The Remainder of 2016

It's been a while since I posted on here, but this is not because of inactivity. After having to miss out on JEC, I was back training almost straight away, with frequent races on weekends and progress definitely becoming apparent. A few highlights will be given below; one from each 'discipline' if you like.

Only one week after JEC I was able to race one of my dream routes for 2016 - the Pentland Skyline. Although much longer than anything I have attempted in the past, I was familiar with the route and I was ready to race after a warm-up XC race on Saturday, even though I knew the biggest bonk of my life was lurking somewhere around Bell's Hill. Such was the case, after a really good start and a top 10 potential position, and I was caught by one too many runners, in the end finishing in an upsetting but still solid 11th place and 2:35 time - one to definitely improve on in the coming years. Emotions at the finish were like no other and I spent the next few days consuming anything which my heart desired.

Following on from this was the FRA's, the British relay fell running champs. For the first time in a number of years, the Haries sent out a team comprised of 3 orienteers and 3 runners. In the end everyone had mixed runs and enjoyed the experience, and hopefully we have kick-started a Haries' fell running comeback.

Next up was my final real orienteering races of 2016 - a Middle and Long distance in the beautiful Culbin forest. I could tell my navigation was already going rusty by the unfamiliarity of my regular technique but in the end Culbin was kind and rewarding, with a 1st place in the middle, seconds ahead of GG, and a 2nd in the SOL on Sunday (which secured the series) - as well as a good amount of miles over the weekend.

November mainly comprised of Cross Country racing, and I took part in 7 races in the run up to Christmas. My results got worse as the season went on but I'm confident that I'm still getting faster and the results were due to a high mileage in the legs. I came out the other side with a place in the Inter Districts' Scottish Uni team in January, something that will definitely be a struggle but also surely a good experience. Hopefully I can finish off my so-far successful Borders' series (2 wins out of a necessary 4) and fit in a few more XC races (including BUCS) in the run up to selections' season in Spring.

Otherwise training has been going exceedingly well - my mileage has been higher than ever, niggles fewer than ever, and although I recently had a bad spout of 2 colds in a row, things seem to be going very well indeed. I have been enjoying a weekly progression run, the best of which resulted in a 10km PB on the meadows of 33:58 with a 10km steady, sub-4min/km run-up. Only a few days ago I lugged round the skyline fairly easily, on a very blustery day, with miles in the legs - something I wouldn't have been able to do even a few months ago.

After the new year (with a 5 and 10km race) I plan to start introducing some fartlek and hill rep training, to hopefully build on the big endurance base that I now hope to have. Additionally, after 2 months of no orienteering, I clearly should be starting from near scratch and building back to the decent state it was in where I left it in October. Hopefully with minimal injury and illness, next year can be a big one.

No JEC

I unfortunately had to pull out of JEC as I came down with the annual freshers' flu a week beforehand. Obviously this was a little bit heartbreaking but I accepted that it was down to some bad luck as well as a few poorly timed sessions ran with an already bad cold. It was nice spectating on Sunday and at least I look forward to [hopefully] being healthy and good to go for the countless weekends of 'casual' racing and winter training coming up.

Searching for fairies with nephew Inis after watching the JEC Long

Back to the weekly training schedule in Edinburgh

Summer => Back to Uni

It's been a while since my last post but nothing much has really happened since then, except some final few weeks of summer enjoyment.

I took a couple of weeks off scheduled training after Tampere, and in this time enjoyed some road biking in Aberdeenshire. I also challenged myself by cycling 100miles to Andrew's house near Forres, which apart from ruining my back, was a great ride - including the 20% Lecht Road.

I ticked off a total of 15 Munros with Andrew in the Ullapool hills (5), Oleg in the Arrochar Alps (4), and finally Jacob in the Mamores (1+5). Some unforgettable views were experienced and I'm happy to say that my hip flexors are finally beginning to tolerate big runs like these. This is especially clear after racing the Mamores Vertical Km last Friday, after an already big week and a bit of a hangover. My legs coped awesomely well, and there's no doubt that this is down to a good handful of very big mountain efforts this last summer. It's nice to start off uni now without any niggles.


Some of the recent views can be seen below:

The Lecht Road (downhill)

Ullapool hills with Andrew

Arrochar Alps with Oleg 

Pentlands with the boys, back to uni

Mamores VK

Mamores with Jacob

View of Ben Nevis

Final 3 munros in the Mamores.

Meanwhile, JEC has suddenly crept up out of nowhere, and I have been put into the situation of training through the races. This was the original plan anyway, and although there's a chance that I won't be in top form speed-wise, I'm feeling stronger than ever and look forward to racing a big international field on home terrain and seeing what happens. I don't think anyone will be more ready for some rough Aberfoyle forests than the British team!

After JEC I look forward to racing some rough XC races, as well as the Pentland Skyline, FRA Relays and potentially some mountain marathon mayhem too! Juggling this with 3rd year Mech Eng and EUOC captain won't be easy but I'm looking forward to being busy for once (it's been a long summer..).

Tampere JWOC '17 Camp and the end of Summer Commitments

After flying back from WUOC it was pretty much straight into a training camp in Tampere, Finland in preparation for JWOC 2017. The team was awesome and it was an extremely valuable week of training in some of the most physically tough and technically difficult forests in Finland. JWOC 2017 is sure to be a good one.

Now I finally have some breathing space and a few weeks of transitional/enjoyable training with a few runs, some cycling and a hill race at the end to look forward to before heading back to uni and building up towards JEC at the end of September. I will likely be quite bored within a few days but at least there's plenty of Olympics and WOC on to keep things entertaining.

WUOC in Hungary

The World University Orienteering Championships 2016 in Miskolc, Hungary, were successful for me before my race had even begun. The selection in itself was the hardest part for me and once this was done, I could simply enjoy the ride. On top of this, I had got to the start line of the Long on Monday the 1st of August healthily and in good shape, as well as witnessing at first hand, one of the GB team's most successful days in orienteering at the Sprint race on Sunday which included Kris's gold medal run. Experiencing something like this is priceless so I can only imagine how he feels about his success.

