21/12/04: Happy Christmas!
It's been a long time since we got back from Japan, and a long time since the
last post! The last month has been a period of work (!), winter training build
up and even some partying. This has included the Lakeside weekend, organised
by Jenny, on which she was the only person to end up in hospital (with a gash
on her head from a sharp rock - much better now) and the SPOOK weekend, which
consisted of the annual SPOOK relays (Won by Sprot and Crane, Jenny and I were
4th) and dinner (with a record 90 people in attendance), the Eyam badge event
(nice one Crane) and the legendary Captain's Memorial. See the ShUOC
site for more on all this.
2 weeks ago was the Squad Inaugural Weekend in Surrey, where we took part in
an (orieteering biased) adventure race and had a Japanese(WOC)/Swiss(JWOC) banquet
to motivate us for next year. It should be a very exciting year for the brits
with the World Cup round 1 in Guildford in May and WOC in Japan in August. The
new squad is small, so many very good athletes have missed out on a place -
I'm sure they will be very motivated to fight for places in next year's teams.
Everything is possible, and much of it will come down to the next few months
of preparation.
Happy Christmas and New Year to everyone and see some of you at the National
Event on the 2nd of January for the start of the new season!