Ok well…..after running up the JK relay run-in, I set off  on a coach to London with the rest of the England team. We stayed over night in London and caught a plane mid afternoon to Madrid. We then travel to our hotel about 20mins outside of Madrid and rested. Over the next few days we did some training and had a look at the type of orienteering around Madrid. We also had the opening ceremony where we all marched down a street in Madrid with lots of people watching.
The first competition was the long distance. I had about 4km and managed to make no mistakes but was still surprised when I came 1st! I kept my concentration for the middle and came away with another gold medal. The worst part was the fact that the only climb on the course was on the run-in. They managed to put the finish on the biggest hill on the map! Throughout the trip I met lots of foreign athletes and even had a look around the Real Madrid football stadium. It was overall a fantastic trip and would definitely like to do it again.

Thanks to the Jack Bloor fund for helping me with the cost of the trip.

Florence Haines

Firstly we would like to express our thanks to you  for the kind and charitable donation you made towards  our fund raising effort to enable us to take part in the Central Yorkshire Scouts Kenya Expedition 2008. With your generous support, we managed to raise all the money we required, so again a big thank you for that!

We arrived at Nairobi airport full of anticipation and enthusiasm.
We really didn’t know what to expect as most of the group of 60 hadn’t been to Africa before. We stayed in a school in Nairobi for 2 days before we embarked on our part of the Expedition, with our main aim of building a  classroom for a school in Northern Kenya, in a town called Rumeruti. We spent 18 thrilling days experiencing some of the wild life on the farm site we camped at, which was roughly the size of North Wales. It wasn’t all fun and games as we did some hard grafting work which started at 8.00am till 4.00pm ( with a break at mid day ). We were motivated by the  happy smiling faces of the young school children who are eternally grateful for our work effort towards their school, and this drove us on to work as  hard as possible.

The people really do touch you when you are there, and having lived in virtually the same conditions as them, it made us both realise how lucky we really are to live in a country as well developed as ours.

The classroom is well on its way for completion and should be ready for use for the next school term.

The Expedition was a once in a life time opportunity that we both managed to experience, and with the help of your donations, we experienced the real Africa  ourselves, and also gave something back to people who are less fortunate than us.

So thanks again for your support and hope your all well!

Andrew Aston and Chris Wilkinson.

Dear Hilary
I am writing to you on behalf of Girl guiding Leeds for the grant of £100 towards the overall group cost of our trip to Denmark.
I was fortunate enough to be one of three leaders who took 10 girls away to the Jamboree camp which celebrated the centenary of scouting. Our trip started with a bus journey to Harwich where we boarded the over night ferry to Esberg in Denmark. We traveled by train and eventually arrived at the campsite where we awaited a warm welcome. To our surprise the start of camp was not as we expected with a large scale “role play” which meant that we were totally confused and did not sleep in our own tents for the first night because we were under rule of the “evil maron”.

Once the unusual role play had finished the camp began properly. We all had a fantastic time because the people were so friendly especially our host group who allowed us all to be involved with everything. Chopping wood, pioneering chairs and cooking were just some of the campsite tasks we needed to do. There were opportunities to meet so many people from around the world including people from Japan, Switzerland and Zambia. We all celebrated the scouting centenary at a sunrise ceremony where Princess Benedict visited. The next day we had a trip to Viborg to see the old town and for some of us to go swimming. Every night there were planned activities, whether this was a camp fire or singing/performing in our sub camps there was always something to do. Our group had volunteered to sing at the twilight hour every night which was quite amusing since we are nothing like a professional choir. What we were more confident with was “llkley Moor Bah tat”. We performed this with actions and props like cardboard worms and ducks so that people could understand. After singing this a few times some of our new Danish friends were singing this-even in a Yorkshire accent-priceless.
After camp we had home hospitality, staying with the people that we had camped
with all week. It was nice to see the sights including a tour of the village of
Nakskov where they lived. We went on a boat trip around the islands on the
coast. The views were amazing. On the last day our hosts had organized a party
for us where we has a big feast of traditional Danish food. All the families were
there and were very happy to hear our singing again.
It was a very tearful goodbye in the end and a long journey home.
We all have so many good memories and friendships from the camp and we are
so grateful that we had the opportunity to go.
Yours in Guiding
Lesley Andrew

