Right at this moment Helena, Shamboozle and I have our feet up in our hostel in Milan. We’ve got two nights here before heading to Venice for the beginning of the Italy Five Days. What an awesome chance to be here and am feeling extremely lucky. No matter how you say it, this city has […]

After nearly 50 hours of travelling I finally made it to Sofia to meet up with the Norwegians. Some slight confusion about when they were arriving but I spotted a Bulgarian wearing a Halden SK jacket who GPS units to give to the Norwegians and we managed to find them together. We are using these GPS units for each training which is useful for analysing how we ran, but also means the coaches can watch us live out at the forest. Good for discussing what happened right afterwards and also finding those runners who are completely lost.

I got fairly bored during my 16 hour stop-over in Hong Kong so I decided to mission it up Lantau Peak. The airport was fairly lacking in things to do and I felt a bit of an adventure would be a good way to pass the time. At 934 metres, Lantau Peak is the second […]

An interview with Rob Jessop (AK) – team coach for the 2014 New Zealand Junior World Orienteering Championships Team. How did he start?

Back in Wellington I couldn’t resist the call of Waikawa, so Becky, The Moose and I drove on up there today for some badass training. Originally The Moose had a hairdressing appointment booked at the same time but after a quick call to him he rescheduled. When it comes to orienteering, Shamillionaire’s perms can wait. […]

Saturday got off to a good start waking up to a package at the front doorstep. Inside was an exciting parcel put together by Bivouac/Outdoor. Having been generously sponsored a pair of X-Talon Inov8s alongside this – I’d like to say a massive thank you to Bivouac for their support. Having worked at the Sylvia […]

Everyone who has an user account on the ONZ website can post orienteering news items and orienteering blog posts onto the site. We encourage you to contribute your orienteering related blog posts…

Today I ran a good hill session out near Sumner. My Achilles has been improving steadily over the past 4 weeks and I have built up to 90+ min runs successfully. It is great to be running again even if it does mean the amount of study that gets done is considerably less. After seeing […]

By Sophie From before I even started High School I had been told by various different people about the Hillary Challenge event run by OPC, In effect how amazing it was and that I would really enjoy it. So when our Cashmere High School team qualified for the national final in September last year I […]

I’m excited to announce that Science in Sport have agreed to sponsor me for my European conquest! Science in Sport (SiS) is a leading sports nutrition company that produces high-quality nutritional products for athletes. SiS has products taken after training/competing to promote recovery as well as gels/bars to have within exercise that increase energy levels. […]

I just thought I would do a blog to let people know what I am actually doing while I am away for four months! I am currently writing in Melbourne airport after finally escaping the worries of trying to fit my bike and four months’ worth of gear into my 30kg and 7kg carry on […]

Over the last month or so I have been competing in several Xterra trail runs with local orienteer’s Piret Klade, Tim Robertson, and Jamie Stewart. Xterra is a series of trail runs with breathtaking views, jagged coastlines and lush native bush. There are four races the series this year each consisting of a short, middle, […]

Whether you are preparing for a major race, practicing for a night event or just wanting to just brush up on some of the basics, catching features is the ultimate supplement to your training! For those not familiar with catching features (CF), it is a computer game played by a number of orienteer’s from around […]

Just like that Queen’s Birthday is all wrapped up and we’re into June! I’m leaving at the end of this month for Europe, putting pre-JWOC plans into practice. First stop will be Milan, Italy where I’ll be meeting up with Shamus and Helena. We have a couple of days to find our feet and the […]

The WOA Middle Distance Championships were taken out by Tim Robertson on Monday, making it his 3rd win for the weekend. Robertson destroyed the field to win by almost 4 minutes, with a time of 27:33. The Moose, who was caught 4 minutes by Robertson at control 14, kept attacking and finished before Robertson on […]

Tim Robertson’s true form came through in the WOA Long Distance Championships today at Fusilier, taking out the event by 6 minutes. Robertson confidently attacked the course and navigated well to take the win in the Men’s Elite. Brodie Nankervis stepped up also, coming second 6 minutes in front of Jason Markham.  A mixture of […]

The juniors showed their speed today in the WOA Sprint at Massey University. A relatively simple course with 50-50 route-choice meant those with speedy legs could push confidently the whole way. With minimum hesitations there were no breaks for the runners and the pain was showing on the runners’ faces as they were racing around […]

The WOA Champs at Queens Birthday this year will see a good portion of the New Zealand JWOC team competing. Queens Birthday is the last big race most of the team will experience before they head off to Europe. With only 7 weeks until JWOC commences, it will give us a good indication of how […]

Whenever you are training the time just seems to fly by, you don’t realise how much you actually spend preparing yourself for some of the most important races that will kick start your international orienteering career. So far I have managed to fit in both university study and training, however I should probably study a […]

The past couple of weeks have been pretty busy with me trying to fit in all the uni work, actual work and training, but here’s a nice summary of what I’ve been up to! Most recently (last weekend) I was (un?)lucky enough to be commandeered into a team for the annual T’Walk event run by […]

This year’s NISS was organised by Waikato Orienteering Club. It was an awesome event that I had been looking forward to, having missed out on it last year. The Sprint was at Hamilton Boys High and neighbouring Marian Catholic School . The thing I loved most about this map was the combination of close building […]

Seeing the fresh snow fall on the Alps this week made me super keen to get out there, and climbing some mountains would be the perfect break from study. On a day like this, nothing can beat standing on the top of a big pile of rock. Starting at Porters Pass (942 m), the ridge […]

As I entered the second week of the school holidays I was looking forward to a good week of training finishing with a three day Hillary Challenge training with Middleton Grange School at Lake Heron and the South Island Schools Champs. I’m not a morning person to put it simply, so getting up at 6:15 […]

This year I am going to be maximising my time in Bulgarian terrain before JWOC. The Norwegian team has offered me a spot on their training camp in Bulgaria, from 30th June to 5th July. In 2012 I was on a training camp in the Czech Republic with the Norwegian equivalent of New Zealand’s D-squad. […]

Nick has his A-game on (like always!) and has beaten me to the post, already writing about post-nationals training (check it out below). Backtracking a bit here’s a quick outline of nationals and how everyone in the team did. Firstly, thanks to Wellington Orienteering Club for putting on some great events on some quality maps! Secondly, […]

After the fantastic nationals in Wellington, the Moose and I couldn’t wait to get back out on some of those maps. But since Fusilier is embargoed until Queens Birthday, and we didn’t really feel like getting shot down by fighter jets for running around Ohakea, Waikawa was left as our only option. I brought the […]

Hi everyone, We are going to update this blog in our lead up to JWOC 2014; with the latest on our results, events and training. Look out for the other important links on this website, all there to keep you completely up to date with JWOC 2014 and the NZ team!

JWOC 2013 My trip to JWOC this year was amazing.  One of my favourite things this year was getting to know all the other teams better, as we were all staying in the same accommodation.  Placing 3rd in the sprint distance opened my eyes to the fact that I can be up there with the […]

Well congratulations for finding your way here – to the coaching blog, the self-help section of this website. You have managed to correctly orient yourself.  Here is where we care about you as an orienteer. Many have mulled about the name “orienteering”. 　While certainly not as unfortunate as “rogaining”, it has never been an easy […]