Nobody can say we haven’t been trying, we dutifully send a team to the qualifying round every year but have always been pipped to the post by some of the larger ‘small’ clubs. It’s hard when only 1/5 or 1/6 teams can qualify.
This year, after some suggestions I made to the rules committee many years ago, the number of qualifying spots was increased for the ‘small club’ category and we just beat Wimborne in the heats to qualify. The only problem? The final was in Redcar – a mere 330 miles away.

Regardless, the club committee quickly jumped to work gauging interest and booking group transport and accommodation. Special thanks to Bruno and Julie for the admin on the logistics. After some late withdrawals due to injury and other commitments, we were left with a team of 14 people. A couple of runners agreeing to run up a course (or two) gave us exactly the minimum of 13 scores for a full team with one run spare on the junior courses.

The Journey

Seven of the club set off at 8:30 from Poole in a minibus, picking up another three on route. Two travelled down together from Scotland and the final two had made their own way up there to make a weekend of it. After rest stops and the standard British motorway traffic caused by weather conditions, roadworks and other incidents, we finally made it just after 17:00 to the youth hostel on the edge of the Yorkshire moors. By chance, we found most of the rest of the hostel was occupied by Harlequins Orienteering Club.

The whole team met in a local pub for the Saturday evening meal. Fish and chips was the most popular option with two of the team opting for the most prominent item on the pubs menu, the Parmo. For those unfamiliar with this local culinary tradition, the ‘Teeside Parmesan’ is Middlesbrough’s variation of a standard chicken parmesan. It consists of a large breaded cutlet of chicken topped with béchamel sauce and cheese – also served with chips, naturally. Please don’t ask about the calorific or nutritional content.

The Event

The Final was hosted on South Gare, a set of sand dunes rather similar in appearance to Studland with equally complex contour detail. The assembly area was only a short walk along the beach from the parking, and where we discovered the first challenge the planner had in store for us. The finish leg for everyone was a punishing 260 m along the sand, finishing in a slight incline as you ran around the bend into the finish. The CompassSport Cup final has a Golden Boot award for the fastest finish split, just to add some extra motivation. This was won in a blistering time of 43 seconds for the men and 55 seconds for the women.

The weather had been a concern with such an open competition and assembly area, but on the day it turned out very pleasant with no rain, light wind, and even some sunshine. There was a a good atmosphere with all the club tents lining the finish run in and we staked the club banner in prime position on the inside of the bend for maximum visibility. Sadly, we didn’t manage a team photo as we never had everyone together at the same time on the day, but there’s a montage of every participant at the bottom.

Our strategy was simple: get round the course cleanly with no mispunches! We knew that we were never going to challenge for the podium with the smallest complete team, so our aim was to make a good showing and not come last on the leaderboard.

The courses themselves were technically challenging with the added physicality of running on sand for much of the course. There was a large network of small paths across much of the area, but we know from Studland that relying on indistinct paths in dunes can easily lead you astray. Keeping contact with the map was vital. If you lost track of where you were, one bit of dune looked a lot like another and there might not be an easy spot to relocate from without backtracking. Most competitors had a 1:7,500 map, but the longest courses used a 1:10,000 map which added extra challenge in reading the fine detail.

The courses are all up on routegadget for you to look at and judge for yourself how easy it was to go wrong.

The results

In the club results we finished 17th out of 22 teams in the small club (Trophy) competition, and were not the last team with a full set of scores. Most of the teams ahead of us had many more people entered and spare runners whose scores they could discard.

There were a few standout performances in the individual results:

• Lyra Medlock, running up two age classes to compete in Women’s Open (Blue), finished 8/78 (4th among small clubs) – only a few minutes behind some of the country’s top W21s
• Emma Heckford finished 9/26 on Junior Women Short Green (3rd among small clubs)
• Jolyon Medlock, running up to Short Brown, finished 21/92 (10th among small clubs)

Thank you to everyone who took part, fast or slow, for showing up for the team. Everyone completed their course, scored us some points, and I think had a good time.
A big thank you to Jon and Richie for driving us up there, and getting back at 23:00 on Sunday. Any complaints about the choice of music in the minibus on the return journey should be directed to the DJ.

