Straggler on Junior Coaching tour

Lulu in action
Photographer: Rob Lines

Lulu Gooding was selected to attend the Junior Orienteering Regional Squads training camp in Scotland at the end of July. Read her report below.

After traveling all over Great Britain at weekends over the last few months to compete in six Selection Races (& other Training Events), Lulu is one of only twenty four 14 years olds from Great Britain to be selected for the Lagganlia Orienteering Training Camp. She had to produce a fast time in the races on very different terrain to that experienced in East Anglia.

The first race saw her compete in the waterlogged & undulating forest of Star Posts in Berkshire in the Southern Championships. The second race at Carreg Goch in the Black Mountains of Wales saw her start in glorious sunshine & finish in the limited visibility and dark skies of a hail storm in the British Long Distance Championships. The third & fourth races were in the remote Rannoch Forest of the Scottish Highlands in snow & freezing conditions for the Middle & Long Distance races at the Jan Kjellstrom Festival of Orienteering over the Easter weekend. Then to the steep woodland of Brown Clee Hill, Shropshire for the British Middle Distance Championships for the fifth race & the open fell side of Brown Clee Hill, Shropshire for the Midland Championships for the sixth & final selection race where the weather was hotter than the previous selection races.

Lulu demonstrated her ability and thoroughly deserved her place. She now reports on her experience.

Lagganlia was a great experience and I had so much fun there. I am extremely grateful for the skills I learnt and improved on during my time at the camp and will continue to use, to better my orienteering, in the future. 

Day 1: Travel there

My first day began with a train journey to Scotland with Alys Powell (WAOC, EAJS teammate) and Niamh Mitchell (HH). Our train changed at Edinburgh station, where we met some of the others that were going to Lagganlia. Our journey ended at Aviemore station where the coaches picked us up in the mini-buses and drove us to Lagganlia! We were able to walk around and play football/ frisbee, had dinner and then we did some icebreaker activities to get to know each other. 

Most days consisted of waking up late, making our packed lunches, having breakfast, a quick meeting, mini-bus ride to our orienteering (where we’d have lunch and spend most of our day) and back, a bit of free time to shower and hang out, a de-brief with your group and coaches about the day, dinner, evening meeting/ session usually by a different coach each day to teach us certain skills, and then you would get your phone back for the less than an hour until lights out when we definitely went to bed on time…

Day 2: Heathfield training 

It was quite an easy area (compared to the others) where I did a couple mini courses to improve skills like pacing and map memory. Sometimes, one of my coaches would shadow me which would help me know what I needed to improve on and how. We also did a clock/ teddy bear relay where my team came 2nd! 

Day 3: Sprints 

In the morning, we had sprint heats in Aviemore. We then went to Feshie river and swam/ paddled (it was so cold!). In the afternoon, we had our sprint finals at the grounds of Lagganlia. It was a good learning experience as they were both set out like (inter)national events.

Day 4: Roseilse 

My favourite day! Roseisle was such a nice area. We did contour and compass practice in the undulating forest sand dunes. At the end, we did a 2nd leg relay simulation distraction course (music playing, coaches recording, fake controls, controls not working etc). I really enjoyed it. 

Day 5: North Granish + Night-O

This was another very fun day; we did simplification exercise where we drew our mini course as simple as possible and the aim was to run the course without looking at the original map. I learnt that you should use big, clear features and tick off features as you go. Other exercises included training on depressions and hills, however i twisted my ankle so then i did a talk-o. Aswell as this, we went shopping in Aviemore. At 10pm till midnight, we did a Night-O at Aviemore Golf course which was my favourite moment of the whole camp because we got to play music as we ran, wore glow sticks, and had a disco in our bus. It was such a cool experience. 

Day 6: Loch Vaa 

I had to take it easy as that heather was so annoying especially with my bad ankle. Lots of us were quite tired this day. After a couple small training courses, we did a peg race. 

Day 7: Culbin 

Tour Champs! Apart from one mistake, the rest of my course was pretty good. It was quite a difficult area. When we arrived back at Lagganlia, we did our final race, a fun relay around the grounds. We also had a nice dinner, did a ceilidh, and had an awards ceremony, and of course, escaped and hid from the coaches at night!!

Day 8: Travel back

We had to pack up, clean up and then took our final mini-bus journey to Aviemore train station. Our train to Edinburgh only had 2 carriages (it was supposed to have 8) and lots of us didn’t even have a seat until eventually 6 of us squeezed onto a table of 4. 

Most of us were headed to the Lakes 5 days so i was able to put my new skills into practice at some real events and all of us would hang out after the races too :) 

If you ever get the opportunity to go Lagganlia, I highly recommend it. 

Lulu Gooding (SOS, EAJS)