Another great experience before the races had even begun was waving the team flag on the stage in front of all athletes, managers, organisers and cameras at the opening ceremony. It's fair to say that my heart rate was maxing out higher than it was at any point for the rest of the week!

Eventually though it was time to race, and it was exciting. The terrain was unlike anything I had ever experienced but it suited me well. Typical continental fast, leaf-carpetted, rolling hills, where although one would think route choice would be interesting, was in the end fairly simple - straight unless there's something awful in the way. Things started off poorly, 30s lost to number 1 - arguably the trickiest control of the race, but then got better in better as I found my rhythm and began catching people and forming trains. My gels and drinking went perfectly for the first time ever and by the end I was satisfyingly destroyed. I finished 24th and some minutes down, but I feel like this is all I could give in my current form, and comparing to others in my age category, this was a great run. My summary on the BOF website concludes my thoughts on this race well:


"My aim for today was a clean race with solid plans and to not let myself physically fade by the end due to the racing time being longer than what I'm used to. I'm happy to say that this was largely achieved and any gaps that I can now bridge in the future to the top guys will be mainly on the physical side. I haven't run in much Eastern European areas so it was a new, very enjoyable experience for me, especially as my technical abilities seemed to adapt very well to the new terrain."

GPS Tracking

The following day was amazing, in short. The sprint relay team was always going to be a favourite, even more so after the sprint race, but no one could have imagined the shear dominance that happened on the day. Felt very very proud simply watching and inspired to run well in the next two days.

On the day of the middle things were different. I think the massive amounts of energy spent on the Long and cheering at the Sprint Relay caught up with me and I felt a bit lazy. Thankfully though it was just a middle and shouldn't have effected me much. After a jog around the WU map I was laughing. The terrain was grotty as hell and it was a roasting hot day. This was going to be fun.


An aggressive start hit me hard and I began losing time in the middle of the course. It was pure torture, every small lapse in concentration, tiny hesitation and micro-route choice error was losing me time. However this is good, and it really shows the kind of speed and perfection is needed to do well at senior level - totally different to what JWOC has been in the past for me. I was eventually caught by my 2min Fin and we raced round the last section together very quickly and cleanly, gaining me back some places but also dignity in my race. I finished 32nd, not too bothered and satisfied with the experience.


My summary was as follows:

"My aggressive approach to today's Middle race was always going to be risky, and unsurprisingly by half way round I was beginning to fumble around having gone a few miles into the red zone. However, although my mistakes from today total a time loss that's much larger than my recent norm, I am very satisfied with the sections of my race that went well, especially during a head-to-head with a Finland competitor for the second half of the course. I was punished harshly for every hesitation and poor micro-routechoice, but that's what I came here for and I feel I have gained some valuable experience from these championships so far."

The pressure was somewhat off on the day of the Relay, as I was running 2nd leg for the 2nd team. However when Johnny came in ahead of the first team, suddenly things got exciting and I headed out with many other top teams to race against. I lugged round a rather long gaffle and lost some time towards the end but largely kept our position to set Aidan off with a few people to battle against. Eventually the first team overtook again but I don't think many people were proud with their runs today. The banquet made up for an average day in the woods, and the next day we travelled home to Britain.

Certainly an interesting taste of senior competition and I feel motivated to fix not only my larger time losses, both physically and technically, but the tiny ones that eventually stack up to change my results dramatically. There's lots to focus on in my final junior internationals later this year and next year.

The most chilled out international I will ever run in

My current location is Aberdeen Airport where my 11:05 flight has been moved to 16:30, and although my [slightly forced] relaxed mentality with the obscene delay is only so because my connecting flight isn't until tomorrow morning, my mood reflects how I hope my attitude will be towards the upcoming big races next week. In only 5 days I will be running my first senior international race for Great Britain at the World Uni Champs 2016 in Miskolc, Hungary and yet I have had more stress in the lead up to a midwinter Parkrun where my biggest competition is a local runner who is aiming to break 18minutes.

This somewhat unusual pre-competition mentality stems from the fact that this wasn't even an annual goal of mine pre-BUCS back in February simply because no-one, including myself, ever expected me to be given a ticket to the competition starting in a few days time. And even once BUCS went so well and the selections came out, my focus remained on JWOC. With a gap of 2 weeks between internationals and such a stronger, older, and more experienced international field at WUOC, it simply wasn't wise for me to put my full focus on both, and so WUOC will remain an experience-orientated international for me, where any good result will be a bonus and a bad run, should one occur, be less disastrous than normal. Of course I'm not going to take the piss and run the races in my boxers; I'm still putting my full focus and effort into every race, but clearly the pressure is off and it's a chance for me to try out some different approaches. It's a nice feeling, and, most likely, one that will never be repeated.

My goal for the next few day now is to decide my exact approach for both individual races next week (I'm excluding the relay because, clearly, my race strategy and performance will effect other people's results directly, and not just my own). There are so many variations of physical aggression, technical risk taking and preparation levels that it will be a tough decision. But more likely than not I will be taking a relaxed and safe approach to the Long, which is set to be a bit of a survival expedition in the Hungarian heat and steep slopes, and perhaps a more aggressive version of my JWOC Middle strategy for the Middle race on Wednesday.

So for the final few days before Monday's Long, after some praying that I actually get to Heathrow tonight, I'll be getting used to the Hungarian terrain and heat, as well as making some exciting decisions on a very rare opportunity to race an international stress-free and as I see fit.

