JK Training

We have just had a gorgeous week in Edinburgh. So who wanted to stay in doors when one could be enjoying the sunshine and preparing for the JK? I have to say not me!

Monday after the BOC event I took as a rest day. Had a lovely cycle into town to meet up with Lauren though and went for a walk around Blackford Hill in the nice weather!

Reminded me why I love Edinburgh so much!

 
Tuesday brought another nice day and it was down to the meadows for EUOC intervals. My legs were still feeling dead however and still wasn't feeling 100% better from my cold so had a steady run around Arthur's Seat with Lauren and Cat. It was so nice to be running with people again and it was nice to have a chat with them about training and recovering from races.

Wednesday I met up with Rona and Kirsten for some training at Bonaly. I cycled there and oh my was the hill up a killer! I felt like I could have run there quicker! But it was such a nice day out that I didn't really mind and the way I took back a long the Water of Leith was nice. So for training I ran the FwtN long course that I missed. However, I ran it only a few controls at a time. Every 3-4 controls I put my map down walked back and practiced restarting a course. I think it really helped. Also there were quite a few groups out and about having BBQs or mountain biking and having them watch me helped me remember I need to ignore others while out. I found the map a bit odd in a few places but was thoroughly enjoying be outside in the sun. I also learned from this my legs were still feeling dead and I should do a few more runs on the trails around there and get in some heather running. Hard work!

Map! skipped out 20 and 21 as running out of time.

Thursday was meant to be an easy lap of campus but decided I would bike out to Portabello bench to join EUOC for a BBQ there and that the ~35km ride would be enough for the day. It was a lovely day although a bit cooler than previous. We even went swimming in the sea! and the BBQ was great even with all the sand :)

Friday brought another lovely day and the start of Easter Holidays, which I started with a run around campus. And it is a "morning" run (ie 10am) that I actually enjoyed greatly! After that it was on the train to come stay with my Aunt, Uncle and cousin in Falkirk. Great to be around family and not stuck in empty halls. And it is really nice to be around family I haven't really gotten a chance to know all that well other than in the summers when I grew up.

Saturday was my cousins birthday so we had cake and played with the baby Thomas. I was feeling tired and legs just had no energy so the training for today was spending a bit of time looking at old maps. Need to be doing some more geeking in the coming week though.

Especially as Sunday brought an EUOC trip to Livingston to run the training courses for the JK. I ran both of the Urban sprints focusing on A) the start, so tried to replicate a race start as much as I could by putting the map down on the ground unfolded and such. I think that is really helping and I'm gaining more of a habit/routine out of it. and B) making sure I had a plan for the next control going into the previous. I was trying to have the whole plan and not just which way I was exiting as in the housing developments the route really does determine how you leave and was trying hard to practice looking for traps. After the two urban sprints I decided to run a few controls in Calder Woods. They didn't go as well. I was confused by the map. thankfully though I was quickly running out of time so bailed before my mental aditude from this training day turned bad. Was so glad to be out with EUOC people so much this week!

British Sprint and Middle Championships

March 24th and 25th brought the British Spring and Middle Championships in York. There was a bit of a panic over accommodation and transport to start with as EUOC was not going as a club. But that all got sorted...eventually.

After a long car ride down to york and a night sleeping in a tent, we woke up to it being quite foggy out as we made our way to the Bus for the sprint. The sprint was help at York University and consisted of heats in the morning and finals in the afternoon. I ran the Women's C heat in the morning. It was a course of 2.4km, 20m climb, 19 controls with 28 women racing, but only the top 6 would make it into the final.


I made such a muck up coming out of the start. I had not mentally gotten into the task at hand and just was worried about running fast and having a good run. Not the way you want to start your first British champs event! After punching the first control though I was able to sort of restart my thought process and really got into the map afterwards. Was feeling much better! Flow was back and a bit of speed and was planning pretty well. Over all I wanted to be happy about this race but knew I needed to change how i dealt with the start that afternoon. Here are the results W21-C, and as you can see there was a very strong field won by Linnea Gustafsson current World Champion.

Running into the GO control!

