I write this as we sit in our room sheltering from the 35 degree heat outside. This morning we completed our last forest session before jwoc with a mass start relay practice exercise. The terrain for this is a lot different from the other stuff we have been in. The big broad hills with pockets of little details provide a different challenge to the other disciplines but a lot of skills we have been practicing are easily transferable. We did the session along side the USA team which gave a bit more practice and being distracted by other runners. Everyone seemed to drop a bit of time here and there which may be due to a little bit of fatigue and a little bit of poor technique. With a couple days rest and easy training we should be fresh and fast for Sunday! There are now a number of teams here now with a lot more to come in the next couple of days. You can definitely feel the excitement in the air. Not to much else to report so I will leave it here. Hopefully next post we an report some great successes!

It has been a little while since the last blog post so now that I have an afternoon free I will try to quickly recap what we have been up to lately.
Last post wrapped up Saturdays training so I will follow on from there. 
Sunday was to be a big, long and tiring day. James had warned us of this the night before so we were ready. The plan was to get a double long distance terrain training in which would mean over an hour drive to the relevant maps. This was ok though because we had the whole day to work with. 
The morning session was at the Dievcenskaskala map. The guys had a 7km course and the girls a 5km one. We found the open area near the south of the map pretty rough (especially the darker green patches). In saying this, we also found if you linked up all the open areas and little tracks you could run pretty fast. This session was another really warm one! Around 32 degrees out in the forest so hydration was important.
After cruising into the nearby town of Roznava for lunch we were back out to the more open map,  
Jastericiejazero for another long training. Course lengths were pretty similar to the mornings session and so were the key things that we picked up. Open = Fast, Dark Green = Slow as! This was also our first training where we saw another team. The Ukrainians were just about to begin as we left.
Monday was either a rest or a middle training for the team. The ones who did train got to fly around the super fast and fun Baziny map. The team has found that in the middle terrain techniques that we use in some parts of New Zealand (Woodhill etc) can be very useful. Like running on a compass and picking off features.

Tuesday marked the last of our double session days. This time it was to be a sprint and long training all before lunch. The sprint was the most relevant training map to the actual sprint but still not a whole lot similar. This was around the town of Roznava where the long distance races are.
Immediately after this session we were in the cars and off to the next session on the Soroska map. This training was to be very relevant for the long distance as it mimicked the vegetation changes that the long will have. The team had good fun here and most are finally getting confident in the Karst Terrain. 
This just leaves this mornings training on the Zeleny Dvor map. This is also the model map for the middle qual and final so training was very relevant. Both girls and guys did a middle distance course, much the same length as what the qual will be. On a whole the team seem to be going well in this terrain and really enjoying the speed and the challenges that it provides. We are all pretty exciting for the racing to rock around.

On a side note, most evenings we have been heading into the Kosice town centre for some 80c ice cream and for a look around. The inner city is very cool and will be awesome for a sprint. As well as this we have been out to the local swimming to cool us off and plan to go there again this week. I have added some photos of both of these places.

Anyway it seems I need to head off as we are cruising to the local mall to pick up some more supplies for our banquet outfits. 

Hope to post again soon