EOC Day Seven: Middle Qual

Today we had the Middle Qual. While waiting for our start Ross and i were attacked by Mosquitoes its was soooo annoying trying to relax and having to keep killing them. Once in the forest i was safe well from mosquito's anyway, my oing once again let me down today i stuffed up the first two a little bit then fucked the third loosing any chance of making the A Final!! i was then caught by a Danish guy so ran with him the rest of the way. I was dispointed to make such a stupid mistake i was going ok then cuaght some Japanese guy on a different course but he kept putting me off and i lost contact with the map, i was telling my self to read it but didnt seem to work must be a loose connection some where i think. If i took out my mistakes i would have made it into the A but thats the way of orienteering. Ross also had a shit race, and didnt make the A final. We are both doing the B final tomorrow and im hoping to finally beat some of these eesti guys i have one starting just infront of me but cant let that make me run to fast at the start. i would also like to beat ross as i havent done that in a while!!!


Was quite funny talking with our Danish friends, yesterday they went and brought some kids baseball gear like bat and ball, there coaches told them that there werent aloud to get a soccer ball as they would injury themselves so anyway they went down to the park to play and within 5min Tue (one of the guys) had dislocated his shoulder!!! they poped it back in but he still was in a bit of pain this morning before the Qual it cant have affected him in a bad way thats for sure as he came 7th!!! all six of the danish mens team made it which is pretty awesome.

EOC Day 6: Rest Day

Today i havent really done alot. Ross went out to the Model map again with the Danish team, and Piret went out with the Essti team to some Animal farm which was really stupid cos they couldnt even see any animals. I sat at hotel did a couple bits of washing in the shower as there arint any washing machines we can use. Then went for a run around waterfront there were some random cow statues which were a bit strange thing to have. My legs were feeling kinda tired from all the running so not to sure if my run was a wise idea even thou it was only 30min still dont think it helped them much. ohh well

Tomorrow is the Middle qual so heres hoping Ross and i have some clean runs!! i think its going to be very hard to get in A final and we will have to run fast to make it!! Piret will now be the NZ support crew as shes not aloud to run the middle, She might try and run unofficially afterwards.

EOC Day Five: Long Final

The races today didnt start till late First start in A final wasnt intill 3pm and B final started at 4.30, so we just mucked around at Hotel all morning, I went out to the Event with the Essti team in the last car load which was just people in the B final as we didnt have to be there till later. We got to watch all the starts and then saw the first few finishes in each grade, didnt really want to go out oing just wanted to stay and see who would would the A final i was kinda tired aswell and kinda wondered if i should really go out as i was only running in the B final which doesnt mean much, In the end i decided that i would but just go slow, I was told by one of the Essti girls who was ran in the A Final that it was really wet out there. Man she was right, i stuffed up my first control and nxt next couple were a bit rough, we then had a long leg which went through this open area which turned out to be pretty much all sand was so painful trying to run. Made quite a few more mistakes but nothing i can be bothered writing about. We had about 12 marsh crossing in total which pretty much all of them i went waist deep in muddy smelly water!!! I finished well back on leaders but dont really care as i wasnt racing at all!!

Piret also did B Final and didnt do to well, she wasnt really racing either so didn't matter much. Ross was lazy bum and stayed at the hotel watching TV.
Man i was glad i wasnt in the A Final they had to do 18km in that terrain thou would have killed me for the middle, I had 15km and that took me long enough.

