Since the last post, I have mainly been in a state of work and training. I am trying to find a balance between working and training which can be quite hard when every weekend there seems to be some event on. I would have to say that my training has not been optimal.  I fell sick a couple of weeks ago, which I blame on the extremely long days which have impacted my sleep. But despite this, I am still quite confident in my training, and I just haven’t had the necessary rest to see the full benefits of it. With a large group of NZ’ers coming to Europe very shortly (or have already arrived) I am getting very excited to see some kiwi friends and this also means the big competitions are almost here. For me this will be WOC and WUOC. I will also be competing at Oringen (but probably not the full 5 days) and I am doing a training camp with Toby in Czech the weekend after next.

Summer is definitely here with today reaching just under 30 degrees! The forests are getting much greener, and the undergrowth is really starting to flourish. As always you can see some of my technical trainings on my doma page. I have been doing more trainings than those in my doma, but I have not had the time to upload them. One of my favourite trainings was this long session, which I ran with Oskar at his summer house.

One highlight, over the past month, was two weekends ago when I meet my sister in London, and we then travelled to Stoke on Trent (my Dads birthplace, and the reason I can get a British passport). This was a really fun weekend, and it honestly felt like going home. Whether this was simply the language or because NZ is actually quite British I was not certain, but it was a refreshing reminder of some of the good (and not so good) things from back home.

God save the queen

I also celebrated my 22nd birthday last Wednesday. My first birthday abroad, which was filled with delicious cake prepared by Oskar and Kate, following a nice relay training.

This weekend I will be in Finland competing in the biggest relay of the year, Jukola. Big is probably an understatement. I will be lining up at 11pm, just before the cannon, marking the start of a 1600 stampede of runners, fires. I am running in the second team, despite being selected for the first team initially. With my recent sickness, and lack of confidence, I said to myself that I would just enjoy the Jukola experience and eliminate the pressures. Plenty more years to run Jukola with Linné, but this year they will have smash it without me! The first team is looking really strong, and I am excited to see what everyone can produce.

So I am really excited now that summer is here. Rob kindly loaned me his bike after our solid training period together earlier this year. One thing I have found challenging with the change of moving to Sweden, is this idea of having a training identity. It can be quite easy to forget what methods have worked best in the past, and it is also very easy to see what others are doing and think that you should be doing what they are doing. This idea, of having a training identity, I think is very important and something that I understood when I was back in NZ, but perhaps have kind of lost it since I arrived in Sweden. But with the arrival of the bike, I feel now like I can replicate the training which I was doing earlier this year and take my orienteering to the next level.

Unfortunately I kind of broke my body in the past few days. Firstly cutting my knee on a rock, then last night blowing my ankle, twice, in Lunsen. I think I will need ankle surgery in the future to remove the scar tissue in my troublesome ankle, but for now I will go back to strapping both my ankles when orienteering in the forest. Evidently I dont have the strength just yet in my lower limbs to run without at least some support, especially in my right ankle.

Orienteering abuse

Next up, Jokola! Check out the terrain here.