A recovery week in Tuscany

After JWOC I got exactly what I needed, a week of chilling with the family in Italy where my hardest decision to make was whether to eat pizza or pasta for dinner that evening. I also remained healthy after the somewhat stressful JWOC week (and night) paired with a whole load of travelling. Training in this block was in the form of relaxed, pre-breakfast adventures in some thick jungles around the village in the hills where we were staying, and although a few got out of hand and extended a bit, I was feeling fit.

On the final day me and Oleg pushed the 'recovery' a little bit harder and hit a colossal scramble up one of the highest and steepest runs I've ever been on. At times the path up the 30% average gradient (for 1400m of climb) was no more than an indistinct rabbit trod but in a way this was good, as it meant there was a reduced risk of overusing my achilles and hip flexors which haven't been strengthened in a while. The views from the top were stunning and it was a great way to end a very nice week in a very nice part of the world.

JWOC 2016

Although this report is a bit late, I feel it's still important that I write down some thoughts on my main competition this year, the Junior World Championships in the middle of the Alps in Scuol, Switzerland. I ran four races there, starting with the Long distance on the 11th July, followed by a rest day, and then the Middle Qualifier, Final and Relay on the consecutive days after. This schedule was well suited to me, and I felt prepared heading out to Switzerland with the team, 5 days before the first race.

Clearly the climate was going to be different, and by expecting the worst, I felt more prepared. The initial travel+pollen+dry heat shock hit me hard and for the first few days I felt pretty rough. However a good nights sleep surprisingly cleared everything up and I soon I was feeling the most prepared I've ever been for an international competition. This, coupled with a really strong technical training on the middle model map, was giving me some good motivation, whilst at the same time I managed to get myself mentally relaxed about all the races which is where my best results usually sprout from. It seems that there was very little going wrong and no reason for me to not achieve some solid results. That is, until I began warming up for the long.

After some good Middle training

Monday - Long Distance

GPS

Results

Late start time, GPS, tough/hilly terrain, perfect preparation, everything was on my side. I made it to pre-start without incident and apart from a classic pair of nervous, pre-race lethargic legs, everything seemed fine. At -5 I finished my drills and did my final stride up to -3, and suddenly, I was feeling crap. I thought nothing of it and ran of the start line with continued confidence but soon I was tripping up over my own feet, ridiculously tired, and feeling like I had already raced a long distance that morning. So I took my foot off the gas and expected to soon feel better but things just got worse. I was technically average and since the first part was due to be the trickiest, I thought nothing of it, but by 5mins in I was dying of thirst and was already considering a dropout at the run through, 25mins in. I took a safe routechoice on the first long leg to number 7 but panicked in the circle and stumbled through spectator after wasting a minute, and on what felt like my final joules of energy.

I felt better with a kick of energy drink and cheering crowds but soon I was descending down the harsh hill on a crappy RC to number 10 and was eventually reduced to a walk, going down a hill. I walked/stumbled the next few controls and could barely move my legs by the next drinks control, where I spent a good 30s drinking and nearly knocking the table over from leaning against it. I have never felt so unfit. The only reason I wasn't dropping out was the fact that no one, especially Audun or Emil starting 4 and 2mins behind, was overtaking me and I had the weird instinct that everybody else was struggling too.

In the final third, things picked up again and although I was letting my laziness take over on routechoices, I was actually running and pushing again. I cruised into the finish expecting to be outwith the top 100 but I was sat in 42nd. That adds to my consistent JWOC Long results of 45th and 45th, and concludes yet again a poor long distance race. I guess the only positive to get from it is that although my placing is consistent, I feel like I lost more and more time year on year (if that makes sense).

Running, a rare moment in the Long race

I blamed preparations, my coaches blamed the altitude; whatever it was, it was time to forget about it. After a horrific drive home where I was inches from being sick, I chilled out and set my eyes in the Middle - a much lower alpine and shorter race which was more about being clean, something that I have managed fairly well in recent weeks.

Wednesday - Middle Qualifier

GPS

Results

Things changed for the better by the time I got to the start line on the Middle day. On Tuesday I got out early doors to a misty Scuol for some drills and strides. I felt strong and dropped a 13s 100m as my final stride; feeling very bouncy indeed. I opted for the middle start block, which although nearly came back to smack me in the face in the sense that I was first start of the middle block, in the end acted as the contrary by filling me with confidence that I was comfortable and in control.

This carried on to the warm up with Harrison and Meg. The terrain was good, the weather was Scottish (misty wet and cold) and I knew exactly what I was doing by the time I got to the start line. I was last to the start kite out of my start group, and I found myself cruising the first section, which in turn eventually put me in 2nd position on my heat. However I then became overconfident and pushed on, which, paired with a slightly different terrain for the middle section, caused me to make 2x 60s losses. I panicked, but knew I would still be fine, and cruised the last section before entering the arena with a warm welcome from Per Forsberg confirming my qualification. Finished, and felt like I could have run the race twice more. By far my favourite event of the year; if only I had felt so good for the long...

Thursday - Middle Final

GPS

Results

I knew what I had to change from my last two years of poor JWOC Middle Final experiences: instead of just saying I had to race the final like the qualifier, this time I actually had to do it. So I did. 

I was noticeably more tired warming up than I was for the qualifier, but perhaps this was just nerves as by the time I started I felt great. I headed out with an incorrect picture for number 1 but this was easily adjusted. I quickly picked up on the planner's aim of control number 2, to throw unsuspecting fast starters off. I slowed down and picked off every feature I could find, only to find my 4 minute man messing about and my theory on the planner's logic confirmed. I carried on cleanly up the first beastly climb and soon decided a safe option to the crucial number 5 leg. I lost time but who knows what could have happened had I been more aggressive at this stage. 

The second big climb arrived and I felt poor. I assumed I had lost a tonne of time up to number 8 but was in fact one of the top few splits on this leg, even after hammering it straight with some extra climb thrown in. I got to the circle to see my strong 2min man exiting and knew it was time to push on. I raced with Fiona to number 10, only just managing to overtake her, and was soon jumping down a 3m crag to make sure she didn't overtake me back. I checked out the rest of the course at this stage and was surprised to see such a small last loop, perhaps I was taking things too easy. Another safe route to 13 cost me up to 30s but my frenchman was in site and I was ready to push the last section. 