Map: I did MB
http://www.orientesanas.lv/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=60&kieli=en

EOC day Three: Long Qual

Today was bit of a mission. i was once again starting in middle of the pack we had 11km. Was feeling a bit tired from the Sprints yesterday but once i was warming up didnt feel to bad. The scale of the map today was 1:15000 some of the eesti guys had done the model using this scale map and said it was sooo hard to read so got a bit worried. Once started turned map over to see that they were right there were nice flat parts but then the complex dunes areas were just soo hard to read there was no way i could run and read them so every time i had to read the map i stopped. i made a couple of mistakes aswell which was in the easier areas too so that was rather stupid of me, i got caught on the last few controls by some Russian man he was running fast was fun trying to run with him and reading map but i have to say i was doing alot more running than Orienteering. I finished 9min behind winners theres no way i could have done winners time if i didnt make mistakes i would have made it into A final but yeah not to disappointed in missing out as would be sooo damm painful doing the final. Talked with a few other Europeans i know and they missed out aswell a few of which thought they had done enough to make it as they didnt make any mistakes but still missed out.


I decided i would do the B final Ross is gonna stay home and rest but i thought may as well as i have kinda paid for the races and will be good practice for me.
Piret also didnt make A final but is gonna do B race as this will be her last race at this EOC. So tomorrow we dont start till Late we will go out bit earlier thou and watch A final then run after that. Just have to go and buy some Mosiquto replanet as there are sooo many here!!!
Long Qual: http://www.orientesanas.lv/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=59&kieli=en
Sprint Qual: http://www.orientesanas.lv/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=57&kieli=en
Sprint Final: http://www.orientesanas.lv/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=58&kieli=en

The maps can bee seen from this link they look easy to read on this but i assure you they are not!!!
Better go to bed and rest up

EOC day two: Sprint Qual/ Final

Interesting day today, Had my first good run in Europe and then had one of my worst!! so guess i should start in Order, We started the day with the Sprint Qual which was run on the city streets and parks, was very fast with not to many different route choices!! I didnt make any big mistakes just one where i lost about 10secs then missed a couple of walk ways that would have saved me about 5secs a pop so overall probably lost about 20secs. Once i finished i thought i hadnt done enough to make it as the guy over the speaker said i was in 13th place and there were still heaps to come in, and then reading the main results board later it said i was 18th and only 17 go through so was kinda gutted considering my run wasnt too bad, but then was told that the main results board was wrong and should look at the print outs which where displayed some where else only to find i was 13th so made it easy!! well kind of, its crazy i did a time of 13.13 and the winner did 12.34 so i was only 34 seconds behind considering i think i should have done about 20sec fast was kinda happy with myself!!! if i had of gone like 6 seconds faster which isnt that fast i would have been 7th but anyway enough of the "IF onlys"

Ross also made A final he was in another heat and was 8th he also made few little mistakes but still was happy!! Piret didnt have a very good run and missed out by only 5secs so she was pretty gutted by it!!

We then had 6hrs to recover before the nxt race!! Ross and i just mucked around at hotel and was halfway through a Movie when Piret came in and asked why we hadnt left, turns out we had to be into the Holding pen in 30min so bit of a rush and got ready only to make it with quite a bit of time to spare. Its shit being in the holding pens cos we had to go in at like 3 but Ross and i didnt start till lie 445 so had to sit around and wait, Ross brought he PSP (Play station) to entertain himself turns out he entertained the local kids too a group of 5 or 6 like 11year olds came over and started to watch then they started to annoy the shit out off us asking heaps of questions so we got up and left and of course little kids they followed us luckily i made a dash for it and left ross with them, some girl came over and told them to leave us alone thank god for her!!!
I was starting in about the top 1/3 the fastest start last and the slowest qualified would start first. I started shit, ran straight past the first control and just didnt read my map at all. it then started to keep going down hill!! i stuffed up 3 then 5 then got the next few ok but shat the bed a couple controls after the Spectator. at control 14 which was out on the dunes i just stuffed it big!! then 15 i ended up at 16 and had to go back. i got and past first by a Dane then some other guy by this stage i kinda gave up the dunes were just soooo hard to try and run fast on!! Ross was DSQed as he punched wrong control but he was doing shit anyway, was kinda funny looking at splits and ross and i were the same total time for quite a bit of race!!

Tomorrow we have Long Qual its 12km so should hurt quite a bit, Im in kinda a good frame of mind thou knowing that my running speed is good enough i just have to keep my head and orienteer well.

