take silver for FVO.

British Champs

Photo Rob Lines

Next up was the British Long and Relay champs in Northumberland. Having previously won two silver medals at the long champs, I was very motivated to finally become "King of the Forest". The race was very long and tough (map here), and I caught several other runners. My performance was quite good, but it was very difficult to run away from the others as it was hard to hit the controls cleanly in the circle. I managed to win in front of Dave Schorah (who I caught 3 minutes) and Hector Haines.

Photo Rob Lines

In the relay, it was once again a battle against Murray Strain and Interlopers, but this time there were a couple of other clubs (Oxford, Cleveland and Nottingham) in the fight. Map here. I started 5th, right behind Oxford, and I had a good battle with the other 3 (Murray was too far ahead). I was close to Peter Hodkinson in the fight for silver, but a longer forking close to the end gave me too much to make up and so it was a bronze for FVO.

UK Relay League

With a 1st, a 2nd and a 3rd, FVO finished 2nd in the UK Relay League 2014 behind Interlopers (who won 3 races!). However, the women managed to win the league! FVO article here. Results.

Jukola

Jukola came at a bad time (as it often does) with regards to work commitments, WOC preparations, and again housing issues. The travel was also very stressful (flying to Stockholm, public transport to ferry terminal and arriving at the ferry with less than 3 minutes to spare). I was meant to run the last leg for IFK Mora, but I really wasn't feeling up to it, so I switched with Artem Panchenko and ran the 6th leg instead. Unlike at Tiomila I had an entirely solo run, with Hans Gunnar Omdal catching me at the last couple of controls. My performance was ok technically, but I had no power and no speed (getting no sleep due to a beach party at our accommodation didn't help). I started 9th and finished 8th (never saw the guy I passed). My time wasn't great compared to the best though which wasn't really a surprise given how my body felt. 11th felt like a bit of a disappointment for the club after 4th at Tiomila, but in retrospect given our preparations and the tough nature of the terrain, we did well to achieve the club's second best Jukola result since the 1960s - more to come though!

Tracking here. Results here.

WOC preparation

Preparation for WOC this year, but also for 2015! I have done a lot of training sessions in Scottish terrain, both around WOC 2015 areas, but also in other parts of the country. We had a good training weekend after Jukola on some relevant maps with SEDS (Scottish Elite group) including a Scottish O League event at Lossie (always a pleasure) - map here.

Then it was out to Italy with some GB and Hungarian athletes to acclimatise for WOC (both to the heat, altitude and terrain!). I will add the maps to my map archive soon, but we did some good training, some good rest and relaxation, and took part in some high quality competition at the Alpe Adria. I took part in the long and middle races. The long went very well (despite the rain and nettles), and I finished second in the WRE which was a good boost before WOC. Results here. Map here (not mine). The middle didn't go so well, but it was a good learning experience!

Race The Castles

Race The Castles is a week-long festival of orienteering in Scotland this October. Perfect for people wanting to prepare for World Championships in Scotland, or just enjoy some high class orienteering.

The week kicks off with races and a ceilidh in Edinburgh and Stirling, then there is free training during the week in Deeside, followed by the JOK Chasing Sprint, a classic race at Balmoral Castle, and a closing event in the sand dunes of Forvie.

The races incorporate Park World Tour, World Ranking Events, European City Race Tour, Senior Home Internationals, UK Orienteering League (and probably more!)

Full information is available here.

From the website:

Invited Athletes

As part of Park World Tour we will be inviting a number of top international runners to Edinburgh and Stirling. This is being handled by Graham Gristwood, and will cover free entry and possibly some contribution to travel and accommodation. If you are a National Elite Champion or other top-20 ranked athlete and would like to be invited, please contact grahamgristwood@gmail.com

The Edinburgh/Stirling weekend features the Inaugural UK Senior Home International Sprint. The SHI selectors for England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales will nominate teams of 3 men and women each. Entries will be refunded by RaceTheCastles.

The Balmoral/Forvie weekend features the UK Senior Home International (SHI) contested on elite and relay courses. Selections for this event will be done by the respective nations.
To allow SHI runners to compete in the WRE, the start list for the SHI will be ordered according to WRE rules.

