Five month flashback

I have now been in Sweden for exactly five months, meaning I am exactly half way through my ten month exchange. I have had an absolutely thrilling time, and wouldn't change a single minute of it! Here is a video I have put together from some of the photos I have taken during the time I have been here. Enjoy!

Venla/ Jukola 2014

Saturday night/ early Sunday morning was the Jukola seven man relay in Finland. We traveled on Friday evening from Umeå on the boat and arrived in Vaasa at 11 pm local time. We slept on the boat, I got about five hours sleep before getting up at 5.30 for a 5.45 breakfast. We left the ferry at about 6.30 and started the drive to Kuopio. We arrived at the event at about 12.20, but we had a lunch break on the way (you can figure out about how long the drive was). The drive was very uneventful, but I managed to get about another hours worth of sleep. 

When we arrived at the event I was extremely excited (although I may not have shown it...) and was rearing to go for my third leg race. The mass start for Venla, the four person women's relay, was at 2.00 and had about 1200 runners in it. I didn't watch the first leg, as I was preparing for my race, but from the bits I saw and heard, it was fantastic! My first leg runner was fellow Kiwi Greta Knarston who must of had a fabulous race, as she came in in 29th place! My second leg runner was Erika Knutsson, who came in around 120th, then me. I had an ok run, although I wasn't too inpressed with the 1 km run to the start triangle! I started by screwing up the first control by visiting two or three other controls before mine but other than that it was good navigation, slow running. I lost about 130 places while running, so my fourth leg runner went out in about 255th place (sorry about that! ;)) Elisabeth Fries had a good run (it was her second run as she also ran second leg for the first Umeå team) and brought us in to 319th out of over 1200 teams. Not bad!

My Course, 6.3 km, not sure if that includes the run to the start triangle!

The men's seven person relay started at 11.00. I was attempting to get a bit of sleep when I decided to get up and run over to watch the start. I got to one of the massive TV screens just before the start gun, and watched 1600 people race off onto their 10 km orienteering courses. The first controls of their races were about 4 km, which for those of you who don't know about orienteering, is a very long control! It was great to watch the runners on the TV screens, both the GPS routes, and live footage from the video controls. The first runners did the course in about 70 minutes (I think) and then there was the excitement of the second leg runners. (Then the third legs, then the fourth etc.) 

Men's mass start, photo from Tim's facebook page.

I nearly went to bed around 1 am but then something exciting happened (can't remember what), so I decided to stay up and keep watching the race. This happened a lot (that I would nearly go back to bed), especially around 2 am when it was absolutely freeeezzzzing cold (I had seven layers on. Actually.) But I bought myself a coffee instead to keep warm (and awake). It wasn't a long night, in fact the darkest it got was at about 2.30, when the moon had come up, but even then it was very light! I think the reason I didn't feel too tired was because by 4.30 the sun was up again and it already felt like 8.00! The first seventh leg finishers were about 7 am, and there were thousands of people who got up to watch it.

2.00 am

3.45 am

Just after 4 am

The first team to finish, just before 7 am

We left the event centre at around 11.30 after watching the two Umeå teams finish and took the return journey back. I must have gotten about three hours sleep on the bus, and maybe another hour on the ferry, so fair enough to say when I was back home, I was exhausted. 

Overall I think this event was amazing. It is an event everyone (in the orienteering world) talks about, and I really hope to go back to compete in it again (maybe next time for a New Zealand team!). As exhausted as I was from staying up all night, I wouldn't change any of it (except perhaps how cold it was)!

Next event: I am going to an O camp down south for a week. The only thing anyone has ever told me about the camp is how much fun it is!

#WOC2016

On Tuesday 3rd June I flew down to Gothenburg to meet up with Magnus, Lisa, Mattias, Greta and Lizzie to do a week of orienteering training in the area where the World Champs will be in 2016. We stayed for a week in Bovallstrand which is basically half way between Gothenburg and the Norwegian border. In total over six days we did five different courses on four different maps. For majority of the courses I got extremely lost and ended up skipping half the course, but I didn't mind too much as it still gave me experience for running on the type of terrain that the Swedish West coast gives you. I found it very hard to run on, especially compared to New Zealand terrain which I have run on for the past five years. Compared to the terrain in Umeå, it was quite similar, but also very different. I think I found it harder than the terrain in Umeå, mostly because I have had very little experience with it.

In all honesty I think Mattias enjoyed
 being stuffed into the birds nest...

On the day we didn't go running, we ended up at the zoo. I actually found it quite exciting - I can't remember the last time I went to the zoo!

After going to the zoo I ended up not doing much so I decided to go up to the top of one of the nearby hills. It was rocks the whole way up and had the most amazing view at the top. I really enjoyed climbing up, even though it took about two hours to get up there, enjoy the view, and get back!

It was the point in the middle (120m high), viewed from where we were staying.

Panoramas from the top

I found a rock pile at the top, so of course I added one to it

Not a bad photo considering I took it myself... 

We also ended up going to the rock carvings and had a look around there.

I managed to get a good photo of Lizzie whilst looking around the museum. 

Sunday evening we went crab fishing, which is actually quite fun! I caught about five crabs maybe, but they were far too small to eat :(
On Monday, after our last training, we dropped Lizzie and Greta back in Norway, and went for a walk over just so I could I have been to Norway!

Then it was back to Gothenburg for a night, before flying home.

This was from Gothenburg to Stockholm

This was leaving Umeå

 I really enjoy taking pictures from planes... don't know why!

While I was down south I actually missed the last week of school (but as it was the end of term I didn't miss anything important), and I was just back in Umeå in time to see the students who were in their last year of school riding around the town centre on trailers pulled by tractors (graduation is very big in Sweden and is celebrated by all the students walking out wearing their graduation hats, carrying signs with pictures of them when they were small on them).

I am now on Summer Holidays until around the 20th August (Yay!). This evening I am going to Finland to compete in Venla. I am running the third leg, in a competition with about 1200 other teams!

Silva League

From the 23-25 May was the Silva League final in Luleå. It was 3 races: a sprint, a middle and a long (the long included a chasing start for the elite grades). The sprint took place on Friday afternoon. As I hadn't been running due to shin pain, I went out with the plan of walking the course, but that kind of failed... I found the course a nice difficulty - easy but not too easy. I didn't make any mistakes but took some longer route choices that might have lost a little bit of time. Overall I placed 52 out of 60 which I was happy with considering I was jogging the course and most people were running as fast as they can!

From control 8 - 9 was a good route choice - left, right, or kind of through the middle. I think going to the left was fasted, but as shown, I went to the right. 

On Saturday was the middle distance. I went out with the knowledge that the map was very detailed, but I think I kind of just brushed that aside saying 'Oh I'll be going slowly, taking time to read the map...' I was the last starter in D16. My first few controls were great, by the second control I had caught up two of the girls who had started before me and so naturally it went to my head and I thought 'Sweet, this is easy'. I think that was when I made my first mistake. I took a terrible bearing from number four, planning to run through the open forest (white), but failing at doing so.

 After that control I slowed down slightly (mainly due to the fact I managed to stab myself on a tree branch, ending up with a decent cut on my knee...), and didn't make too bad mistakes, until number 10. I have no idea how I went so badly wrong. I passed some green forest (harder to run through) and thought I was next to the distinct boundary just above where I ran... Then I was lost. Very lost! 

Sundays race was much better. I don't think I made any mistakes, but ended up 10 minutes behind the winner (because she was soo much faster than I am!), and placed third in D16, so I was very happy!

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