EOC Day One: Model Events

Today we had two Model events one in the morning and one in the afternoon, in the morning we went out to the Model for Middle, long and relay. Map was good the white forest was pretty fast and the some parts of the green were also fast, bits around the marshes seemed to be a bit harder.to run in. I planned a course on my map trying to make it hard route choices and then went out a slower speed, I made no mistakes and seemed to flow pretty well through all the controls only made one small mistake on the last one but relocated pretty quick so i was overall happy with myself.
We then bussed back into town and got some lunch then went shopping for pirets Bday present but ended up not buying anything cos didnt really find anything exciting at all. Lucky for me she didnt seem grumpy with me must have been the sweet smile :)

 

Later on we went out on the Model for the sprint which was pretty shit. The map had a few new trees that must have poped up overnight it all seemed easy as it was just in a big park and the controls were on features you could see from a mile off!! I think the races tomorrow will have a few smaller parks with lots of road bashes around big blocks it looks kinda easy on old maps but better not say that just yet!!
We then got to practice using emit on two practice controls. Man its shit!!! Its such a crap system we are using the old ones where u have to get it in the boxes and theres no electronic display or anyhing but i guess its the same for everyone but kinda sucks when we are so shit at getting the cards into the boxes and the first races we have are sprints where seconds count.

 

The opening ceremony was crap as they always are, we got there to be greeted by two guys saying they have a big problem, Hmm ok whats happened, to be told that they dont have our flag well hmm ok but whats the flag over there it kinda looks like the NZ one so after that they then figured out that they did have our flag but it was the Aussie flag. So the only Aussie got to be a New Zealander for the afternoon. The highlight for the ceremoy was some Latvian pop group which had some kinda gay looking guys with a couple off hot girls in short skirts!! they were a bit young thou :(
After ceremony finally finished we had to go to the team meeting and man that was boring, sitting there trying to understand what the guy was saying and then people firing so many questions at the man and him trying to answer them all. took sooo long and all his answers never really answered the question first given to him. Turns out anyone staying in the A grade accom is staying in a out of bounds area!! well according to the maps we got given today they are but then according to bulletin 4 they arint!!
Tomorrow we have to be in a holding pen by 8.30, but i dont start till 9.51 and ross 10.05 or something close to that. dumb thing is we have to walk to the start place which would be about a 30min at least as the busses that we have paid for dont go to the start so thats pretty useless but we can buss back from finish past our hotel and down the road like another 5min then to walk back again so stupid.

Well best be off to bed big day tomorrow!!!

Re United!!!

After 4 hrs of bussing we arrived at Riga to meet little Rossy looking lost on a park bench, Missed the first bus to Venspils so had to wait 2hrs, we went and got Lunch from some cafe at Buss station was kinda fun ordering food when no one can speak the Language. On the 3hr bus from Riga Ross had to sit nxt to the most smelliest computer geek in the land i mean Ross and i did smell kinda bad aswell but man this guy!!!
Once we Arrived at Venspils decided to head to Event center to get all our info, was bit of a mission like no one could tell us where to catch busses to model events or even how to register ourselves for Sprint so kinda gave up. We did find out when busses left so that kinda helpful. Tomorrow we are going to the model event so hopefully will learn how to orienteer there :S
Our hotel is ok, the eesti team is staying in same place which is good. for those that dont know Piret got into the team now so shes here which is good. They are getting the Meals provided by the hotel but Ross and I are too poor so we have our little cook and sit by the window and cook our dinner. Piret seems to think that she will be able to steal us food each nite kinda funny feel like some poor beggar, but it was 25 euro (50NZ) for dinner and lunch for one day which is heaps considering if we wanted we could go out for dinner for like 15euro and thats food good meal but ohh well we will try and cook to save money.

Thats all for now we have internet in our room so shoul hopefully update this Daily.

So it Begins!!!

