Training Archive: BorisGrIn the 31 days ending 2005-08-31:
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| M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wednesday Aug 31 | ||
| Biking 20:00 [2] | |
| To class, from downtown | ||
Tuesday Aug 30 | ||
| Running 20:00 [2]2.35 mi (8:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| Warm-up | ||
| Orienteering race 1:21:14 [4]9.2 km (8:50 / km) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| The club classic champs on the club's home map.
A big improvement over Sunday. Started slow, careful, and the map was actually making sense! Ended up running a steady race with good flow - not particularly fast - but making just one 1.5 minute error and a couple of hesitations until the end when i lost another 1.5 minutes on a trail leg! Still, quite satisfied with the race (21 minutes behind Mats Troeng, 13 minutes behind Lars, 10 minutes behind Bjorn.... as opposed to 49, 40, and 30 behind on Sunday). So thanks to all for the words of encouragement that i got - hopefully, not all is lost! Unfortunately, the tendons or ligaments or whatever else is on the front of a shin seem to be really hurting whenever i walk or run. Anyone know what that may be? I hope it goes away soon, but it's worrying me. | ||
| C • 13 | ||
Monday Aug 29 | ||
| Note | |
| One thing i noticed yesterday, and i wonder if anyone can comment on this: it seems very normal and acceptable here in Sweden to quit when you are having a bad race. Judging from the splits and from talking to people, several good runners who got off to bad starts just quit, and this seems fine. For me, quitting a race is one of the most shameful things i can do - i have done it almost only in cases of injury or an extreme situation (US Champs at Fallen Leaf). Why is it that here it seems more acceptable than finishing with a bad result? | ||
| C • You asked, we answer 3 | ||
| Running 28:00 [2]3.61 mi (7:45 / mi) | |
| shoes: Nike Pegasus '05 | ||
| Running from home to the clubhouse and back. | ||
| Strength 1:00:00 [1] | |
| Circuit training at the clubhouse plus a few minutes of sit-ups at home while explaining some linear algebra to Salman.
I thought about going for a map run in the morning but decided to take it a bit easier this week than last as i am fighting off a cold and getting some blisters from running in the same shoes over and over. The rest of my stuff (packed in two boxes) just got to Mattias Berggrund's apartment in Stockholm, so i'll go visit him soon and retrieve the stuff. | ||
Sunday Aug 28 | ||
| Running 15:00 [2]1.76 mi (8:31 / mi) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| Warm-up, then cool-down with Bjorn. | ||
| C • We are The Champions! 1 | ||
| Orienteering race 2:06:14 [3]12.7 km (9:56 / km) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| Uppland Classic DIstance Champs.
An ebarrassment. One of these days when you are out on the course asking yourself "Why am i here?" and "What am i doing in this sport?" I felt like i had never orienteered before. There were times when i am certain i could have walked the leg with a map and compass and still screwed it up. This was an exceptionally disappointing day for me - i can't remember the last time i was 49 minutes behind the winner. I know that i shouldn't expect improvement immediately or even soon, but this was the kind of performance worthy a complete beginner. I made somewhere around 25 minutes of mistakes, all over the course. There were moments when i simply could not read the map or correlate it with the terrain. It's funny - you are running along, on a beautiful day, fantastic terrain, great technical course. And you just suck. Obviously, i will put this behind me and move on, but this is very reminiscent of some runs i had in the beginning of the summer of 2001, when Kenny and i lived in Stockholm for two months. We went to the Norwegian O-Festival, and i was just slaughtered. So it seems i have made little or no progress in my orienteering in four years. Well, let's hope this is the low point, and it gets better from here. Ok, enough moping. After the race, went for a jog with Bjorn, who is starting to think i speak way more Swedish than i do. So we ended up having a discussion about following at WOC, of which i uynderstood maybe 1/4. Still, it's cool that people are nice and patient enough to speak Swedish to me! Also, we checked out some headlamps. They are expensive!!!! A good lamp, with battery and all, costs like 300 bucks! Should i buy one anyway? Anyone know any places i can get them cheap or used? Also, one of the guys in my club is moving to Tennessee in October for two years. Anybody know of any orienteering in Tennessee? The club classic champs are tomorrow, followed by a club barbecue. Goal: finish before the barbecue ends. | ||