Entering the run through, I ignored the commentator who was focussing on the last few finishers of the women's race and focussed on the frenchman ahead. I got to the second last control cleanly and decided that this was the end of the navigation for the race. So I put my map away and hit the last bit hard..... only to miss the last control by 10s and lose perhaps 1 or 2 places... Ah well, a 16th spot in the end, and finished so comfortably that within an hour of finishing my race I felt like I hadn't race at all. Moral of the story - slow and steady comes 16th in the race, next year try pushing it a bit more - like a certain welsh legend who smashed the GB women's forest best to come 4th, well done Meg!

Wondering where the last control is

Friday - Relay

GPS

Confidence was filling the team on Friday, and with a handful of good anchor legs so far this year it's fair to say I was feeling fairly confident too. The area was as British as Switzerland could get in my opinion, the weather remained Scottish and by the first radio control we were in the lead. But then Brutus fumbled, and although this would normally be taken as a negative I took it as a positive; I would rather be chasing people down than being chased, especially with the strong turnout for last leg. Dane eventually handed over to me in a pack a few minutes down on podium and I headed out with a relaxed mindset, knowing that positions would sort themselves out and all I could really do to help was a clean race, something that would certainly be achievable in this simplified terrain.

So I set off in a strong pack of Latvia, Norway and Hungary, but was soon pushed back with a long gaffle to 1. I sat at the back of a rather spread out train on the grind up to 3 but then began to catch on the tricky slope controls. I had energy to think whilst Hungary didn't so I said my goodbyes and fixed my eyes on the Latvian who was flying ahead. However I simply didn't have the strength today and he began pulling away quite early on, and by spectator I was simply trying to keep ahead of Sweden 2 and (unknowingly) the strong, catching, Austrian anchor. 

I continued onto the last loop fairly relaxed, but Austria was on my tail and had he not followed me through a dodgy route post-spectator I may have lost out on another place. I also may have gained a place had I taken the better route as NZ was dying badly ahead. But what difference would it have made? We came 9th country in the end, consistent with recent years. Had I been more of a superman like Norway I could have scraped the podium but simply didn't have that in me today, especially after the harsh number 1. There's work to be done before next year, not just for me but the whole mens team's approach. Big things ahead, even more so for the GB women (5th today!).

And so ends a very average JWOC experience. I feel like the 6 months of nearly untainted preparation hasn't yet been justified but at least I came out the other side with a result to be proud of in the notoriously physiologically, as well as technically, difficult Middle Final. And even though theren't aren't other results to be particularly proud of, my strong preparation in itself is something to take as a good result. Hopefully bigger and better things to come, especially if this optimum training regime continues on.

Taper Time

It's been a really good last few weeks since Jukola. The weather has been nice, the training high quality and the results good. I have used the brilliant areas in Deeside to my full advantage for the last few weeks and for once I am actually satisfied with my preparations for a major competition, so far!

This being said, the next few days are going to be the most crucial. My mileage is still higher than it should be but some easy days and tapered sessions should bring things down nicely before the JWOC Long distance on Monday. The higher mileage has certainly been noticeable on some tough O sessions where my legs get tired way too quickly, even though I'm normally be fine. However there has also been some really positive sessions where my energy supplies seem to be infinite and I've had no problems physically or technically.

One of these confidence boosters was on the above map, where I ran a Long race simulation on Sunday a week ago. Before the orienteering had even started, I ran 30min at a steady pace on some trails before heading straight into this course. The weather was hot like Switzerland and the only support I had for the whole 90min session was a gel on the way to number 4 (45min in). The orienteering went well, except for maybe the end where the terrain was rough and I was getting lazy at keeping a good bearing. However this time loss was almost negligible and should the JWOC Long go anything like this then I will be satisfied. The terrain was as similar as Scotland could give and the weather was a good simulation too. Only the altitude can have an effect now. 

Tomorrow I will fly out with Team GB to Milan and drive up to Switzerland. There we will do some easy acclimatisational training before the competitions kick off. For me this will be the JWOC Long next Monday. Hoping the final few upcoming days will be as good as the last 5 months.

Jukola 2016 (Lappee)

Last Tuesday I flew out to Finland for a few days of training with the TuMe boys and then Jukola where I was put on last leg for the second team. I was aware that I didn't want a repeat of 10Mila in terms of a poor performance due to tired legs, and even more so since the second team was still very competitive and could potentially break top 25. So to be safe, the trainings I did were all fairly easy and short, to try and save my legs for the relay.

On Wednesday morning, I hit some Helsinki trails for a steady run with 6 x 1min [2min] thrown in for fun. It was a very hot morning and I sweated buckets, but felt I was keeping a good rhythm on the very undulating XC ski trails. That evening, after travelling to a summer house quite close to the Jukola area, I did a short 30min course in some pretty nice terrain. However, there were too many tracks out to really feel any sense of accomplishment...

Summery view from Helsinki overnight stay

The next day there was a WRE on in the evening, the Huippuliigan. So just a short run with drills in the morning. I headed out quite safe, wanting to bag some solid controls, but soon was messing up and loosing quite a lot of time. Not only this but I punched too quickly at one control causing an MP... Happy that it was at this event and not Jukola, and there was at least some solid orienteering going on at times. Legs really didn't have much in them though which was worrying, so I took things really easy for the next two days.

On Friday we had our final club training on a Jukola relevant map. I made a complete hash of the first control but then reset and did some really smooth, focussed orienteering. Then on Saturday a few of the team headed out to the model, and after I ran a few controls comfortably, I checked out the already mud-infested arena, and then headed back for some lunch and recovery.

