Taper Time

It's been a really good last few weeks since Jukola. The weather has been nice, the training high quality and the results good. I have used the brilliant areas in Deeside to my full advantage for the last few weeks and for once I am actually satisfied with my preparations for a major competition, so far!

This being said, the next few days are going to be the most crucial. My mileage is still higher than it should be but some easy days and tapered sessions should bring things down nicely before the JWOC Long distance on Monday. The higher mileage has certainly been noticeable on some tough O sessions where my legs get tired way too quickly, even though I'm normally be fine. However there has also been some really positive sessions where my energy supplies seem to be infinite and I've had no problems physically or technically.

One of these confidence boosters was on the above map, where I ran a Long race simulation on Sunday a week ago. Before the orienteering had even started, I ran 30min at a steady pace on some trails before heading straight into this course. The weather was hot like Switzerland and the only support I had for the whole 90min session was a gel on the way to number 4 (45min in). The orienteering went well, except for maybe the end where the terrain was rough and I was getting lazy at keeping a good bearing. However this time loss was almost negligible and should the JWOC Long go anything like this then I will be satisfied. The terrain was as similar as Scotland could give and the weather was a good simulation too. Only the altitude can have an effect now. 

Tomorrow I will fly out with Team GB to Milan and drive up to Switzerland. There we will do some easy acclimatisational training before the competitions kick off. For me this will be the JWOC Long next Monday. Hoping the final few upcoming days will be as good as the last 5 months.