I would like to say a massive Thank You to the Jack Bloor Fund for supporting me in competing in the WMRA Grand Prix Series in Europe. With the support of the fund I was able to fly out to Italy and France to compete against some of the best athletes in Europe. 

Not knowing what to expect from the first race in Italy, I kept my head down, got on with my warm up/drills and stayed completely focused. My aim was to go out hard and continuing pushing hard until the very end. I ended up finishing 2^nd, I couldn’t believe it, I was so happy!!

I knew France would be a tough race. I went out hard and pushed up the first climb and continued fast down the short descent. The three girls behind were very strong on the climbs, I ended up finishing in 5^th, I was delighted. This result combined with the result from Italy now makes me top of the WMRA Grand Prix leader board. 

Without the support of the Jack Bloor Fund I wouldn’t have been able to go out to Europe and compete against some of the best mountain runners. Racing out in Europe has given me the motivation and confidence to be the best that I can be on the Mountains. 

I look forward to the next round of the WMRA Grand Prix series in Austria later next month. Thanks Again!!

Emma Clayton

Lagganlia 2010

           This year I was very happy to be selected to be a participant on the Lagganlia orienteering training week in Scotland. To be chosen for this I had to perform well in various events including the British and JK.

We trained every day in different areas focusing on different skills including compasswork, attack points, contours and simplification. We were split ont small coaching groups. Each group was under the supervision of two coaches for the whole of the week. My group was coached by Ann and Don, both very experienced and friendly orienteers.

The aspect which I feel I learnt most from was learning to read contours, helped by the excellent terrain. This impression was borne out by my performance in the classic race, where I finished about half way up the list of girls, and I was pleased with this result. Overall I believe that my map reading has improved significantly, and I am able to simplify the map and visualise the terrain better than I used to.

We all got to know each other during the evening activities which included a barbecue, swimming (in the nearby lake) and other fun competitions. I really enjoyed making new friends from all parts of the country; I hope to see them every so often at big events and compare experiences of races and courses with them.

I would really like to thank all the coaches but especially Nev and Tony who led the tour and put in a lot of hard work, and the chefs and other helpers who made the week complete.

Finally and most importantly I would like to thank you very much for the money you sponsored me with from the Jack Bloor Fund. It was a great experience and I shall not forget it!

Helen Wood

EYOC 2010 and Cairngorm Camp

EYOC is the European Youth Orienteering Championships, for M/W16s and 18s. It comprises of a Long, Relay and Sprint race. I was selected to represent Great Britain in the M16 team. EYOC 2010 was in Spain, in Soria, a city in the mountains about 200km north east of Madrid. This was my first time representing GB, and so had all the associated nerves, anticipation, and of course the excitement of getting GB kit.

t was a brilliant experience of international racing. Things such as quarantines, pre starts, warm up maps, not seeing the finish beforehand, were very different to what is normally found in orienteering events in the UK, so it was good to get used to the way races are run internationally.

In the Long distance I finished 15^th. I’d been having a very good run through the first half of the course, and was 2^nd at the 7^th control. Then things sort of fell apart. I lost concentration on the way to 8, and as the terrain had changed and become much rockier, I needed both hands to climb the rocks so wasn’t map reading. I reached the top of the main block of crags unsure where I was. I thought I was too far south, so headed north. Five minutes later I returned to the top of the crags, ran 2m further and saw the control. I then rushed the next control trying to make up time and was very sloppy with my navigation throughout the rest of the course. Part of the difficulty was that I just wasn’t used to having courses in such complex terrain where I needed to concentrate for a full hour. Often in Britain their will be sections of path running where you can switch off, but not here. Another problem was that I had no idea what the competition would be like. I had no idea I was in 2^nd at 7, I thought I’d be much lower down, and after my mistake I thought I was out of the race all together, when I still managed to finish in the top 15. If I get to EYOC next year I will be a lot more confident that I can contend for the podium if I run well and that I am fit enough, something I could only learn from experience.

In the Relay the GB M16 team finished 16^th. I was running last leg of the relay. Our first leg runner came in about 5 minutes behind the leaders and a minute behind the pack. Unfortunately our second leg runner had, in his words, ‘a good run apart from one 20 minute mistake.’ This meant I set off on last leg very far back and we were out of the race. My thoughts were already turning towards the sprint race the following day, so I held back a bit to conserve energy. It was still a fun day though, as the area was brilliant, and completely unlike anything in Britain. It required a different approach to navigation as it was often faster to run round rather than straight. It was also my first experience of running with a GPS tracking harness, which took a bit of getting used to, but will be something I will have to do more and more if I continue to compete at an international level.

