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.

Flight over the pond

Well my flight to Europe was delayed 2 hours from leaving philly. This meant not only did I sit on the plane for and extra 1.5 hours on to the 7+ it took to get there I was going to miss my conectiong flight in frankford. I knew things were going to well when everything fit magically into my pack without too much problems and my backpack was super light. I swear I've forgotten something big, but cannot figure out what :/ oh well I hope everything turns out alright if I have haha.

Watched two movies on the plane, Dear John and When In Rome. I tried to sleep but that was hard when all cramped up and too excited about going to Europe.

8:40 (Danish time on the 25th)
So we got in around 7:30, flight was supposed to board at 7:15 and leave at 7:45. No way to make that. So was given a new gate and that was it when I got off. Well turns out I had to go through customs which took ages and then security again! At security right before I was about to go through I remembered I had filled my nalgen up in Philly and then drank very little of it, so I had to chug a whole nalgen there or lose it. Of course I chuged it! I can't lose Nalgita!!! Thankfully I was pretty thirsty. Then got through and the metal detector went off so had to get searched. Guess what it was?! My Jeans button!!! Oh boy! Then i had to find my gate in this huge airport. So finally sitting at the gate with my ticket rebooked, pack sent through, and nagita still with me, so all is well. Oh well apart from the fact that my host family has no idea probably that I missed my flight. I feel so bad! But nothing I can do I guess.

10:00am
Finally in the air on the way to Copenhagen!!! Sitting next to a cool girl on the plan from the states. She just spent two weeks around Europe and flying home today. So sharing stories and such which is making this flight so much better! I really hope I can find my pack and the family fast when I get there. Oh well nothing I can do about being late now. Hopefully meeting up with holly also works out alright and Andrea.

~11am
Well finally made it! Found pack and Annette just fine as well :)

Aspiring Champions Has Come To A Close

Well I had my last day at Aspiring Champions yesturday. It ended with a post testing to see how much I have improved since the begining of february. I have improved in everything greatly, especially my sprint endurance. I can now run a 40yd sprint in 5.5 seconds and a 300yd sprint in 58 seconds (vs my 70 when I started).
I have gained a lot more than just speed from this training though. I have realised that I have a lot more potential of being an amazing athlete than I thought I had. I also realised that few athletes that I have been exposed to that are my age train as hard as I do. However that does not mean they are not out there and i must keep training hard and building up my base training.
I want to thank Antonio for all he has done for me. Although we got off to a rocky start he turned out to be a great coach. And I'm probably in the best shape I've ever been in.
Thank you also to my mom for all the driving she had to do each week to get us to training. You are such an amazing mom and so supportive of everything that I do. Thank you so much!!!!

So now on to JWOC and WUOC to see if all this training has paid off!!

A Bittersweet Goodbye

I'm now writing as a High School graduate! The gradution ceremony for the first class of the Science Leadership Academy was this past Tuesday night at The Franklin Institute. It was in the main hall with the big statue of Ben Franklin. It was a wonderful ceremeony! Our comencment speaker was Dr. Steven Squiers who was the lead on the mars rovers. He gave a great talk about the definition of adventure and how we need to go out and have them. Very insparational! The we had two student speakers, Sharessa and Jerome. Along with Kaloni who played piano. We then go our diploma cases (had to go back on wednesday to get the actual diploma). I was the 4th one to get mine. It was hard to hold back the tears during all of this as it reminded you of all the amazing times we have had over the last four years. It did however make one excited for the future and all the new adventures to be had! I do want to thank SLA though for everything they have taught me, all the experiances they have given me, and all of the care, love, and friendships that were shared! I truely will miss you all and I can't wait to see what eveyone ends up doing and the great things SLA will keep doing!