With the rule changes, I hope it will be sooner than 16 years until we next qualify for the final, though we might exercise some discretion on how far we’re willing to travel to go there!

Casting our minds back to the JK in the Midlands, Friday was an excellent sprint event at Loughborough University, followed by two days in the mud of Beaudesert for the middle and long. It’s a lovely old forest park in the Cannock Chase, but the small number of controls used and the heavy usage of those controls (same control on different days on my course) meant that the paths became quagmires, which was a shame. Having said that, anyone who can get a forest event approved by a landowner over Easter weekend deserves a medal. The courses were not very technical but all aspects of the organisation were excellent. The relay event on the Monday was up in the Peak District on a misty moor which was very exciting. It was great to see Andrew over for his last JK, just as he turns 95. It was also the Heckford family’s first JK, and is great to see Nick and Teresa orienteering and part of the club too. The highlight of the weekend for me was that we had 3 relay teams, with Lyra, Esk and Nesa (back from Switzerland) getting silver medal in the Women’s short class.

The BOC this year was near Whitby on a very tough terrain at Mulgrave woods. I must have waded the river four times on a very long course. The weather was great all weekend, and again a small contingent of WSX travelled north. Andrew broke records by demanding an M95 class, and promptly being crowned British Champion. On the Sunday a few of us formed relay teams, with Lyra and Esk again on the podium (bronze), this time with Grace in the W18 class. I ran with Gavin and Rob, both running up to M50 class, with a very respectable 5th place.

The British middles was on a very enjoyable, steeply wooded hillside, with numerous gritstone boulders, near Otley, Yorkshire. It was a fast and furious event, with a great arena location. After much illness over winter, and much disappointment at the JK and BOC, Lyra had recovered enough from illness, and had restored some fitness to gain Silver in the W18E, just behind a NZ international; the daughter of Yvette Baker, and so eligible for the British titles. The following day was a bitterly cold day on Kilnsey moor in the Dales. The mist lifted and the sun peeped out, making it a fine weekend.

Closer to home we’ve been busy taking part in the Dorset Summer Maprun, six maprun events over the summer. Upton was during April, and its Poundbury this month. For the physical events, we had Hamworthy last month, and the next one is at Hive Beach, at Burton Bradstock. The Crickmores seem to be dominating the Standard and Age-graded league. Sheila leads the women’s age graded league, but Emma and Oliver are threatening on both leagues, so watch out!

We’ve had to change a few dates of upcoming winter forest events for various reasons, so keep an eye on our fixtures and amend your diaries. Hope you all enjoy the rest of the summer. The SW sprints are at Bath University in June, which is very tricky (3 levels), followed by the British sprints and sprint relays at Birmingham and Warwick Universities. Later, in July, is the Welsh 6 days, which promises to be a cracker.

Enjoy the spring!

Apologies for not posting a blog for a while, work seems to have got in the way of my orienteering and blog writing.

As you may have heard, we received the sad news that our long standing member, Richard Arman, passed away at the age of 95. I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing Richard, even though he was a member for many decades, but I have heard many warm words from many members regarding Richard’s devotion to the sport and the club. Some of our members will be sharing some memories of Richard. There will be a celebration, so please contact Liz, if you wish to attend. Thanks to Nick Barrable for sharing this photo:

Now that winter is finally over, it’s time to reflect on the dark months of the year that have passed and look forward to the warmer days ahead, and the longer evenings. The night league was another resounding success, and was enjoyed by so many members. The highlight for me was Studland, not because I nearly won it (if it hadn’t been for that pesky Tommy Rollins), but the full moon, still wind, moonlight dunes, and general bonhomie was just perfect. The Crickmores did a wonderful job in delivering a night event at Studland, which will be hard to beat. There were many WSX awards, with Alan and James picking up 2nd and 3rd in the Men’s open league, Hannah coming 3rd in the Women’s league, Esk winning the junior women’s league, Oliver winning the junior men’s league and Sheila and Julie coming 2nd and 3rd in the Age-adjusted league. All the results can be found on the Night League page.

