Hawkshead Training Weekend Report

At the beginning of November six of our M/W16s attended the JROS Hawkshead training weekend. Read Hannah's report

We got to Hawkshead Youth Hostel at about 7 o’clock on the Friday night after leaving Hertfordshire at 1.30pm. We went up to the kitchen and were told which rooms we were in. I was in a room with the other South East girls, my friend from the East Midlands and a girl from the North East. Once we had put our stuff into our rooms we went to the games room and stayed there until it was time for bed.

On Saturday morning we got up at about 6.30 and got ready for breakfast. After breakfast we had a briefing about all the areas we would be training at over the next two days. After that we had another briefing which was just with the South East orienteers. We talked about the exercises that were available for us to do and what we thought would help benefit our orienteering. Once we got to the training area, it took us a little while to find the start. Once we did we went for a quick warm up and then started with the exercises. After we had all done a couple exercises each we joined up with the Welsh team and did a pairs star relay. After this it was time for lunch but as it was raining so much we all ended up eating in the cars. After lunch it was a quick drive to the next area. When we got there we were told to do two quick exercises as we were all so cold and wet from the morning training. Once we got back to the youth hostel we went for a quick squad de-brief. As well as this we talked about what our aims were to improve our orienteering this year. After this we had about half an hour to get ready for the night sprint relay. I found the sprint relay really fun but also quite hard at the same time as there were so many controls in such a small area. At the end of the relay we were really happy because we all managed to not miss punch which a lot of teams ended up doing.

The next morning we just had a couple of hours left of training. It was raining again and very cold. After the long trek to the start we went out to do our exercises. I did a long route choices course before doing a quick control pick course. Even though Hawkshead was just a weekend camp, I felt like it really helped my orienteering and it was really fun to meet up with friends again.

Hannah

Thanks to Helen, Kevin, Nick & Christine for coaching on this very wet weekend.