| C • 4 | ||
Saturday Aug 27 | ||
| Note | |
| Day off today, I think. Time to lick my wounds before tomorrow's district classic champs. | ||
| Soccer 1:00:00 [1] | |
| Ok, so it wasn't quite a rest day. But i tried, i promise! I was sitting quietly, enjoying a barbecue, talking to some random finns, germans, and aussies, when someone yells out "we need one more for a game of football!" When no one responded, i had to do it... It was lots of fun - playing soccer in sweden with a bunch of brits, poles, germans, italians, and swedes! And I got Salman (my roommate) to try playing for the first time ever. (I also got him to try a hot dog for the first time. Orienteering is next on the list. Then beer.) | ||
Friday Aug 26 | ||
| Orienteering 1:24:37 [2]8.46 km (10:00 / km) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| Decided to check out the clubhouse map (on which the club classic champs will be on tuesday) for the first time in the morning. About 12 minutes jogging to get on the map, then - heaven! Such awesome terrain close to home - it's just unbelievable! Technical, classic swedish terrain, with tiny little marshes and hills and bare rock everywhere. Jogged or walked a few technical controls to try to remember how to read a Swedish map. On the way back, ran through some pastures with herds of horses grazing on them, just fifteen minutes from my place. This is cool!!
Stopped by the clubhouse, checked out the big headlamp that Lars Magnusson left for me to borrow for tonight's night-O champs. I seem to still be registered for H21, which is madness. Will try to switch to an open class. All i want to do is jog around with a headlamp and try not to get lost too badly. | ||
| C • This is too good 3 | ||
| Running 15:00 [2]1.76 mi (8:31 / mi) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| Warm-up for the night-O and figuring out how to use Lars' lamp at the same time. | ||
| Orienteering race 36:23 [4]3.6 km (10:06 / km) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| Night-O District Champs. Lars registered me for H21, but I whimped out and switched to Öppen 5, having had minimal prior experience with night-O. (I think the last time i ran with a headlamp may have been the 2001 Jukola long night leg, when it was basically light after the first ten minutes of my run, the ten minutes which i spent totally lost.)
So my course was basically an orange-level course, which meant i could run really fast on the trails and then get lost as soon i got into the woods, which is basically what happened. I did spike a coupld of controls, but made mistakes on a whole bunch of others, losing like 7-8 minutes over the whole course, but avoiding disaster, which is all i was hoping for. One type of mistake that kept happening was one i rarely make during the day: screwing up AFTER having hit your attackpoint right on. I think this just means my fine navigation skills need some work. Or does someone have better theories? All in all, this was really fun. It was a nice cool night, beautiful starlit sky, and lots of headlamps flickering all over the woods. I only managed a couple of faceplants, too. A couple more realizations about OK Linne. First of all, this club is stacked! These were the night-O district champs, and the first 6 men in H21 were from our club, and that's without Jan Troeng or Lars. Lina won D21, and Oskar, the kid who i was paired for intervals with, easily won H16 although his lamp went out two-thirds of the way through the course. These guys will have a killer Tiomila team! Also, as i am starting to get to know people a bit, everyone is separated into people who i speak english to and those i speak swedish to. I am not sure how that happened, but there is a very clear divide. And, as Spike predicted in his blog, i have people coming to me after the race (Bjorn, Oskar, Lina, and some of the club's old folks) and asking "Hur gick det?" Hopefully i will soon be able to give a coherent answer... Oh, by the way, i was second in Öppen 5, three minutes back of the winner and just ahead of some girl... | ||
| C • 7 | ||
Thursday Aug 25 | ||
| Running 1:50:00 [3]18.5 km (5:57 / km) +600m 5:07 / km | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| No official club training today, so I met up with two of the faster girls in the club, Lina and Sofie (Lina having run the guys' course yesterday and beaten me by two minutes...) for a long run on the hilly intervals course from Tuesday. They were strong, especially Sofie, who is still a junior, I think.
