Training Archive: BorisGrIn the 31 days ending 2005-10-31:
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| 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 | H | F | S | S | M | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Monday Oct 31 | ||
| Biking 20:00 [2] | |
| To/from class. After much debate with myself, decided to take the day off and stick to the plan of making the first few days of this week easy. | ||
Sunday Oct 30 | ||
| Orienteering 49:08 [2]9.51 km (5:10 / km) | |
| shoes: Montrail Trail Shoes | ||
| A very easy-pace line-O on Stadsskogen, mostly on trails. My friend Axel came along.
This is the beginning of a few easy days, followed by the training camp in Denmark. | ||
| Running 6:00 [5] | |
| Strides after the run to shake up the legs a bit | ||
| Strength 15:00 [1] | |
| The usual crunches, push-ups, dips after running | ||
Saturday Oct 29 | ||
| Biking 30:00 [2] | |
| To school (yes, on saturday, for 6 hours of class...), to Kantorsgatan for soccer, then home | ||
| C • Why? 2 | ||
| Soccer 2:00:00 [3] | |
| The warmest day we've had in weeks: 10F. Playing in shorts, a t-shirt, and the soccer cleats my awesome college roommates (2 attackpointers (1 ex) and a Big Monkey) got me years ago! Fun, intense game. | ||
| C • 4 | ||
Friday Oct 28 | ||
| Biking 20:00 [2] | |
| To/from school. Much needed day off today. | ||
Thursday Oct 27 | ||
| Biking 35:00 [2] | |
| After picking up the bike with a new tire from the bike shop, biked home, then almost immediately to KG, then home after training, then to the MIC to work on my compsci project with partner Anders after dinner (legs feeling absolutely trashed), and then home from Anders' place at 3am after a few beers to celebrate finishig the project. | ||
| Orienteering 48:45 [3]4.7 km (10:22 / km) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| We drove out to the SW corner of Nasten to do a training course in the crappiest woods I've seen in Sweden yet. Lots of deadfall, clear-cut areas, and unpleasant marshes with rather cold water. Wasn't having any fun in the beginning, but finally got going and kept pace with Mats for a couple of controls, which feels cool. Absolutely frozen by the end, though. The course did go through a field of rather bewildered-looking sheep who greeted me with intense silent staring and sent me off with loud baaaaaahing. | ||
| C • They must have heard about you from their American cousins. 5 | ||
| Running 41:30 [3]5.93 mi (7:00 / mi) | |
| shoes: Nike Pegasus '05 | ||
| After the O-training, I thought about waiting for the 6pm night trail run, but instead decided to run back from the finish of the training to the clubhouse with Lina Akesson, while our stuff rode home in the club car. We ran quite quickly to get warm, which took at least 25 minutes or so. | ||
Wednesday Oct 26 | ||
| Biking 55:00 [2] | |
| Biking all over the place: to the BMC, to MIC, back home, to Kantorsgatan for soccer, back home, halfway to KG until my tire blew. Ran the rest of the way. Then to the MIC again on Salman's bike. Gotta go retrieve my bike tomorrow morning and see if I can get the stupid tire patched. | ||
| Soccer 50:00 [3] | |
| Soccer in the wind and rain. Lots of fun, playing 2 against 3 the whole time, lots of running, lots of goals. | ||
| Orienteering 54:23 [2] | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| Night-O training somewhere very close to Arlanda airport. Took it easy, hoping to actually find controls this time, unlike last week. More or less succeeded, but still had major problems, even on a not-so-technical map. So far, the most fun night-O i've run was the Linne club champs Kat and I ran together. | ||
| C • Night-O nightmare 4 | ||
Tuesday Oct 25 | ||
| Biking 16:00 [2] | |
| To/from BMC for the first class of the 2nd period. Yup, classes started again the day after the last exam from the first period and before my project from first period is due... | ||
| Running 42:55 [2]5.05 mi (8:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: Nike Pegasus '05 | ||
| Running to the clubhouse in the dark and in the rain for intervals, running to Stadsskogen for intervals, jogging between intervals, and then crawling back home after intervals. | ||
| Running 18:00 [5]3.6 mi (4:59 / mi) | |
| shoes: Nike Pegasus '05 | ||