In the Sprint I finished 14^th. The Sprint was the last race of EYOC and I hadn’t put too much thought towards it, as I didn’t consider sprint races to be my strength. I ran well though, taking good route choices and pushing all the way, losing maybe just a couple of seconds over the whole course. I was happy with my run, even as I dropped down the leader board. I was slightly in awe of the winner’s time though, he was 1min40 quicker than me, and I’d had a near perfect run. It was a real eye opener to how fast some of these guys can run. It was also interesting to see that in the Sprint I’d had a near perfect run and finished 14^th, and in the long I’d had a really bad run and finished 15^th. In the sprint I couldn’t have been closer to the winner than I was, whereas in the long I could have won a medal with a perfect race. This was useful to see where my training was working and what needed changing for next year.

All in all EYOC was a brilliant experience of racing at an international level. Thanks to the Jack Bloor Fund for helping support me so that I could compete.

Later in the summer I went to the BOF Cairngorm Talent Camp at Badaguish in Scotland. This was a training camp, focusing on consistent performance. There were a lot of classroom sessions, and considerably less forest time than on previous camps under the mantra quality not quantity. This camp helped me a lot with mental strategies for racing as well as providing some good technique training. It was useful to practise orienteering in some of the best forests in the UK, and I focused on improving my concentration over a longer period of time in complex terrain. The camp allocated everyone individual coaches for the week, which was really useful and helped us get more personalised training exercises. Thanks again to the Jack Bloor Fund for helping with the cost.

Lagganlia 2010
By Michael Adams

Leading up to Lagganlia were a series of selection races. These were all the major events like the British Champs, JK, Northern, Midland and Southern Champs. After all of these results were taken into account each region got to pick two of their 2nd year M/W14’s to go to Lagganlia. The only condition was as long as they had achieved a championship time (25% of the winner’s time added on to the winner’s time). Some of the regions were unable to send some juniors so the spare spaces were given to some juniors who hadn’t already been picked. This meant that 12 boys and 12 girls were chosen to spend a week in Lagganlia.
Most people travelled up on a train on the Saturday to arrive in Lagganlia in the evening. Those living closer may have been dropped off by their parents. As I had been to O-ringen and didn’t come back until the Saturday I had to go up on the Sunday. When we arrived, we were each given a room that was shared with 3 other people so 4 in a room.
During the day we did a variety of different training exercises. Each day was specified a different skill that we practiced. On the Monday we went to Moor of Alvie and did some catching and collecting features practice. Catching features are something big that if you run past the control you will see it and realize what you have done. Collecting features is something big before the control to show that you are nearly there and should slow down. In the afternoon we went to Inshriach to do some timed runs. These showed us how fast we went along a track for 1km and how fast we went across terrain for 1km. Then the coaches worked out a ratio to see if we were quicker in the terrain or on the path so if you had a small ratio you should go straight but if you had a big ratio then you should go round.
On Tuesday we went to Culbin and spent the whole day there. We were concentrating on contours and how to read them. We did several exercises in the forested sand dunes. There was a simplify course where you had to concentrate on the big features. There was an attack points course where the map was all contours and nothing else and you had to use contour features as attack points. Then we went into the green bit that had lots of intricate contours and low visibility. After a small course and lots of lost people we did an odds and evens relay.
On the Wednesday there was a sprint race. The qualifier was round Alvielochan. A small forested area with lots of contour detail. I won the 2km course in 17:51, 3 seconds ahead of Joe Woodley and Katrina Hemingway won the girls. In the afternoon the final took place round Lagganlia. Joe won the boys course with Sarah Jones winning the girls. Later on we went to where the Badaguish tour was. Here there was a pond with a series of ring stretching over it. All you had to do was swing from one to the other and get to the other side. Simple? No. Lots of people got wet but there were a few who made it.

On Thursday we went to Anagach and did a map memory exercise where we went round as a pair whilst one person ran to the control with no map the other was remembering their route for the next leg. Then there was a talk o where one person talked the other to the control, explaining what they should see and where they needed to go. After this there was a peg relay where you had to go around a course and pick up pegs at certain controls. If there wasn’t a peg there you carried on but if there was you had to go and do an extra loop. The person with the most pegs won. Then there was an example of different types of training you can do in terrain.
Finally on the Friday there was a classic race around Insriach. The boys had 5.8km with 280 metres of climb while the girls had about 4.5km with 140 metres of climb. The boys winner was Joe Woodley again in just over an hour and the girls was won by Julie Emerson. The course took us through a checkerboard like bit of wood with rides separating off different bits of wood and the very intricate bit at the bottom that messed up the runs of lots of people. We were all quite tired after that but some of us (the not injured/exhausted ones) did a fun relay at the end in Insriach.
One person had to set off on Friday evening to go on holiday (lucky girl) but the rest of us went off on the Saturday. Mostly we were on an 8:29 train at Aviemore but some of us left later on in the day. Eventually we all got home and Lagganlia was over. For another year (hopefully).

I’d Just like to say a thank you to all the excellent coaches at Lagganlia who made our experience a great one. Also i’d like to say thank you to Wendy Carlyle for providing me with all the photos. And thank you to SYO and the Jack Bloor Fund who provided me with some money so I could go on this excellent trip.