Saturday Jun 30 |
 | Note | |
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| rhr:41, much lower than when I was taking it a month or two ago (46-48). Thats probably good.
had two interesting dreams last night. The first was something about being back on the track team (which btw I quit 18 months ago to train for this years team trials) and being afraid of getting injured. The second was weirder though&it was supposedly during the WOC classic qualifier, and started sometime after the 7th control, which I couldnt remember. The next two controls were hidden near some town, and I kept missing them, or going back to them because I couldnt remember if I had been there. Forced myself to wake up before too long. The interesting thing was that while the imaginary map was somewhat different each time I looked at it, it actually matched the imaginary terrain as far as I could tell (though it seemed to be an over-simplified version of nordic terrain).
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| Running (trail) 17:30 [3] 2.5 mi (7:00 / mi) | |
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| wrapping up the rest week. Sluggish and short due to running after a nap but just before laundry time. Hard effort for the last minute or so. Ahr:148. only mosquitos around here at the moment. Heading south tomorrow to hang out with Birgitta in Skåne for a few days. Will have at least one race there. |
Friday Jun 29 |
| Running (trail) 30:30 [3] 4.26 mi (7:09 / mi) | |
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| 30 minute run towards the TV tower. Ahr:148. Couldnt find the Skansen map, its probably hiding amongs the piles of maps we have scattered around the room. Sometimes its nice to just run. Today wasnt actually one of those times though, it seemed like I was dragging most of the way. Not the feeling I was hoping for, but then again I suppose yesterday was a relatively long workout for a rest week. left heel hurting today, thats from my sandals...gotta stop wearing them. |
| Note | |
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| I sometimes wonder whether I should run more often in the forest. After all, I could probably orienteer on a different map every day all summer. On the other hand, I think its also really important (as PG says) to maintain interest in orienteering, not get mentally burned out. The intensive training camp approach would be fine for a few weeks, but I dont know whether I could do it all summer. Im feeling pretty motivated these days, but Id like to keep it that way. A lot of top athletes have said that during the racing season, they dont do any technical training during the week, in order to stay hungry for competition. Of course they already have a pretty strong technical foundation, and race every weekend. |
Thursday Jun 28 |
| Note | |
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| thinking about how to do some more technical training during this easy week while still mostly resting. Remembering my previous visualization comment, I found some mental exercises in the book Träning (SOFT, 1998). Ive translated one here that addresses a problem I sometimes have, distraction by other runners:
To focus on your own orienteering while under the influence of other runners.
Imagine yourself waiting in the relay exchange pen to head out on your leg. Experience the course of events at the exchange, and feel the mood and excitement to head out in the lead. Hear the speaker say your team and your name. Imagine how you spike the controls, how everything flows. Hear the sound of your footsteps in the forest, across various surfaces. Hear your own breath.
Notice the smells from the forest, and feel how the sweat stings in your eyes. See how on the way in to a difficult control you come together with other runners, competitors in your class. Experience how you register them but continue to be concentrated on your own orienteering. Suddenly you think that the others arent running the same way you had planned in toward the control. Feel how strong your self-confidence is; you know exactly where you are and where you are going. Feel how you have full control over the situation. Imagine how you resolutely go your own way and carefully read yourself in the last bit towards the control. Feel how calm and sure of yourself you are. Imagine also how you go correctly to the control, punch quickly and head off. After a hundred meters or so, you meet the other runners who are on the way back. Feel the satisfaction and how your self-confidence grows.
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| Orienteering (training course) 1:26:05 [3] *** 8.3 km (10:22 / km) | |
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| Took the J-bana north to an area called Rydbo. Another huge map at 1:15000. Lots of intricate contour detail and (as it turns out) limited visibility/runnability in places. I drew a medium length course (8.3km, 16 controls) through the most intricate stuff. Ran at a relaxed pace to keep it a physically easy workout&slower near the end due to some bathroom needs. A few felorientering problems drifting off during the leg where it was green or especially rough. 86 minutes, ahr: 164.
