Training Log Archive: BorisGr

Running with Ross to and from the start of the sprint.

A sprint course designed by Johan Hamelius around the Uppsala Cathedral area. A fun, tricky area, and particularly enjoyable at night.

442/2000

Really happy to see CSU winning the US Relay Champs once again! Great job everyone!

Also, had a great time at Smålandskavlen. I was a reserve in Linné's 2nd team and ended up running after some people got injured. Taped my ankle really heavily and was lucky that the terrain was soft, open, and not at all stony. Had one of my best runs of the year, bringing our team from 31st to 25th place on the short 3rd leg. The trip down to Vimmerby and back was really fun, thanks to our great clubmates!

C • Well done! 7

Long warm-up and cool-down.

Smålandskavlen 2011
Linné 2: Josef Nordlund - David Lingfors - Boris - Ross - Olle Eriksson

We were 31st after the two night legs, and I got to go out at the tail end of a somewhat spread out pack, with about seven teams within a minute in front of me. I taped my ankle heavily and felt ok on it during the warm-up.

When I turned over the map, it was immediately obvious that this would be a fast and furious course with lots of open woods and some trail running. I went out 4 seconds behind Tampereen Pyrintö (TP) and 6 seconds ahead of Denseln.

S-2: We were all together at 1 and then split up at 2, where I had the shorter forking and got ahead.

2-3: On the way to 3 I passed Lynx and caught Skoksfalken, and ran with Skogsfalken for the next few. No problems orienteering on the tricky slope controls - I felt like I was in control of my orienteering while running at the limit of what I could handle speed-wise.

4-6:Climbing up into 5 we saw three more guys in front of us and ran hard on the longer leg across to 6, which I had already seen when going to 3. Punched 6 just behind the other three guys.

7-9: The leg to 7 was simple downhill running through some open woods and then on a trail, so I ran as hard as I could to catch the guys from Kangasala and Linköping in front of me. We dropped Skogsfalken here somewhere. I went straight on the flat, wide-open forest leg to 9 and came into it together with Kangasala.

10-11: A bit of tricky orienteering here, so I slowed down a bit, and Kangasala got a gap on me.

12-13: This was the worst part of the course for me. I saw Kangasala staying high leaving 11, and thought that I could do better by running straighter on the line. This didn't work, as the forest was a bit junkier going straight, and I lost sight of Kangasala, dropping about 20 seconds on the leg. Linköping came with me, and we saw Järla leaving 12 as we came in. I was tired here and took a stupid angle going around the hill between 12 and 13 and ended up at the power line, way off my line. After fighting through the powerline and busting out to 72 (losing 40 seconds here), I was suddenly in a pack led by Hällen's Per Öberg, who started almost a minute after me. He had with him my start-buddies TP and Denseln, as well as Pan Århus, and Järla, Skogsfalken and Linköping, whom we dropped quickly.

14-16: Streamered route through 14, then the climb up to 15. Hällen and Denseln got a small gap here, but missed the control, and so we were al together again, flying down the hill to 16. This control turned out to be forked, and I hit my control right on together with Pan Århus, while the others had a different fork.

17-F: I immediately decided to run right around the lake, and Pan Århus went with me. Kangasala appeared out of nowhere and joined us. The other two were running faster than me on the trail, but I took a better angle cutting across to the road and got ahead of them for a bit. We punched 17 together and split up going to the last control. Pan Århus was stronger and got ahead of me there. I held off Kangasala, and exchanged 25th, after picking up 6 places.

I was 32nd on the leg, 6 minutes down on Martins Sirmais, and 4 minutes behind Oskar from our 1st team. Also, first time I'd run under 6 min/km for a course (42:35 for 7.3km) in a long time!

Splits for common controls on my leg: http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/sv/default.a...

Ross and Olle followed with solid runs on their longer, tougher legs, and we finished a very respectable 42nd, better than last year's Linné 2 team, which was 46th with a stronger line-up. The boys' first team was 3rd after some great runs during the day, and the ladies finished 10th after an awesome run by Sam!

Men's results: http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/sv/default.a...

My map: http://www.dxdeluxe.se/linnekartparmen/show_map.ph...

427/2000

Spent some time Friday trying to get someone to take my leg at the weekend's Smålandskavle, but it was too late, and no one wanted it. Decided I would try running assuming I could get through an easy run without too much pain. Went for a morning jog with Ross on roads and trails to test out the ankle. Felt ok, and it was really nice to be out on this beautiful sunny morning.