My altitude training trip to Colorado Springs began on Tuesday 19th August 2008. The journey was long to say the least being awake for a full 24 hours through, car, plane, coach and bus journeys. After standing under a freeway for half an hour in the dark on my first night ever in America, I got picked up and travelled a short journey to where I would be staying for the next 4 weeks. I was lucky enough to be staying with Gary and Linda Staines, both former Olympians at the 1988 Seoul Olympics who gave me the perfect setting for my training.

I was based at 1900m and had the mountains literally a 5min jog away and then the beautiful flat trails of Colorado Springs a 5min jog in the other direction. I also had access to a track a short 20min jog away and a gym a short 15min jog away. I also enjoyed completing one of my longer runs in the Air Force Academy which was huge and had its own football stadium. The weather was brilliant, sun and a temperature that allowed me to train in shorts and vest most days.

The first week went great hitting 80miles of quality running, that being my heart rate always at or above my easy zone which has been established through physiology testing. My second week was even better still hitting 80 miles but also including a workout on the track which went totally to plan, a 20min threshold run which I hit perfectly and a 10min threshold run with 8x400m of effort on this amazing dirt track I found which was at 2,000m around a reservoir that gave me about a 1,000m rep. After I discovered this is did all my threshold and tempo runs here, it was perfectly flat and overlooked the whole of Colorado Springs! My easy runs mainly took place in the mountains where I would climb on the way out and run quick on the way back maintaining my heart rate throughout, I was flying!

I had also started to include some easy gym work too, which worked on stability and my supporting muscles rather than heavy weights which I would be leaving until the next phase of my training back in Britain. The 3rd week was again a massive improvement reaching 100miles of quality not including any warm up and warm down running in my total. The week ended with a 18.5 mile run in 1hour 54 minutes that being an average of 6:11/mi at 2,000m in the Air Force Academy, I was on cloud 9!

Monday of week 4 was just as good and was still making huge improvements. On Tuesday evening however my body began to feel the strain and by Wednesday PM I had to drop a run as my right ankle began to play up! I decided to use a local pool, which was actually Cheyenne Mountain High School’s pool where I also did my track workouts and clocked 120 lengths on both Thursday and Friday. On the Saturday I managed to squeeze a session and felt good on my ankle before going to Boulder for the rest of the weekend. This gave me a chance to chill out a bit and see the University of Colorado which is where one of my favourite books “Running with the Buffaloes” is set. This book has given me great inspiration for running and would recommend it to any athlete at school or university! I also got to meet Steve Jones the current British Record holder for the Marathon and Half Marathon whilst relaxing with friends on an afternoon in Boulder.

The following Monday I was to fly home only to be greeted by rain and another 24 hours sleep deprivation but it had all been worth it because the next few weeks were to prove very exciting! My ankle still gave me trouble up until the Saturday of my 1st week back. On the second week that being within the suggested 14-21 days peaking phase from return of altitude, I competed in the North of England Road Relays. I had a great leg and went from 8th to 2nd position on 2nd leg for Leeds City AC. I was slightly annoyed not to come back in 1st but Morpeth’s Chris Sampson had a storming run and battled with me all the way. Leeds City defended their title with a very strong team and the race gave me a huge confidence boost for the following week…the Great North Run, my 1st competitive Half Marathon!

The day after the NOE Relays I hit a 90 minute long run at an average pace of 5:53/mi reaching 15.5miles in the time and my heart rate averaged 150! I knew I was very fit! This was confirmed the following day by physiology testing in Manchester where my VO2max was 84.6 mL/kg/min and my lactate threshold and turnpoint at 5.38 min/mi and 5.11 min/mi respectively which was a huge improvement on my last test!