Nice walk on Friday evening

Unlike at 10Mila, [almost] all my preparations went really well. However, this might just have been because my race was almost at a normal time, as I was expecting to start at around 6am. In terms of nutrition - big lunch, carb dinner, porridge breakfast, light snack -2hrs, perfect. Training: last hard session 3 days before. Hydration: check. Legs in good shape: check. Sleep: well... I tried heading to bed earlier and managed to sleep for an hour between 6 and 7pm on Saturday. However, after this, although using my best efforts, I didn't get another wink before having to get up at 2am; shit. Oh well, forget about it, move on; I was told this shouldn't really effect me anyway but it was stressful nonetheless.

At 4am we headed over to the arena and at 5 I started getting ready. The team were doing well, as I found out after 'waking' up at 2am, and the pressure was mounting on me when it looked like there was a chance at breaking top 25. Our 6th leg lost some places though and it seemed doubtful; however it would be a lie for me to say that I wasn't semi-relieved... Eventually I was in the box at what felt like 6pm but was actually 6am. Did my drills as best as I could in the muddy slop which was the changeover and eventually I was tagged and heading out into the gloomy, wet terrain.

My plan, again unlike 10Mila, was to have a steady start and pick up from there, hoping in the end to have something to give on the final loop should I be caught up in a sprint. So I did just this, flowing smoothly along all the trails through the green to number 1. I was advised to really nail this control, so I made sure of this. I hesitated for a few seconds before eventually seeing it, but I really should have been more confident as I knew exactly what I was doing. Then over to number 2, 102, check, number 3... half way there when I remembered I should have punched 101. Extremely annoyed at myself but also grateful that somehow I managed to realise this before getting much further away, or even finishing. I trudged back and found my control, wasting 90s but remaining calm. I think having trouble remembering control numbers might have been the only real disadvantage from not getting any sleep...

After this though things picked up and although I was mostly alone I was orienteering pretty quickly and cleanly. Went through the southern loop really smoothly but then chose to go pretty straight to 10 which was a poor routechoice. Weaved along any trail I could find but certainly lost at least a minute from my normal time behind the winner on each control. Took my first gel at this point and was still feeling strong. On the next western loop I was caught by NTNUI and raced the guy for a bit, producing some good splits. But then he got away, way too quick for what I was feeling. Not too bothered, and soon I was heading through the arena passage as Thierry was finishing. This definitely sped me up a bit.

However, this small increase in speed was only followed by an absolute crash, which no amount of sugar could surpass. A few guys came past including GG and my navigation began to suffer with some lazy routes. However, picked up when the finish began to come into sight on my map, and it's quite a good thing that I did as the Lillomarka train was quickly catching up. Surged at the finish to keep well ahead of them, but it's only at the end when I realised they were actually there.

An absolute state by the end, felt like tearing up from fatigue and completely soaked from head to toe. Managed to squeeze out a km recovery with GG but I was soon crashing as I did for the rest of the day and the flight back home. Grim, but fairly happy with the result. Lost 5 places, but could not have really seen myself doing much better being set off so high on last leg.. Team seemed quite happy, as we finished in 34th, so that's always a plus!

Team
Splits

Positives and negatives to take from this:

+ navigationally sound (except 2) given that I was largely alone in some tricky finish terrain
+ physically good until 10km (only lost 6 mins to leader including mistake to 2)
+ preparations fairly successful

- massive crash after 10km, not too sure why I can't seem to last for longer than this (in other recent races too)
- technically lazy towards the end, missing out on climbs if possible etc...
- couldn't sleep beforehand (nerves?)
- gels don't seem to be working

I think my main worry is that my physical capabilities seem to be awful, even though I've had nearly 6 months of uninterrupted training including tough long hilly runs which should have mimicked Jukola. At the moment I'm putting this down to a few weeks of heavy training going into this; really hope there isn't another, more worrying reason.

Anyway - next up is a few final weeks of prep before Switzerland. I guess one final positive to take from Jukola is that it was much more difficult and longer than fairly simplified and shortened Long distance on Swiss terrain.

Glas Tulaichean and Deeside Training

Towards the end of last week, Deeside experienced a bit of a heatwave. This was certainly noticeable lining up for the start of Glas Tulaichean uphill only race, but I thought nothing of it, and if anything, it would be good practice for the summer international's upcoming heat. However, I completely crumbled before even getting to the foot of the mountain. No idea what to put this down to but it's possible that I was quite dehydrated. However, more than likely, I had simply crashed after running a grueling 4 sessions in the last 8 days leading up to the race. Anyway, it was a good experience and two valuable lessons were learnt from it - hydration can be the difference between a good and bad race on hot days, and taper up for big races. Two obvious ideas but they have really made themselves clear with me in recent competitions.

After this, I decided to make the best use of the hot weather upper Deeside was experiencing and so I headed up the valley to camp and train for 2 nights. I found a great spot for the first night between Inver and Creag Choinnich.

River was great for dips post training.

Whilst out, I ran 4 tough orienteering sessions and 1 drills session. On the first night I headed out to Inver for some SlopeO. Started in some heavy heather which made running nearly impossible at times but it soon got better. However, it then got much worse when deep heather was coupled with nearly vertical slopes. I hated every step of it, but there's no denying it was an awesome area in some great weather. I eventually finished feeling very dehydro-ed and splashed about in some pools for a bit.

The next morning, I headed up to Creag Choinnich for a corridor. It really didn't go well and I really didn't drink enough water before heading out. A bit of a failure of a session. However, things got much better from here. At lunch I went for an easy run coupled with MM drills, and although I got a pretty bad nosebleed half way through, I was feeling much better and even found a mountain stream to drink out of before running back. I packed and moved myself to Ballater, where that evening I went for a long legs slopeO session in Pannanich. This was bound to be horrible but I felt much better and the terrain was amazing! Nearly broke my leg a few times on the slope to 4 but other than that I was feeling quite good. Poor height management to 5, but otherwise pretty safe and clean technically.