There was also further night orienteering at the British Night Champs in the Lake District, back in February, with Lyra and Esk (on their first real night O in a forest alone) coming 3rd and 4th in their age categories. Lyra, who has missed a lot of the winter with illness and injury, will be representing England this weekend in Belgium, running for the W20 at the Interland Cup. We wish her well.

The JK, British Long, British Relays and British Middle are coming up, all within 6 weeks. We have a few members running, including some of our newest members, the Heckfords, and one of our founding members, Andrew, taking part. It should be a great weekend. We also have a few teams in the JK and British relays. More on that in a later post.

Looking forward, we’ve been working hard to build a programme of activities, so do offer to help, plan, organise:

We have decided to run the Purbeck weekend every two years, and to avoid clashes with the Caddihoe Chase, it will be in early October 2025. Currently pencilled in are Studland and Swanage (possibly with a mixed terrain event including Durlston Country Park).

So our two regular Level C events this winter (SW League event and Dorset Delight) will be at Holmsley and Bisterne Close in October, and hopefully (new map permitting) at Affpuddle in February 2025. For Affpuddle, which actually includes a much larger area of FE and private woodland. We have permissions and car parking, so now we are looking to commission a map. The costs will be shared with WIM, so this will be a joint area, and there will be options for night orienteering from a few of the car parks. There are lots of sinkholes in some parts of the wood, and that will be fun in the dark!

This year we aim to try a few new things:

• two additional Level D local events (small entries, chance for new planners to cut their teeth) – possibly at Blackwater (New Forest) and Wareham Forest in November and January
• the Purbeck Mountain Challenge – a brainchild of Rob Mills and Chris Turner – essentially a long-O mountain marathon, over Purbeck (name gave it away I know), with running over Ballard Down, Rempstone, and orienteering on Studland and Agglestone.
• Yule Poole – yep night event at Christmas time in Poole, you guessed it. This is to attempt to replace the Brighton City Race

There will also be a full programme of night events next winter, including a return to Studland, and possibly some night O in Coldharbour and a chance to test Julie’s new Bournemouth town and chines map.

However, over the summer we have the Summer Series and Summer MapRun series. There will be six of each, forming two separate leagues and a combined league. This is joint with WIM. For the MapRuns, you will have a calendar month to run them, so plenty of time. For the Summer Series, these are evening socials (i.e. run, go to pub, chat, have BBQ etc.).

Hope this has got you all excited. Check the events page and update your diaries.

See you all at the JK

https://www.wimborne-orienteers.co.uk/24%20Events/Bere%20Wood%20Csport/Results/HTMLresultsBW/index.html

For those who couldn’t come today, water everywhere was the name of the game! Some depressions became ponds overnight, marshes were lakes, and there were several temporary streams. Some extra water won’t stop us of course, and most people I spoke to had had a good run.

We had a respectable 4^th place finish in the Trophy competition, very close behind Wimborne. SARUM had a strong performance across the board to claim 1^st by a significant margin.

I’ve attached a sheet possibly making it a bit clearer how our team score is calculated. If you’re still confused, click around the results in detail.

Special mentions to Gavin and Esk who scored 100 points with 1^st place, Jolyon (running up) and Nicki who scored 99 with 2^nd place, and to relatively new member Oliver who scored 98 with 2^nd place.

2024 CSC WSX Results

Well done to everyone, and look out for next year’s date when it’s announced!

James

We also had a SW junior training day at Bramshaw, with Robbie joining Lyra and Esk for junior training, and hopefully Emma and Oliver will be able to join the next one at Bath Spa.