| Tuesday night intervals in the rain on a lit trail in Stadsskogen. The idea was 90 seconds hard, 45 seconds rest. We were told to do that 12-20 times. The intervals here aren't at a controlled pace, but close to all out on each one, so everyone was hurting almost immediately. I lasted 12 of these with the back of the lead pack (Lars, Bjorn, Josef Nordlund, and a few others) and felt completely spent after. A few others stopped after 12, but a hardcore pack led by Jan and Mats kept going. Now I am sitting at home feeling guilty for not finishing a workout, but I am also not sure if it would have been worth it to finish and then not be able to walk tomorrow.... Either way, pretty cool to be running full speed through puddles in the dark! | ||
| C • 3 | ||
Monday Oct 24 | ||
| Biking 20:00 [2] | |
| To/from exam in the morning - brrrrrr! | ||
| Running 46:37 [3]6.22 mi (7:29 / mi) | |
| shoes: Montrail Trail Shoes | ||
| Easyish run in Stadsskogen. Legs pretty stiff, but the weather was the great - sunny and chilly, so I had fun! Ran into Jan Troeng and Tomas Stenstrom at the end. | ||
| Strength 20:00 [1] | |
| Sit-ups, dips, push-ups, and some strength exercises from the Linne routine. | ||
| C • Hit counter 6 | ||
Sunday Oct 23 | ||
| Orienteering 2:26:19 [2]19.51 km (7:30 / km) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| Long morning run on Nasten with Lars. We went all over the map, including some really crappy areas, as well as some beautiful Swedish forest you picture when you have orienteering dreams. We were taking turns leading, and i was doing ok when reading every feature, but had problems when i wanted to just take a bearing and go - i kept going off the straight line. Definitely something to work on.
A fun run, despite the cold: +1C . The only thing that would make it better is if Kat were here to make post-workout pancakes with me when i got home. | ||
| C • 20 | ||
Saturday Oct 22 | ||
| Biking 20:00 [2] | |
| To KG/ from KG in the rain | ||
| Running 15:00 [2]1.88 mi (7:57 / mi) | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| "Warm-up" in the downpour at Oktoberracet | ||
| Orienteering race 32:30 [4]*** 4.7 km (6:55 / km) | |
| 19c shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| Oktoberracet middle distance at Enkoping, at the same military base where I won the sprint a month ago. Running H21, as my lack of Swedish ranking means I don't qualify for elite.
In the nonstop downpour, I learned what a wonderful thing a team tent is!! Late start, by then everything was muddy and the trails resembled streams. Fun, fast course with lots of changes of direction. Felt great physically, probably the first time I was aggressive through the woods in a Swedish race, so that made me happy. As a result, of course, I made some frustrating mistakes - 0:15, 0:45, 1:00, 1:00, 0:15, 0:15 ; so about 3:30 total. The last mistake was on a control set in a small marsh in the middle of a training field for Swedish troops, with black cardboard 'enemies' sprinkled throughout - a bizarre scene... I ended up 4th (out of 40 or so), a bit less than 5 minutes back of Pavlo Ushkvarok, a really fast guy on the Ukrainian team who should be running elite. In H21E, Jan Troeng beat older brother Mats for the win by 2 seconds. Good day for the club. After arriving back at KG, I was convinced to join everyone in the sauna for a round of relaxing, steaming, and singing Swedish drinking songs while looking over route choices from today until the maps became too hot. A fun experience, hopefully the first of many! Now - time to study for another exam on Monday... Today's splits: http://www.letro.se/okenen2/bilagor/b138OR2005_str... | ||
| C • 1 | ||
Friday Oct 21 | ||
| Biking 20:00 [2] | |
| To/from school. Day off. | ||
Thursday Oct 20 | ||
| Biking 35:00 [2] | |
| To/from school, to/from KG. | ||
| Running 1:43:32 [3]19.5 km (5:19 / km) | |
| shoes: Nike Pegasus '05 | ||
| Ok, now I am tired. This turned out to be a long, pretty easy (until the last couple of km when the mad dash began) distance run at night at with a large pack of Linneans that gradually dwindled to 7, led by Mats Troeng and Tomas Stenstrom. We had black-and-white maps which basically covered the southern half of Uppsala and ran this as a line-O, entirely on trails except for a part that went straight down and then back up the one ski hill we have here. It was a fun run, but I think my mileage for the week is getting a bit high. Off tomorrow, then middle distance race on Saturday. | ||
Wednesday Oct 19 | ||
| Biking 35:00 [2] | |
| To/from school, to/from KG | ||
| Orienteering 1:16:25 [3]6 km (12:44 / km) | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| I'd had so many good, fun workouts in a row that I knew a disaster was looming. This was it!
