Lagganlia is a yearly orienteering training camp for M/W14, based at Lagganlia near Aviemore. I, along with 23 other athletes had been selected to go to Scotland and have a week full of orienteering training, competitions, activities and a whole load of fun.
On Saturday morning, I woke up ready for a very long train journey up to Aviemore. I met some of the other orienteers on the train up and then we got a minibus to our accommodation. That evening we played a bunch of random (slightly awkward) activities, however it was clear everyone was excited for the week to come and already starting to make friends!
On the first day of training, we woke up quite early and packed our bags ready to head off to the forest. We did some pacing exercises which was quite useful especially as the area (Heathfield) was quite flat. We also did a clock relay, and it was nice to get to know the others in my team (even if someone decided to put our baton (a teddy) in a random spot because they thought the control had been placed wrong!).
The next day was the sprint championships, so we took the minibuses to Spey Valley Resort for the qualifiers. Then for the semis and the finals, we had to move the location to a secret venue because of the nearby forest fires, which turned out to be our accommodation! I messed up on the confusing butterfly loops for the qualifiers, but I won my semi-final and came 4th overall in the final.
On the third day, we headed to the wooded sand dunes of Roseisle where we did our usual training and a distraction exercise in the afternoon. This was one of the highlights of my week because it was fun running around the forest, being chased by people with cameras and speakers blasting music!
The fourth day was my favourite area, North Granish because the terrain was really runnable with intricate contours. In the morning we had drawn our own simplified map, but I lost mine, so I had to use someone else’s! However, it was well drawn, and I ran the course very well with the simplified map! That night we went to Spey Valley Golf Course for some Night O, which was crazy because we were listening to disco music whilst running round the course! Also, the minibuses there and back were full of singing, dancing and glow sticks!
I guess because the area had been amazing the previous day, Loch Vaa on the fifth day was difficult, and it didn’t help that I had nearly left my o shoes at the accommodation! The heather went up to your thighs, and it was impossible to run but I made some very accurate bearings as I was going fairly slow. We did a peg race and with all the heather and the heat it was very tiring!
Finally on the last day of orienteering, we did the Lagganlia Tour Champs in Culbin. It was a nice course, and I tried to use all the skills I had learned in the past week, especially reading contours! I had a mistake on one control where it was frustrating as I had gone very close around it, but I was just not focused. However, the rest of the course was great, and I made some good route choices. We then came back to Lagganlia for our final fun relay.
Throughout the week, we worked in coaching groups where we debriefed and went through our maps together. This was really helpful, as the coaches were able to identify our strengths and weaknesses as well as give us specific feedback on what we needed to improve.
Finally, I would like to thank all the coaches, cooks and staff who helped make the trip possible as well as Jack Bloor for their funding.
Jack Bloor Race & Fund 