Training Day 3

After the relaxing thermal spas yesterday the Australian team was feeling fresher for the days training. On the way to training today the convoy had zero mistakes in navigating to the event venue. The venue was at Iharos (Hosszú-rét) which was the north eastern part of the map of the Hungarian Championships. On arrival we parked in the car park but was quickly told to move along by a Hungarian road worker trying to explain to us that they were re-spraying the parking lines that we had parked into.

Todays course was a flatter and shorter, it was on a 1:15000 scale map with 10m contours. The team was practicing their pre-race routine and getting into their race mind set. Ian was sending off the Aussie riders in two minute intervals as one would in a proper race. Having to flip the map over in the last minute and plan as much as we could and race the first one or two controls. This was a perfect event to fine tune anything that anyone felt needed to be practiced more.

The course was a fairly fast course and provided a decent amount of tracks and route choice. Unfortunately Chris on the way to his first control had a little bit of a fall. Paying too much attention to his map and the terrain that he didn’t realize his front wheel had dropped into an over grown rut and soon found himself on the ground. Luckily he only received some minor gravel rash and a bruised leg and arm.

Everyone in the team has improved each day with their navigation, having been in Hungary for almost a week now we are finding our bearings and looking forward to the world championships that are not too far away.