Thursday, January 30, 2014

orienteering:)

If I was a normal hard-working medic I would be working on my assignment. Unfortunately, my brain is as dry as the Saharan desert and nothing decent seems to be coming out.
So I have decided to write about my crazy weekend.

I went for a weekend of orienteering races in Edinburgh! Which is slightly out of my comfort zone as the last time I used a compass I was 12 and didn't learn how to find north and it's best to omit what happened the last time I was in charge of a map.

In spite of all this, here I was on a very wet Saturday Scottish morning, trying to desperately get a grasp of what I would have to do to survive the race. I got my map, my checkpoint list and set off hoping not to get too lost.

The first day it didn't go too bad, as it was among the streets of Edinburgh and we didn't really need our compasses...the only glitch was when I didn't realise how the checkpoint looked like and was looking for a person, instead than the machine, whoops!!

In the evening we had  the most physically challenging part of the weekend: the CEILIDH!
Aka: traditional scottish dancing. Very much fun, but can leave you short of breath for laughing so hard and for the lively music and dance:)
Some people were wearing the traditional kilt and were proper pro at it!!

Sunday race was a complete different nut to crack ( a much harder one!). The weather was forecast to be infamously stormy and rainy but we were graced with some sun even though it was cold and windy. This race was on open ground, in Holyrood Park. We were given a compass and this map:
and we had to make it to the 17 checkpoints.

As the start was staggered I could not follow any one and stumbled on the second checkpoint without having cleared the first one. It took me 28 minutes to find it and by that time all the other girls from my team had started the race and was able to tag along, survive and finish the race.


I had a very good weekend! I enjoyed doing something different so much and feel proud for stepping out of my comfort zone, having a go to something which I wasn't familiar with...because it makes the world feel a bit bigger and the colours much brighter. It brings you back to your childhood when every menial task was a surprise and a potential source of fun. It makes you smile with all your teeth and want to run around screaming (maybe not at the end of the race). And I think these feelings are precious in our stressed out, fast-paced world.

Have you tried something new, which brought you out of your comfort zone?

Ps-Sunday race was tough and didn't go down without victims: firstly my trainers, which were so caked in mud and very very old, which were sadly chucked away. Secondly, my quads, hamstrings, and gluteus: I felt the burn through the whole time during yesterday reps.

Pps: we watched"About time" last night and I loved it soo much!!! It's a bitter-sweet British  movie and it made me feel so serene at the end of it:)


 Good night!!

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