After some food and a pep talk from Colm it was time to race again. Racing in the B final took some pressure off me but was still nervous about the start. Got there in loads of time and just played through my head what i talked to Colm about. when I heard the long beep of my start I was ready to kick butt. I had a fairly clean race with only a few hesitations and it landed me in 12th in the final. Feeling thats not to bad considering I was sick all week. And it was my first WRE run!


The Sunday brought the Middle Championships at Strensall Common. It started off being a VERY foggy morning as we drove to the event, but just as we were turning into the park the sun came out and the fog burnt off giving us a lovely day! The warm up map to the start I think was key today! The map was flatter than I have ever seen, which was emphasized by the fact that the course climb was 0m, yes zero! never seen that before! However, the warm up map also showed that it was going to be tough underfoot with all the ground being fairly tuskety and full of pits. I was having a hard time putting things together on the warm up to the start. I tired my best to again run through my head what Colm had said yesterday and it worked for getting me to the first control, even if it was slow. I still wasn't feeling fully in the race though. I had hit the first two controls ok and my mind switched over to thinking about outcome and how I needed to race well today. What frustrated me the most was I knew when on the course I needed to switch my train of thought, that in order to do well I needed to have a clean process based run. I finally was able to switch over after control 7 and have a good run. I ended up placing 22nd in W21E



I think the thing I learned the most this weekend is that I have actually put in time to train and that I am actually at a higher standard than I first thought I was. I was a bit intimidated by running against the elite Brits. But that is gone and I'm looking forward to bringing my A game to the JK and being up there in the mix.

British Univeristy Champs (BUCS)

The weekend of may 17th and 18th I boarded the mini buses with EUOC for our road trip down to the lake district. Cambridge University Orienteering Club was holding BUCS and it was guaranteed to be a good weekend.

We stayed at a travellodge friday night, not fair from Saturdays event. The weather forecast for the day was promising snow and rain so we were bundled up for the worst. However when we arrived at ambelside the sun was shinning, however the muddy ground reminded us that could quickly change. The map we were running on was Loughrigg, which featured open moorland. It was fast and great visibility so key was to keep looking up. I ran the Women's A Course which was 4.9km with 12 controls.

I was expecting things to be a lot more technical and small mistakes to be punished quickly. However, I actually found this course to be quite easy and the slip up I had on control 9 was a mental block which I was able to easily find the root of after finishing and sort out since. I did have the luxury of starting 1 minute in front of Jessica Orr which meant the two of us were pushing each other around the course flip flopping who was leading. She got away when I slipped up on my compass coming out of 8, but I had a solid run afterwards as well which is nice to see that I can keep that pace even without someone around me. And I was able to finish just before the rain started!

The race wasn't over though! It was quickly off to the mini buses and winding our way through the country side on the hunt for showers and race to get dressed for the social that evening. The ceildh theme was "university city" and so in true EUOC style we topped every one showing up as Pandas in Kilts:


The Sunday was the relay. It took place at Bigland, open rolling fields with many rock walls and a quite technical section in the woods. Great for an exciting relay! Sadly because I was the only one from heriot-watt it was slightly less exciting but had a brilliant adhoc (no competitive) relay. I was tagged of by Laura Ramstein (she has run JWOC for Austria) into a lead of around 30seconds over the second Adhoc team. I had a generally clean run on the second leg:

Slight bobble going to control 2 just was too far left and had to come back at it. But once I got into the woods i was feeling on fire. Was just moving quite well, had a plan and was only hesitant in a few places. It was such a nice confidence booster to have a good run in a more technical area. And to come storming through the finish to tag off to peter G (old EUOC member who likes to think he is still a student :p). Peter G had a great run and like the EUOC girls we managed to beat the second Adhoc team by a few seconds. In the end EUOC girls swept the relay, the boys were 1st and 3rd (after a bit of drama over hoping uncrossable walls, KEY lesson: READ THE FINAL DETAILS!), and the adhoc team made it a clean sweep as really we were all EUOC.

It was a lovely weekend spent with EUOC and i'm not hungry for next year. And I already have another runner from heriot-watt!

Busy Busy Busy

The past few weeks have been massively busy!
I had a visit from my dad and friend Julia. It was fun to show Julia around Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Stirling. Finally got to show someone from Philadelphia just why I love Scotland so much.