Well today we decided to buss into town didnt really have much else to do, ok apart from the lawns but they can wait a while!! did a bit of shopping got my self a nice new Craft running jacket was about 40bucks off so thought why not!! We went for a walk around the local castle which was kinda cool amazing to see something so old and still standing ok well bits of it are.

Then when we were walking down the street found a wedding planning place so thought what the hell lets go in gotta start somewhere, so i sat there while Piret talked away we got some fotos to look at and lady wrote down some numbers for us, so we have now spent the afternoon looking on the net at all these venues man they make it hard dont they!!! still have no idea where to go, theres so many options like you can hire out this MASSIVE old manor that can host like 200 people and its like under 10grand now that does sounds quite a bit but when you find out that this place can sleep them all in wicked old rooms has a huge garden and they also do all the food it ends up to be kinda cheap, but yeah still a bit to much for us i think, but we will see i guess.


Later this week i have to head to Riga (Latvia) im heading there for probably my biggest event of the year, the European champs has all races (Long, Middle, Sprint, Relay) so its kinda scary cos my last Major event i did would have been jwoc 2003 should be fun thou, once i figure out how im getting there will be meeting up with Ross (Nz Orienteering mate) and we have a week together there, Piret didnt make eesti team so is gonna be staying home. It says we get internet so im sure i will be updating this but might have to go to the damm meetings at night to get out team info as we dont have a Manager!!! ohh well we will see

EEsti Champs

Time to report back from the weekend, Well not really alot to say!! or more to the point not much i want to tell you, Had the Estonian Middle Orienteeering champs and for Piret it was the last chance of her getting into the European champs team, and well she fucked up thats the best way to put it, she was quite a bit off the pace she made heaps of mistakes and yeah was kinda stuffed after that so she was bit pissed off but luckily for me she got over it kinda quick. Me well i did shit too, was trying to take it slow and still did shit, got caught up but some guy who started 6min behind me on like number 10 or something, and then just ran with him the rest of the way he was a pretty loose cannon thou he is really fast runner but not the best orienteer and the random thing was i started to Orienteer way better while running at speed, so either i need to try and run faster in the forest or i need to pretend im running with somebody hmm not to sure really!!!
We stayed the night at one of Pirets friends Annikas which was nice they had the crazyest shower had like 8 places water came out from it played music to you the only thing it didnt do was soap me up hmm ohh well.

Sunday was the Essti Relay champs unlike NZ relays they just have two relays Mens and womans and if you were elite you can run any leg you want and the whole team can be full of them so really the clubs with the best elites win!! Pirets team didnt do so well piret came back 2min behind and there second leg runner lost like 15min so they had alot to make up they made up two places but lost won to finish in 4th so they were bit pissed off. I spent the whole day standing in the rain watching i wasnt aloud to go orienteering cos i wasnt a Estonian so that was stupid and once i would have be aloud into the forest we had to go home, so no running for me, i was kinda freezing thou so didnt really want to do anything!!

Another Week gone!

Not alot has happened this week, had a haircut that was fun when she couldn’t speak any English but lucky piret could tell her what was needed. We went for a run on Thursday to this cross county ski place it was wicked had marked out loops of 10,7.5,5,3 all marked out every KM so i hope we go back there some more and do some tempo runs and things cos it is rather hilly too which makes it good.
I built a stone wall and a desk this week too, stone wall looks kinda funny think it just needs a bit of rain to clean the rocks up a bit then should look mint, desk was just on of those kit set things its kinda wobbly so might needa put a few more screws to hold this together!!
Still waiting to hear back from the bank had to print out a form and fax it back to them so that’s kinda getting somewhere hopefully!!! we have no booked all our flights to the UK which is kinda exciting know when we are gonna have to start work we leave from oslo (Norway) on the 26th July we are over there for some Orienteering and theres not really to much point in coming all the way back to eesti then to go back again!! Im hoping we will have some money left before we get there so we can do a bit of travelling, we are going to to a 6day orienteering event in Wales so that should be cool!!

