I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

We've had a few snow flurries here, but then it rains and washes it all away. I'm playing Christmas music as much as I can, in hopes of inspiring the weather, but it doesn't seem to be working. Ross, though, has already had enough of Christmas music so I have to switch to Tiesto when he comes home. Does Tiesto do Christmas remixes?

Our blog post about becoming residents was by far the most viewed blog post ever. Either one of you sat at home and repeatedly clicked it open, or everyone loves us and is excited for us :) I'm going with the latter. Personal numbers are on their way and then we can actually get a bank account and pay our own rent and club fees, instead of making Boris do it for us (thanks, Boris!).

This week was full of awesome orienteering (when isn't it?). I used the word epic way too many times in my attackpoint entries this week, which cheapens the word. I'll have to find a thesaurus. Tuesday was Vintertränings Premiären. Everyone starts together and attempts to follow the corridor drawn on the map. We started on the small prolog map and ran through the fields on a trail lined with candles. Then we headed out into the woods and had a drink stop. Then through another field lined with candles and fireworks. After that we climbed into the woods to navigate the route through the woods, like a typical Tuesday night. Looking back across the field and seeing the candles, headlights and fireworks was a fantastic view.

As usual, we got a bit lost out in the woods and I had trouble following along. Ironically, we got the most lost in the section labeled "dagis" - kindergarten. On the way back out of the woods we stopped for warm saft and pizza. At this point, the people who did the 15k loop (we did the 13k) caught back up to us. We did the ultra sprint line-o and then had a quiz section. There was a question with 3 multiple choice answers. You had to answer the question correctly, and then run to the corresponding control on the map snipbit posted there. So if you think the answer is (a) then you run to the control labeled (a). At this point there were about 30 of us, so I couldn't even get close enough to read the question - plus, it was in Swedish! I mostly ran wherever the majority of the pack was going :) We finished with a mini sprint around the clubhouse with candles. A fun way to kick off the winter training season! There's a video of the 97 headlamps running by here.

This past weekend was Uppsala Training Weekend, put together almost (entirely?) single-handedly by Albin. On Friday we biked down to Lunsen for middle distance training. During it I discovered the secret to enjoying orienteering - don't get lost! I managed this quite well until the very end and had a great time sinking into the ice cold marshes of Lunsen.

Saturday morning we procured a ride to Lunsen for long distance training. This time I ran with Lisa and Elin and we traded off controls. We were again orienteering really well and it was lots of fun. Contour only section was tricky, but when you have someone else with you, it doesn't seem so bad! Ross was planning on running all 17k, so we left before him and put his backpack on another car that was still there. He returned before that car's owners, so he ran home. He scarfed down a bowl of cereal and went into work for 2 hours. Then he raced home just in time for the night-o training. What a long day!

Saturday evening was night-o intervals and I was worried I would be the only girl. Luckily, Lisa R. also showed up, so we ran together. The highlight of this training was when I helped save a dog's life! I was running to one control when I noticed a light on the trail ahead of me. It was another orienteer. As I ran up he said hello and pointed at the ground. It was a small dog! The poor thing was shivering, even in his warm doggie coat. Obviously, we had to bring him back to the clubhouse and find his owners. At the same time, I had to get to the finish of that interval so that Lisa wouldn't be waiting for me. The orienteer, Emil, said he would be able to carry the dog back to the clubhouse, but it was hard to carry the dog and read the map at the same time. We decided that I would navigate us to the big trail, he would head back to the clubhouse and I would find Lisa and finish my intervals. Turns out he doesn't like dogs, so I don't think he was thrilled to carry it - he held it out in front of himself with two hands under the dog's stomach. On his way back he actually bumped into the owners, who were heading back out into the woods to look again with two other dogs. What perfect timing!

Ok, as this is turning into a long, boring post I'll stop here and finish the rest of the weekend fun later. I don't even have any good pictures to go with this, so I'll leave you a random one from the day when Ross and I got engaged.

Taken by Ben Roberts.