Winter Wonderland of 2010

If you were in the NorthEast today and happened to look out your window some might have found you could not for a layer of white was covering it, or if you could you found that everything was covered in a thick blanket of white snow. Today Philadelphia got hit by a Noreastern that dumped possibly over 20 inches of snow. It is hard to tell the official amount since there was a strong wind causing great drifting. This is the second major snow storm that Philly has experienced in about two months. The first one was a total waste for me since I was stuck in bed the whole time having just gotten my wisdom teeth out.
The whole city was shut down from the snow storm. SEPTA was totally down by the end of the day, and no buses at all. Plows could barely keep up with the falling snow. Because of all this there were not many people out and about, which is truly a shame! Dad and I went for a run along Kelly Drive and it was amazing! The trees were just magnificent with the snow laying on them. I'm so glad that dad got me to go out for the run.
Ellie also enjoyed the snow today. She wasn't quite sure what to make of it. I think she is used to the fact that snow is cold now, but normally she is still able to walk in it. We got so much snow this time it was above her head in most places of the backyard. She looked quite confused by it all, but enjoying it none the less.
Hopefully another snowy run will happen tomorrow!

Aspiring Champions

So it is 2010 and time for a new year of training! With the new year my mom found this place called Aspiring Champions out at king of prussa. It is a pretty cool place! Founded and run by TWO time Olympian Antonio Davis (he went to both the Atlanta and Sidney olympics for track) in order to train young athletes who want to be the best of the best. At first I was a bit worried about it and whether I was actually good enough to be there. I have now gone to two classes and I will say they have kicked my butt!! I'm still hurting from Tuesdays class and just had my first Friday class. The workouts are around two hours for the premiere level (the highest level and the one I'm in). We have done a lot of agility and sprinting stuff so far In the two classes. The trainers are hard but I think that is a good thing! It is nice also to be training with other teens who are serious about getting good. So we shale see how I'm doing at the end of may! I sure am excited I really so want to kick butt at JWOC this year!!!!

Orienteering update!

So haven't posted an update in a while. A lot has happened as well. Where to begin is the question. Well we had a wonderful US championship in Wisconsin. It was very technical terrain with big crators and hard to relocate if you got lost. It was a place where the winner was the one who just messed up the least. I had a pretty good run after I got past the first two controls and got into the map. I have to say you get spoiled in international competitions when you get a warm up map inorder to get into the map before you even are on the clock.
I enjoyed this course a lot! You had to always be paying attention and focused. And although I felt slow my time wasn't horrible. I had a good enough run that I actually won the f- 20 age category!! That was a great feeling. I finally feel like I'm getting to really navigate at speed and more confident in my navigational skills. Also having so many of the senior team members saying well done and see they were impressed was awesome. A real confidance booster!
Next big thing has been my battle with Angelica in the DVOA rankings. We are less than 1.5 points apart from eachother. Each meet we both have been racing hard so the other one doesn't beat us. One event I got her by 12 seconds! And then funny thing is I didn't feel like I was having a good run. Then the next week at the mid Atlantic champs she got me by 5 seconds!!! Closing the gap. So one more event of the year with 1.3ish points between us. We shale see what happens...
Next exciting thing was at the mid Atlantic champs DVOA put together a killer junior relay team. Sam lead off putting us into 5th after the first leg. I was next. I was able to catch the second place runner by control one and just held on to the 1 and 2 runners for the rest of the loop. I then handed off to greg who brought it home! We won by 30 seconds but a win!!! So proud of my team :)
So one more local event of the year.

Wrote awhile ago i thought I posted but guess I did not. Ops!

Hello 2010!

Happy New Year everyone!!

So I know I have been really bad about posting here since the summer. I'm sorry! A lot has been going on and just have not had any time this fall. So I guess I need to do a quick update...

Ran Cross Country again this year. I placed 4th in the districts race so qualified for the PIAA State Championships again. Had a much better race there this year, and even had two teammates running as well!!

