Day 6 South African Youth Squad

Today we woke at 8 with the intention to leave at 9 . Everyone had breakfast (cereal or Swedish bread). Cameron was cutting it fine and only woke up at 8:40 but still managed to get ready in time. At 9:05 we rushed to the bus stop but missed the bus with about 30 seconds and then had to wait another 15 minutes for the next bus.

We had some early morning training in the forest we went to yesterday.

We decided it would be better to take the bus instead of running back and forth as we are doing a lot of running during the day. Ryno decided to race the bus from one of the bus stops and ended up winning back to the clubhouse. After we got back from the relative quick early morning training we had to pack our bags to go to the old town for some sprint training.

We took the 401 to the Slussen station and a very short train trip to Gamla Stan (Old Town).
We had 3 different sprint training courses in Gamla Stan. We ran through the town's narrow streets and had to watch out for the pedestrians whilst navigating.

 We ran passed the royal palace and some of us saw the royal guards parade. The orienteering in the old town is different than the normal sprints we have done before. The layout of the old town was something to get used to with all the little pathways and underpasses. We also had to put out the controls, aka the chalk rectangles we drew on the ground or walls.

After our training we toured the town like normal tourists and entered a few souvenir shops. We headed to a souvenir shop Cameron spotted whilst running. Everyone bought something from the store and Paul was especially happy with his sheep shirt that he bought .

Another notable shop was called 'Science Fiction Bokhandeln' which seemed to attract all the athletes with it's extensive collection of Harry Potter, Star Wars etc themed souvenirs. We spent more time in this shop than the actual souvenir shop.

After we walked back from the old town to Slussen we took the 401 back to the clubhouse for lunch and a restful afternoon. We also did some cleaning to keep the clubhouse neat for the 200 or so club members that will pass through during the club's evening training session which we will join in on.

We split up into two groups for the training. The braver ones decided to go out on the violet course in the Luffarligan area(which involved a 1.5 km run back and forth).

It was a rather eventful training session as it started raining, and then hailing on us!

Dinner was late as we had to wait for the clubhouse to clean out. Christie has now joined us and was treated to her first youth tour home cooked meal!

Written by Luan Swart