So Sunday came, judgement day, had I benefited from altitude and was I going to be competitive over Half Marathon. Race day could not have brought finer conditions, sun, and no wind (apart from the huge headwind in the last mile on the seafront, but this I was expected) I set of with the chasing pack feeling very comfortable with the likes of Dan Robinson, Ian Hudspith and Matt O’Dowd. We went through the 1st 2 miles in 9:30 and my next mile was 4:48 this was well below 65 minute pace so deciding to be sensible as it was my 1st Half Marathon I backed off! I felt strong all the way and passed my team mate Alan Buckley, World Cross Country Representative in 2007, around 15km. At 11 miles I felt like a bull and took off for the finish leaving everyone around me! In the last mile I cruised and reeled in Collis Birmingham of Australia to cross the line 4th Brit, 20th Overall out of the 52,000 participants and a huge time of 65:46. This was a great result and what was even better was that I felt strong to the finish there was definitely more in the tank and feel I could have gone with the leading Brits.

Everything is now on target and the GNR confirms my fitness and the benefits I gained from altitude. I will now take this great base in to my quality phases in my build up to the European Cross Country Championships where I trial for the team at Sefton Park, Liverpool on Saturday 29th November!

I would like to thank the Jack Bloor Memorial Fund so much for the support they gave me for my altitude training trip. I appreciate this unbelievable experience that I was fortunate enough to undertake and can’t explain in words how much it has helped.

Adam Grice
2008

Thank you so much to the Jack Bloor Fund for helping make my trip to the Swedish O-Ringen possible. I developed my Orienteering more in the 10 days we were there than I have in 13 years of running round grotty Yorkshire forests!
My trip started in Sheffield, at 4am, on my birthday. Going to meadow hall shopping centre at that time of the morning wasn’t my ideal birthday treat, but as I found out later, it was all worth it. The coach journey to Stansted with the rest of the Yorkshire Orienteering Junior Squad was very early, but there was already a buzz of excitement and anticipation in the air. Getting through security was uneventful, other than when everyone lost me, as I sped off straight to the gate. But they found me waiting for them when they eventually turned up, so no harm done! Once we arrived in Sweden, the excitement grew. Only 7 hours to go, and we’d be there! Looking out the window of our coach, I was amazed at how much forest there was. It was just forest, forest, forest. We passed through some towns, which just happened to be in the middle of a… forest! And 7 hours later and we’d arrived.
A lie-in the next morning (thankfully) proved an ideal time to explore around our apartments. Again, I was struck by how different everything was. It didn’t actually feel weird or odd, it just had that Britishness missing. Then it was off for some orienteering. Or swimming. Or drowning. In marshes. Lesson No.1. If a piece of ground looks flat in Sweden, it’s a bog. I learnt the hard way. Waste deep. The not-so-marshy bits weren’t that great either. I’m fairly competent at navigating in British forests, but here I was just totally lost all the time. But it’s all part of the fun. I left the forest that day with newfound respect for Swedish Orienteers. Over the next few days I learned how to navigate around Swedish forests. How not to drown, how to map read, how to run. Then the main competition was upon us.
It was a steep learning curve. Small lapses of concentration proved far more costly, so I had to be in control all the time. The competition was a lot hotter too.  I could match the Swedish for pace, but every mistake I made sapped away my physical advantage. I ended up 3rd overall, winning one individual day, in a class of about 150.
Then it was home again, in a coach load of improved Orienteers. Thank you again for making this trip possible. I have improved my orienteering so much, experienced a similar, yet vastly different culture, and proved myself against the best in the world. It was an amazing trip, and one I will certainly endeavor to make again. It is an experience I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Thank you once again,
yours sincerely,
Aidan Smith