It has been a little over a week now since I came back from OK Linné’s annual training camp, which was held in Croatia and Slovenia. This was my first camp with Linné since joining the club. I had been to Croatia/Slovenia before, back in 2011, after JWOC and I thoroughly enjoyed my time then. In my opinion, this part of the world offers some of the nicest and most demanding orienteering terrain possible so I was very eager to get back there! Most clubs go to Portugal or Spain during this time of the year to escape the cold and harsh training conditions that consumes Scandinavia during the winter months. After a visit to Uppsala from Matija Razum last year, the idea to go to Croatia/Slovenia was conceived and we soon realised that the camp could be combined with two competitions, Kvarner Bay Challenge (Croatia) and Lipica Open (Slovenia). This provided a platform to plan a tough schedule of training, and discussions/organisation with Ivan Naggy (organiser of the previously mentioned competitions) promised an unforgettable camp!

Rather than a detailed account of the camp, I thought I would share some of the hash tags (some classic and some new), photos, and overall impressions.

#PerfectFlow, #CroSlo, #CroatiaInvasion #SexySexyDJ, #SlovasionInvasion, #DJInternet, #TräningSomBeats, #Missingtheferrytotakephotos #RassmusCoDriver #Itsnotreallyfantasyapartfromthedragosns #LadiesNightWickedWonderland

Overall impressions from the training camp:

• Fantastic terrain and maps (available here)
• Un-matcheable local support from Ivan Naggy, who assisted with organising the trainings and accommodation
• Great weather and organisation made for optimal training conditions
• Nice competitions which could be easily integrated into the camp programme
• Great company and the it felt like we developed the club spirit for those on the camp
• Satisfied with my training on the camp, however fell sick after stage 2 of Lipica, I think because of the high training volume and perhaps catching it off someone. Seems that nearly everyone got sick after the camp.
• Kvarner Bay Challenge were two nice competitions, struggled at times in the diffuse terrain and broke my shoe 😦
• Lipica Open was also great! The first race was a target race, and I got a nice result (3rd in M21E) however I had the speed to get close to Albins time but was let down by my technique. Need to work on my technique more! Bit rusty after not doing so much in NZ. The other races were not so serious, and because of the sickness I couldnt compete at any high level in the last 3 stages.

I would definitely recommend this part of the world for clubs wanting to go on training camps this time of the year. Of course, I think a lot depends on the weather, but provided you have the good weather then I think the environment is almost unbeatable! Thanks in particular to Albin and Matija, but also to everyone on the camp for making it such a wickedly wonderful time!

I have now spent 1 week in Uppsala, in which I have started back at work, have been confronted with the best and worst of the spring weather (polar shift in the weather in the past 3 days, see photos below just 1 week apart), and resuming the life I had last year in the Autumn. I am in good physical condition and I am satisfied with my training over the past months (check out this long training I did in Lunsen last Sunday. Fin!). I feel I have really progressed as an athlete since moving to Sweden, however I am still not convinced that I need to live in Sweden if I am to become the best orienteer I can be. What I should be doing, or where I should be living consumes a lot of my thoughts, and I feel torn between two places. If I am to really thrive and really improve in the time before WOC then I must accept that this is an experience, and I simply must enjoy and be grateful for the opportunity to train along side the best orienteers in the world. I have a lot to learn, a lot of things to work on, but I am really motivated to push this year and see what I can achieve in orienteering! After that I might re-evaluate, but for now its full throttle for the training and the competitions coming up!