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Wednesday Jun 27 |
| Running (trail) 20:00 [2] 2.73 mi (7:19 / mi) | |
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| jogging to/from the park. ahr:145 |
| X-Training (gympa) 45:00 [2] | |
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| Ahr:135. pretty warm today. about 100 women and maybe 15 other guys present. Something like aerobics to the eurobeat--pretty fun actually (though uncoordinated at first..at least its harder to embarass myself these days anyway), and I could feel both upper and lower-body weakness doing some of the exercises. Ive been meaning to start some circuit training, as I think Im not very fit in the total-body sense, and it would probably reduce my risk of injury. The competition season is not really the time to introduce a lot of new exercises however, so Ill wait until august before starting anything serious. or maybe then Ill just forget about it again...a problem with O in the US is that there isn't really a competition or off season (except maybe february), championship meets are scheduled pretty much whenever, and you have to decide which a-meets aren't as important in order to have any kind of buildup period in your annual training plan. |
Tuesday Jun 26 |
| Note | |
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| &Ive noticed many times before that the tougher the forest, the larger the gap between the elite and (for example) the Americans. Yes, they are stronger runners, but that is only part of it. Their orienteering technique is SO much better, and its difficult to understand exactly how thats important, especially in American terrain (even the stuff we think is technical). The more difficult the terrain, the more energy I have to spend thinking about where to put my feet or how the hell Im going to get up/down this 10m cliff, which naturally takes away from the time I have to do things like read the map, plan ahead, read the clues etc. The elite have practiced all their orienteering techniques and tactics to such an extent that they are still quick and accurate even under such stress in crazy terrain. I on the other hand, have to either stop and think, or if Im too tired, start falling, get stupid, and then lost. It seems like the most important thing is to not forget/abandon your careful control-finding techniques (attackpoints, etc) and hope that you will just run into the control (even though that may work for a while-and in some terrains for a whole run). Of course it makes sense that practice practice practice is the only way to develop the elite instincts. (except maybe hypnosis --a joke, but now that I think about it, the elite almost universally practice relaxation and visualization techniques)
with regards to bad races, I find that the best way to recover from one or more is to generalize your problems e.g. I was tired, maybe think about what can be done to help, and then put them behind you. Its no good to go out next time and think: I better not screw this race up like last time. (just telling boris this also) Or even Im not going to mess up any of these controls. You have to instead think positively about the techniques that will allow you to find the controls easily. Only then will you be focusing on whats most important-solid orienteering. I started trying to think this way early in the spring (karen w suggested), and it really helps.
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| Orienteering (terrain run) 36:20 [2] *** 4.0 mi (9:05 / mi) | |
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| Continuing the easy week. easy running through the forest at djurgården/lappis. Everything still wet from the afternoon showers. Ahr:150.
ran into Mattias just as we were almost done, he suggested that we come to some outdoor calisthenics session in Haga park tomorrow. there will be lots of girls there apparently. |
Monday Jun 25 |
| Note | |
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| nothing today. 6 hr train ride back from Oslo. Im tempted to say that (though fun) this weekend was mostly a waste of time and money, but weve definately learned _something_ from our poor performances. haven't had enough time to think about it yet though... |
Sunday Jun 24 |
| Running 10:00 [3] 1.25 mi (7:59 / mi) | |
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| feeling dead already |
| Orienteering race (race) 1:04:00 [4] *** 6 km (10:40 / km) | |
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| NOF relay. 6km, 305m climb. 64mins. I ran second (and last) leg after boris. Not recovered from yesterday yet; more like still totally depleted. Just as hot today also. Sucking it up climbing the hills, but I expected something like that after continually fighting the urge to lay down during the warm-up. The terrain itself wasnt as bad, but I was too tired to be anything but useless. Fortunately I had already scheduled the next week to be an easy one. |
Saturday Jun 23 |
| Running (warmup) 15:00 [3] 1.88 mi (7:57 / mi) | |
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| hot today |
| Orienteering race (race) 1:50:00 [4] *** 9.5 km (11:35 / km) | |
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| NOF classic. H21-AL, 9.5km, about 520m climb. ugh. 110mins (11:26/km, 26th/~50) really steep and physically tough terrain, in many places totally impassable due to huge cliffs. Winning time was 9:10/km. It was pretty hot, and I was totally exhausted by the midpoint of the course (the crappiest part) which led to a lot of walking/crawling and by far the largest errors of the year: 5mins+2mins, both on hillsides of limited visibility. In retrospect, Im glad not to have run in the WRE class, which was 12km. |