I managed to spike the first two controls before getting hopelessly lost. I relocated on a trail someplace and attacked a control from about 200m away only to end up.... back on the same trail. After finding one more control and making a pathetic attempt at another one, I gave up and decided to head home, only to lose track of the big fat trail i was running on... Being lost in the woods can be fun, but when it's dark and you are cold and wet, it stops being fun in a hurry. Well, at least this was Lunsen and a course where I would not have been surprised by a similar outcome in the daytime. I also found, however, that I do treat nighttime differently. It's not that I am afraid of the dark, but I think I do tend to breathe harder when I need to even when I am just jogging on a trail, which is a bit strange. I also go into panic mode muh sooner than I would during the day - if some features in the terrain don't match up with my perception of what they should look like, I start doing stupid things, running around, looking for big features and so on. I think at night, it's really important to trust yourself as you go along, and I have not developed that ability yet. Also, tonight showed that I have no sense of direction at night, so my eyes should be almost glued to the compass....Well, this was a learning experience, even a fun one in some perverse way, and I hope it gets better from here! Anyone has any helpful night-O technique tips? | ||
| C • tips... 9 | ||
| C • tips... 1 | ||
Tuesday Oct 18 | ||
| Biking 35:00 [2] | |
| To/from school (full speed from school, to make training in time), to/from KG (freezing on the way home - winter is here!) | ||
| Running 45:00 [2]5.29 mi (8:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: Nike Pegasus '05 | ||
| Jogging to and from Backbana for intervals, and jogging between intervals. | ||
| Running 18:10 [5]2.9 mi (6:16 / mi) | |
| shoes: Nike Pegasus '05 | ||
| Intervals on a cold night, with about 50 people or so attending, including all the stars - Mats, Jan, and company. Hill intervals, about 300m each with maybe 30m climb on a lit trail. We did 10 of them, and I managed to stay with the lead pack (behing Mats and Jan, but with Lars, Bjorn, Rob) for all of them, which i was happy with. On the jog back to the clubhouse, Mats suddenly says: "Ok, 4-minute interval starting in 5,4,3,....". That was unexpected, but kind of cool - forcing yourelf to push after you thought you were done is an interesting mental challenge. I felt pretty strong, actually.