National Teams attending the WOC training camp are invited to participate in the relay on Forvie. We encourage other elite athletes to form mixed-nation teams.

Tiomila

Tiomila is generally the biggest target of the year for any Swedish club, and IFK Mora (the club I run for and coach) is no exception. The men were 8th last year and with a stronger team this year the dream was to be top 5. We had very good preparations, and no problems with sickness or injury so we were able to select our strongest possible team.

Things went well through the night, with runner after runner doing a really good job to keep us in contention. We were in the lead group after 3rd and 6th legs (the straight legs) which was crucial, and then as things started to split up on 7th leg, Johan Lindberg did a really good job to start me in 5th place. I ran well (tracking here) - only losing time to Thierry - to change over 4th (just behind 3rd and quite close to 2nd still) after 8 legs. Vojtech and Roman then finished the job keeping the 4th place to the finish - the best result for IFK Mora since the 60s! This was the result of 15-20 guys training hard all year, and 10 good performances from those selected to be in the first team.

 All pictures Johan Trygg

I am now staying in Mora for a few more weeks before going back to the UK for some competitions in the end of May - Harvester Relay, then Scottish Championships, the British Long and Relay Championships.

Sponsors

I am happy to announce that as well as the continued support of inov-8 and Hilly, I also have renewed my support deal from Cherry Active and have a new sponsor - Ekens Sportprodukter.

Ekens Sportprodukter produces the best magnifiers (lupp) for orienteering that I have tried, and I now carry one with me on every race and every training session. It is invaluable as a tool to use in very detailed terrain when you need a better picture of the map and I highly recommend them.

European Champs and Kolmårdskavlen

Picture: Kristian Dahlström

European Championships

European Championships was an interesting experience this year - controls in the wrong places, poor maps in the qualification races, horrible terrain with man-eating bushes in the long qualification, course maps leaked before the long finals and so on. It was also a lot of fun! Mostly this was laughing about what could go wrong next, but I did enjoy all four races that I ran.

Middle qualification went well, and apart from the inexplicable map at number 5, a poor route choice to 12 and getting a bit stuck to 13, and I finished 8th in my heat, about 1 1/2 mins behind.

Long qualification was also fine, except for getting stuck in bushes on the way to 11 for 2 minutes! Again 8th in my heat, 2:40 behind.

Long qualification map

Middle qualification map

The middle final was not a good performance for me. I lost time on 4 of the first 5 controls, and in this terrain that is game over. I finished 28th, 3:11 behind having lost about 1:30 in the beginning. Tracking here (Although I was not tracked).

The long final was much more successful. I produced a good performance physically and technically, and finished 16th, 4:41 behind the leader. This is my second best ever long distance result, after 9th in WOC 2009. Tracking here and 2d rerun here.

The relay was the day after the long, and with 4 races in 6 days in my legs, I had to drop out of the GB team as I felt I had nothing in my legs to give. It was disappointing for me, but also partially expected. The boys did a very good job to come 5th without me!

Kolmårdskavlen

I flew directly to Sweden to a Tiomila camp with my club, IFK Mora, from EOC. The non-EOC runners had a tough weekend with a lot of training/racing, and the EOC runners did what they felt they could after a tough championships. I just did some easy training before the main focus of the weekend - Kolmårdskavlen. A 5 man relay with almost all of the best Swedish clubs (and some overseas clubs too). We chose a very strong team to try and win the race - and that is exactly what we did!

Andreas Holmberg and Johan Lindberg ran really well on legs 1 and 2 to send me out in 3rd, just under 2 minutes behind. I had a very good run (and fastest leg time) to pull us into the lead on 3rd leg. Zsolt Lenkei (despite twisting his ankle on 1st control) ran well to change over 4th, just under 2 minutes behind, and then Vojtech Kral, our Czech superstar (fresh from EOC relay silver medal) passed the first 3 teams to win the relay for us! I am told that IFK Mora hasn't won many big senior relay competitions - with only a Rånässtafetten victory in the past decade or so - so hopefully this marks the start of a successful new era for the club.

Some nice articles about the victory here and here.