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This year Oli missed out on running World Championships for the first time since he was a junior. Jenny headed out to the Ukraine with the GB team to run the Middle Distance and finished a creditable 23rd= with team-mate and Sheffield training partner Rachael Elder. This turned out to be the top British women's result of a disappointing week. More to follow...
16/6/07: Honeymoon - Iceland (finally!) Well we finally made it - thanks
to everyone who contributed through our wedding list to an amazing
trip. We were very lucky with the weather and very much regretted
forgetting to take suncream. 14 hours of running during the week
felt easy as none of it was training! Full report and more pictures
to follow soon or you can see the pics on facebook... |
31/8/07:
World Champs Kyev (without Oli)
| 24/1/06: Warrior
O Trial
X Country Yorkshire Champs 9/1/06:
Winter training and racing etc |
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| 9/11/05: South Yorkshire Cross Country
League 2 (by Jenny) In my 2nd Cross Country race of the season I finished 3rd at Graves Park just missing out on 2nd in a sprint finish. It was a muddy course but not as steep as Norfolk Park. This leaves me in 3rd position overall with club-mate Julie Wilson in the lead with 2 races to go. Rob Baker was top orienteer in the Men's race finishing in 8th place, comfortably clear of Chris Sellens and Mike Sprot. This Saturday I'll be running in the National X Country Relay Championships at Mansfield for Hallamshire Harriers. |
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9/11/05: Still Sore (by
Oli) Well over a week has gone by since the KIMM and I am still
too sore to do any real training. But it was definitely worth the
pain and effort. Andrew Middleditch and I finished 4th on Elite
- the sort of result that is likely to tempt us back for more in
the future...I am determined to improve on this. For now, though,
I am satisfied that we ran the best race that we could. I have never
run that far or for that long before so it was an interesting experience
to venture into the unknown for a change. We were both very impressed
by the level of competition, and Steve Birkinshaw and Morgan Donnelly
ran a very strong race to fend off several top teams. For a more
detailed report about our race, see our article on planetFear.
read more |
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| Some New News...at last Well, it's taken a while. But finally we have got around to updating the website. When you've got loads of motivation in the middle of the season it's easy to write stuff on here, but when things are winding down, and the motivation is in short supply, it gets more difficult. Anyway, here is what has happened in no particular order: read more |
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| 21/08/05: World Cup Finals Selections
and Kelly! Congratulations to those athletes selected (see here for selections) for this competition especially those who will be making their debut and to Heather for who it will be her final international race. I hope it is as exciting as Kelly Holmes's farewell which we witnessed at Don Valley yesterday! read more |
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17/8/05: Sayonara Japan WOC
is over and although I can still feel the races in my legs and my
body is still working on Japan time, I have had some time to reflect
on the week. As usual it had its ups and downs and I was happy with
my performances, even though I have still not achieved my dream
goals. But this is what will keep me fighting for years to come.
WOC 2005 posed some unique challenges; extreme heat and humidity,
the steepest courses ever in WOC and some of the slowest ever minutes
per km in an international. I had prepared as well as I could for
these demands and by the time the races began, I felt at home in
the Japanese terrain. Throughout the week the courses were fair,
the maps were excellent and the organisation was great. It seems
as though Japan has arrived as a fully developed orienteering nation.
read more |
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| 24/07/05: Adventure Racing Yesterday Jenny made her adventure racing debut as part of Team Compasspoint alongside fellow rookie Dickie Wren and comparative expert Andy Simpson. The race was the final in the ACE race 1-day series at Cannock Chase and the format consisted of a trail run followed by a navigation run, bike and then run again picking up checkpoint punches on the way with various challenges at some of these. read more |
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18/07/05:
PostFinance Sprint and Swiss 5 day (and a holiday!?) The first weekend was the 2nd annual PostFinance Sprint which started with a middle qualifier (and WOC selection race for the Swiss team) with a very tough 10% climb. Oli ran well with just one real mistake to finish 7th whilst Sarah Rollins and I had bad runs but managed to qualify for the following day's sprint final. read more |
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| 29/06/05: WOC Selection Races (maps to follow) Another tough and trying weekend of make or break racing. For me it went well, but for Jenny it turned out to be a repeat of last year's bitter disappointment. For now, Jenny is struggling to come to terms with this and its implications for the future of her international orienteering career. I am preparing for WOC. Next week we will leave for Switzerland and the Post Finance Sprint and Swiss 5. We'll also be there at JWOC cheering on the GB juniors - good luck to them! read more |
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15/6/05: Japan comes to Yorkshire Jenny
and I made the tough decision to miss the GB Team's latest camp
in Japan at the start of June due to work and training commitments
back home. Because of this we have been finding opportunities to
prepare for the unique challenges of Japan back home in Yorkshire.