Night-O at Lunsen tomorrow! I hope I find my way out by sunrise... Splits: 1:28.6 (rest was jogging back down - about 1:40) 1:26.0 1:22.1 1:23.2 1:24.9 1:23.4 1:23.6 1:25.9 1:24.2 1:24.2 4:03.5 | ||
| C • 1 | ||
Monday Oct 17 | ||
| Biking 18:00 [2] | |
| To/from class for my first exam - in algorithms. A 5-hour test! I think I suvrived. | ||
| C • Let us know 2 | ||
| Running 54:33 [3]7.27 mi (7:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| Wanted to do a line-O on Nasten, but ran out of daylight wasting a bit too much time after my exam. So instead i did a woods run at Stadsskogen. The goal was to try to keep running at the same speed no matter what kind of woods i went through, Mark Adams-style. It worked ok, and i tried to seek out the crappiest bits of forest,but I felt like I was always on the verge of getting an eye poked out or falling into a ditch or something. I did scare up some rabbits and find at least a half-dozen controls of various sizes in the woods. And it was really cold, too - fingers froze by the end of the run. | ||
| C • Cold now? 1 | ||
| Strength 15:00 [1] | |
| Sit-ups, push-ups, dips and stuff after running | ||
| C • Workload 3 | ||
Sunday Oct 16 | ||
| Biking 20:00 [2] | |
| To/from KG. | ||
| Running 2:05:46 [2]22.4 km (5:37 / km) | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| A long run that started with 8 of us and finished with just 4 (Bjorn, Jan Troeng, Henrik Lofas, and me). Before the run, Bjorn said it would be mostly trails, so I should wear running shoes, but with my experience of runs in Sweden so far, I chose O-shoes anyway. Sure enough, within 25 minutes, i had a stick poke me in the eye, another nearly deprive me of the ability to reproduce, and i was ankle-deep in a marsh. Trail run, eh? But it was lots of fun to run with a bunch of people, first through the forest for the first hour, then mostly on trails. We were moving slowly, easy conversation pace, and got to see a lot of parts of Uppsala I hadn't seen yet, including the IF Thor clubhouse, located in the middle of nowhere, and a ski jumping hill that looks like it was built in the 1920s. Pretty cool. | ||
| C • That couldn't happen... 1 | ||
Saturday Oct 15 | ||
| Running 1:03:22 [3]8.45 mi (7:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: Nike Pegasus '05 | ||
| An easy run in Stadsskogen on a beautiful chilly sunny day. Fall is in full swing in Uppsala, with tree leaves lighting up the sky in spectacular colors and the first morning frost appearing once in a while. The orienteering season here ends early, as the last race of the year is next week-end. After that, my plans include the training camp in Denmark organized by TYRTOM, followed by a low-key November (probably under 30 hours) to rest up a bit for the Linne winter training, which promises to be quite intense.
It's still exciting for me to go for a regular trail run in the local park and see controls everywhere, including one with a number and SI unit on it. Is someone holding O-meets in my home forest and not telling me??!! I mean, I am picturing the same happening in Forest Park in Queens, and I would be certain that Greg or Sergei were cheating on me with some other orienteers... | ||
| Strength 15:00 [1] | |
| Crunches, dips, ankle exercises after the run. | ||
| C • 3 | ||
Friday Oct 14 | ||
| Biking 20:00 [2] | |
| See, i really did take today off. | ||
Thursday Oct 13 | ||
| Biking 35:00 [2] | |
| To/from class, to/from KG. | ||
| Running 28:03 [2]3.4 mi (8:15 / mi) | |
| shoes: Montrail Trail Shoes | ||
| To/from Bjorn's Backbana with the club. Legs felt sore during the warm-up, but at least I wasn't exhausted after a two-hour nap in the afternoon. | ||
| Running 1:04:05 [3]13.5 km (4:45 / km) | |
| shoes: Montrail Trail Shoes | ||
| Bjorn's Backbana with a headlamp. It was my first time running this course, mostly on trails with a map telling you where to turn and so on, so it was a good experience for me reading a map on the run with a headlamp, even if the navigation was very simple. Of course, i still took a couple of wrong turns and added a few hundred meters to the distance. I took it relatively easy and ran with Oskar, but sped up after he stopped around the 10km mark. Finished strong and had a lot of fun running around the woods at night like a maniac. Will try this faster next time.
