Over the past few weeks, Micah Dunn, Keshia Linyard and Tarn Bazley have each competed in multiple orienteering competitions - regional, South Island and even national level for Micah and Keshia.

The Tasman Secondary School Orienteering Champs were held towards the end of June with some outstanding results below:

• Micah Dunn - 1st place Y9/Y10 Boys (pictured below)
• Keshia Linyard - 1st place Y9/Y10 Girls
• Tarn Bazley - 2nd place Y11-13 Boys
• Josh Dunn - 4th place Y11-13 Boys

At the end of last term we caught up with Micah and Keshia to find out what they love about orienteering and how they handle the challenges involved in navigating over large areas of terrain.

Micah has been doing orienteering for the past six or so years, having initially been 'dragged along' by his parents. "Getting out" and "being able to run" are the things that Micah enjoys most about the sport.

Keshia likes that orienteering is an individual sport. "You're racing others but you go off at separate times so it's your own individual game," she says. "You're not physically racing someone right next to you."

She also enjoys the thrill of finding a navigation point. "I like when you're in a really hard course, finding one, and you feel so happy, and then you move on to the next one," she said.

Both Micah and Keshia agreed that having the right mindset was far more challenging than the physical endurance side of orienteering.

"I think the hardest part is the mindset when you're lost, to adapt, because sometimes you just like go down a rabbithole and you don't know where you are," said Keshia.

When asked about their strategy for those kind of situations, Keshia replied, "Well, it depends how lost you are. I've been lost and gone completely off the map before and I was literally like so scared. But it's just look where other people are and try and orientate yourself. And think of where the [points] you've just been are and orientate the map off that."

Micah added, "Or try find like a big feature or something, like a hill."

Following on from the Tasman event, Tarn Bazley, Micah Dunn and Keshia Linyard competed in the South Island Secondary Schools Orienteering Championships over the holidays. The group came 1st in the Intermediate (Year 10/11) Relay and Keshia came 1st in the Intermediate Girls Sprint and 2nd in the Intermediate Girls Long.

Micah and Keshia then competed at the National Secondary School Orienteering Championships held in Blenheim. Keshia raced in the Intermediate Girls Championship coming 7th nationally in the Long Course and 3rd in the Sprint Course. Micah raced in the Intermediate Boys’ Championship coming 36th nationally in the Long Course and 22nd in the Sprint Course.

Keshia's mother Karen commented that "they both did incredibly well, showing determination and resilience on the courses and terrain." They both represented Nayland College really well and were very competitive in their races, against a strong field of really talented athletes.

Congratulations Keshia, Micah and Tarn on all of these outstanding results!