Dear Eureka,

Again I hope everyone is well at home and that everything is going along well in the club! Sorry about being so late in writing, we have been very busy! It’s pity that it’s so cold at home; it has been about 30 degrees here for the last two days!

On Wednesday we competed in the Middle Qualification, at Änggårdsbergen, a fairly steep, thick and very technical map not too far from the centre of Gothenburg. The event centre was in a shooting range on the eastern edge of the map and the start was to the south. We all had fairly early starts; as we are put into heats, they are able to start 3 girls or 3 boys at the same time.

We were all very happy to see Bridget come down the finish chute in a fast 28 minutes in heat C and make it through to the A final. Laurina had a reasonable run, as did Krystal, but both just missed out on making the final.

Unfortunately it was to be another disappointing race for me. My SI card was pulled off my finger by a bush on the way to the 1st contol, and after spending about a minute looking for it, I panicked a little and was slow finding the control. I then lost about 2 minutes at 5 when I ran over the top of the control and then another 2 in my route choice to 6 (straight through a deep marsh!). The rest of my controls were fairly clean but I missed out on the A final by 58 seconds.

Very sadly for Belinda, her control was number 36 and was in a parallell gully to number 46, and she mispunched. However the rest of her run was not too bad and luckily she has many more JWOC middle distances to look forward to.

On Thursday, though all of us but Bridget were running B and C finals, we were determined to have fun and hopefully cheer on Bridget to a good position in the A final.

We did not all have the best runs, but were perhaps less frustrated than the previous day. Rachel ended up 5th in the B final and I was 14th. Nick Andrewartha took out 3rd in the boys C final. My run again had two big errors but they were more quickly resolved. The courses today were, if possible, even more technical and difficult, forcing concentration to the end.

Bridget came in a very good 28th place out of the 60 in the final and was happy with her run except perhaps with the last control which I admit was pretty difficult to find!

Today was our rest day and we used the time to catch a ferry out to one of the islands in the Gothenburg Archipelago. The beaches were perhaps not quite as we envisioned (we were expecting the brilliant Aussie beaches!) but it was still quite scenic and the water was pleasant, if a little shallow.

We are all hoping to have a good day tommorrow in the big physical and mental challenge that is the long distance race.

It is good to hear from you, I will be sure to keep in touch with updates from the long and relay!

I hope I find you all well,

Aislinn Prendergast