Although it is impossible to replicate the technical challenge of
Japan's intricate interlocking spurs and gullys, we can certainly
find ways to train for the physical demands. In Sheffield this has
meant spending plenty of time at Hope Woodlands, one of the steepest
orienteering maps in the country but we have also travelled further
afield to Barnscliffe of White Rose fame. read
more |
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31/5/05: York City Trophy Bank
Holiday Monday saw over 100 orienteers descend on the city centre
of York for the 5th running of the York City Trophy. Oli had won
this race for the previous 3 years whilst I was pushed into 2nd
last year by SYO and GB team-mate Helen Winskill. This year's race
saw us start and finish in Parliament Street once more - right in
the centre. Route choices around streets, snickelways, tunnels and
bridges saw us make our way to St Nicholas Field Urban Nature Park
for some more traditional orienteering for a few controls before
it was back on the tarmac with controls on church doorways,gravestones,
an ice house, hidden in very narrow snickelways and the like
and a route choice that lead some competitors to consider jumping
off the bar walls! read more |
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11/5/05: World Cups A big thank you to the other athletes, staff and organisers and most of all to all the fantastic supporters who travelled down to the races and made it a week to remember for us! read more |
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20/4/05: British Championships It's
been a tough few weeks of competitions, but it has been good preparation
for the challenges of next week's World
Cup races in Guildford. After BUSA we went straight in to the
two consecutive BEOC weekends, first the Sprint and Middle, then
the Long and Relay. All of them were fast and furious races in one
way or another, from the asphalt and cropped grass of Sandhurst
to the open dunes of Penhale. Although several top names were missing
in the men's class I was very happy to come away with 2 individual
wins in the Middle and Long, while Jenny and I were both part of
the winning teams in the Relay for SYO (Jenny, Jenny Peel, Helen
Winskill) and ShUOC (Andrew Middleditch, Matt crane, Oli) respectively.
read more |
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| 7/4/05: BUSA Champions BUSA 2005 was superbly organised by Warwick University and OD, great orienteering, great social and great results...if you were from Sheffield. Going into the weekend we had expected a tough show-down between Edinburgh, bouyed by the success of the JK relays and ourselves, out for revenge. Due to a strange set of coincidences things didn't really work out that way. read more |
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29/3/05: Almost a Great JK  Yesterday's
relay was a great end to a frustrating weekend with good courses
on a really good map. SYO (Jo Stevenson, Jenny and Helen Winskill)
fought off CLOK to take the victory in the womens trophy, while
ShUOC (Chris Sellens, Neil Northrop, Matt Crane and myself) pushed
hard to catch EUOC but had to settle for 2nd place. Congratulations
to the young Edinburgh team for running a strong race, but watch
out next weekend at BUSA...great to see 2 uni teams at the top though.
read more |
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| 22/3/05: Japan Training Camp We have just returned from the first GB Team training camp to Japan. We spent one week in Aichi, near Nagoya, training in the WOC training forests and then moved East to the slopes of Mt Fuji to take part in the Japan Championships. It was great to be back in Japan again and we're starting to feel quite at home there. read more |
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| 20/2/05 Cross Country: Nationals. Whilst Oli is away having fun on Jon Duncan's stag do I had something a bit more serious to do: make my debut in the national cross country 
championships. With over 450 women competing it was a pretty exciting
race. My previous experience of cross country includes a few races
back at school in York and then a 3rd in the South Yorkshires and
55th in the Northerns earlier this year. I ran for Hallamshire Harriers
along with Rachael Elder but unfortunately we didn't get a team
out this year. I finished a creditable (I think) 124th with 34.25
for a hilly (but not at all muddy unfortunately!) 8km with Rach
not far down in time in 170th. Becca Kendall also ran finishing
94th for Kenilworth. The race was won by Hayley Yelling and it was
pretty cool just to run in the same race as the European Cross Country
Champ, even if I was only half way round the final lap of Cofton
Park when they announced her finishing! Sheffield student Hattie
Dean (who trains with us on Tuesday nights) finished a fantastic
3rd after recently winning BUSA. Visit www.hallamshireharriers.co.uk
for more info! read more |
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1/2/05: France, rocks! I
(Oli) took some time out from training at home to take part in an
early season French selection race and check out the St Etienne
setup. The race weekend took place in Le Caylar in the South of
France in an amazing, rocky Lunar landscape. It was very difficult
in spite of the perfect, detailed maps and it was impossible to
run at full speed without making big mistakes. Unsurprisingly Thierry
dominated the weekend with 2 impressive victories in Middle and
Long, with Nicholas Girsh winning the sprint race. read
more |
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1/2/05: Warrior weekend This
year's Warrior O Trial took place on Silver How on a weekend of
perfect sunshine, the first time it has stopped raining in the Lake
