Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

First foray into the Swedish terrain, in the form of the forest northeast of my current abode in Boras - using a 1:12500 map of the whole city and surrounding forests which, it was quickly apparent, was stitched together from existing maps with minimal fieldwork of the parts which weren't on existing maps. Set out early in the hope of beating the rain which was forecast to (and did) fall for much of the day - didn't completely manage that, but conditions not too bad.

The object of today was to get my "terrain legs". They will want to be better when racing than they were today because this was a struggle with no real fluency - although the terrain is pretty tough and others have found the first two O-ringen days hard going. Had a "welcome to Sweden" moment when I went knee-deep into a marsh within two minutes of leaving the tracks...

At one point I saw numerous control flags and at first wondered whether I was somewhere I shouldn't be, but it turned out to be for the trail-O.

A swim wasn't really part of my original agenda for today, but when Cassie made plans to take the family to the indoor swim centre I was happy enough to come along and get some laps in while they were taking in the waterslide. Half the rest of O-ringen had the same idea which made for a very slow line to get in, but the lap pool was reasonably uncrowded. The swim itself seemed to drag on for a long time but was reasonable on the while.