Friday Jun 22 |
| Running (warmup) 15:00 [3] 1.88 mi (7:57 / mi) | |
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| Orienteering race (race) 31:50 [4] *** 4.2 km (7:35 / km) | |
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| NOF short day. 4.2k, 150m climb, lots and lots of trails. A few short bobbles running past controls, and one big (1min) at the second to last control, within sight of the finish (and I was laughing about that a month ago). A short leg, I ran on a bad bearing, then got confused in a dense trail network. Lost 3 places there, for 6th overall. 31:50 (7:30/km) we only got control descriptions on the map, it was difficult to read them there as fast as necessary in the short format (delayed at least once by reading the wrong code). |
Thursday Jun 21 |
| Note | |
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| no training today. Travel to Oslo on the way to the Norwegian o-festival. Crashed at the Hott-Johansens. |
Wednesday Jun 20 |
| Orienteering (control picking) 46:00 [3] *** 4.85 km (9:29 / km) | |
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| nice weather again today. Made some arrangements for our travel to Norway tomorrow. Headed south on the Pendeltåg to a really nice map called Flemingsberg. Mostly open forest and bare rock on shallow hills with lots of marshes. Reminds me of the north part of WOC training map 8 (Siitama), except in finland the bare rock is actually mapped. Boris drew a control-picking course (4.85k, 29 controls) that we both did separately. I ran at a relaxed fine orienteering pace, and did it in 46 mins. Lingered at some controls to make sure I was in the right spot, and ran past one towards the end for a mistake of maybe 40 seconds. Otherwise I felt very confident reading the map and spiking the controls. Much better than Monday. Ahr:160. |
| Running (trail) 10:00 [3] 1.25 mi (7:59 / mi) | |
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| some running to/from the ends of the course. |
Tuesday Jun 19 |
| Running (warmup/cooldown) 30:00 [3] 4.0 mi (7:30 / mi) | |
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| its raining today, don't really want to go out to the forest. track workout at the olympic (1912) stadium instead. |
| Running (intervals) 15:43 [5] 3.0 mi (5:13 / mi) | |
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| 4x1200m on the track, while boris does a 5k trial. nice and cool, so I felt pretty good. 3:30 jogging rest between intervals. (split, end-hr, recovery-hr)
3:58, 174, 116
3:53, 177, 121
3:54, 178, 122
3:54, 177, 110 |
Monday Jun 18 |
| Orienteering 1:05:00 [2] *** 6.4 km (10:09 / km) | |
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| ahr:148. I drew some controls, and we took turns leading each leg with a 30-60s head start. Some errors today; not concentrating so well. Two specific problems I noticed were trouble following a bearing and some difficulty reading the map on the run. Both of these have become harder due to the rough nature of local terrainflat looking land is never really flat, there are always a million little ups and downs or rocks/faces. I think it will just take a while to get used to running through it again. |
Saturday Jun 16 |
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| Event: Jukola
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| Orienteering race (race) 1:29:00 [4] *** 12 km (7:25 / km) | |
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| jukola! I ran the first leg, it was quite a lot of fun. didn't need the headlamp at all, it was never really dark. the map was pretty rough, with either big flat marshy areas or insanely complex rocky parts. got messed up not paying attention (I knew there must have been some reason they gave me a map) on some forks. maybe a few minutes lost that way. also a lot of problems in the beginning with just too many people in the way! ahr:175
we actually got a few more people on our team (no the lipatov family was not actually present). 1. me, 2. martin terry (RSA/lidingö), 3. boris 4. sandy hott-johansen (CAN), 5. natasha libo (RUS). was seriously thinking about going back out on the sixth leg, but it was too cold (maybe 40F) in the morning, and the choice between freezing marshes and the sauna was an easy one.
pictures tommorrow. (tuesday) |
Friday Jun 15 |
| Rollerblading 1:00:00 [3] | |
| shoes: RB original wheels |
| ahr:147. on the bike path to the far end of lidingö. |
Thursday Jun 14 |
| Running 1:00:00 [3] 8.0 mi (7:30 / mi) | |
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| running to/from djurgården to help at a trail race. back the long way through skansen. actually about half orienteering. |
| Orienteering (night) 47:00 [2] *** 1.7 km (27:39 / km) | |
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| some wandering about a nearby map to test out our borrowed headlamps and night-o skills (actually lack thereof) |
Wednesday Jun 13 |
| Running (warmup/cooldown) 25:00 [3] 3.33 mi (7:30 / mi) | |
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| Orienteering race (race) 15:40 [5] *** 2.85 km (5:30 / km) | |
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| stockholm city cup. some time lost on #1 (retarded route choice +25s) and #5 (aborted route choice +45s). lots of fun though...good practice for staying calm (need more practice). see results, etc at http://www.stockholmcitycup.a.se |
Tuesday Jun 12 |
| Note | |
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| when I get my act together I'll put up a site with lots more details about what I'm up to and photos, I just have to find a place to plug in the laptop |