After their exciting visits it was on to training for BUCS (British University and College Sports) Orienteering Championships. This included two trips down to the meadow bank stadium for some track intervals. I hadn't been on a track in a long time so it was nice to feel a bit of speed again. The two sessions where 6x300 and 4x200 (3sets).
Then for some technical training I made my way to Edinburgh Unis gym to get a lift to FVO's Wednesday night event at Barr Wood. This was an experience to say the least! We got lost finding the start and nervously watched the head lamps dance around the hill as Toni pelted down side roads in search for the carpark. We eventually made it 30 minutes late but with enough time for me to go around one of the 3 loops. It started off as a chilly but nice evening with an almost full moon to aid in seeing. Then after getting to about the 2nd control it started to lightly snow and slowly picking up. I had some very good controls but by the end my concentration was lacking and my left foot was screaming "warm me up, you can't feel me!"
To then get a last technical session in I headed over to Arthur's Seat where EUOC's Jack had planed Fight with the Night. In order to get there I decided to take the bus, which if you live in Edinburgh know that the Trams have really delayed things. It was a 5 hour trip out but totally worth it! I was just feeling good on the course, things were popping up just where I was expecting them, and I worked hard on always having a plan. It was one of those nights that reminds you just why you love orienteering. You can find my map on my DOMA

Along with training for BUCS I had two other races on. Heriot-Watt's Athletics Club puts on an annual 5km run around campus as our main fundraiser. So on March 11th we had ~43 people take on our road/trail course. Being in the club and earning the title of Vice President next year I was there to help out. I learned how to set up the whole course the saturday before, and then marshaled during the race. It was a descent turn out for being the day after Edinburgh University's Athletics race. Next year though expect it to be even better! and we hope more people will come and support us.

The last exciting race I have taken part in was last Wednesday was Varsity, which is a sporting competition between Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh Uni, Queen Margret Uni, and Napier Uni. This was the first year athletics was involved in the form of a 5km race. There was a fierce battle between Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt. It was a 1 mile loop run 3 times and it was my first 5km race in over 2 years, but more importantly my first time wearing Heriot-Watt colors. I was nervous at the start but things settled down once the race started. I tucked in behind an Edinburgh girl and just felt out the first lap. It was extremely windy in sections, and calm in others. By the second lap I decided to up the pace and passed the Edinburgh girl. She however tucked in behind me and on the end of the third lap passed me out. I ended up placing 5th with a time of 23:20 for 5.25km. A bit slower than I was hoping for but pleased none the less. Edinburgh Uni ended up winning 50-70 but Heriot-Watt has a much smaller team so we were pleased with how close it was, and we are ready to kick their butts next year!

Next Up BUCS!

Planning Fight with The Night on Campus

I was in charge of putting on EUOC's Fight with the Night event at Riccarton (Heriot-Watt's campus) last night. It was a great experience in which I learnt a lot. Firstly I started just by getting to know campus. Ran some old sprint courses, had Colm plan me some other training, and just went running around. The issue with having done this is that I kept finding places in which I thought "Oh I could put a control there!" "That would be a cool control location". It also lead to me really wanting to update the map. Sadly though I never got around to learning how to update maps but probably for the better as in the last few months the University has pulled down many trees on campus.
When it came to actually planning the courses I was a bit nervous to be honest. It was probably only the 3rd or 4th set of courses I had planned and the first here in the UK. I wanted them to be really good and people enjoy themselves. Well between that and too many places I wanted to put controls I was having a few issues. Thank fully Colm looked at my draft and came to the rescue in making the courses better. And sounds like people really enjoyed them selves.

There were two courses. Short 2.6km with 16 controls and 10 runners. Long 4.9km and 30 controls and 26 runners.

