The camp started on Monday 23rd June with a 9 and a half hour bus ride down to Sälen. We arrived at 6.30pm and went straight to dinner. After dinner we went to our cabins and settled in... For about 5 minutes until we were back up to the good hall for a briefing of the camp and to meet our teams for the adventure day. We ended up doing our first training at around 8.30. It was a sprint training around the grounds. By 10 o'clock after having showers it was time to relax and watch the first half of the Brazil/ Cameroon game. Then a nice long sleep.
We had an 8.30 start on Tuesday, which was very nice. We left for our first training at 9.30, arriving around 10.00. It was a long training (7.5km) and I didn't quite finish it due to the cut off time being 12.00 (I probably needed about another 20 minutes). It was a nice course on new terrain for me, but the hills! They were horrible!!! Hills? What am I on about? I mean hill! One big massive giant hill. I found this course very hard to run especially because it was so open and very sunny!
After the training it was lunch at 12.45 and we left for the next training at 2.15. It was o-interval training, but turned out to be just another run for me... I was running with Kristina and Rebecca, or more running our own courses meeting up at the finish control for each interval and walking to the start of the next one together.
That evening was a fun evening, first going bowling, then watching football, listening to music and playing cards.
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| They were 5m contours... |
Wednesday was the early 7.30 start. The morning training was a middle distance course that was about 4.5 km long. I enjoyed this course, well most of it (the bit where I couldn't find the first control wasn't so great...). I think I liked this one maybe the most. Before running I was talking to one of the leaders who was asking how my course went the day before. I had answered 'It was good, navigation was mostly fine, but I was very slow'. Their reply to this was 'You are at a training camp, you don't need to run every course. You are learning to use new techniques, not how to run faster!' This reply was something I really needed to hear. I was focusing too much on how fast I was running that I hardly noticed what I was doing for route choices, let alone trying to use new techniques we had been told to try!
That afternoon was a sprintstafett (sprint relay) which was really run! There were four variations of a sprint course (1,2,3 and 4). There were some same controls and some split controls. We started in groups of four (I was with Rebecca, Johanna and Kristina) and we met up at the start after each loop. It seemed like a very nice course as we started, but during the second leg we encountered a horrible hill climb! It wasn't too bad but the hill looked massive from the bottom. (which is why we skipped control 20... Too much climb!)
That evening we didn't do much except get ready for the next day which was the adventure day. I had a great team with Elsa, Jason, Martin and Emil. They were from other clubs around Sweden; Martin was from Norrland, Elsa is from around the central south part of Sweden, Jason and Emil were from somewhere around the east coast near Stockholm. I was quite nervous before the race. I knew I was the slowest in my team (mainly from unfitness and injury recovery) and I didn't want to slow them down.
The actual race was a four hour rogaine that included lots of hills. There was 36 checkpoints in total. Some were just orienteering controls with questions on them, others were activities that either one person or the whole team had to do. My team managed to do (we thought) quite well by getting as many of the controls as we could without going too far up the hills. This tactic actually worked very well as we found out later as we placed 3rd overall of about 26 teams! I was extremely happy with this!! It turns out we were only 25 points behind the team who came second which I think we might have been able to make if we had a different route choice, but I don't really mind!
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| The adventure day map, you can just see our route - the blue line, going anti-clockwise |
That afternoon we ended up relaxing in the pool. There was one really nice outdoor pool that was very warm! We also had Linnea Gustavsson come and talk to us about how she became world champion, and give some tips on how to get there yourself. The talk was interesting enough, although I didn't really have any clue what she was talking about for most of it... :O
Friday was our last day of training. We started with a middle distance training. It was a horrible day weather wise as it was raining and around 3 degrees and everything ended up wet. I thought this training was quite difficult. You really needed to always know exactly where you were. I got quite lost a couple of times and decided the easiest way to relocate was to follow the voices of other people!
During the second training it was also raining (I think it was raining more than before) and was still only six degrees. I think that is why I didn't especially enjoy these two trainings as much as the others. This training included a labyrinth (which I kind of didn't manage to follow), a corridor (which I left somehow and ended up at the finish by mistake...), a course that I planned to only do the first control for (which I didn't find), and a 'follow the line' activity which looks very hard but I managed to follow for a while (until I came out on a path that I wasn't supposed to be near...). Oh and I also managed to spend about 20 minutes on a relocation exercise because I was so lost... But overall this training was still quite fun!
That night was the disco which was just like every other orienteering disco I have been to... Sweaty people jumping, clapping and yelling to really basey music!
Saturday morning was an early morning for us (7.30 breakfast) and it was time to get everything packed up. Our cabin was a complete mess and took a surprisingly short time to clean! We also had the 'Slumpmasters' competition. There was three courses, but none of them were normal. The first course was almost normal, but the control circles were bigger than normal circles, and the control could be anywhere in the circle. The second course had normal controls, but the map was, well, strange! They had swapped different symbols - Take a look at the map below (This was the course I did.) And the third course was a memory course. There was a piece of map at each control with a question (I don't know what the questions had do to with it) but you had to go around with out carrying the map. They were all short courses between 2 and 3 km (mine was 2.1). I was quite slow to begin with, as I found the map quite confusing until I figured out what was what! I think overall I was about 34th out of 74 so that was quite good.
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| My course... The blue was marsh and cliffs were contours! |
We later had the prize giving and when was over it was back to the bus for another nine hour ride back to Umeå.
Overall I had an AMAZING time at Rikslägret 2014. Check out the blog (http://rikslagret2014.wordpress.com/) and the Instagram hashtag #rikslägret2014 to see more pictures and maps etc :)
Some photos of the social side of the camp:
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| Me, Kristina, Elin, Rebecca and Johanna |
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| Those faces...!!! |
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| Disco! |
