Well, as was pointed out by a certain Swiss orienteer lots of people have been getting new PB's and Sheffield is no exception: Kanye, Danger, Komodo, Cuddles - all running sub 16.15 in the 5km Parkrun (it's a British thing). I would love to think that I could have joined them. Unfortunately I broke my foot on March 9th - which is one reason why you haven't see a write up of either the British Sprints and Middles or the University Championships.
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Fractured 3rd Metatarsal Left Side
So, I am injured. This has of course allowed me to focus on the spectating element of the orienteering season; I got on the commentary team for the British Sprints and Middles. This was a lot of fun, even though my prediction skills are not really perfected. The Sheffield boys were largely disappointed by their sprint performances but Kris pulled out a great run for 2nd place in the middles.

In the University Championships I was their in an organisational capacity, a very rare role indeed. Sheffield placed 2nd in the overall competition with some great runs by Anwen and Laura in the individual race. In the relay we ended up in 3rd in the Men's (upgraded to 2nd in some controversy (nopesport it)) and the Women's 4th. Both teams were disappointed, especially the girls.

This lack of running has allowed me to get on with my Independent Specialised Study (Dissertation) of 7500 words on Health Inequality in Britain. I am actually getting interested in some parts of it which is very nice. Hopefully though it will all go away soon and I get back on with the running.
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Last weekend was the English National XC Championships which meant a trip down to a very sunny Parliament Hill in North London. I had actually been to Parliament Hill twice before, however this was for orienteering, but I had heard that the course would be a good one and reasonably hilly. "Perfect!" - I thought.

The course narrowed sharply on the first climb so I knew that it would be important to be up towards the front so that I wouldn't be too boxed in. I also knew that starting fast would help me have a good race as I would make sure I was running with fast runners.

As we set off I the starting gun fired repeatedly as if to signal a false start. I think the starter underestimated the difficulty of trying to stop 1600 runners and so just kept on shooting and yelling "Keep going" into his megaphone. This of course caused some confusion for everybody and I found myself at the front with the feeling that there was nobody close behind me. So I took the opportunity to lead the field up the first hill - not quite realising how far in front I was.

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Photo: Paul Street
This was at the bottom of the hill - the distance was about 20m at the top as shown by the next photo.
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Photo: Neil Northrop
If only I could have held onto that place. Unfortunately, it took me about 8km to recover from this interval and so I didn't do as well as I possibly could have. All a good learning experience though.

Final position: 138

Watch the race here
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Winter Training 02/09/2012
 
After the warmest Christmas I can remember winter has finally come to Britain. It is not at the same level (yet) as last year so no epic runs from Sheffield but we have still been able to have some fun.

In the middle of January the club on behalf of BUOT organised the End of Winter Weekend. This aimed to bring student orienteers from across Britain together for a weekend of good training and plenty of fun. It well and truly lived up to the expectations with the highlight being a brilliant 2 hour epic run on Kinder Scout.
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Photo: Dave Schorah
Next on the plan was the British University Cross Country Championships held in Cardiff. The word on the coach down was the Cardiff does not get much snow normally because of its coastal location - the word was wrong.

The advance members of the athletics club found the course to be frozen solid so I fell into the classic cross country issue of worrying about what spikes I would need. Eventually I settled on 9mm, which in my typical organised fashion, I got somebody else to sort out so I had time to warm up.
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Photo: Ollie Cook
I finished in 22nd place, covering the 10km in 31.42, which I am really pleased with. I am running well at the moment so I would like to build on this over the next couple of months in preparation for the domestic season. I am also looking forward to the English National Cross Country Championships and testing my running again.

You can read more about the race on my Attackpoint.
You can watch coverage of the races on Athleticos. (Javascript needed)
You can read the university's report on the race on Forge Press.
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Christmas Time 12/24/2011
 
So as the year draws to a close the tradition of Christmas parties carries on. With Sheffield University this is no exception. The tradition at the clubs Christmas Meal is for an "old-boy" to come back and give a speech - this year we had the legendary Tim Tett. This is the non-traditional introductory video.
I think the original version covering the competition is one of the best videos about orienteering ever made. It explains clearly what orienteering is, and then shows some action of people competing. WOC broadcasters could learn a lot.
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_ So there really hasn't been much going on this year. I was injured for the first time in a serious while so got 6 weeks off – almost got bored to death without being able to run. However, this has all cleared up now so I am back in the game with my base training. It is not quite full volume yet, that should come in December time, but getting up to 75-80km each week is plenty at the moment.

 For competitions there has not been very much, what with missing out on both the Senior Home Internationals and the Compass Sport Cup. I did go down to Oxford for the chasing sprint – which was a lot of fun, and I ran with John Rocke in the ShUOC vs SPOOK relays which we won.
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ShUOC vs SPOOK Relays - Leg 1 changeover
_The main difference for me this year has been the amount of university work that I have had to do so far. It is my final year so everything is harder, and I am cramming more modules into this winter semester so I have more free time to go away for training in the spring. This has proved a bit of an organisational challenge but I think I have got through it fine.

Over the next few weeks I have some cross country competitions to run in order to prove my fitness to run in the Sheffield University team at the University Championships. A weekend that should be very exciting.

All in all very motivated and can't wait for the season to get going again.
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This year I have joined a Swedish Orienteering Club, Sodertaljte-Nykvarn Orienteering. They very nicely offered me a chance to spend the summer in Sweden, it did not take me very long to accept.

Competitions

I went out to just before Jukola to do a little bit of training. I felt I prepared well and did a decent performance on leg 6 for the 2nd team. I was running well for most of the course but as usual this season I made 1 large mistake that cost me a really good time.

As well as running Jukola I ran for GB in the Nordic Orienteering Tour. This was a massive reality check on just how good the top guys in the world are, I'm not too far off when a leg goes really well but then that doesn't happen much at the moment. Still I left the competition feeling motivated for the future.

The next competition I ran was O-Ringen. I knew it would be tough for me to get a good results in the forest stages so I hoped instead for good performances. I felt I ran ok but was let down slightly by both my physical fitness and my speed across the rocky terrain. The sprint race however was a different story and I finished 5th – winning my first bit of prize money.

My final competition was the SM championships in middle and relay. I was really excited about it and knew that if I could hold myself together that I had a chance of qualifying. Unfortunately my mind got the best of me and I began to think about other things and not the next control. Still it was a good experience to get into this pressure situation. Now I recognise this as a weakness I can work on it over the winter.

The only negative on the orienteering in Sweden was that I didn't do enough. And yes, I put 4 stitches in my knee (but that was at the end and I needed a break from training anyway)
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Job

Whilst I was in Sweden I worked for Scania helping to organise the Griffin Trophy. This is a multi-sport and multi-day team building event for the employees of Scania. I helped to plan and organise the stages of the competition and then to assist in the organising of the marshals when the competition was in progress.

I really enjoyed working for Scania and it was a wonderful experience of the world of work. My current plan is to go back out to Sweden on a permanent basis once I graduate so it was good to get a taste of what life would be like and check I enjoyed it. I most definitely did.


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So I have been thinking about setting up a blog for a while. Mainly because it seems that most other international senior orienteers have. I never got round to it though as I was kept quite busy going on some training trips but then a joint blog was suggested and well, here we are.
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