Uppsala Möte

So I just got back from another weekend of orienteering in Uppsala. I  went down on the train on Friday afternoon with a group of 18 and arrived just after 9. Saturday was the first of two events, it was a middle distance. I was very happy with my run. It was the first half decent run I have had since arriving in Sweden and I came 4th out of 24! I think I only lost around 2 and a half minutes in total (on controls 8 and 10), but this moved me from second down to fourth.

 I think I really need to focus on my running. Even though I am still recovering from injury, I felt like my running was extremely slow because I am not particularly fit right now.

After the race I went into Uppsala with Alistair Landels and his family, and Matt Ogden. It was very nice to talk to some familiar faces!

Sundays race was about 10 times worse than Saturdays. I was having a great race for the first four controls. I had caught up to the girl who started just before me on the second control, and was coming second overall... until control 5. I had a great route choice most of the way to the fifth control, until I got to the control circle. When I left the path my bearing was off (non-existent more like...!) and I ended up... well... Evidently I was focusing too much on the girl who was running just behind me and not enough on the map. Next to the control is a big marsh, and because it was green I thought that meant a different type of vegetation (I didn't look at it closely enough...), so when I first saw the control I though 'No, that can't be mine, it doesn't look right'... but obviously I was wrong! I lost nearly 5 minutes on that control! And then after messing one control up, I messed up the next one (as you do). I left the control thinking I was running in more of a south direction than I was. I crossed a river that was in the marsh and thought I was near the control. I saw the girl who had passed me on control 5 and thought 'Yus, I obviously didn't make too much of a mistake' (lol) and decided to follow her. I realised quite quickly that she had already found control 6... Well  I figured that out when she took me to the seventh control! So I took a 'bearing' back towards number 6.... although I think it was more of a mental bearing just retracing my steps. And then I was lost. I didn't want to go back to the 7th control to take another bearing, so I just waited for someone run past me and asked for help. And then, after 10 minutes wasted looking in the wrong place and being so close to ripping up my map and giving up, I found it. Thank goodness! I even managed to tell someone else where their control was (which feels really good after being lost for so long...!), and managed to get an  equal fastest time to control 7! 

I ended up 15th out of 21 finishers... How I didn't come last I don't really know!

The journey back to Umeå wasn't particularly eventful, although I managed to introduce some of the group I was travelling with to catching features! 

The next event I am doing is this coming weekend. I will fly down south to Småland for 10 Mila which I am definitely looking forward to!

Påsk!

Easter! Yay! We had a one week holiday that started on the 14th. To start the holiday Klara, Vega, Freja, Tove and I had a Paltfest - yum! Most of you probably haven't heard of palt before... it is made out of potato and flour, is very dense, and vaguely resembles a dumpling! They are very filling and yummy and just really good!

Stolen from Klara's blog.

Most of the week I just stayed at home not doing much, until the weekend. Magnus came up from Stockholm and it was nice to get to know him. Friday afternoon we went to Klara's cousins house to celebrate their daughters 2nd birthday.

Saturday morning we went skiing (last ski of the season :( ), and Saturday evening we went to Mikael's Mum's house in Robertsfors for dinner. On the way up to Robertsfors we stopped at the summer house and had a snowball fight with the little snow that was left, and I made a

little snowman!

Sunday lunch we had lunch in the woods near Sävar with most of Helena's side of the family. Toasted sandwiches - Yum!

Monday we had orienteering on an extremely fun map. It was great terrain and good fun to run through. I made only two mistakes but it lost me about 5 minutes in total! Going to control 4 I think I had started to run towards the sand and was a bit too far to turn back without going through private property when I realised. Not really sure what I did to number 7!

I came 19th out of 52 overall so I was quite pleased!

And to wrap up an epic holiday I received a parcel from England containing some chocolates and Flying saucers, YUM!! Thanks Grandma!

Natt SM and Uppsala

Friday 11th April we drove down to Uppsala. It was about a six hour drive and we arrived just after 7.00 (I think!). The first event we competed in was the Night championships. I started at 11.10... nice and late! I didn't have a very good run... I think I was just slow running, with a couple of navigation mistakes. I placed 52 out of 56 in D18E which wasn't particularly good, but I was still recovering from injury so it wasn't too bad either. I was pleased with my time (in a way). My goal was 75 minutes and I finished in 70 minutes so that was good! The terrain was nice to run in, but the map was a bit annoying - I think it was on A2 paper and it could have been on A4! I hate it when they do that! Here is my map... Controls 4 and 8 were the worst!

On Saturday we had a middle event. I had the worst race yet. I did mistakes to nearly every single control. It totaled to at least 10 minutes of mistakes! I placed 13th out of 22, but should have been about 5th. 

Lastly on Sunday we had Rånässtafetten - a relay. I ran second leg and had a reasonable run, coming in about 10 minutes behind the fastest second leg runners.

Spain!

So from the 3-7 April I was in Spain. It was a lot of fun and full of intense orienteering training - quite a bit of running in sand dunes. I was beginning to feel shin splits coming on so I had to take it easy, but on the race days I was happy with my two seconds, however far behind Jenny they were! Some pictures from my time there.

 Also these are my route from the two competitions... ignore the large amounts of red! 

 Middle distance

Long distance

Orienteering camp!

I am now very excited for our trip to Spain for an orienteering training camp alongside the World Cup in Alicante. We leave tomorrow morning (at 7.00 :/ ) and have the first training in the afternoon. We are competing in two events at the weekend (a long and a middle) and I am very excited. Although I am also a bit worried as the events are on sand dunes and I have a few bad experiences with sand dunes...!