Speaking of training, WIM are organising a training day for WIM and WSX at Coldharbour on Saturday 9th March.

Before that we have our Compass Sport Trophy fixture at Bere Wood. We need all our members to take part, as there may be two final places up for grabs, although overhauling the scores of the WIM and SARUM is always a challenge. Remember, we need a spread of ages and genders, so everyone counts. Please let James know if you can join the team.

Also, please remember to renew your membership, I see that a few of you haven’t yet.

The night league continues to keep us entertained, its up to Larkhill Garrison this weekend, then events at Southampton, Basingstoke, Studland and Fordingbridge (3 events in 5 days!) bringing us almost to the end of the season.

A little further ahead is the British Long champs and relays in faraway forests near Whitby and the JK in the Midlands at Easter. If anyone is planning to do the Welsh 6 days in July in the Brecon Beacons, we have a designated campsite.

See you at the Southern Champs this Sunday, or the British Nights the week after, or at the Compass Sport Trophy qualifier the week after.

We’ve also had our club championship at the November Classic, with our two England stars, Gavin and Lyra winning again, as well as scooping their respective Southern Champion awards, along with Julie, who won W70. There have been a number of other good events recently, including the Chiltern Challenge this weekend at Bradenham Beeches, Devon’s league event at Braunton Burrows, a bit of O-snorkelling this weekend at Dibden, and WIM’s league event at Inside Park.

If you are looking for orienteering over the festive period, then WIM’s Boxing Day Canter is a must, always good fun, but I’m afraid to say that the Grinch is entering, and she is one year older and quicker. There are also events in the Ashdown Forest and Hogmoor, for those that don’t mind travelling to Sussex.

Early in the New Year we have a lovely regional event in the pine forests of Cold Harbour. So do enter, using the helper code. This is Lyra’s first planned event, so do support her. For those that don’t know, the British Nights this year are in the woodlands that bank Derwent Water in the English Lake District. They are making a weekend of it with a sprint around Keswick and a local event at Loughrigg. It’s start of half-term, so worth the trip. Entries are (soon to be/already) open for the British Long champs in North Yorkshire, the British Middle champs (also Yorkshire) and the JK in the Midlands (Loughborough University, Beaudesert [Cannock Chase] and Stanton Moor [Peak District]. So lots to look forward to.

See you all in Moors Valley on Boxing Day, but in the meantime Merry Christmas, and here’s to another great year of O in 2024.

ps. If you would like any WSX tops please email me or Julie, as we are putting in an order

Saturday at Studland was excellent. My initial concerns about disturbing naturists were unfounded, even though the start was close to the OOB area. Andrew made excellent use of the terrain, and kept your mind on your navigating the whole way. We attracted many ex-elite orienteers from around the country, interested by Studland’s map and terrain, but also the offer of two days of orienteering, at the start of half term. I heard many positive comments about how “intense” and tricky the area is. The weather held off largely, although it rained on me. There were excellent results for young SN juniors Tommy Rollins on Black, SW premier vet Ben Chesters on Brown and young Marcus Perry from BOK on Blue. Bradley was top WSX on Black and with two excellent runs, I note he now takes the crown as top BOF ranked member. After a few deleted legs, there were only 9 seconds between myself, James and Alan B on Black, with Jon B not far behind. On Brown, Lyra and Nesa (our temporary Swiss junior) came in 3rd and 4th, with Peter (flying over from Budapest) and Martin not far behind. Andy E also did some filming on Black, watch Scott’s video.