Today we are heading off to the Estonian Orienteering champs its Pirets last chance in getting into the European champs so heres hoping she can have a good one!! or else im going to be alone with Ross and that could be scary!!! The event is in the south east part of eesti right next to Russia so should be a bit of fun. We then spend the night with one of Pirets friends in Polvia which i was last there for the Junior worlds in 2003 so should be kinda fun to go there again.

Well better go and pack will report back after the weekend

 

Batlic Long champs

Today for Bfast we had rice yep rice not creamed rice just rice but even better was it tasted like ass, so after eating a few bits of bread i went back to our room and had some cornflakes and yogurt which tasted alot better. On the bus out to the event the coach told us that we needed to take our stuff that we needed for the race to the event center as the buss has to go to the Police station, we had no idea as to why he needed to go so didnt really care to much this was intill we hoped out of the buss only to find that our bus had been tagged by the local hoodlums, i have to say it was quite good tagging.

 

Well anyway, for piret Today was part of there European champs team trails the top two woman would be selected from this race and the others would have to battle it out nxt weekend at the Estonian champs, Piret had already made it hard for herself after ripping her contact as she took it out the night before. so she had to run the race in her glasses which isnt so much fun when it rains every so often, so she did pretty shit and was a weee way off the leaders. I once again had a average run, lost about 10min all up which is better that some other races but still shit. i was second in the M21open grade only 2min behind but was 10min off the fastest M20E which did low 60min so my speed is there just need to stop making stupid mistakes all the time!!!

 

Baltic Relays and Middle for Open grades

I woke up early so i could go for a run before bfast as i knew this wouldnt be my only chance to do some sight seeing. It only took 10min to run into the city center so was nice and close. I had a map and had chosen the 2 places i mainly wanted to see which were some castles. So when i go to the first one i was gutted to find that i couldnt get up the hill as it was closed this early, so that was a bit of a failer.

 

Ran through town down some of the main shopping roads towards my nxt castle only to find they were rebuilding this one. so overall wasnt to great but still saw some preaty wicked places and a nice big hill which i ran up a couple of times just cos havent run up big hills in such a long time.

 

I arrived back with time for a quick shower then head to Bfast and what delicious meal we had was like a runny white porridge, and some stale bread mmmm yummy. after that had a hr to burn intill we headed out to the relays. Piret was in the B team she was on the first leg so was good cos she would be able to run head to head with the others well apart from the odd control which would be different, she came back in 5th just behind the eesti A team, Pirets team finished well down in the end but eesti A team was 2nd. The eesti team them left me there as my race didnt start till later so i sat there for like 2hrs intill my start, i wish i never waited thou man i was all over the show, just trying to run way to fast ended up coming 3rd but stil was pretty shit as i lost soooo much time. I then had to run back to our accommodation which luckily was only a 20min run but the problem was in the 20min it just pissed down so by the time i got back i was soaked!!!!!

 

For dinner we had the worst sausages i have ever had they were soooooo processed it was disgusting and then they were like cook in the microwave mmmm yummy so i had to go to th supermarket to buy a decent meal.

9hrs of Bussing to Lithuania

7am we had to be at the meeting spot to meet the bus Trip wasnt to bad stopped in Latvia for lunch was kinda cool little place but man the roads in Latvia are shit!!! so many potholes and so on it was like our bus was rallying or something. it was werid going through the different country's like all the old border checkpoints just shut down now you can travel through most country's with out having to stop, we had to stop thou as we just got into lativa there was was checkpoint which was two guys standing by this old shitty lada or somthing shit like that, was kinda funny really.

 

Anyway we finally arrived in Vilnius capital of Lithuania at about 6pm. Our bus decided to drive down a one way street the wrong way which was a bit embarrassing but ohh well we finally got to our hostel. Piret and i were lucky enough to get out own room with two single beds which is better than sharing with heaps of Essti guys and not being able to talk to anyone. After dropping our bags we had to leave again to go to the Model event, could only run for like 30min then we had to leave again so we could make it in time for dinner.

