Woken early by bright sunshine and/or Douglas, didn't manage to get back to sleep. Pretty chilled travelling day back to my parents, drove down with Toni and Slava, stopping for pizza and a swim.
Orienteering race 41:58 [5] 9.0 km (4:40 / km) +300m4:00 / km shoes: inov8 x talon
World Uni Champs relay. Scott's eye got worse overnight so I moved onto last leg with Chepls running 2nd. Doug and Cheps were a little off the pace so I went out a fair way behind in a big group. Had long early gaffles and was well behind, but ran strongly apart from a 1 minute mistake near the end to pull up a few places. Kovacs had the same gaffle as me and spent about 39 out of the 42 minutes approximately 3 meters behind me. My miss in the end allowed him to get in front...
Trail/terrain running warm up/down 35:00 7.0 km (5:00 / km) shoes: inov8 x talon
Orienteering race 31:54 [5] 5.5 km (5:48 / km) +300m4:33 / km shoes: inov8 oroc 280
World Uni Champs middle distance. Pissed off after the sprint. Really good physical and technical race today. Wanted to hit the first cleanly, but it was really easy and although I did, I missed the 2nd control by almost 1 1/2 minutes. Found the girls 1st control and misunderstood where it was, and went off down the wrong bit of hill. Then I was in 105th place or something. Pulled up to 25th place on the 3rd control with a fastest split :)
Basically after the mistake I was really aggressive, pushing absolutely as hard as I could. A couple of times i got a bit lucky on seeing the control, but I was trying to be clean as well, especially on the shorter legs. Only missed a few seconds here and there round the rest and came in in 2nd place, 20 seconds down on Karlsson. Assumed a few would come in quicker, but it was a nervous wait as only Merz came in faster. Loads of other good guys in the end missed, and it was enough for a bronze!
3rd place - really happy with that, and although I lost 80-90 seconds early on and I was only 1 minute behind, it is dangerous to start thinking about what if this had happened and that had happened.
I am satisfied with the performance (barring the early miss), and with my shape considering the last training block. All good signs for WOC.
Trail/terrain running warm up/down 40:00 8.0 km (5:00 / km) +100m4:42 / km shoes: inov8 oroc 280
Orienteering race 15:08 [5] 4.0 km (3:47 / km) +100m3:22 / km shoes: inov8 x talon
World Uni Champs sprint race. Felt pretty good during warm up, but legs felt heavy during and pushing felt like a struggle. Was by no means perfect during the early urban part, and went through the spectator control with a lead of 2 seconds. Then the terrain changed into spur gully stuff. I got stressed by how I was feeling and the fact that I was leading and thinking that I needed to run really fast and well, when in fact I should have just focussed on doing the right things well. Made 3 mistakes in the last 6 controls, losing about 40 seconds in total, dropping from potential 3rd place to 12th. I was ahead of Howald who took the bronze at the spectator, but a fair bit behind Jerker and Scott.
Was really frustrated with myself and my performance - can't think when I have blown up so badly in a sprint race before. Had some long soul searching and a couple of long phone calls that evening....
Road/track running warm up/down 35:00 7.0 km (5:00 / km) shoes: New balance 828
Running drills / plyometrics8:00 [2] 0.5 mi (16:00 / mi)