Afterwards, Lars interviewed me for the club website for about an hour. We'll see what comes out of that.... Probably will take a day off tomorrow. | ||
| C • 1 | ||
Wednesday Oct 12 | ||
| Biking 35:00 [2] | |
| To/from class, to/from Kantorsgatan | ||
| Soccer 1:00:00 [3] | |
| The weekly Wednesday night soccer game with the international students. Fun, but I felt tired at the end. I might take Friday off and take it pretty easy during the weekend - I've had a series of high-volume weeks, followed by a high-intensity week of racing. A break can't hurt, even though I find it almost impossible to skip Linne workouts if they are on the schedule, so I'm there tomorrow! | ||
Tuesday Oct 11 | ||
| Running 53:15 [1]6.66 mi (7:59 / mi) | |
| shoes: Nike Pegasus '05 | ||
| Running to and from the clubhouse, plus warming up and cooling down for the intervals. | ||
| Running 30:00 [5]5.45 mi (5:29 / mi) | |
| shoes: Nike Pegasus '05 | ||
| Road intervals with the club. About 50 people at the session. I felt strong and found that I could keep up with some of the faster guys in the club on the road, something I couldn't even dream of in the forest:
9 minutes hard, 2 off, 6 minutes hard, 2 off, 3 minutes hard, 1 off, 3 minutes hard, 1 off, 2 minutes hard, 1 off, 2 minutes hard, 1 off, 1 on, 30 seconds off, 1 on, 30 seconds off, 1 on, 30 seconds off, 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. | ||
Monday Oct 10 | ||
| Biking 18:00 [2] | |
| To/from class | ||
| Running 1:28:45 [3]11.45 mi (7:45 / mi) | |
| shoes: Montrail Trail Shoes | ||
| Home sweet home! A nice long trail run in Nasten, reading the 1:15000 version of the map along the way. Uppsala is slowly starting to feel like home, and the sweet smell of Swedish marshes is becoming familiar. :)
Was planning to only run for 70 minutes or so, but it was such a nice day, and there won't be many of those in the coming months! | ||
| Strength 15:00 [2] | |
| Crunches, dips, and the like after running. | ||
Saturday Oct 8 | ||
| Running 10:00 [2]1.18 mi (8:28 / mi) | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| Warm-up for the relay. In the rain. This time, the special twist was heavy fog which made the first leg runners disappear from view before they reached the start triangle, in the middle of a field less than 100m from where I was standing. | ||
| Orienteering race 55:10 [4]7.67 km (7:12 / km) +350m 5:51 / km | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| World Cup Relay. Second leg, after Eddie ran an excellent lead-off, coming just a couple of minutes behind Australia and less than ten minutes from the lead.
I felt tired from the long and unsure about my navigation from the start, given my bad experience two days prior. Still, it's a relay, so I started running pretty fast, but slowed down a lot in technical areas. Hit the first couple of controls and the confidence started returning. Running across a field to #4, I saw an Austrian and a Belgian who had started behind me (apparently about a minute and a half back) closing in and sped up. The forking was pretty severe, so I didn't see them when I came in to #5. In my opinion, the key leg was a long traverse from 7 to 8, running along a hillisde, counting reentrants and charcoal platforms. I was nervous and careful here and hit the control right on. From there in, the course wasn't too technical, and I just had to keep pushing, which was a little hard since I felt very tired and was totally alone. Still, i was pretty much clean the rest of the way and, after finishing, was happy to see the Austrian and the Belgian come in a couple minutes later. I did end up losing one spot to Hungary, but we still were in better position after two legs than we had expected. Randy closed with a solid third leg, and we ended up ahead of Japan, the second German team, and the second Belgian team. It was great for each of the three of us to close the tough week with solid races with no major mistakes! All in all, this week was an awesome experience for me - the races were great, the variety of terrain was simply unbelievable, and I got to see if my so-far short time in Sweden was producing benefits. I do think that my map-reading skills in detailed areas have imporved a bit and that I am a bit faster than I was in Japan, but still weak on the hills and occasionally prone to stupid mistakes, often related to errors in estimating distance and climb. Finally, hanging out with Karen, Sandra, Randy, and Eddie was great, so thanks to everyone, as well as to the US Team for covering the entry fees! Final beer score: 4-2 (Neil paid with a bottle of Limoncello, which, I think, was a fine substitute). Race grade: A-. | ||
| C • 6 | ||
Friday Oct 7 | ||
| Orienteering 15:00 [2]1.67 km (8:59 / km) | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| Warm-up for the classic race with Eric Morris, on the warm-up map. | ||
| Orienteering race 2:04:13 [3]15.1 km (8:14 / km) +755m 6:35 / km | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| World Cup Classic. Awesome terrain. Fast, open woods, intricate detail on the hillsides. Lots of charcoal platforms, Early start on a nice, cool morning. Solid splits to 1 and 2. Good route choice to 3. Told myself to be careful attacking it, a charcoal platform in the middle of a bland hillside, French Creek style. Stupidly, attacked right at it instead of contouring and then dropping right down or 'terrace-hopping' like Eddie did. Just missed it and kept going. No way to relocate in the middle of nowhere. Seven minutes lost. Neil, having started six minutes back, comes into as i finally stagger up to the flag. Tell Neil that the beer score is 3-2.
