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Aislinn Austin started orienteering with Cork-O at 11 years old. This year, her last as a junior competitor, she achieved a milestone in her career by winning the W20 British Individual Champs. Here she reflects on her experiences and what the future holds as an elite orienteer competing for Ireland.
"Excitement, adventure, passion, frustration and sheer ecstasy are just a few words that spring to mind when I think about the sport that has directed my life in so many ways. I remember being a giggling little girl, squealing with delight as I jumped into deep puddles, filling my wellies with mud and the feeling of triumph as I managed to cover myself, inch by inch, in mud, leaves and any material that a forest has to offer. This is how I started orienteering at the age of 11. Each Sunday, my family and I would head off to the local orienteering event rain, hail or snow for a leisurely jog in the woods.
But after a few years I realised that there was much more to orienteering. Not only had orienteering become a competitive sport for me, I had now built up a big group of friends from all over the country. It was a perfect combination for me that I hadn't found in any other sport. I loved everything about orienteering, the challenge, trying to follow a map as well as run as fast as I could and being in a different unique place every weekend. The friends I've meet through orienteering are still some of my closest friends now and most of my fondest (and funniest) memories are all orienteering related. So for all these reasons, when I finished school and decided to take a year out, doing something orienteering related was an obvious choice.
So I ended up au-pairing in Norway for an amazing and encouraging orienteering family with three children. This was a make or break year for me as I would be training with the best in the world, many of whom are semi-professional orienteers with lives that centre around their training. This was how I was to spend my year, planning my weekly training first and afterwards deciding my meal times and social plans. A typical winter week was something like this:
| Monday: | Indoor strength training from 3.30-5pm, with a jog for half an hour before hand. |
| Tuesday: | Intervals |
| Wednesday: | Long run in the morning through terrain from 9-11am. Aerobics from 9-10pm. |
| Thursday: | Short race in the morning through technical terrain 9-10am. Run around club hut with friends 4-5pm. |
| Friday: | Night race |
| Saturday: | Competition |
| Sunday: | Competition or a 2-hour run in the morning. |
For the first time in my life, I really felt I was putting everything into one target which was to become a better orienteer. I was frequently asked how long I'd been orienteering and although the answer was 7 years, I felt as though I'd only been orienteering properly since the day I came to Norway.
My year in Norway ended in the best way possible, with the best and most satisfying race of my life. The weekend before I left Norway, I competed in the Norwegian Junior Relay Championships and was running first leg with two club mates. We had the potential to win the relay but it all depended strongly on calm nerves and good steady runs from all of us. It was the first time that I'd really had such a pressure on me but it seemed to suit me well and I came in second two seconds down and we went on to win the relay.
Unfortunately my year was up and it was time to start studying so I moved to Leeds to study Physiotherapy. And this is where I am now. It has been an interesting period since I moved back from Norway, to see how much I have learned and improved. Something obviously sunk in as I won both the short and classic distance races at the British Championships last May. Although I don't get to orienteer as much as I did in Norway, my fitness is improving. A lot of orienteers are concentrating now on sheer speed as there is less and less races in technical Nordic countries and much more races in Continental fast terrain. When I finish studying I hope to return to Scandinavia and explore my full potential as an orienteer. This sport has given me so much, I will not rest until I have pushed myself to my limit and reached my goal."
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