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 limit. With a little help from extra room in Laura’s bag I’m on my way and can breathe a sigh of relief for 30 hours before I have to re-pack again at Helsinki airport.

Anyway… We will face that problem when it comes!

My first stop in Europe is Helsinki, Finland. My sister Laura and I will be travelling to Imatra to watch the World Cup before heading up to Kuopio for the big relay Jukola. I will be running the first leg for a Swedish team called OK Nolaskogsarna. This will be an amazing experience mass starting with around 1600 men’s teams and staying in army tents in the forest with 16,000 other orienteers.

From here I travel with Laura down to Estonia for the Tallinn O Week. It consists of 5 days of racing including two World Ranking events.

After Tallinn I fly to Venice where Laura and I will be meeting up with Lizzie, Greta and Lachlan for some sprint training. We are all competing in the Alpe Adria 3-day which is located on similar terrain to World Champs. The following week I will be out on the WOC training maps familiarising myself with the terrain and getting prepared to race in the WOC sprint, Sprint relay and Relay.

From Italy I am flying to Bulgaria with a few members of the JWOC team where we will spend a week training before the JWOC race week.

After JWOC I get a much needed weeks rest as I fly to Norway and travel to Rauland for the JWOC 2015 training camp where I will be running in similar terrain to the 2015 JWOC. This will be my final year as a junior so I want to give myself the best preparation possible and think this is a perfect opportunity for me to gain some knowledge of the terrain and techniques that will be useful to use. It will be a hard week of training with GPS analysis after every training and talks from a Norwegian National team member.

The next month after the camp will be a bit spontaneous, I will travel from Norway, through Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to get to Poland for the World Mountain Bike Orienteering Championships. I have plans to stay with Peter Oberg, Ross Morrison and a friend from Latvia but these plans are very flexible and may change. 🙂

In Poland I am staying with the Australian MTBO team and will have a week of competing here in a format similar to JWOC and WOC, except on a bike…

Then it is off to Italy again where Laura and I will head off into the mountains and spend two weeks on a mountain running training camp held before the World Mountain Running Champs that I hope to be selected for. This will be a unique experience that I have heard is very amazing and worth it from Tane Cambridge who went on the same one last year.

Next stop London where I will have a week to sightsee/spend the whole week trying to fit my gear into 30kg again for the big flight back to Perth for the Aussie Champs.

After four months away, I arrive home on the 6th of October in the afternoon where I plan to have a much needed sleep and a bit of a rest!

TIM