At this point, with about 11km to go, I was totally demoralised and ready to quit. I finally convinced myself to shuffle around after Neil for a while and, somehow, this 'while' turned into 11km or so. I tried, in vain, to get away from him a couple of times, forcing poor route choices that I didn't execute too smoothly, while Neil was cruising along, not really making mistakes and I was losing whatever confidence I had in my navigation. We ended up running the rest of the race together, with Neil beating me to the punch on every one of the controls after 3. Pretty sad performance, but at least I finished, avoided (with Neil's help) major mistakes after #3, and now have an international-level classic race under my belt. Eddie was a bright spot for us, with a solid race and some really fantastic top-30 splits on the killer climbing legs! Beer score: 3-2. Race grade: C. | ||
| Running 15:00 [1]1.5 mi (10:00 / mi) | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| A cool-down in the finish area with Neil. Felt dead. | ||
Thursday Oct 6 | ||
| Note | |
| Off day. Happy birthday Mom! | ||
Wednesday Oct 5 | ||
| Running 20:00 [2]2.22 mi (9:00 / mi) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| "Warm-up" for the sprint B-final race in another downpour. Starting almost last after sitting on a bus (the only dry place - aside from a rock Randy and I huddled under- yes, I said 'huddled', not 'cuddled') for four hours or so was not fun... | ||
| Orienteering race 20:10 [5]1.62 km (12:27 / km) +115m 9:11 / km | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| World Cup Sprint B Final. A disaster from the start - after telling myself to be careful to #1, i went right by it, even pausing to see if it was the correct reentrant i was passing. I ended up way down the hill, relocating at #2 and climbing back up, counting guys passing me on the way down. By the time I made a 180 and ran in the wrong direction out of #2 for about 100m, Jon Duncan who had started three minutes after me was with me. Great. He and i collectively messed up the questionable mapped #4 and picked up the guys who started 1 and 2 minutes after me in the process. The next two controls were ok and then we hit the city. For the first control in the incredible village of Cervara (perfectly captured in Thierry's video!!!! - it's linked from the WC discussion thread), I followed Jon Duncan and, of course, messed up. After we finally stumbled upon I was determined to navigate by myself and picked up the pace, hoping to ditch the three guys who were with me. We all went through the spectator control at full speed, surprised that there were still people around cheering (I realized later that the award ceremony had just ended.) As we made the brutal stair climb to #10, Thierry jogged up to us and ran along, videotaping as he went. At one point he was running up the stairs backwards faster than we were going forwards... After a couple of tricky short legs in town, there was a long one with route choice that went across the hill with the chuch and statue of Mary that dominateds the town. Everyone split up on this leg, and I found myself chasing down some Austrian guy and counting stairways going off to the right. At one point the Austrian turned up into a stairway, but I thought we were one short. Still, i wasn't sure, so i stopped and waited a couple of seconds. Sure enough, I shortly heard a loud "Scheize!" from above and continued running to the right stairway without looking back. Coming out of 14 with a German guy, i saw an old Italian man wave me down a certan passageway. A quick look at the map confirmed that was the right way to go, as the German disappeared in the wrong direction. Somehow, on the final leg, four of us converged and ran at full speed, sprinting up the last staircase and down to the finish.... Jon Duncan came in two minutes later. All i could do at the finish was shrug my shulders and laugh - this was the most complex and technically demanding sprint I had ever run, and I had failed the challenge with flying colors. Looking at the results, I wasn't the only one, as many big names found themelves way down the in the standings... Anyone who hasn't seen the map of this place, should immediately find it on the WC website or someplace else! Pictures of the town are coming shortly.
