Fun in the Portugese Sun

I celebrated my 31st birthday by getting up at 4:30am to fly to Portugal... maybe not the best start to the day but the long lunch in the sunshine by the beach and 40 control pick was exactly what I wanted to be doing :) It was a great weeks training: four sessions in the dunes near Figueira da Foz (thank you to the Swiss team for letting us join in their training) then two sessions in the rocks at Alter do Chao followed by the first two days of POM.

We stayed at the surf camp in Figueira da Foz which was great - we had the whole place to ourselves, just as well when Helen planned me a surprise party complete with silly string!
The dunes are great for practicing fast orienteering and in our final trains I managed to hold my own winning 2 of 6. We got some great headcam footage which may make an appearance soon...

Moving to the rocky areas inland was a bit of a shock to my system and my first few controls were terrible. I worked it out though and really enjoyed the contrast of the two races I did. The long race was super fast and the middle really tricky, just how I like them and I was pleased with the results, a good confidence boost before the start of the season for real. Sadly I had to leave before the third and fourth races to come back to work... jealous of all the people still out there but my legs probably needed the rest day!

Results Day 1

Results Day 2