20 minutes there, 2 laps of 35 minutes each (Mats Troeng has the course record at 22:30!) and 20 minutes back. Felt tired right from the start - maybe will take it easy tomorrow before the night champs. | ||
| C • when did you train last time for 10Hrs a week? 6 | ||
Janne's backbana in Uppsala - Splits | ||
Wednesday Aug 24 | ||
| Running 20:00 [2]2.35 mi (8:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| Warm-up and cool-down with Bjorn Olovsson and Thomas Stenstrom. | ||
| Orienteering race 31:01 [4]4.1 km (7:34 / km) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| My first race - OK Linne's middle distance club championships. 4.1km, no climb, 12 controls.
Two goals: not finish last, not make a fool of myself. 1 for 2. Right from the start, i, in my USA jersey, surrounded by Swedes clad in identical OK Linne suits, grabbed my map, ran two steps, tripped over a root and did a face plant. But i didn't finish last! I started cautiously, spiked the first control, sped up, and made a 5 minute mistake on the second one. Grrrr. Recovered eventually, caught a pack of 2 guys, dropped one of them, ran with another one (Bjorn) for a bunch of controls, and was pretty clean the rest of the way except for a bobble on 11. Pretty happy with not being last (see splits at http://www.oklinne.nu/documents/documents_open.php... ) but still a long way to go - the winner ran 22:30!!! The terrain is great, though, lots of detail, runnable forest, but i need to remember how to read the map at high speed after Japan... | ||
Tuesday Aug 23 | ||
| Running 38:04 [2]4.76 mi (7:59 / mi) | |
| shoes: Nike Pegasus '05 | ||
| Easy run north from Fyrishov to Robo in the morning. Sweden is a total opposite of Japan! It's not crowded, there is forest everywhere, and everyone seems to be out exercising. I love it!
Intervals tonight. I am scared. | ||
| C • 9 | ||
| Running 32:00 [2]3.76 mi (8:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| Running from the clubhouse to the interval workout and back (very, very tired on the way back - legs wobbling and so on). | ||
| Running 50:00 [5]6.25 mi (7:59 / mi) +600m 3:50 / km | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| Interval workout with OK Linne. Holy crap.
We found the one real hill in Uppsala, a long, linear very steep ridge along the river and ran the crap out of it. The guys drew a loop on the map and split everyone into pairs. I got Oskar, a 16 year-old up and coming junior, as my partner. The workout works like this: you start at the same time, one guy runs the interval, which involves running a steep donwhill, some flat, and then a steep uphill, while his partner jogs along the top of the ridge on the flat trail to the meeting point. At the end of his interval, the first guy tags the second guy and jogs to the next meeting point while the second guy runs the next interval. The intervals go over the course of a 5km loop, which is repeated twice so that each person runs every interval once. Except that Oskar started out way too fast and was dead by the end of the first loop, so i was all by myself for the second half. In fact, everyone started very fast, and i was really struggling on the hills towards the end. A very tough workout for me, but lots of funin the beginning when you have other pairs around you to race with. I also realized how much i suck at going downhill fast. After the workout, i realized that i'd only had a GU to eat the whole day and was totally out of energy. Some old folks at the club made me a couple of sandwiches to tide me over and i headed back to town hoping to find more substantial food. Unfortunately, everything was closed, and i ended up eating a pack of ballerina cookies and drinking a bottle of fanta. Yum. The club champs in middle distance are tomorrow. Awesome. | ||
| C • 7 | ||
Monday Aug 22 | ||
| Strength 1:00:00 [3] | |
| Strength training with OK Linne at the clubhouse. Yes, i managed to get in touch with OK Linne and get to my first training with them - a pretty intense cicuit workout set to american pop music and working both upper and lower body. The club members are very friendly and welcoming and excited by the tiny little bit of Swedish i can manage. I sat through a club meeting afterwards, which seemed much like a club meeting of any o-club anywhere, right down to the complaints that the club t-shirt sizes were all too big. :) | ||
Sunday Aug 21 | ||
| Running 38:43 [2]4.84 mi (7:59 / mi) | |
| shoes: Nike Pegasus '05 | ||
| Evening run north of Uppsala. Exploring the land and just trying to get my legs moving. | ||
Saturday Aug 20 | ||
| Running 56:32 [3]7.5 mi (7:32 / mi) | |
| shoes: Nike Pegasus '05 | ||
| One last run with goats and Kat (goatess) in Forest Park. Mostly ran horse loops with Sergei Zhyk (8:35, 8:19, 8:04, 7:57, 7:51). Greg and Kat ran a bit behind, and Sergei Rybachuk and Valeriy stayed at home with my parents, nursing injuries and telling stories of the old country.
