Sick day

It was sadly a long puke filled night for the junior team. We woke up to find all but three juniors sick and out for the count. Needless to say breakfast was quiet and caution was taken with what we ate. Later we found out that seven of the swedes were also affected. So the morning was spent talking to the hotel and moving to clean rooms.

Around 10:30 the three survivors and the giant decided to leave the sick to sleep and get in a bit of training. We went out to the map behind our hotel for some fun in the woods. We ran a course and stopped at each control to talk about what the possible route we saw to take were, which might be the best, and what features/techniques are good to use. Most of the forest was open and fast. However that being said it was easy enough to pick up a parallel feature or drift off track if you're contouring around. I found this type of training really useful. Getting to talk when actually seeing the terrain. Getting to run with other people around and trying to ignore them and then getting to have the giant around to help us figure out what we had done and to provide safety tips on how to plan a good route. We were out for around an hour.

By lunch there were still only four fully well. But chicken noodle soup and rice was dished out and people seemed to be a bit on the up.

By the time we headed over to visit with the Canadians we were up to five of us. So we went out and were told to walk around the sprint course the Canadians had just done. It would have been nice to get some speed and see how easily one could read things on the run, but even walking around to get a feel for things was better than nothing. The key in the sprint I think is going to be how well you're able to read ahead and how well you can switch from town to woods and maybe back.

We socialized with a few teams after walking the sprint. And then five of us were at dinner. Hopefully we will have a full table for breakfast again tomorrow!

- Alison Campbell