The college search. Boy oh boy has this been an adventure. I'm applying to 9 schools which are all over the place. I have gotten 7 of the applications in and working hard on the last two. I have realized I'm not sure if I want to do Chemical or Mechanical engineering but I want to save the world! Actually that isn't totally true I have found the most perfect course at Edinburgh University in Scotland. It is called Engineering for Sustainable Energy. I had a wonderful conversation with the Head of Mechanical Engineering at the University and he has me hooked. It is a combination of Mechanical and Electrical engineering working with different energy types and then ways of making power grids more efficient. If you make a ton of power and have no way of getting it to the people what good is it? Next year will be the first year they are having it. YAY for another pioneering step. I have actually gotten a conditional for the course so it all comes down to my SAT scores now. I need 600 minimum in everything. That means 600's in the 3 sections of the regular test and 600's in both the Physics and Math Level 2 subject tests. So wish me luck!

On the training front. Well I have been a bit crazy this fall. Along with all my Cross Country races and Orienteering events I have run 3 half marathons in the last 4 months. Two of them were road races, The Philly Distance Run and the Philadelphia Half Marathon. Both of them went well. My time goal was 1:45 for both. I sadly did not get that but on the second one I got close with a 1:49. The last half marathon was a wonderful course put together by Tom Overbough and DVOA at Fair Hill. I had a wonderful run around in the woods for 2hrs and 33mins. And according to the garmins I was wearing (yes two testing them more to come later hopefully) I ran about 15ish miles.

After that I had the joy of getting all 4 of my wisdom teeth out! That was painful! I was out for at least 4 days and still not feeling myself after that. They are feeling much better now and I'm back to eating. I lost almost 10 pounds from not being able to eat for almost a week. There was a scare for a bit that I wasn't going to be able to eat my birthday cake or go ice skating but both happened!

So I'm now 18. I had a wonderful 18th birthday on Christmas eve spent with my family and our family friends the Pews. My mom made wonderful Carrabian soup (my tradition) and then we went ice skating. I had a wonderful time. It is scary to think now though that I can vote (sent in my registration already), Sign my own wavers, get drafted, and even drink in some countries. I'm looking forward to a great 18th year of life! However 2010 is going to have a hard time topping 2009.

A look back on 2009:
* Competed at JWOC for the first time
* Went to the Bright Green Youth conference in Denmark
* Made it to XC States yet again
* Became US Orienteering Champion in F-20
* Completed 3 half marathons
* Applied to College (or well almost all of them)
* Ranked 14th in F-21+ in the USOF rankings (and yet not ranked in my own f-18 or junior f-20)
* Ranked 2nd female in DVOA's Rankings and 1st in F-18 & under category.

and that is just from the summer haven't even gone back to the beginning of the year. I had a wonderful 2009! So hope 2010 can create another great list at the end of the year!!!

iPod touch

Just set it up so I can post from the iPod touch! So maybe more updates this way! I know there are a ton of things I need to update on but haven't had time :( senior year is going well so far. College apps/ essays, homework,and cross country have been taking up my time lately. Better get off to finish my history work. Ciao!

A long awaited update- yet not detailed

So i'm now in Scotland with my grandma. The rest of the trip has been great, just little time to get online.
I spent two days hiking in the Dolimites with Emily, Eric, Randy kemp and Angela. That was quite fun. Epic second day where there was quite a scary part going over the pass. The photos were great! we all got a bit burnt as well though, so not so good. Then afterwards we headed off to France. First night we spent in a hostle, then day on the beach in Nice and slept in the car. Then to Avignon and lyon. Then to Geneva and saw the UN.
Then flew to my cousins in Brighton. WE went around a trash power plant, and to his office. and i met his flatmate who is wonderful!
Then flew up to grans were i am now. Hill walked once. saw most of the family and went running. plus relaxed. Mom and heather come tomorrow (yay!) and dad on friday!!!!! Scottish 6-days start sunday and i can't wait! Then Denmark on the 7th!