Beer score: 3-1. Race grade: D. | ||
Tuesday Oct 4 | ||
| Orienteering 20:00 [2]2 km (10:00 / km) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| Sprint modet event in Jenne. Jogged around, tried to adapt to the scale. Felt pretty comfortable reading the sprint map despite not having run a real urban sprint in a while. Too bad there was no model for the forest part of the sprint... | ||
| Running 20:00 [2]2.35 mi (8:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| Warm-up for the sprint qualifier. | ||
| Orienteering race 18:05 [5]2.35 km (7:42 / km) +115m 6:11 / km | |
| shoes: VJ - Cleats | ||
| World Cup Sprint Qualifier. The sprint course was laid out in such a way that the first five controls were in the woods (pretty dense green with strangely-mapped rock detail) and the rest was in the streets of Subiaco, a hilly down with the streets, connected by numerous passageways, spiraling around the church situated on a hilltop in the center of town. As someone pointed out in the discussion, the contour interval for the street part of the sprint was 12.5 meters, which made it almost impossible to tell if you were going up or down on your route, but it did greatly improve map readability.
The race: I started a minute after Mats Troend (among others) and for some reason had a strange vision of catching him in my head as I was about to start. Sure enough, before the first control, there was Mats, standing around, scratching his head. Of course, I joined him there for a bit, but figured out where i was quickly and got my control, realizing along the way that the rocks that were everywhere were very hard to read and that i was still not used to the scale (1:4000). I was more-or-less clean to 2 and 3, running past some of the world's best walking around the woods, hoping to discover a flag behind this rock or that. And then came the most typical beginner mistake, one that I thought I had learned to avoid. I punched 3 just behind a Spanish guy, glanced at my map, saw that he was headed in roughly the right direction, and followed him. About 40 seconds later we were totally lost. It took me a really long time to relocate, and i finally found the flag, losing 1:30, an eternity in sprint races! Of course, on the way out of 4 i saw the same Spanish guy, still walking around looking lost. Angry with myself, i picked up the pace on the relatively easy road legs that brought us to town, but managed to slow down when we hit the detailed part of the street network. I had to sometimes slow down to almost a walk to figure out which passageways were helpful and which ones were dead ends, but i think this was the right way to go, as a lot of people made mistakes in the city, and relocation in the maze of little alleys was very difficult. It was fun to go through the spectator control with a lot of people (including my friend Lars from Linne!) cheering and runners spreading out into all different directions. By the end of the course, i felt almost dead after a long stair climb leg right near the end. All in all, i was happy that i managed to salvage a decent result after a disastrous start and that i did not try to overcompensate for the early mistake and run too fast in the cty, but I am still angry at myself for a beginner mistake that cost me the race: i was 37 seconds from qualifying this time. On the bright side, both Karen and Sandra made the A-final (first time for each of them), so that totally overshadowed my own near miss!!!! Beer score: 3-0. Race grade: B. | ||
| C • I like it! 1 | ||
Monday Oct 3 | ||
| Running 25:00 [2]2.94 mi (8:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| Longish warmup for the World Cup (WC) middle distance qualifier. I spent some time running on the warm-up map, exploring the terrain and avoiding cows. | ||
| Orienteering race 24:02 [4]3.63 km (6:37 / km) +130m 5:37 / km | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| WC Middle Qualifier. Very interesting, challenging terrain: farmed meadows with traces of terrace farming with clumps of impassable green briars and spiky bushes and intricate rock detail. Pouring rain, very wet and slippery the whole time. Despite not having spent much time in this terrain (i flew in after the model event), i stupidly started aggressively, running too fast to the first control and overrunning it, losing about 30 seconds. Spiked the next two and promptly missed #4, misreading the vegetation and climbing too high. Mats Haldin caught me here, but missed the control too, but recovered before me. This cost me about 1:10 and qualifying for the A-final... The next few legs were short and technical, and I had to slow down a lot in the circle to avoid more mistakes, so I lost about 15 seconds on each of #6 and #7, before spiking 8 (won the split!) and finally feeling comofrtable in the terrain. The next leg was a long route choice leg around a hill, followed by a number of quick short legs, which i ran parallel with Simone Niggle, who was probably running faster than me, but surprised me by having some trouble in the circle on several controls. Then, on to the finish to find out I missed qualifying by 0:57, still making this my best middle distance race in international competition so far. I wonder if running the model event and getting more comfortable with the vegetation would have made a difference, but there is no reason to second-guess...
