Christine Currie

It was good to finish my Norwegian orienteering for the year on a high note today with a good result in the O-Festivalen relay. I was running second leg for Heming-Njard on the women’s open, as the two best runners were saving themselves for JWOC next week. The second leg was one of the two shorter legs at 4.5km and that suited me fine. Marte finished in a pack so I was running with people most of the way round. That made me realise what had been slowing me down yesterday - I need people to make me keep trying, otherwise I just drift along.

Our team was 18th overall and I was 18th on my leg. Unfortunately, at the end of it, I took a couple of minutes to locate Ragnhild in the changeover box so she had some work to do to catch up time, which she seemed to do pretty well. I felt pretty satisfied at the end of it - a good day’s work for once!

It was my turn to come last today at O-Festivalen. Dave ran early but had to jack to get back in time to take over babysitting Emma from me. I was then off quite late. Everything started well and was going OK for at least 2 controls. Then it seemed to be one 5 minute mistake after another.

I remember back in the UK I used to be slightly above average at orienteering so I really don’t understand what’s going wrong here. Maybe I’m still using my sloppy southern technique of run and hope on a vague compass bearing, which can lose you a lot of time when the forests are thick, the hills are steep and the terrain is tough going. I used to enjoy and be good at Scandinavian terrain but I think I’d need a few more training weeks out her before getting some respectable results. Sadly tomorrow is my last o event out here so there’s no chance of that.

All I can say, is that the 1hrs 51 I spent out in the forest may well have helped my marathon training.

We drove over to the end of Maridalsvannet for the Nydalten event, run by Nydalens OK on Sunday. It was another scorcher of a day and the assembly field was smallish and shadeless. The focus of the day was on the Trimtex Cup, a series of races for juniors. They were having a Chasing Sprint and were just finishing the prologue when we arrived. Possibly because of the style of their races but maybe also because of the small number of entries, the start block for the rest of us was pretty short. Consequently, we ended up with 80 minutes between Dave’s start (first) and mine, with mine being right at the end of the normal people. With Dave’s course being 10.5km and hilly and the start being 2km away, it was always unlikely to work. In the end, he was out over 100 minutes so I didn’t have a hope of getting there, not that I felt much like it after a couple of hours of entertaining Emma in a hot and dusty car park.

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Today was a public holiday in Norway, to celebrate a very important person’s birthday and Lillomarka OL had put on a middle distance race at Bygdøy to keep us amused. I was off first with not quite enough time to get back to take over Emma from Dave. Unfortunately, that preyed on my mind throughout the run and I made a few pretty big mistakes.

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The Norwegians are claiming it’s spring here but with the temperature hovering around 5 degrees and not many leaves out on any of the trees I’m definitely still in winter mode. We went down to Halden for the Norwegian Spring orienteering meet today, which seemed a pretty big competition. Thankfully I’d opted for long rather than elite as this was my first outing in Norwegian terrain for sometime (with the exception of the sprint round the local woods in the Oslo City Cup last Tuesday). It wasn’t my best result ever (15th out of 25), most probably due to my lack of rock climbing/descending practice in the past few years. I was a bit of a wimpy weed.

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We were at the BADO event at Black Wood today and it rained. It was one of our first experiences of split starts and, despite the rain, it didn’t seem too bad. I went out very early and ran like a bit of a headless chicken around the woods on my own. I don’t seem to be able to concentrate very well these days. Then, after a quick feed, I took Emma out in the carrier for a while. There weren’t many people to watch so she fell asleep after a while, leaving me to pick my way through the mud and slippy branches without falling over.

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I guess it was the first event of the new season yesterday at Queen Elizabeth Country Park. As Dave is still observing his two week rest from strenuous exercise due to his appendicitis, I was the only Currie to make it out onto a course. I opted for the blue and felt good when I was out there, although I definitely need to put in some more hill training as I was suffering on the steep hills. My splitsbrowser curve also shows that I should try putting in some more runs of over 35 minutes as I did begin to run out of steam towards the end, and I was only out 55 minutes. Nonetheless, I was pretty happy with my run, which left me in 6th place but not too far off 2nd. The course was fun, with lots of nice fast running in it and only a few patches of nasty undergrowth. The cafe looked nice so I’m tempted to go back some other time for a walk, run or nip round the permanent course.

We were up at the Scottish 6 Days last week for my first competitive orienteering since before Emma was born and yesterday evening saw me running in the last RR10 of the series at IBM Hursley. I can’t claim to have excelled at either (I certainly wasn’t living up to the high standards set by Sarah Rollins who won W21E at the 6 Days - Thomas is a month older than Emma, at least that’s my excuse). However, 13th on W21S at the 6 Days and 33rd at the RR10 sounded respectable to me.

So, what have I learnt. Number 1, Emma can be left and can be quite happy. Number 2, if she cries when I’m away I can’t hear her and she can’t cry for long as I’m never out for all that long. Number 3, her grandma should come orienteering every week with her hired camper van!

My feet feel very bruised after the orienteering, which I’m hoping will pass as they hurt.

As soon as I heard the JK was going to be in the Forest of Dean this Easter, I rushed to book some appartments at Whitemead, the CSMA’s resort in the Forest of Dean, on the edge of Parkend. As ever, it lived up to expectations and JOK seemed to enjoy the unusual luxury of our accommodation.

The best bit for me was the swimming pool as, being nearly 8 months pregnant, swimming is about the sportiest thing I can do at the moment. I took advantage of the adults-only sessions between 8 and 9am, which meant I felt I’d done something energetic before going out to spectate at the JK.

I’d like to go back again this year or next year and try out one of the log cabins. I’ve stayed in appartments the three times I’ve been, which are very nice, but the log cabins look a bit cuter, for want of a better word! I might be allowed to use the sauna, steam room and jacuzzi then as well, three very attractive things that pregnant women are banned from partaking in.

Finally, a plug for the local pub, The Woodman, who catered for 25 hungry JOKers on the Sunday night and cooked some very tasty food, rounded off with excellent, friendly service. I had Gloucestershire trout and then shared some sticky toffee pudding with Dave, both of which went down a treat.

We were helping at the SOC district event and long-o at New Copse today, and Dave ran round the long-o after his stint on registration. Unfortunately for the organising and planning team, it was a horrible day - heavy rain from very early on falling on what was already a pretty wet area. The photo is of one of the white controls, which was on a path track junction but looks more like a stream to me!

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