District for the last 6 months. It was a tough 2 hour score after
a long uphill run to the start on top of the fell. The route choice
was not easy, but it was just about possible to get all the controls
within the time limit - three people managed it, myself (1.52),
Andy Kitchin (1.59) and Steve Birkinshaw (just over in 2.01). Jenny
won the women's competition on time over Karen Heppenstall who got
the same number of controls. |
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21/1/05: Training and bad luck Last
weekend saw the first squad weekend of the new year and the start
of preparations for the World Cup. We were based in Cranleigh, near
Guildford and trained on several areas that are close to the WC
terrain. Although this style of orienteering seems simple at first
glance, it was good to be reminded that it has its own  special
set of difficulties (not least the fact that you have to run VERY
fast). We also remembered that at its best this kind of terrain
is really good, with open forest, steep slopes and pockets of vegetation
and contour detail. Highlights of the weekend included a mass-start
course around Bagshot Heath and an (extended) badge
event course on Broadstone Warren. read
more |
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9/1/05: South Yorkshire Cross Country
Championships Today saw Jenny take the Bronze individual medal and Women's Team Gold for Hallamshire Harriers in the South Yorkshire Cross Country Championships held at Graves Park in Sheffield. Jenny Blizzard (Rotherham) won the 6km course from Liz Such (Hallamshire) with Jenny finishing 3rd in a time of 20.23. In the Men's race Phil Winskill also finished 3rd and was part of Hallamshire's Gold medal winning men's team. Unfortunately the course wasn't quite rough enough (despite yesterday's rain/hail/sleet) for the orienteers to take full advantage! |
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| 3/1/05: Happy New Year! read more | |||
| 21/12/04: Happy Christmas! read more | |||
| 15/11/04: Japan Challenge week read more | |||
| 27/10/04: Walkley Street Orienteering read more | |||
| 17/10/04: DPFR: Double National Fell Relay Champions! read more | |||
| 17/10/04: Vasteras 36th at 25 Manna Relay read more | |||
| 5/10/04: Dark Peaks best ever results at Ian Hodgsons read more | |||
| 26/9/04: Running weekend read more | |||
21/9/04: Back home read more |
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| 18/9/04 Hallamshire take the Silver read more | |||
17/9/04: Feeling nervous... read more |
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| 14/9/04: Oli through to World Champs Middle Final read more | |||
| 14/9/04:Meanwhile Jenny's watching on the internet read more | |||
| 8/9/04: Final preparations are over... read more | |||
| 13/7/04: WOC Selection weekend... read more | |||
| 13/7/04: Fin 5 Days read more | |||
| 30/6/04: South Yorkshire Road Relays: read more | |||
28/6/04: Training in Vasteras: read
more |
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21/6/04: Jukola and Venla: read
more |
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15/6/04: More Joy for Helen!: read
more |
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3/6/04: York Race 2004: read
more |
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3/6/04: Good Luck to the GB EOC Team!
read more |
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3/6/04: SYO Spring
Cup League: read more |
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| 16/5/04: York City Trophy: read more | |||
| 20/4/04: JK-Blodslitet: read more | |||
| 6/4/03: Post Spring Cup: read more | |||
| 20/3/04: Lipica Open - the hole picture read more | |||
| 29/2/04: UK Cup 1 and 2 read more | |||
| 24/2/04: Visit jamiestevenson.com! | |||
17/2/04: Coaching in Barnsley Schools
read more |
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17/2/04: Cold in the Sun read
more |
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3/2/04: But first, Viva Espana! read
more |
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| 28/1/04: Looking Forward to Lipica read more | |||
| 26/1/04: Training weekend in Malham read more | |||
16/1/04: Go Carbon neutral and support
Future
Forests read more |
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5/1/04: Find out more about WOC 2005
read more |
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5/12/03: The English institute of
Sport opens in Sheffield read
more |
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27/10/03: The end
of an era; Peter Palmer passed away read
more |
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The
annual Warrior race is a perfect competition for the time of year
- it is basically an excuse for a long, tough run in the hills.
This year it was held on Harrop Tarn, near Thirlmere with the
added twist that the fells were covered by a thick clag with visibility
reduced to around 10-15m. Add this to the fact that the race was
run on a 1:40000 map blown up to 1:17000 with a 15m contour interval
and it became an extremely challenging race. The fells were dotted
liberally with lost orienteers and fell runners who had often
grouped together to perform a sweep search for the controls. For
the last part of the course there was a switch onto a 1:5000 orienteering
map of Harrop Tarn forest which demanded a sudden change of technique.
Sorry
for the long break in news! Firstly the exciting announcement
(that Oli has obviously forgotten to mention) that Oli and I got
engaged in November and plan to get married this August here in
Sheffield - tying the wedding in with the White Rose weekend in
the hope of attracting some of the world's elite!!??
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