Nesa has now returned to St. Gallens/Appenzell, having stayed with the Medlocks for a month. In that time she ran the JIRCs in South Wales, the Caddihoe in the Forest of Dean (winning W18), won the OK Nuts Women’s Trophy at Holmwood Common, ran four sprints/urbans in Scotland, against Hanna Lundberg, and capped it off with Studland. Whilst she was with us, she was crowned Swiss W16 league champion, which is rather impressive. So we may want to fly her back for the Compass Sport Cup. Her parents Thomas and Barbara (and sister Flora) joined us at Studland, and enjoyed the comparison of Dorset’s seaside dunes to the rocky Alpine terrain of home. Thomas commented “by my calculation there is only 10 metre difference between all contours”  – welcome to Dorset!

In recent weeks, Lyra has also been representing England, coming 2nd at the JHIs, back first on the first leg of the JHI relay, she has been selected for GB Talent Squad South and is currently on the Pre-JWOC (Junior World Orienteering Champs) tour in Czechia. No rest for some…

A few photos of Lyra and Nesa at the Stirling weekend in Scotland, inc running in a relay team against the elite from Sweden, Switzerland and Norway, sharing the podium with Alice Leake (World champ bronze medalist) and some photos from the JHIs at Sutton Park, where the England juniors were triumphant.

I digress, back to Blue (at Studland), and whilst Rob, Nicki and Bruno flew the WSX flag, new juniors Oliver and Robbie tested their nav skills for the first time on the dunes. Looking by the smiles on their faces, they enjoyed themselves, and hopefully they will be back for more.

On Green, Gavin was first with a 2 minute win. A poorly Esk walked around in decent time, with Rebecca M and Tina coming in with decent times, with Laura top half on short green (Sarah mp).

On Light green, new member Hannah came a decent 2nd, and great to welcome back Rebecca C who also had big smiles at the finish. Hope to see both of them at the night league events. Kath Dean came third on Orange, closely followed by Alan H.

Several people finished the day with swims at Studland or Swanage, followed by Fish and Chips on the beach. Not to forget and thanks those who had enough energy after their runs to collect controls, as well as the late evening sorting amended results and SW Middle champion winners.

The overcast weather of Saturday gave way to sunshine on Agglestone. Roger had prepared some physically challenging courses, where careful navigation was required amongst the marshes and old clay pits of Godlingston Heath. The views from Agglestone (if you stop and look long enough) are some of the finest from any orienteering area in England. The blue waters of Studland Bay and Poole Harbour, the forested islands of Brownsea and the distant views of Bournemouth and the Needles are far reaching and spectacular.

Top runners for WSX were Bradley on Brown, Gavin on Blue, Laura on Green, Julie on Short Green and Robbie on Light Green. Several members who hadn’t run the previous day were out, including Sheila, Madeleine and Tracy.

A few images from the day:

Check out the buffs we had produced for the weekend:

We now turn to the night league, so get your entries in for Monday (West Moors) and the following week at Meyrick Park. Our next regional event is at Cold Harbour in January, and when I visited yesterday, it was looking lovely.

Finally, November Classic on 5th November is our Club Champs, so enter your age group to count.

Caddihoe 2023

This last weekend was the Caddihoe Chase in the Forest of Dean, organised by NGOC. This was held at Mallards Pike on some lovely terrain on the first day, with old mining areas, steep slopes and a lots of runnable areas of the forest, and then the Chase on the second day on parts of the forest with extensive ditch systems. The Saturday was the SW Long distance championships. Congratulations to the 3 SW champions: Esk Medlock on W16, Nesa Schiller (Swiss orienteer staying with us for a month) on W18 and Julie Astin on W70, and three runner’s up: Lyra Medlock on W18, Jolyon Medlock on M45 and Gavin Clegg on M65.

Gavin was also running for England, and part of a successful England VHI team.

The second day was the Chase, where as you all know, you set off in order of your finish on the first day and are chased by the later runners. The first past the post wins. Julie, Nesa and Esk all managed to stay ahead of not only their SW counterparts, but also their competitors from across the country. Rebecca also won the W45S.

