My last exam has been and gone, and now I'm really looking forward to the next 4 months of stress-free life. In the past few weeks I struggled to combine the large quantity of revision that was required (for an unprepared, lazy student) and training but a recovery week after the busy few months of racing that there's already been really helped to keep things manageable. I picked up a few niggles; dodgy achilles, hip flexor, foot pains, that were almost all a result of over-building things but thankfully these all faded away after making themselves noticeable for a day or so. I was also weary of the increasing risk of illness with the stress that exams had brought, and furthermore with the fact that I haven't been ill for 4 months - a new PB. There was a period in the last week that my chest would feel cold out on any run but I soon realised that this was more than likely just the high pollen levels - the winds have since changed to coming off the coast and the chest problems have gone away. Clearly I've gotten away with it so far, and can now have a few days to relax before heading out to 10Mila on Thursday.
At Tio, I will be running 4th leg (long night, ungaffelled) for Turku-based, Turun Metsänkävijät 2nd team. This will be one of the toughest and longest races I have ever done, especially with the post-midnight start and night-orienteering challenges, so I am hoping for a nice train to keep things manageable. The competition terrain looks fairly comparable to something Scottish, and I'm looking forward to the big hills that will be unusual to most who have run Tio before. Long legs are a given too and it seems like it'll be the standard straight/round route-choice with hills and tracks involved. There is a very intricate bit on the bottom right hand side of the map that will likely be visited by longer courses. It's in bits like these that I'm happy my course won't be gaffelled!
I will be looking to make the most of my time in Dalarna too and will do some good night-o practice on Friday night as well as some light day training on Friday and Saturday. Coming home on Sunday night and I will have some time to relax in summertime Edinburgh before heading to the Scottish Champs and pre-Jwoc camp in Balmoral, one of the top areas in Britain. Very excited for that.
In the meantime I will be charging my headtorch, packing many many energy gels, and geeking the hell out of the Tio map before hopefully bashing out a respectable result come Saturday night.
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