 

Piret had told me Lithuanian food was bloody shit and strange and i thought if she says that its gottta be shit lucky thou we had pasta and mince for tea so wasnt to bad. After dinner Piret and i went for a walk to try and find a money machine hoping that this one wouldnt eat our money aswell. lucky for us it didnt.

What a Day

Well that was a day to forget!!!!

After arriving in Tallinn yesterday afternoon, Piret and i thought we would spend the day walking around Tallinn shopping and really not doing to much. We had to get some money out of our NZ bank account so went to a ATM and was withdrawing 6000eek which is around 780NZ was all going well said counting money, little bit later still counting money well i guess 6000 is a rather large number, well ok "Error" hmm now what, ohh well guess we try again, hmm not enough money, hmm this is weird a 10min walk to the internet. SHIT the money is gone what the hell, walk back to the ATM go into the bank tell them umm ur machine didn't give me my money, "ohh you will have to ring your bank and get them to sort it out" hmm ok that seems a bit weird as it was ur ATM machine, walk back to internet to get a fone number. Then try to find somewhere to buy a calling card, ring up BNZ in NZ for them to say "umm how are we supposed to sort it according to our records the money was accepted." ohh ok so she tells me to go back to the bank and try to get them to sort it out. walk 10min back again to talk to some other lady "ohh sorry this is the way we do it here". get pissed off with her go and talk to some other guy he talks a bit of english so i try and talk some sense into him and he insists that my bank just sends them a email and they will then look into records and should be able to sort it out. hmm ok so another trip to buy a fone card ring them up tell the BNZ lady what they said she seems to think its a bit werid, takes down all the banks address fone and fax number and tells me that i really need to ring back when the main office is open. So tomorrow i have to ring back to see what they say. something tells me thou that this money might be gone for a while. It is one of Estonia's biggest banks so surely it cant be gone for good!!!!



Tomorrow at 7am we start our long bus trip down to Lithuania with the estonia orienteering team its gonna be so boring i think, we start at 7 and according to the plan we get there at 5.30pm in time to go orienteering, then on Sunday we bus back and i think we arrive in Tartu at 1am hmm how fun, will report back at some stage

Ilves 3 Day 3

Well i knew i couldn't do much worse than what i had already done. So went out hopeing that i could try and be clean, so i dropped my speed and didnt care about result at all. Well it kinda of worked i had a kinda clean run only to find that i punched the wrong first control F*#K!!!!!! 10km later only to find i punched a control about 10m from my one ohh well that will teach me still kinda happy to think i orienteered way better today well minus a few little problems. Piret once again came 3rd so was 3rd overall so she won some new tights which gutted for her they to big but they fit me what a bugger aye.

We got home to pirets which was good as i am pretty tired from all the racing and running in such soft terrain. We now have 2 days of rest at home then head to Tallinn on Wednesday to see Pirets sister who has just got back from touring around Asia, We then stay there till Friday and then Bus for 9hrs through Latvia and into Lithuania for the Baltic champs so that should be interesting we are only there for the weekend so somthing tells me the 18hrs of busing is going to feel like the only thing we have done.


Map once again didnt show up to well from taking photos of it so heres a link http://www.okilves.ee/RG/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=23&cID=10&kieli=en




Start-1 Well i thought i got this Ok but yeah punched number 31 instead of 32 which just just abit further around the hill
2-3 Well i thought i was heading to 13 saw the 3 and thought that was it lucky it didnt really stuff me up to much had ot tell some kid where he was which was a pain cos by the time i told him i can only speak English had already lost like 30sec then by the time he tells me in English and i showed him it was about another 30sec. ohh well thats my good deed for the day. I still stuffed around a little bit in the control circle but not to bad



6-7 Started off fine but just coming out of the Green i went way off then took a bit to figure out what i had done, some guy clipped just before me.
7-8 Took a bit to catch guy up but then i orienteered straight into control and he was way to low so was kinda happy with that
8-9 well stuffed this one was thinking about getting away from the guy a bit to much and not enough attention to the map.



