orienteering 1:58:00 [3]
Had an easy trip to Helsinki: Dennis drove me to JFK in the afternoon for a 6pm flight, and the non-stop flight to Helsinki was rather pleasant. Got several hours of sleep - maybe 5? - which is pretty good considering it was an 8 hour flight with dinner and breakfast. Finnair joins the list of airlines I will want to fly with in the future.
Met Eddie at the airport - he came even earlier than agreed and he found me in the Starbucks. Chatted for a while about the different training maps which he had gotten for me and made a plan.
Got my rental car and stopped by the hotel but they weren't ready to check me in so I drove to one of the training sites. I was really thirsty on the drive and figured I better find some water - it would not be smart to get out in the Finnish woods, tired and dehydrated. So drove around some backroads hoping to find something and eventually found a small grocery store. Bought a few supplies, including stuff to drink, and made my way to the training.
A 5.9km course was laid out on the map and I visited all but two of the controls but not in order. I probably only did 4 or 4.5 km and it took close to two hours. This does not bode well for Saturday. I did pretty much walk the whole thing though and I expect I'll do at least some running in the actual event so really hoping I won't take two hours. I did know where I was almost all the time so that was good - the mapping made sense and I generally could figure out what was what, just didn't move through the woods very fast.
Anyway, feeling a bit better about the weekend despite the turtle-like pace. The last time I was in Finland I got so completely lost on the first day in the terrain that I had to just go on a compass bearing for a km or more until I hit something that I could identify for sure.
Should have put on more bug spray.