Finish training camp

While JWOC won't be in Finland for another year, a number of the Canadians from Jukola took the opportunity to explore relevant terrain.  The second Jukola was over a group of us packed up and took off to Tampere for the night before driving north to the accommodation.  I am actually rather surprised that we managed to all fit into the car - three over-six-foot boys, two others and all their baggage for the summer, but we managed!

The first training was Monday afternoon, and goodness did I need that map walk.  The terrain was rather flat, and there were hundreds of boulders, many of which unmapped as mapping them all would result in huge black blobs on the map.  This definitely confused me at first (and indeed, continued to confuse me for the second day as well!).

Welcome to boulder land!

Day two found us on a 1:15 000 scale.  All the little details from day one were made even more challenging to read - for those competing next year: bring a magnifying glass!  In the afternoon we switched back to 1:10 000, and for the first time I felt like I really had flow through the controls and was able to simplify to the right extent.

A snippet of forest

On the third day we started out with intervals on some of the gorgeous trails around our accommodation.  In the afternoon we did some compass/corridor work.  One thing is for certain: in Finland the mosquitoes will keep you moving.  At one point, I lost where I was but was unable to stop for any length of time and find myself again unless I wanted to be eaten alive by the 'friendly' insects.

While finding where I was, I discovered a large
 mine under the 'fin5!'

The last day found us running a relay session in the morning and a sprint session in the afternoon.  There was a wonderfully complicated section towards the end, as seen below.

How would you go from 28-29?

The Canadian Crew

Thank you to Jeff for stepping in and coaching!  And good luck to those going to JWOC next year - if our time there was any indication you are all in for wonderful terrain!