Upcoming events

This weekend there is a pre-run for our annual club championships with a SOC event in the New Forest at Wilverley. There is also the OK Nuts organised by SLOW at Holmwood. The following week is the first event of the 2023/24 SW league, organised by SARUM at Grovely wood. There are some great venues for the SW league, including Agglestone, Gore Heath, Braunton Burrows (Devon) and Stockhill (Mendips). Then on 30th October we start the night league at West Moors, followed by Meyrick Park and Old Amesbury in successive weeks.

Our club championship is at the November Classic at Fritham, so there is a chance to steal the trophy from Gavin and Lyra.

See you at Studland!

The Medlock summer was packed with exciting trips to Switzerland, Sweden, Scotland, but what was definitely my highlight was the week away at Lagganlia. This had been my goal for some time after my sister got selected in 2021 and came back with nothing but happy memories and many, many laughs.

In my opinion the week was not long enough! The coaches made sure the week was full with informative training days boasting gorgeous terrain with glorious views. They made sure to focus on every aspect of orienteering to improve and hone our skills. I felt I had improved just by being there!

The terrain varied throughout the week, allowing us to test our skills on lots of different areas; including classic Scottish forests, green areas where visibility was low and running tough, exposed open hillsides and urban areas. We even got the opportunity to orienteer at night!

Besides training, it was a great way to make friends from across the country, and have fun!

The first day of training was at Heathfield. It was a bit damp but a lovely area to kick off the week. This day, the objective was to focus on pacing and compass bearing. When orienteering, I generally don’t think about pacing so it was interesting to learn another skill and put it into practise. After a few exercises, we finished the day with a star relay.

Day 2 was at Darnaway, giving us a taste of what the terrain would be like at the Scottish 6 Days. The weather slightly improved but didn’t dampen our spirits when singing to Shake It Off by Taylor Swift on the bus! Today we were focusing on contour details and handrails, which since being at Lagganlia I have applied to my orienteering. The day ended with an odds and evens relay.

In the morning of Day 3, Rachel Duckworth gave a talk about geeking and we looked at North Granish, the place we would be training that day. As part of the exercise for later on in the day, we drew a sketch map of the area, picking out the remarkable features, handrails, catching features etc. Once we arrived at North Granish, we then used the sketch maps to do a course. This was to show how little features we needed to orienteer. In the afternoon, we then had a distractions race, where the coaches had placed numerous distractions out on the course, including cameramen, commentary, a run-through, a double-sided map and a control that deliberately wasn’t working.

Day 4 was a “rest” day, which was ironic because I did the most steps that day! Today were the sprints at Badaguish. The race was split into 3; the qualifiers (which everyone got through), the semis, and then the finals (of which the top 3 got through from the semis). To spice it up a bit, the scale of the map was also 1:2000. This threw me on the qualifier as I had never encountered a scale as such. After the qualifier, you were shown 3 snippets of maps, of which you had to choose 1 and that would be your course for the semi-final. I got through to the final, which I was very pleased about. After the sprints, we then had a go on the monkey bars which were suspended over water at Badaguish. Let’s just say a, a lot of people got wet!

We then went swimming in the Loch near-by and then wandered around Aviemore. At 9pm we went back out to do some night orienteering.

Day 5 was at Creag Beag, an exposed hill side. The weather wasn’t too kind today and we were all a bit bedraggled at the end. We then sought shelter in the forest afterwards to do a peg relay.

Day 6 was Tour Champs at Auchernack, with a map exchange (I completely missed that and had to go back to drop my map). We then went back to Lagganlia to do a monster relay (a relay but where at some controls were a bit of jigsaw which made a monster). Later that night, most of the athletes snuck out, and enjoyed a game of hide and seek with the coaches.

