Well after staying to night in Luton we meet up with our friend Neil at the airport as he was going to be traveling with us for the first 5 days. We were all rather excited once on the plane but the both of them soon fell asleep leaving me sitting there playing on my PSP. Just as we should have been about to start out decent into Lisbon we were told that we had to be diverted to Faro (bottom of Portugal Lisbon is about the middle) because there was too much fog to land so after landing in Faro we then refueled and sat there on the plane for about half an hour then took off again to try and land in Lisbon luckily we did so and only arriving about an hour late but it was better than having to sit on a bus from Faro to Lisbon.


Piret and I then went to the rental car place to pick up the keys lucky for us the lady asked us if we would like to upgrade our car, hmm who wouldn’t when they say “upgrade” well we all got out of the lift to be meet by the car rental man who took us to our Nissan Micra well yeah “Micra” is the right word. I have to say if it was just Piret and I it wouldn’t have been so bad but Neil had to try and fit in somewhere too!!! Luckily the boot is massive so everything could fit in there and with me having my seat pulled forward and Neil sitting sideways across the back we fit in!!! Well just anyway. On the plus side thou it was a convertible so on the nice hot Portuguese days we could put the roof down. We then drove for about an hour which was rather fun trying to get out of the busy Lisbon. They seem to have some crazy drivers or it could have been the fact we had to drive around and around the roundabout trying to find the right exit, I don’t think that went down to well. Luckily we made it to the event center in a place called Mora. Once we had registered we headed out to the model event. The car said the temp was 17degrees and man was it nice and warm!!! After leaving the cold UK it was so nice to come to this not to hot but just warm enough. The map itself was rather fast and open. I did a few controls with Neil at speed then he headed back and I went and did a few extra was great to be Orienteering for a change. Was a bit rough but wasn’t to bad.


We then headed back to town to drop Neil off at his accom and went to try and find ours, Neil went for the cheaper option of the school floor but Piret and I had decided we would go for the more expensive but in the hope we would get some better sleeps. The week away is a rather important one for me as it is part of my trails for my World champs team. My trails are over 3 events which all have to be World ranking events (this mainly just says the event is at a high quality) so I have picked two in Portugal and then one a bit later on in UK. After find our place and trying to talk to the owner which spoke no English at all we soon settled ourselves in and went back to town to have some dinner. We found some nice little restaurant and went there with much discussion about the menu with Neil and a Irish guy we choose having no idea at all what we had ordered. It all seemed to come out the same Neil and I both had the same which was a bit pork which we worked out came of the shoulder of the pig, rice, and then chips hmm kind of random mix. Piret and Declan had the same which was Pork for some other part and then rice and chips hmm kind of seemed the same as ours but ohh well.

The first race we were to do was the Middle event which was 7.4km. I started off ok, was going a bit slow to try and make sure I was clean it was working for a while but then on my way to 4 I drifted down the wrong spur luckily realized so didn’t lose too much. I kept making small mistakes most of the way around. The last part of the course I just seemed to die which was rather disappointing as I thought my fitness was better. Don’t think my pre race preparation helped to much thou, my pre race food involved eating peanuts and bread and nutella. I finished 39th in a time of 40.31min the winner did 34.18min so just a bit faster than me. I think I could have done a bit better with better prep but still need to get the fitness up to be going that fast!!! After the event we had a rather relaxing afternoon as that night there was a night sprint. I never really planned to do this event but Neil decided he would jog it so thought I may aswell jog with him. We started off slow but then thought maybe we should try and do some split bagging, so we took turns and tried to get every second one. I’m pretty sure we would have won every split we went for and some im sure we got a lot faster than anyone else could have!!!