Before the start, Neil Dobbs and i decided to wager a beer for each of the World Cup races and our head-to-head results (place in the heat, rather than time, counts if we are not in the same eat.) Also, I am going to try giving myself a grade for every race I run, just to see how many races I am happy with and to what degree. Beer score: 1-0. Race grade: B+. | ||
| Running 15:00 [2]1.76 mi (8:31 / mi) | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| Cooling down in the rain with Sandra, who was sooooo close to making the final!! | ||
| Orienteering 15:00 [2]1.5 km (10:00 / km) | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| Warming up for the middle B-final in the afternoon on the warm-up map. | ||
| Orienteering race 33:48 [4]4.2 km (8:03 / km) +175m 6:40 / km | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| World Cup Middle B-Final. Absolutely miserable weather, a donwpour when I started. This is probably the loneliest I ever felt during a race, as I saw no one on the course except some cows and the total number of spectators at the finish when I finished was 0.
Other than that, it was a pretty good race. I felt surprisingly good physically (this was surprising because up to this point, i had a history of doing much worse in the second of two races in a day) and managed to run at a pace where I actually could read the details and know where I was the entire time. I slowed down a lot in the very technical area around controls 4 and 5, and it payed off as I managed to avoid mistakes that a lot of people had there. I lost some time on a route choice on the long leg (#7), as I chose a longer but safer route climbing to the top of a ridge and running along it down to the control instead of contouring along the hillside, which turned out to be faster. (On the bright side, the views of the surrounding countryside from the top of the ridge were spectacular, despite the downpur.) I also lost time on the first longish leg after the road crossing, #11, where I was confused by what looked like a fence crossing marked in the terrain but not on the map. The hesitations there cost me about 45 seconds, and 2 places in the race. Overall, this was probably my best race of the week - 10th place out of 27 in the B-final, within 5 minutes of Jon Duncan's winning time. Beer score: 2-0. Race grade: A-. | ||
| Running 5:00 [2]0.59 mi (8:28 / mi) | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| Cool-down. | ||
Sunday Oct 2 | ||
| Event: Hudson Highlander X | ||
Saturday Oct 1 | ||
| Biking 20:00 [2] | |
| Biking with a weight (for the last time this week - Kat flies to England, and I - to Italy tomorrow). | ||
| Running 15:00 [2]1.76 mi (8:31 / mi) | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| Warm up, cool-down | ||
| Orienteering race 40:44 [4]6.1 km (6:41 / km) | |
| shoes: 2005 Falcons | ||
| A middle distance race at Koping, my last race before the World Cups next week. I ran well, and settled into a nice rhythm after the first couple of controls, but made a couple of mistakes (0:30, 0:40, 0:30; 1:30) on the second half of the course when I tried to pick up the pace. Still, probably my cleanest race so far in Sweden, but again pretty far back of the leader (Hakan Eriksson won in 31 or so...)
Off to Italy tomorrow morning - 6 races in a week should be pretty intense. I am excited!! | ||
| C • Since the Log isn't here yet... 1 | ||