It was a lovely week and I thank WSX and SWOA for giving me grants in order to be able to take advantage of these opportunities

Here is Lyra’s report from her summer tour to Czechia:

Czech report 2023

The 10-day trip started with an 8km run with the group of 4 people I would be flying out with, followed by an early wake up of 4am for our 7 o’clock flight the next day. We arrived in Prague at around 10 in the morning and took the bus and the metro around the city to do some sightseeing with a couple of the coaches. It was boiling hot and after exploring the castle, we ventured into the main shopping area to hunt for some much needed ice cream. At 3pm the group flying from Scotland joined us and they were taken to our accommodation in the yellow van. Four of us took the metro to the outskirts of Prague, followed by an hour bus journey to Liberec, where we were picked up; which was a longer journey, but we had good fun and I enjoyed the bus and the scenic route we went. Once the Stanstead flight had arrived, we spent some time all together in the evening playing volleyball (which the girls won!) and headed to bed ready for our first day of training.

Having been given our purple and map tour tops the day before, we ventured into the mountain terrain which was only a 5-minute drive from Potkávárna. I did 3 exercises with 2 of them, being shadowed by coaches, before we headed back for lunch, with soup and a main! The food was delicious all week and I was inspired with a new breakfast idea. After lunch we headed back into the mountain terrain for a pairs relay which I did with Kate; it was great fun on a crazy map scale. In the evening we talked about training and played some locals at a game of half volleyball/ half netball.

For day 2, we had our first taste of Czech sandstones, which was a 50-minute drive from where we were staying. It wouldn’t be the tour without the music, but sadly our speaker died half way there. We were told today would be hard and it did not disappoint, the terrain was tough and hilly, with the combined heat and racing style day meaning we were all pretty tired by the end.  In the afternoon, after exploring the steep valleys and massive cliffs, was the peg race, everyone’s favourite. It was a gruelling race with a variation in the pegs, so we ran a lot further than we thought we would: 6.4km instead of 2.6km. We travelled back to the lake for a much needed recovery dip, however I was way too tired to swim so I just wallowed towards the beach. In the evening we had a talk from the planner of the world cup, that had happened a few weeks previously, which was really interesting, where we discussed route choice and how to orienteer in the Czech sandstones. 

For day 3 we headed back into the sandstone terrain but in a more runnable area, we started off the day with micro o through really cool rock passages and did a terrain interval style course with a partner. We didn’t do much training in the day as we had the night O that evening! After the training and a delicious remote lunch, we walked to the big sandstones to explore and take photos before heading down the hill to the river for a swim to cool off. I was pretty tired before the night 0 which was due to start at 8:45 however once I got running, I absolutely loved it. There were options to bail out by telling a coach at 4 of the controls of the 17 control course as it was due to be a brutal race. On my way to #4 I met Rory, Freya and Ben and we navigated to #8 together. I ended up running the rest of the course with Ben Perry and ended up running 7km! The steep slopes at the beginning were great fun, and we finished first in time for cake and headed to bed once everyone had finished around midnight. Thankfully it was the rest day the next day….

After a nice lie in and a relaxed breakfast we walked into the local forest for Micro O, which was good fun, and picked a lot of bilberries. The afternoon adventure was Liberec Water park for 2 hours and a stop at the shops for snack and fuel.

Day 5 was another trip to the sandstones, however training was delayed by 40 minutes whilst our bus waited for everyone else which involved removing a tree that was blocking the car park. The steep slopes were amazing here and I really enjoyed traversing under the huge rocks. Pavel greeted us with homemade quiche for lunch before a fun vampire 0 relay in the afternoon. We paid the lake another visit before heading back for dinner and relaxing. Then it was time for the tour champs, both races were great fun and despite everyone feeling quite tired, was a great race. On the last evening we had a BBQ by the firepit and stayed up quite late talking and chatting after singing with the coaches, whilst Ben Windsor was on the piano . We said our goodbyes as the Stanstead lot had to leave at 6 in the morning and had one more adventure to the tower before heading to the airport to come home. It was a brilliant week and we had a lot of fun, thank you to the coaches who made it  very fun, and to SWOA and WSX for the money which allowed me to go on this trip. It was by far the best yet.