After a very nice evening of reading plus a chippy and a good sleep, I headed out to Craigendarroch for a final middle-style slopeO course. I started feeling good and was orienteering clean but soon hit a wall of heather and was forced down to a walk for quite a few controls. Eventually popped out of the heather but my legs were done. Crawled round the last few and headed home just as a thunderstorm was making an end to the heatwave. A good few days' work in the bag.

I then rested for a good 30 hours before a long session on Scolty on Wednesday. Found some very technical downhill MTB paths to practice technique on and a few steep climbs to try and match that of Switzerland. After an hour 'warming up' I headed into a Scolty Summer Series course which went very smoothly, aside from the fact that I was beginning to doze off physically after 90mins. No mistakes, but there wouldn't be an excuse for any in a fairly simple area like this. It was really nice having actual kites to look for after quite a few no flag sessions recently.

The optimum of course would be a combination of kites and intricate orienteering. Luckily that will come next week with a Middle distance near the Jukola area on Thursday and the real deal on Saturday night. Looking forward to really testing myself at both races, and hopefully some constructive results will come out of it. I will be tapering a lot more than I did before Tio in the hope to lower the chance of fading as hard as I did on the relay. Then it's only 3 weeks before JWOC and I can start really sharpening up. I've already planned a few good final sessions before this, including a CC on Glen Fearder which is just about as Swiss as you can get in Scotland.

Rare Progress

It's been pretty nice relaxing at home for the past few weeks, without the need to race any essential selection races. And without the stress of uni, I've been piling all my focus into training and recovering; my only worry these days is whether there is enough food in Aberdeen to sustain my appetite.

This stress-free life has allowed my training to really boost up, with some high quality work being put in now in the attempt to begin to sharpen up for summer. I feel as if I'm becoming faster and stronger - it's beginning to show in the sense of feeling fitter during hilly runs+intervals and being less tired waking up each morning, irrespective of how heavy the training load was the day before.

However, with this satisfaction with my current level of fitness comes a worry that my orienteering capabilities aren't keeping up. Recent races have shown a real lack of essential skills, which is quite worrying. I've been trying to fix this by fitting in a fair amount of orienteering round my physical prep, with a main focus on compass work. Although I recently realised that my compass is no longer pointing to anywhere of particular use (certainly not north), things have been getting better, particularly with a really positive session yesterday.

Another area of weakness I've picked up on is that I tend to be lazy towards the end of long races. I tried to address this yesterday by putting in an O session in Sluie at the end of a long run, starting in Scolty and heading over the whole ridge to Potarch. I expected to be knackered and lazy with my O-tech by the end of this session but I felt strong on the hills, and, aside from 2 slight wobbles, I was fairly good at holding my bearings, resulting in a 5.2km Garmin measured distance for a 5km course.

Hoping to continue this good training for the next 2 weeks leading up to Jukola, with a WRE Middle in Finland the Thursday before added in for good measure. Looking forward to hopefully a better physical performance as well as a more solid technical one. In the meantime there's a few hill races to look forward to, including Glas Tulaichean uphill only this coming Saturday. Forecast looks hot and sunny just now, so hopefully a nice day out in the hills!

Gypsy Glen and Scottish Champs

This week my aim was to get back into a nice pattern of training, sleeping, eating etc.. I was aware that 10mila had taken a lot out of me and for the first few days I felt lethargic in my training. Because of this, I decided to only have one high intensity session this week (before the Scottish Champs on the weekend) on Wednesday. Luckily, the Gypsy Glen hill race down in Peebles matched perfectly with my plan and so I chose to travel down to race that on Wednesday evening.

Gypsy Glen Hill Race

It had been warm and sunny all day and I was expecting to overheat at the race, even in just a vest. But by the time the race started I was soaked and it was still bucketing down with rain. Thankfully it was still warm or I would have completely froze... The race started at a good pace, and I led the pack round and out of the field, towards the hill. For 2km we tempoed along at a comfortable pace until hitting the steep climb up for the next mile. I slipped back into 3rd, chasing down James W and Gavin B, but keeping ahead of Espie, who I've never managed to beat. 

Ran the entirety of the climb and tried to make a move into 2nd on the top. However Gavin came straight past again and opened up a good gap. No worries, I decided to keep my ankle safe (had twisted it badly the day before) and focus on keeping ahead of Espie. Annoyingly had to pause to open 2 gates but I kept well ahead and even produced some pretty nice splits on the run back. Finished comfortably 3rd, with a decent session in the bag. All top 4 of us broke the record too so definitely not a slow race. Looking to do more of these in the preparation for the summer's races that will almost always involve some brutal climbs!

(too close to Gavin to get a stand alone picture)

Results

Scottish Long and Relay Championships

I always planned to race this weekend but I also planned to train through it like any other small event. Therefore the dilemma arose where I wanted to run hard and orienteer well, but I would almost certainly feel knackered before I had even started. This was even more of a problem with the climb involved - 460m in 8.2km for the Long - this would be steep even for a hill race. 

A good warm up and a positive state of mind was then pretty much all I could do without a taper in preparation for the Long. My goal was to be clean even if it meant taking things down a gear, but in the end though I lost at least 4mins and went and pretty much full capacity for the whole race. I took the win on M20 and was only beaten by 2mins to Harrison (M18), but I'm still very frustrated at my poor performance. I felt under pressure right from the start and took a poor bearing leading to a parallel error, losing 1 minute. I then regained focus though and had a really good middle section, only to catch up Will, red zone, and miss out on an obvious routechoice and mistake some white forest for LG... Really not good enough but at least it's pretty clear what I need to fix. Quite looking forward to doing so in the next few weeks when I'm back home in Deeside.

