WUOC Sprint & looking forward to the middle!

Today (Wednesday) was the WUOC sprint race. This was a very cool race in an amazing area ~ the course itself started at the entrance to the castle and then descended into the old town: a maze of tight cobblestone streets and staircases, often three or four stories high! 

Damian's map for the sprint.

Will, Damian, Robbie, Jeff, and Louise ran the sprint today. Here's what they had to say:

Will: "I was very disappointed with the result today. Its tough to feel confident or have success in terrain like this since we never get a chance to train in it. Major mistakes on 1 and 2 crushed my hopes early, and I spent much of the rest trying to make up for it. I was somewhat satisfied with my speed on the longer easier legs, but I couldn't push the pace because it was so technical. My performance needs to be significantly better come WOC."

Robbie (in reference to the extreme technical challenges): "There was really only two spots on the course where you really needed to be fast." 

Damian: "Everything came so fast at 1:4000"

Damian punching the 'go' control

In terms of results, Will Critchley was 59th, just beating 60th place Robbie 7 seconds! Damian came in in 79th place, and Jeff finished in 84th place. Louise had a good race, finishing in 36th place. The Swiss men dominated the podium, with the Czech and Swiss runners leading the women's leader board. You can view the full men's and women's results, along with men's and women's splits. 

Tomorrow (Thursday) is the middle distance. It's expected to be another hot day; between 21 and 30 degrees! Here is the list of Team Canada runners and their start times (in Spanish time) in brackets: Damian (8:44am), Eric (9:26am), Jeff (10:20am), Robbie (11:26am), and Louise (10:29am). 

Model map for the middle distance.

Louise's comment on the model map is "the green blobs that are generally not used as features since they are not distinct enough.", and she also commented how hot it is climbing out of the ravines. It'll be another challenging race! You can view live results list here, or tune in to the blog tomorrow for more race updates!