Here are the results:
Short

Place	Time	Name
1	23:50	Ann Haley
2	25:40	Craig Woodger
3	25:48	Rachel Kirkland
4	27:22	Val Finch
5	28:18	Les Dalglesh
6	34:14	R Web
7	36:14	Margret Dalglesh
8	38:07	Janice Nisbet
9	47:32	Bill Gold
10	53:33	Brian Miller

Long

Place	Time	Name
1	30:46	Oleg
2	32:58	Philipp Von Arx
3	36:03	Simon Gardner
4	36:15	Andrew Lindsay
5	39:12	Andrew Dalglesh
6	40:38	Mark Wood
7	40:42	Rebecca Harding
8	43:58	Heather Thomson
9	45:48	John Ellis
10	45:51	Jo Shepherd
11	46:36	Mark Rove
12	49:20	Stephen Mcharg
13	50:17	Isla Simmons
14	50:20	Tony Loultson
15	51:22	Tim Kieniewicz
16	51:58	Marhoch Hamilton-Jones
17	52:10	Jack Baker
18	54:28	Lauren Eyre
19	55:05	Kirstin Maxwell
20	55:52	Crawford Lindsay
21	57:50	John Mckendrick
22	58:58	Peter Gardner
23	59:13	Heather Kiniewicz
24	1:02:54	Ted Finch
25	Mp	Laura Ramstena
26	Mp	Sam Kilferd

Both Maps:
Short


Long


I want to say thank you to Simon, Isla, and Marhoch for picking up controls for me. and a Special thanks to Ross and Quiche from Heriot-Watts athletics club for helping me at the start and finish. I'll get the athletics club to actually go at on a course at some point!

So main thing I learned from this is that I need to just draw up more courses for practice and figure out what makes a good course. Also I would love to learn to do map updates!

The AC Race is back!

A lot has happened nice the last post. The past two years has been a whirlwind of life adventures and learning experiences. The summer of 2010 was the summer of my second Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) in Aalborg, Denmark. Having improved on my results from the previous year I was even more hooked than before. It was then off to my first ever World University Orienteering Championships (WUOC) in Borlange, Sweden. This was a major eye opening experience as it allowed me to compete with elite orienteers older than 21 and helped me see into where the senior level was. Although I was low on the results list and had some frustrating times it just made me hungrier to improve.

The academic year of 2010-2011 I spent as a freshman at University of Colorado at Boulder studying chemical engineering. I met many amazing people and had the best roommate I could imagine! Classes took up a lot of my time and the work was hard, but to be expected from a top university and a rigorous engineering course. I enjoyed the year in Boulder, however sad I didn’t get out and fully appreciate the environment I was in, but the course work had to get done! During the fall was the first time I was really trying hard to put in the base miles to build my training. Although a struggle at the start and needing quite a bit of motivating by my mentor and boyfriend it happened slowly. I was missing the weekly orienteering events though. I got to as many RMOC meets as school work would let me though and they were great! It was a nice challenge to orienteer in a different terrain than the North East forests. The year in Boulder I will never forget and allowed me to really figure out who I am and what I like.

This past summer (2011) I spent traveling. First to Ireland where there was orienteering, a 6hr Rogaine and sightseeing. It was then off to Poland for my third and last JWOC. At JWOC I could tell I hadn’t been on maps as often as I would have liked as places my confidence in my map reading skills was lacking but I was feeling much stronger physically. After regaining my map confidence during the training week I was ready to tackle my last JWOC. I had a blast! Putting in a few solid races I was quite pleased with my performance but was still in awe by the winners and determined that this wasn’t going to be my last elite race! After JWOC it was on to Scotland. I spent a few weeks with my grandma, which was lovely and even more so since she passed away this Christmas. I then went on to race at the Scottish 6-days placing 8^th in W20L. It was nice to see my training over the year was paying off but still loads of room to improve.

The end of the summer brought a big change. I decided I wanted to stay in Scotland and went to apply to Heriot-Watt University again for Chemical engineering. So this fall I have been a first year student at Heriot-Watt! Although I miss Boulder and all my friends there, Heriot-Watt suites my learning style much better and I feel more confident studying here. It is also not as big of a university and I have found it easier to connect with people and be a part of clubs such as Athletics. Being in Scotland has also allowed me to join the Edinburgh University Orienteering Club (EUOC) and train with some of the best university runners in the UK. I have been able to get on maps more often and to high quality events. So not only has academics improved but so has my training! It has also been nice to be in Scotland and closer to family members I normally only see in the summer when visiting. So I have made stronger relationships with them, which has been nice.

So my days lately have been spent studying, training, and immersing myself into my heritage culture.