My new home

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

England regain the crown from Scotland in the Senior Home International

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

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!

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