14-15 doesnt really show it but i stuffed this one was way to low and the guy i was running with over the last 4 controls got away.
15-16 trying to hard to catch up drifted way off making me loose more time
16-17 Well this was stupid not paying enough attention loosing like 4 min on such a easy leg ran up this major hill shoul have really read my map much more.

overall was happy with the first half today went bit slower still loosing time on leaders but didnt really care as i have to learn how to orienter.

Ilves 3 Day 2

Today i hoped i would have a better day at the office, well was wrong man was i wrong. Today i had 16km so knew it was going to be a bit of a battle, the map scale also changed from a 1-10000 to a 1-15000 which made things abit harder for me already as it was kinda hard to read some of the detail. I lost so much time over the first 8 controls that i would have been over 20min behind and i still hap another 11 controls so i decided to call it a day, My blisters were telling me to stop and it just wasnt going well so thought whats the point.



I should really say something about Piret too on this blog, Yesterday she had a preaty shit run but still got 3rd. The womans grade theres only 3 good people the rest are at some event in Finland, so piret was bit pissed off to be the last one she was over 4min behind second so was kinda along way, today wasnt really much better she was still 3rd and about 3min behind. After the event we went back to Tartu to be locked out of the flat we were staying in so headed into town and sat by the river, they were filming some random Estonian movie god it looked crap took them like 15 shots to try and get it right and all they did was walk no talking no nothing kinda funny really.

The map is to hard to get the detail in a foto so hes a link to site
http://www.okilves.ee/RG/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=22&kieli=en


Just have to change the grade to M21E then it gives a list of runners and u can see there route my name isnt there as i was DSQ'ed ohh well

Ilves 3 Day 1

Piret and i spent the morning shopping didnt really find to much, brought some running shorts but thats about all. We got picked up for oing at 1pm and then traveled south, we went right to the bottom off eesti next tot the Latvian border, was knda random there were just the odd post down the side of the road and that is all to say the end of a country.
Well anyways got to the event kinda cool to see the NZ flag flying, they had different flags up for the people from different countries. i was the only one from a far off land thats for sure rest were Swedes, fins and Russians. I didnt start my 10km course till 4.30pm so was pretty late start in the day, went out not really hopping for too much but man i didnt do well at all, just never got going didnt understood the map and kept on making rather stupid mistakes, came something shit like 5th to last or something and miles behind, a day to for get thats for sure!!! By the time we traveled the hr back to Tartu it was 8pm and was bit shattered from it all.

Think i will talk about oing now.



2-3 thought i knew were i was heading but ended up going down wrong track then just having no idea what i had done, i never even knew where i was as i ran down this other track then saw some guy so followed him luckily he went to my control was very shit not a good 3rd control at all!!!!!!
3-4 Started off fine did what i was planning on doing got to right area but then stopped a bit to early and then panicked and started running around and around
4-5 Was going fine but then last minute dived off the wrong way then heading way to far left and searching there, only to find i ran nearly straight past it, BUGGER

5-10 Started to orienter way better just way more smoothly. I saw a guy catching me just after 5 but then ran away from him.
10-11 Went wrong to start off with didnt check compass and headed off wrong direction only to find number 3, so then sorted it out and headed straight to 11, was caught up by the guy who i had seen behind me earlier.
11-16 We ran together through these controls making a few little mistakes but nothing to bad.
16-17 Started to run away from that guy, ran up some nice big hills had way more gas than him up hills only to stuff up heading into control.
17-18 decided i would run track and the guy ran straight he was way faster which i was bit gutted by cos then had to try and catch him back up.
18-finish just ran with that guy

i was kinda happy how i was oing near the end but was happy with fitness but yeah just stupid mistakes at start cost me lots of time!!!!!