And we are back! Yikes, the end of week 1 already?!? We really did follow up a marvellous welcome week with yet another week of top-quality galivanting about. We started off strong with the very first of our interval sessions led by Coach Dan, with an incredible turnout and so lovely to see our members enjoying the delights of killing fields in the sunshine. What a treat! This was followed up on Wednesday with some top-quality pasta from Alex, Adam and Bish, who did a marvellous job of keeping the troops fuelled as the carb-loading began for Fight with the Night (FWTN).
On Thursday we took to the streets of Central en masse to see the challenge that Laurence had cooked up for us. With some very techy navigation, barriers and sneaky routechoices; FWTN started off with a bang. Results are still pending as we await the return of our events coordinator Charlie so keep your eyes peeled in the coming days if you are hunting for a place at the top of the league this year.
But the very exciting bit was our first weekend away! EUOC was northbound on Friday, as we went in search of some beautiful Speyside forests. We started the weekend off with some night-O on Friday evening around Alvie (don’t mention this to Emma; she’s still salty that Frank beat her :o), before navigation training around Loch Vaa on Saturday morning. This was followed up by the option of a hill race or yet more skog-munching. The hill race saw 5 of our members take to the slopes of Meall a’Bhuachaille, with Bish taking home both the silver and the Palace flat crown. In a show of endurance, we followed up the day’s antics with a bit of Beer-O. Frank took home the overall win, with Adam and Issy putting in valiant efforts to podium in a nail-bitingly close race. Before we hit the road to Edi on Sunday, EUOC thought they’d better give the locals a run for their money around Nethy Forest. A shout-out to Tommy and Emma as our fastest finishers on Short Green, Bish and Hannah on reigning supreme on Light Green, along with James and Fran putting some seriously speedy times down on Orange.
But wait! What about our other EUOC members racing elsewhere?!? A huge shout-out to our members competing at the European Championships; we were cheering from afar. Some incredible racing from Euan, Charlie, Thomas, Daisy and Immy, with Immy qualifying for the A finals!! Up north, Dylan shattered 3 hrs in the marathon to finish in 2:56 on the shores of Loch Ness. What a run! And we saw the return of the Junior Inter Regional Championships with some of our members travelling to represent their region in Chelmsford, Essex. Scotland reigned supreme yet again, with Finlay taking the dub in the M18 and Emily taking silver in W18 to help solidify the Scottish victory.
Oh wow! I hope I managed to include everything and everyone there! Now we have next week to look forward to. Good luck to all of our members off to Switzerland to represent GB at the Junior European Cup and to our members competing at the Senior Home Internationals; you guys will smash it!
All the best,
Izzy
(she/her)
