Morning session was relay training at Lesni Hrbitov. We decided to start with the relay because Salome won't be running the relay in an SA team and we didn't want her to miss out any of the long or middle distance maps. She arrives on Tuesday.

Before starting the course we checked out the various terrains to see how runnable the area was. It seemed more runnable than I was expecting. The visibility through green areas was better than we are used to in South Africa.

Brad and I had courses with 16 controls while Tim got a 20 control course which had an extra loop. All the courses were slightly different. I ran the course backwards. Brad and Tim did theirs the right way round. 

I decided to run straight from 16 to 15, running along the edge of the clearing. I wanted to get a feel of the vegetation and see if it may be a viable route choice. It turns out the green was thick and hard to navigate through. Although i messed the control up quite badly I'm still glad I chose that route as I can gauge the runnability of green areas better now.

Lesni Hrbitov

Struggled to find the stakes at many of the controls so need to focus more on the finer detail in the circle. Was expecting to find the control as I ran into the area. Stopped to early from 13 to 12 and wasted minutes matching up features to the map. 12 to 11 I ran straight to the road and relocated. Was feeling a bit insecure with my navigating. 

Hit the rest of the controls pretty nicely barring 5 which i over ran and 2 which i was hesitant about. I was confused by a ditch that wasn't on the map. 

Finished the loop in 43 minutes, 5 minutes behind tim and brad. We then took turns to navigate to a control on the extra loop of Tim's course. I managed to trip twice running to one of those controls. Tim, Brad and a bunch of Australian orienteers who saw it thought it was hilarious. 

I thought the map was top quality and I really enjoyed the training. I definitely need to soak up as much knowledge and skills as possible if I'm going to have a fast run at JWOC.