| Running 1:05:49 [3] 9.4 mi (7:00 / mi) | |
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| running with mattias and students at lappis. ahr:159 |
Monday Jun 11 |
| Orienteering (terrrain run) 1:00:00 [4] *** 6.5 km (9:14 / km) | |
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| running around to various places in lill-jansskogen with boris, mattias, carl fey and his fiance natasha (a very fast russian) |
Saturday Jun 9 |
| Running 17:00 [2] 2.2 mi (7:43 / mi) | |
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| running to the store for some last-minute equipment needs. |
| Note | |
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| got some additional workout moving all of my stuff into storage. been quite dehydrated from the heat the last two days. but the forecast is better... stockholm: partly cloudy, high 65. leaving tomorrow, not packed yet. |
Friday Jun 8 |
| Note | |
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| graduated today. it was long, hot, and boring. too busy packing and celebrating for any training. I think I will make this my easy week instead of next week. |
Thursday Jun 7 |
| Note | |
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| found a copy of my course from the 97 combat village us-champs while cleaning out the apartment. interesting to look at the routes and errors (of which there were many). this was my first orienteering for 3 months, and while I was in good physical shape (better than presently) from cross-country, I ran nearly twice the time/km of this year at the intercollegiates. I don't remember the course well (likely because I wasn't paying attention in the forest), though I remember my route and comments were published in an o/na for the world to see. the 4 of 12 controls I appear to have taken clean-ish-ly I believe were due to pure luck. I remember feeling like it was very difficult to run and read the map at the same time. I didn't do anything in particular to assure that I would find the controls, so its no wonder I missed so many. I made many parallel errors, despite some very obvious clues that I was in a particular place.
It would be interesting to find my comments, to see what I was doing exactly. something I have just started doing (twice now) in addition to drawing my route, is to highlight on a photocopy all the features I correctly identified during the run. it becomes immediately apparent where I knew my exact location, where I was reading more detail, etc. also interesting from a comparison perspective, daddy-o and I both did this after running at patuxent. while we used different features sometimes, he said I had seen on average at least one or two more each leg, and usually while getting close to the control (which he more often missed). |
Wednesday Jun 6 |
| Running (warmup/cooldown) 35:00 [3] 4.67 mi (7:29 / mi) | |
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| (rhr:48) feeling ok on the warmup, not so good (unusually worn out) on the cooldown. maybe a rest day tomorrow. |
| Running (intervals) 11:58 [5] 2.25 mi (5:18 / mi) | |
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| 1200s with boris, who did 800s. feeling generally tired (and in retrospect, dehydrated) on the work bouts. quite warm today.
(split, end-hr, recovery-hr)
3:57, 180, 123
4:00, 183, 128
4:01, 183, 139
equal recovery time, but not much jogging. |
Tuesday Jun 5 |
| Running 42:42 [3] 5.9 mi (7:14 / mi) | |
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| run by the river w/ boris. getting hot again here. knee feeling funny (tight maybe) since the quad/hamstring work on sunday (which is why I haven't done any since feb) not a problem on the run though. feeling generally very crappy starting an hour or so afterwards..not hungry etc. a little better after laying down for a while. planning intervals tomorrow, but only if I feel good.
ahr:158 |
Monday Jun 4 |
| Running 24:11 [3] 3.3 mi (7:19 / mi) | |
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| back in boston. feeling worn down from yesterday, and sluggish from an afternoon nap. ahr:149 |
Sunday Jun 3 |
| Orienteering (terrain run) 1:59:00 [2] *** 9.5 km (12:32 / km) | |
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| running at patuxent with daddy-o. we drew some circles and just ran around to them. one big detour due to beavers flooding a wide area. got some compass/pacing practice on two long bingo-legs near the end, across a square km of greenish contourless featureless forest. includes some time hiding at the control features...at least once we were both waiting for each other, hiding in different places (someone in the wrong spot...not me;) ahr:138 |
| Strength 15:00 [3] | |
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| i'm weak... |
Saturday Jun 2 |
| Running (trail) 43:10 [3] 6.0 mi (7:11 / mi) | |
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| trail "race" at gunpowder sp with daddy-o, a pretty nice area but very muddy from recent rain. I took along his red course from the michigan us-champs..the hardest thing to see while running is the contour tags. comments from the runners: "ah, the smart ones bring the map along!" (there was also a map of the trail route) and "I'm just glad I didn't hurt myself!"
forgot the polar strap this morning. |
Friday Jun 1 |
| Orienteering 1:17:00 [2] *** 6 km (12:50 / km) | |
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| running around orange grove in the rain with eddie and daddy-o, and they made me find the infamous well control. pauses at various features waiting for people to catch up (or people waiting for me to relocate and catch up). steep, slippery, and dark-ish so not running that fast. ahr:141 |