I leave for the airport in 4.5 hours. Time to pack. | ||
| C • Wahoo Sweden! 3 | ||
Thursday Aug 18 | ||
| Running 38:03 [2]4.6 mi (8:15 / mi) | |
| shoes: Montrail Trail Shoes | ||
| Easy run in Forest Park with Kat to try to get over jet-lag and get my legs moving again.
Sleep amounts in the last five days, first to last: 3.5, 1.5, 10.0, 1.0, 6.5. I'll update this for a while as i move to Sweden and try to get over jet-lag again on sunday morning... | ||
| Strength 15:00 [1] | |
| Sit-ups and dips after running. | ||
Tuesday Aug 16 | ||
| Hiking 5:00:00 [1] | |
| Climbing Mt.Fuji with Pam, Lieke, Sam, Erin, Pavlina, and Dan. Normally 5 hours of hiking counts as an hour of training or so, but this felt like real work. Climbing at night in the cold and stumbling all the time was an interesting experience, but the gorgeous views (umm, after the sun came up...), the sunrise and just having done it made it worth it.
One amusing moment was running into the New Zealand O-team on top of the mountain, walking around with a compass and asking from which direction the sun rose in the northern hemisphere! :) | ||
| C • Sunrises 10 | ||
Sunday Aug 14 | ||
| Running 20:00 [2]2.5 mi (7:59 / mi) | |
| shoes: VJ - Studs | ||
| Warm-up for the relay. | ||
| Orienteering race 1:04:30 [4]6.7 km (9:38 / km) +450m 7:12 / km | |
| shoes: VJ - Studs | ||
| Relay, leg 2. Holy crap. This was perhaps the worst I've ever felt during a non-extreme (Highlander, Rogaine, etc) race. The heat got to me from the start, and I felt awful immediately. As soon i realized that i wasn't going to beat anyone with speed, i decided to just plod along, push when i could, and not make mistakes. That mostly worked, though i was moving very slow. I kept seeing the spanish guy, who would run ahead, make a mistake, and reappear at some random spot. I managed to stay pretty clean until the second to last control, when i began to bonk and made a stupid parallel error. Was happy not to be passed by Nick Duca and impressed with Eric's leadoff leg. I hope that my next WOC relay is less disappointing for myself and my teammates, but it was an incredible experience nonetheless. More comments in a little bit on my overall WOC. | ||
Saturday Aug 13 | ||
| Running 55:00 [2]7.1 mi (7:45 / mi) | |
| shoes: Nike Pegasus '05 | ||
| Nice easy run with Eric, Tom, William, and my friend Jesse, who was visiting for the day. We ran a little on the model map, with lots of Japanese people running a relay past us. | ||
Thursday Aug 11 | ||
| Orienteering race 50:36 [3]4.7 km (10:46 / km) +300m 8:10 / km | |
| shoes: VJ - Studs | ||
| Middle B-final. I was not into it mentally right from the start, and after decent splits on 1and 2, blew the third control (a parallel error coming down off a ridge onto the wrong spur) and was caught and passed by Mike Smith who started 4 minutes after me. After that i mostly plodded along and made a couple more mistake along the way. Very unhappy with myself. This won't happen again in a world champs - it seems that mental focus (which i start working on the night before a race) is tremendously important to me. i have to make it more automatic. | ||
| C • Mental Focus 5 | ||
| Running 20:00 [2]2.5 mi (7:59 / mi) | |
| shoes: VJ - Studs | ||
| Warm-up | ||
Wednesday Aug 10 | ||
| Orienteering race 19:22 [5]2.1 km (9:13 / km) +150m 6:48 / km | |
| shoes: VJ - Studs | ||