The relay on the following day went quite similarly. It was a brutal head to head race for the title with Nixon (FVO) on the last leg. I led the whole way but allowed a good 30s gap to escape half way round when I went too far into the red zone and didn't take a bearing properly. After this I could neither navigate nor stay on my feet very well. Legs were beginning to give in on any climb, but a final effort up to pre-warning at the end saved us the title and EUOC finished off the main relay season with a final win.

Some locally made cheese was a great prize, and some more time in Balmoral was always nice, but still not happy with my orienteering at all. Quite possibly a result of my orienteering neglect earlier in the year, which is now showing up as an absence of the essential skills that I seem to be missing whilst racing. However, at least there's still time to fix all this. No restraints from competitions for the next 4 weeks until Jukola means I can surely fix my technique in time for the summer.

10Mila 2016

A very long night....

Flew out on Thursday afternoon and met some of the TuMe boys in the airport, before driving over to Börlange, arriving late and heading pretty much straight to bed.

After a decent breakfast we headed out for some training on a similar area. I was aware that even though I would be night orienteering, it would be useful for me to get a feel for the terrain (and o-map, as it had been a few weeks since I had orienteered). This didn't go too smoothly at all and I was struggling both technically and physically, which then hit me mentally. Perhaps it was a high level of pollen that day, but I felt like I couldn't breathe heading up any big hills, very uncomfortable. This then hit me technically and I forgot how to orienteer, which began to make me worried about the following night's 16.6km night leg.

After this training I began to get quite annoyed at myself. Why hadn't I spent more time orienteering back home, or pushed for a day leg, or at least slowed things down in the training area so to not mess things up so easily? I calmed myself down knowing that the pressure of running in a team usually made me focus more, that pollen is less of an issue after rain and at night (and so my chest should be better) and that my leg was ungaffled (plus there was a good chance I'd be in a train).

That evening, after a confusing eating schedule, we hit some more training on a cool ski-slope area near the 10mila map. I headed out much more confident and orienteered much better. Not only that, but I felt 10x better physically and that gave myself a much needed confidence boost. Finished the training off by running down some slowly melting ski jumps and clambered into the bus to dig into a midnight dinner.

Slept in the next morning and had a chilled breakfast, before heading to Falun and having a massive Chinese lunch with the rest of the team. Watched the women's race but also tried to catch some Zs, which didn't go too well. Soon the evening came by, and after a weird dinner/breakfast meal, we were watching the start from the hotel. Spent some time chilling in the room before Doug headed out, and eventually Janis and myself were ready to go to the arena.

We arrived at the arena in a motivated state and began to do the usual pre-race routine. The mood was soon brought down a bit with our first team mispunching but I was still keen to head out and show the club what I could do. Felt relatively normal warming up and was pretty excited heading in to the box and getting ready to form a train. Erik soon came in about a minute down on a pack of about 5 so I set off and began the chase.

DOMA link

Set off up the hill to 1 and felt horrific. Assumed this was just the steep hill though and was soon heading north to 2 on a relatively flat track. Felt quite good and cruised with good pace to find the pack before we hit the field. We swerved left just before the control (saw a light, probably the camera) but soon corrected this and came into the control all together. The pack shot off about 45 degrees wrong to 3 though and I nipped in in front. However, I hadn't planned 4 all that much so we stood there for a moment in a panicked planning state,

The Lynx runner soon made a decision and we followed him out the control at a pretty severe angle to some tracks. This is where I began to feel awful. At first it felt like a sicky feeling, and I began to think how I could fix things. Lost touch with the map and decided to just trust the other guys. I began to fiddle with my spare torch round my stomach and transferred it to my wrist. This made a big difference but I was still not all that fresh. We crossed the drinks points eventually, I took some energy drink and felt a bit better, before swooping down to find 4. Except we had all made a parallel error and we were screwed. We followed some elephant tracks in unsuccessful desperation but soon I took charge to head down the hill to hit a big crag and relocate. Wasted approx. 6mins but could have been a lot more had the guys carried on their headless chicken approach to relocating..

I took the lead going down to the track but was soon overtaken by Lynx again. But this time I decided to break off and take a straighter route to 5 whilst the guys went round on a safer route. I knew I'd meet them again soon so took a bit of a break and walked up the hill to find them at the top again. I took charge again and hit 5 after a big, but safe, banana. Died a bit going up to 6 and took a gel. Felt the instant energy burst and kept in the pack well but then we were soon going straight to 9, much to my disappointment. This was definitely a poor route but no one in the pack seemed to realise. I didn't have the balls to split but looking back, I probably should have manned up.

This could have ended the race for me though, because once we eventually hit the track going to 9, my legs went totally flat and I really began to hit the wall. No amount of gels/drink seemed to help this and I was slowly dropped by the train, which was at about 15 people now. The faster guys broke off and I just about hung on to a few stragglers. However there was a long way to go and I began to worry about how I might end up finishing. Took a few good shortcuts to the later controls and my descending speed seemed to save me but eventually I trundled in to the finish 45s down on the back of the pack, thoroughly disappointed. Even though I lost 6 places, overall I pretty much maintained, due to the small gaps in the train that I was in for most of the race. However 6 minutes is a big loss and I can't even begin to imagine how much time I lost on the running side of the 20km leg.

Perhaps the best way to sum up my experience is that if the race was regular individual event, I would have retired by the 5km point. Didn't enjoy a single moment of it, which is a rarity.

Many things that my poor physical shape could be put down to, including:

• Eating prep. - (maybe ate too close to my start)
• Sleeping prep. - (not enough during the day?)
• Hayfever - (chest felt tight at times)
• Training load in the week leading up - (nothing to give in legs)
• Large concentration of effort at the start of the race to catch the pack (early burnout)

but whatever the reason it was my fault and I really should have run better with all the long runs I've put in in the months leading up to this. Hence I am quite annoyed, and even more so with the impression I gave TuMe. At least I can say I gave it my all, even though my all wasn't very much that night... The team went on to finish 72nd and I was 75th on the leg.