Thats all i have time for now. More when i get a chance.

Quick update

we are about to leave Primero so quick update. Ran the middle final and Relay and went pretty well. will write more about that later. The Banquet was a blast!
The past two days i have been with the Kemps from Canada and we have been hiking around Primero. Great fun! WE did a short hike the first day and a longer harder hike the second. Great views!!! Will hopefully add photos when i get to my cousins.
We are now off to the south of france. Not sure the next time i'll be on so i guess you'll have to look for a big update at somepoint all about my adventures.
Ciao!

Middle Qualification

So today i had to get up at 6am in order to get ready for my 7:15 bus to the start. I got to the start and it was quite cold. Got ready and ran the warm up contorls. I was feeling good but it was slow. I was the 3rd wave of girls to go out and i ran the number 3 heat. (there are 3 different heats and the top 20 in each go on to the A final then the next 20 to the B and the last to the C) It was a long run to the start control from when you get your map so planned the first big part of my course. The course went quite well i only bobbled a few controls i was just SUPER slow!!! It was hard to move with the tall grass, nettles, and rocks. You couldn't see where you were stepping and i did a lot of face planting. I messed up 8 and 11 but other than that it was very clean. I could have run faster because i wasn't tired but i couldn't get over things fast enough without falling or slipping. I actually didn't think i had gone as slow as i did, but oh well :/ I made the B final but that isn't very hard for the girls. I did seam to have a better race than Tori, Kelsey, and Anna. Anna's knee is bugging her though so i don't think she will run tomorrow sadly. That might mean i get to run on the official relay team though :)
So over all i'm happy with my races and feeling good about this JWOC. I really want to improve for next year though! Lots of training to do!!!!! Middle Final tomorrow!

Bus tour

On the rest day i spent the day with most of the parents on a great bus tour of the Dolimites! It was so beautiful! Although not happy about having to get up at 7:30 to catch the bus. WE were on the bus most of the day which was fine. You got some AMAZING views!!!! We also went up a big cable car and the senery took your breath away. I so wish i could post photos! I'll hopefully post some soon!
We then went and ate lunch at a resturant that looked over the hills. The food was great we got a mix of the traditional food. It was a nice sunny day as well! It was also funny watching Stan Borish run around with Steven who is 6 years old. We got most of us to go down this slide. And yes there are photos! Oh and on our drive back we stopped at a few places and one of them was to watch cows. One came right up to me so i got to pet it. Hannah you would be jealous! I have photos for you though.
Finally got back just in time for dinner. AND with clean clothes that sue kindly cleaned for Holly and I :) It was also great to spend the day with my dad!!!
Bye

Two down, three to go!

So i have just finished the long race for JWOC. The sprint was yesterday
So the sprint. I was an early starter and started with one of the Italian guys so the start went crazy for him haha. I had a pretty clean run! maybe 1:40mins worth of error. i bobbled 4, messed up 15 which was the road crossing. I came down the wrong stairs, they pushed me to cross, then i had to cross back over to punch, and then go on to the last control. Then i messed up 17 a little bit but not horrible. I was feeling really strong which was good! Ended up about 95th place which im happy about. Tori made top 50!!!! GO TORI!!
The long was today. I was a little nervouse about this race :/ I went out in the middle of the field. I was slow to the first few controls and then i met up with two girls on the last bit to 4. I stayed with them up until about control 9ish and we agained other girls as well. Then the thunder and lightning started as i passed through the spectator control/coaches zone. The last loop was slow and i lost the pack. It was very muddly. I finished the course in about 1 hr and 15 mins and some seconds. Feeling very good about it! Although not sure totally how i got to some controls. I think iàm 57th right now.
Ahhh internet about to run out i guess that is all for now. Rest day tomorrow!

fri 3rd

At the JWOC internet point right now. People are playing ping pong and such. We did relay training today.

oh no about to lose internet will finish later ciao!