| WOC Sprint qualifier. An atypical sprint race, with mostly green woods, longish legs, and quite technical orienteering. I caught Wil Smith at the end of the long first leg, and was more or less with him the rest of the way, though we kept taking different route choices (mostly stupid ones for me) and meeting up again. A couple of bobbles and route choice errors probably cost me a spot in the finals, but i was still happy with the race (hey, i beat the norwegian :) and consider this my best WOC result so far. On to the relay! | ||
| C • Good job! 2 | ||
| Running 30:00 [2]3.75 mi (7:59 / mi) | |
| shoes: VJ - Studs | ||
| Nice long warm-up | ||
Tuesday Aug 9 | ||
| Orienteering 55:00 [2]5.5 km (10:00 / km) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| Sprint model event | ||
Sunday Aug 7 | ||
| Orienteering race 36:31 [5]3.8 km (9:37 / km) +320m 6:46 / km | |
| shoes: VJ - Studs | ||
| WOC middle qualifier. Expecting a technical race, as middle races tend to be, i started cautiously and kept a pretty constant pace throughout the race, with one mistake of a bit less than a minute and a couple of bobbles. I think that was not the right strategy, as the course was technically very easy and an aggressive approach, like the one Dan attempted, would have been the way to go. Too bad, but great runs by Sandy, Erin, and Sam!!!! Go north america! (Also, way to go team CSU in the relay champs!!!)
How did the Goats do? | ||
| C • 3 | ||
| Running 20:00 [2]2.5 mi (7:59 / mi) | |
| shoes: VJ - Studs | ||
| Warm-up | ||
Friday Aug 5 | ||
| Orienteering 51:21 [3]4.28 km (12:00 / km) | |
| shoes: VJ - Studs | ||
| Training run on Tashiro, where the WRE was last year. Hot, hilly - what else is new? Now, one day of rest, and then - go time!!! Getting excited. | ||
| C • 3 | ||
Thursday Aug 4 | ||
| Note | |
| Day off. | ||
Wednesday Aug 3 | ||
| Running 20:00 [2]2.35 mi (8:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: VJ - Studs | ||
| Warm-up and cool-down at the model event. | ||
| Orienteering 22:06 [4]2.5 km (8:50 / km) +160m 6:42 / km | |
| shoes: VJ - Studs | ||
| Model sprint at WOC - an almost-race-pace effort. Fun course, lots of route choice (around on trail or straight through hills?). It seems to be that around on trail was the better choice most times. I made a sizeable mistake early and then slowed down a bit to a comfortable pace and was smooth and pretty accurate the rest of the way. An enjoyable course, to be sure - some fast woods running, with trail options and a few very slow uphills through crap. | ||
| C • I'm jealous 4 | ||
Tuesday Aug 2 | ||
| Orienteering 1:25:35 [3] | |
| Running ahead and setting streamers on a very steep, thicker area close to our hostel. It was steep enough at times where i was going up on all fours, hanging from various branches and such. We finished at a lvender farm, which was pretty cool to see - lots of lavenders in a big field.... | ||
| C • The GOATs are going to Relays in CO. 4 | ||
| Soccer 1:00:00 [2] | |
| Playing soccer with local high school kids after the training. Lots of fun, as we could communicate only with thumbs up andý@smiles. Good times. | ||
Monday Aug 1 | ||
| Orienteering 1:32:10 [2]7.68 km (12:00 / km) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| Training at Tsukude. Lots of fun, lots of contours, lots of weird cicadas in the woods flying into you. No spiders though. | ||
| C • how is climat? 6 | ||