There seems to be a recent pattern that my races either go really well or really badly, no mediocre performances recently as of yet... Need to try and find what's governing my bad results now. Perhaps it's as simple as one of the above points, but there could be more to it than that, including things mental preparation. However, there's still a few races before the summer arrives to test things out and hopefully find a good routine where results sort themselves out. And with regards to TuMe representation, there's still Jukola to come, so hopefully I can prove myself there...

Start of Summer

My last exam has been and gone, and now I'm really looking forward to the next 4 months of stress-free life. In the past few weeks I struggled to combine the large quantity of revision that was required (for an unprepared, lazy student) and training but a recovery week after the busy few months of racing that there's already been really helped to keep things manageable. I picked up a few niggles; dodgy achilles, hip flexor, foot pains, that were almost all a result of over-building things but thankfully these all faded away after making themselves noticeable for a day or so. I was also weary of the increasing risk of illness with the stress that exams had brought, and furthermore with the fact that I haven't been ill for 4 months - a new PB. There was a period in the last week that my chest would feel cold out on any run but I soon realised that this was more than likely just the high pollen levels - the winds have since changed to coming off the coast and the chest problems have gone away. Clearly I've gotten away with it so far, and can now have a few days to relax before heading out to 10Mila on Thursday.

At Tio, I will be running 4th leg (long night, ungaffelled) for Turku-based, Turun Metsänkävijät 2nd team. This will be one of the toughest and longest races I have ever done, especially with the post-midnight start and night-orienteering challenges, so I am hoping for a nice train to keep things manageable. The competition terrain looks fairly comparable to something Scottish, and I'm looking forward to the big hills that will be unusual to most who have run Tio before. Long legs are a given too and it seems like it'll be the standard straight/round route-choice with hills and tracks involved. There is a very intricate bit on the bottom right hand side of the map that will likely be visited by longer courses. It's in bits like these that I'm happy my course won't be gaffelled!

I will be looking to make the most of my time in Dalarna too and will do some good night-o practice on Friday night as well as some light day training on Friday and Saturday. Coming home on Sunday night and I will have some time to relax in summertime Edinburgh before heading to the Scottish Champs and pre-Jwoc camp in Balmoral, one of the top areas in Britain. Very excited for that.

In the meantime I will be charging my headtorch, packing many many energy gels, and geeking the hell out of the Tio map before hopefully bashing out a respectable result come Saturday night.

New Blog and Summer Plans

This isn't my first attempt at having an online blog - outwith Attackpoint and other social media pages. All previous attempts at blogging have generally failed due to my laziness in updating..
My intention for this blog is to be able to share my long race reports and orienteering career highlights that won't bulk out my AP and allow me to focus more on training there. This should also be useful for me to look back and reflect on what was going well/not so well both in and out of competition season.

This will likely fall through within a couple of weeks but it's worth a shot anyway, and if it's going to motivate me towards my summer races then there really can't be any disadvantages.

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After a pretty successful start to the season, my summer orienteering schedule is beginning to form. I am disappointed with my results at both JWOC Long selection races as at the start of the season this was certainly my top priority. On both occasions I feel as if my physical preparations in the days leading up could have been better and my state of mind whilst racing was nowhere near where it needed to be. On both occasions I therefore was slow, made mistakes and on both occasions I trudged into the finish thinking of nasty things I could do to my map/splits as a way of expressing frustration.

However, luckily for me the Sprint and Middle selection races were very successful, especially seeing as how little I had been training for Sprint in the lead up to the events. I put these results down to a very relaxed pre-race mentality, a fairly solid speed endurance shape, and perhaps most importantly, a good geeking stint in the lead up to the races. My aim before the summer is to transfer this over to my Long discipline potential, and find out what else I was doing at these selection races, as well as BUCS and the two SOLs that have been gone well, so that I can go into the JWOC Long with confidence.

However, before JWOC there is a good few exciting races to focus on first. In a week's time I will be travelling to 10Mila in Falun for a few days of training and then the big night itself. No indications of my leg but I am excited to be running for Finnish club Turun Metsänkävijät's second team for my first time.

The following weekend holds the Scottish Championships in Balmoral forest, perhaps the most continental-relevant area in Britain. The big, intricate, rocky slopes and [hopefully] tricky routechoice legs will be good practice for the Swiss Alps. This will also be the training weekend for the JWOC/EYOC teams so there will be a good deal of team building/preparation going on. Sunday holds the Scottish Relay Championships where I hope EUOC can continue their successes at the British Champs and take home both Men's and Women's trophies.

After a few weeks of solid training, both in Edinburgh and at home, Jukola is the next event on my list. I plan to run for TuMe once more and also get a good few days of training out in Finland, preparing not only for this summer but also the next (JWOC 2017).

Approximately 2 weeks after Jukola, the team will fly out to JWOC where I will have 5 days to acclimatise (as best as I can (at ~1600m)) before the first race, the long distance. More on this to come.

After JWOC, I will join my family in Italy for some relaxation/light training before coming home and getting ready for Hungary.

At the start of August, I will be running for GBR again but this time at WUOC 2016 in Hungary. I will be running Long, Middle and Relay there, and hope to gain some valuable experience in competing against seniors before I step up to the big guns in 2018.

It gets a bit fuzzy now but after Hungary I will hopefully be heading over to Finland with a British Squad team to train for JWOC 2017.

Now that the main season is over I will be enjoying myself, doing some fun little races (including a vertical kilometer over in Glen Coe in September) but mainly recovering and preparing for the Junior European Cup in Scotland, the last big fixture of the year. I am really looking forward to racing an international field in my home country and hopefully showing them how its done in the Stirlingshire forests.

Before all this though, I have a few more final days of exams to get through. After this my entire focus will be on the summer - really looking forward to 10Mila now. Hopefully it will go as well as the British Relays did.