Lagganlia 2005 - Report by Rebecca Harding

Arriving at Lagganlia was jumping straight into a group of people I didn’t know. Most people already knew each other; I didn’t know anyone except those I had met a few hours before on the train. Luckily, after tea, Steve Buckley, tour manager, introduced a lighthearted game to help break the ice and help remember each other’s names.

Training started next morning after breakfast at eight. We split into three groups and went onto three different areas on Insriach (North, south and middle), I started to get know the people in my group. Other training areas at Lagganlia included Strathmashie, Craigbui, and Achlean. Training exercises included map memory, sprint races, bearings exercises, control flow, traffic lights, aiming off, control picks and pressurising relay mass start.

In the evenings we had time to shower, relax and get to know each other. We also had some sessions with coaches learning how to do race analysis; we also had two talks one on nutrition and the other on how to keep our ankles strong.

One evening we went to Badeguish to see the Glenmore tour. We played rounders but I don’t remember who won, I do remember there being lots of midges though.

The last day we had a classic race, which I didn’t do very well on, then we had to pack we were all really sad but made the most of the afternoon. We spent some time decorating the dining room with balloons and homemade table decorations with plants and candles (which ended up getting burnt at dinner). These efforts were for the romantic dinner, which was quite funny. The best bit was when we were given funny awards, thought of by the coaches. I got a joint award with Peter Hodkinson for ‘Couple of the week’ Treb(Robert Gardener) got ‘Verbal diarrhoea’ Zoe Smithard got ‘Most likely to come back and coach’. We left on Saturday morning some going home others going to Royal Deeside for the Scottish six day.

After Lagganlia I have had some really good runs, I think this reflects on how brilliant the training is at Lagganlia. I have been lucky enough to be selected for start squad and hope for more good runs. Lagganlia has been one of the best weeks ever for me; I have improved my orienteering, made some great friends, and had an amazing week.