This summer I attended the Junior Regional Orienteering Squads (JROS) camp in Czechia and it was brilliant.  We got ourselves organised and flew out to be greeted by coaches who drove us to the place we were staying – Potkavarna.  Potkavarna is a house-style youth hostel in the mountains that focuses on providing orienteers with a place to stay for training camps, maps and wonderful food.  The facilities at Potkarvana are beyond amazing with a hot tub, sauna and volley ball court.  The house sits opposite a hillside covered in woodland – perfect for orienteering – and a field for watching the sunsets.

We began on the first day with a brief meeting outlining the plan for the week, which was to have the most fun and generally fine tune our orienteering.  The first training we did was a 15-minute walk into the woods opposite the house, where we focused on adjusting to the style of maps and terrain of Czechia.  Each day we spent all morning out in the forest running varied training loops focusing on different things such as longer legs, rock features, corridor exercises, contours and bearings.  When we were close to Potkavarna we returned for a full hot cooked lunch of interesting but delicious native foods.  On the days where we were further away the very committed cook drove out hot food to the forest for us, which was much appreciated!

In the afternoons we would return to the forest for fun races such as capture the flag, vampire-o, knoll-o and creative relays.  These were all focused on having fun.  There was a small competition running alongside these, involving a decorated vest which had to be worn by the winner for the next mini race.

The evenings consisted of swims in beautiful rivers, lakes and ponds before another brilliant meal and a review of the day.  We also did classroom learning, studying maps, route choice and training focuses.  We looked into training aspects such as tapering and having blocked training for the seasons and bigger races.

The last three days we competed in Czech national races, which proved to be difficult with lots of rock, which was interesting to negotiate.  We ran on the most wonderful areas, which were so challenging.  Running was a bit warm with highs around 35°C.  After travelling to Prague for the last night, we explored the beauty of the city before an early flight home.

This was one of the best weeks I've had.  An amazing place, good training, thrilling racing and the most fun.

         

         

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