T-2days till JWOC

Our pre JWOC trainings are coming to an end and our focus shifts to the races next week.

Today we had what was suppose to be a rest day travelling to Arhus on the east coast of Denmark. We visited the local university to see Maias (Ross' girlfriend) dad who gave a talk on the maps we will be running on next week as well as a tour of the sports science building. Maias dad gave us valuable advice on specific techniques that we will be able to employ next week. The biggest piece of technical advice was the use of tracks when orienteering, basically if there is a track use it as it considerably faster than the forest and requires less navigation, hence fewer mistakes. The use of vegetation boundaries and large countour features were also mentioned. Maias dad also took us through some courses that Ross had set for us as training a few months ago. It was interesting to see how the once Danish coach approached different legs. His orienteering style did not differ too much from our own using big attack points, traffic lighting and linear features such as veg. boundaries and tracks. Checking ones compass was constantly mentioned and will be definitely something we will take into our races next week. Ross and Todd were also tested for their VO2 max and lactic threshold which led to some interesting discussions on runner physiology and the difference between the ordinary and the world class.



Following this we went to Arhus town centre where the girls shopped for their party costumes after their epic fail on wednesday. The boys chilled admiring the scenery and found the occasional bargain. Before we left Arhus we went to the most amazing shop in the world, A shop predominately dedicated to orienteering!!! We spoke to a Danish guy who reminded us what an ellite athlete our manager Carsten is; "The fastest white man on the earth at one stage". His race experience and years of knowledge will definitely be a crucial component to the teams success this year. Also we have Ross and Lizzie, so with this ellite team behind us we are all feeling pretty confident for the upcoming week.