Monday, 5 August 2013

Scottish 6 Days


Scottish 6 Days in Morray was overall an awesome holiday week: great atmosphere, lovely scenery, fab terrains, great courses, beautiful beaches, good weather (in Scottish scale) and friendly people spiced up with bagpipes, kilts and whiskey. The drive there was long but fascinating after reaching the Scottish border. We chose to drive through Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, passing Ben Nevis and Glen Coe, Loch Linnhe, Fort William, Loch Lochy and Loch Ness on the way to Inverness. It was a scenic route but I was quite disappointed not to see the famous Loch Ness Monster.


Coffee pause on the way to Inverness

The cottage we stayed at in Beauly was lovely and welcomed us with a bottle a sparkling wine. In the evenings we got company of the landlord's little cat and great Texel sheep while having dinner out on the terrace. It couldn't have been more idyllic.

Friends coming by

Day 1 was a long distance in Lossie. Terrain provided a good mixture of short legs on complex dunes and long legs through relatively featureless terrain. I enjoyed the complex part of it and had a good run until control 13, a long empty leg back home, where I lost focus for a while and made a 2min parallel mistake. I lost my lead there but was still quite pleased to finish 3rd only 2,5min behind Tessa.


Day 2 in Carse of Ardersier was a detailed middle distance, which I found really fun. After messing up at the end on the first day I was determined to orienteer well and so I did. I had a good flow all the way and hardly needed to slow down anywhere. I was a happy girl in the finish and got awarded with a stage victory.


Day 3 in Culbin provided a real challenge on the dunes. First glimpse of the map before my own start and I was terrified. How an earth to separate all small hills and knolls from one another and how to be able to read any of it while running? I decided to trust on my compass and pick only the most relevant details. That tactic worked pretty well and only a few times I had to slow down and read the details more carefully. Another stage victory.


Happy girl (photo by Moray2013)

Day 4 in Loch of Boath was a grey and gloomy day, both literally and metaphorically. It was pouring rain and the marshy highland terrain was soaked, which was not particularly pleasant for my already tired legs. But I wanted to perform and so I tried to run as fast as I could as far as I could, which only resulted in some extra stress and wobbles in the circles. I did 20-30s mistakes to all first four controls on a relatively simple course, much more than I could afford. Another small miss on control 7 and I was 1,5min down on the spectator control before the final loop. I orienteered better the other half but was totally exhausted. My biggest lost was however a bad route choice to the last control where I lost whole 40sec(!). That resulted in 15th place among all Scottish6Days and Euromeeting runners, 2:09 behind the day's winner Alva Olsson. I was quite disappointed but at least I beat the other 6Days runners and extended my overall lead.


Tough day (photo by Wendy Carlyle)

Day 5 in Roseisle was again warm and sunny and enjoyable. I allowed myself to take it a bit easier and could really enjoy it. Our course was 6,8km but it was middle distance type course planning so it kept you busy from start to finish and there wasn't time to get bored. It suited me very well and I could just focus on smooth orienteering. I had a pretty solid run apart from small mistakes on controls 5, 7, and 18. Claire had a smoother run today and beat me by 2,5min. Fair enough.  


Day 6 Coulmony & Belivat. My legs felt empty, my brains felt empty and I had zero interest of running another race. But because the overall results were based on cumulative time of all 6 days, I needed to get myself through the course in order to take the overall victory. I forced myself to the assembly and from there to the start. On the way to the start some vague race spirits rose somewhere deep inside but I wasn't sure if the connection from the brain to my tired legs would work. I knew I had a big gap to my rivals and that I could take it quite easy. It was comforting but on the other hand I didn't want to spend the whole day there. So instead of jogging I ran more or less full speed to the first control (clocking the fastest split) but on the way to the second control after a slip to a ditch I realized that I had no power in my legs. It took ages to go through the marshes and tussocks from the start to control 5 before finding some harder ground and being able to run again. After control 5 I found another gear and kept a good pace on the next 40min stretch from 5 to 19 (being one of the fastest girls there). I found a good flow, ignored the tiredness and danced the way to the spectator control (at that stage I was second, only 13sec down to the stage winner Julia Gross). I had managed to trick my brain through the tiredness for an hour but after dragging myself up the next climb to control 20 (including 1min mistake on that) my brain suddenly realized how tired I really was. I nailed the next three controls (21-23) but passed the control 24 just slightly above and it took whole 4 minutes before I found it. A small 30sec miss on the next control and an idiotic route choice to number 26 (+1min) meant that I finished 6min behind Julia. I had chances for a stage (and Euromeeting long distance) victory but my goal was really just to finish and take the overall victory, which I managed to do with style. I felt defeated after losing 6 minutes on the final loop but still I couldn't help but raise up my arms in gesture of victory when I reached the finish line.