After a good night sleep we had breakfast then headed off to pick up Neil. He had a early start time so we have to be at the event by 9.45am even thou I didn’t start till 2.15 so I just had a bit of time to kill. Luckily it didn’t seem to take too long and after a while Neil arrived back looking rather shattered. He gave me a few hints as how to tackle the 16km mission. His main tip was to take it very easy at the start as it is by far the hardest part. With the tips racing through my mind I headed to the start. And well blew number one I think I lost 6min to others on that one leg, I then took off trying to make it up only to stuff number 2, Number one I just never really seemed to read my map and headed off wrong from the start which then caused my to go down the wrong spur. Heading for 2 I just seemed to run and not read my map at all and then ended up grid searching. 3 and 4 where ok and then 5,6 and 7 were also messy!! Luckily that was it well kind of. I could go on and on about different things I should have done better but can’t really be stuffed my only other stuff up worth noting was after leaving control 22 going through the drinks station I decided not to have my carbo shot and have it when I pass back past this drinks point. After going back to the Pivot control (26) I soon discovered that I wouldn’t be going back through that point and therefore had no more water stops. I probably could have tried to take it without water but didn’t want to try and risk it. So I just got slower and slower!!! I lost 5min to Neil from control 24 onwards as I was just so tired so I think it was a rather costly mistake not to take it. I finished in a time of 1hr 54min the winner cranked out a time of 1hr 23min which is just crazy. Even with no mistakes and feeling great I would have been lucky to get 1hr 30min ohh well guess I better do some more training.


So do I think my result is good enough for WOC team well hard to say, I feel I could have done a lot better but I can see the training paying off, I feel my fitness is far better than when I left NZ I just have to try and get my Orienteering up to speed. Luckily I still have 2 more WRE where I can try and prove I am good enough to be selected.

Better say how Piret has been going to. In the middle she said she died and just couldn’t run at all I think he pre race prep wasn’t the best either, in the long she said she made quite a few mistakes and just couldn’t run that far but her result was quite good well at least I think so. She was 19th and 20min behind the winner, Piret did a time of 1hr 43min if you took out her 7min of mistakes she would have been top 10 but yeah as we all know woman are very hard to please!!!

On Monday we had another middle event. This area has to be one of the most open areas I have been too, hardly any undergrowth and just lighting fast!!! I started off well by not going out to fast I was orienteering well but still going at a good speed there was one tricky area which was some complex rocks which I was kind of getting ok I seemed to keep on not quite seeing the controls and loosing like 10sec on the controls. I then blew it big time at control 20, I went straight from 19 and ended up at 21 my exit direction out of 19 wasn’t quite right which then meant I went over the wrong hill and searched in the wrong re entrant I then went over one more hill and then got to number 21 once there I was so gutted one my way back to number 20 I was passed by the runners who started behind me. Ohh well one of those days I guess. That afternoon we had whats called a Ori-show, which is just a orienteering race on a map that is tiny only took around 5mins to race around. On the first race I started the same time as 30 others which was rather hard as you all had to sprint to the first control and when they only had one box to punch it lead to a bit of pushing and shoving. Luckily I was 5th finished so went through to the next round. Piret also made it even thou she really didn’t enjoy it. The map is manmade like they pretty much just make a maze of fences then put a few controls in. The next round only top three went through so meant you had to go a lot faster. I wasn’t going to bad sitting in second for most of it then left the second to last control the wrong way which dropped me one place. I later discovered I had punched a wrong control which meant I was DSQed which was rather gutting but ohh well good first attempt I guess.


The last day of races was held in the same area as day before so we knew it was going to be very fast again, we were starting the same time as somebody else but only had first same control then would do different loops, I did first few ok but then started to lose the plot a bit, maybe it was from seeing Piret out there or well maybe not, I had to ask her where I was once and then another time after seeing her I did a 180 error and took off the wrong way for ages intill I hit a big road which suddenly made me realize what I had done. Ohh well hopefully with a few days training I can stop making all these stupid mistakes. We now drive for two hours to a place called Patatias which is the event centre for the last two races. We are staying in a hotel next to the sea so that should be nice if the weather stays around the 20 degree mark.

I will try and get some maps up soon, well once I get a pen to draw my routes on.