Event: US Night & Relay Champs
 

The Billygoat Wikipedia article is in danger of getting deleted due to lack of notability. I suppose it's a fair point, but if someone is willing to make the effort to save it by finding some third-party sources that show its notability, that would be great.

C • Perhaps... 11

Sprained my goddamn ankle again during intervals.

C • Oh no! 5

Intervals with the club on the Norby lit track. I mentioned to Ross during the warm-up that the lighting was sufficiently dim that you could easily turn an ankle if you didn't look where you were going. Naturally, I turned an ankle when I didn't look where I was going on a downhill on the 8th 2-minute interval. Went over quite hard on two consecutive strides since I couldn't stop myself on the downhill. Same ankle as I did in the Stafett-DM a month ago. Hobbled back to KG with a girl from Ravinen who did exactly the same thing at the exact same spot about a minute after me. Then walked home and sulked for the rest of the evening, really frustrated at yet another setback.

A cruise around the neighborhood with Ross in the evening before going to the Uppsala Short Film Festival. Felt very low on energy at first, but felt better as the run went on.

To start and from finish

Night-O training for Smålandskavlen, not for the faint of heart.

Thick fog in the fields, some of the worst terrain around Uppsala, and an outdated map made for an awesome adventure. I wisely chose to run the middle course (6.7km instead of the 9.3 the big boys ran), but this did mean that I was alone in the darkness for most of the time, except for a couple of times when I passed Elisa after screwing up. The biggest mistake was when I found a massive unmapped road between controls 3 and 4 and thought I was off the map. Ran around, relocated, decided to ignore the road, and found the control. Apparently, Albin did warn us of the unmapped road in the pre-race briefing, but I must have not been listening.

Anyway, here are some results: http://www.oklinne.nu/onsdagsnatt/results.php?id=1...

And here is a QuickRoute: http://www.dxdeluxe.se/linnekartparmen/show_map.ph...

409/2000

Warmup/cooldown

Oktoberracet, OK Enen's event at Skogstibble, the same map where we ran Stafett-DM last month.

The race was fast and furious, with some fun orienteering. My legs felt pretty tired, and my left quad was sore from falling on a log yesterday. I mostly orienteered well, but had four sloppy controls for about a minute lost total, and one big mistake where I lost 2:30. On that control, I was asked by a lady from our club, in Swedish, "do you know where we are, Ross?" So wrong on so many levels...

I ended up 25/78, which doesn't sound bad, but it would be nice to actually have a clean, focused race from start to finish.

Ross and Sam had really good races today! That makes me happy.

A nice gathering at our place afterwards, with Andrew, Bara and Martin, and Julian and Felicity, and Arianna coming over for food and games.

QR: http://www.dxdeluxe.se/linnekartparmen/show_map.ph...

WinSplits: http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/sv/default.a...

400/2000

C • Yes Ross! 1

Long run on Kungsham-Morga (across the road from Lunsen) with Andrew and Ross. Lots of up and down, thick forest, and rocky ground made for a fun adventure. We ran at a leisurely pace, which did not prevent us from making a few mistakes anyway. It was a beautiful day and nice to be out.

385/2000

Event: US S/M/L Champs 2011 & WRE
 

Easy evening jog from Blodan to the store and back twice, just to get the legs moving a bit.

Intervals with the club. We did 5x(1 loop at distance pace, 1 distance at interval pace) with no rest. The loop was a 1.05km section of the Norby lit track, with a couple of undulating hills.

I was running in no-man's land, too slow for the fast group, and too fast for the slow group.

3:55
3:56
3:54
3:56
3:48

C • no man's land... 2

Tuesday night course F. I mostly ran this with Simon, as the others were either too fast or too slow. I ran in my VJ Falcons from two years ago that I hadn't used in a while. The first swamp we hit, both the soles came off almost immediately. I ran for a while with them flapping in the breeze, and finally tore them off completely after some time. After that it felt like I was running nearly barefoot, with every rock or branch underfoot making its presence known. Luckily, the ice-cold water in the swamps made my feet numb for most of the run. This was a really great run, with tons of mud, swamps, green, and hygge in the dark. We shared the navigation pretty equally, and I felt reasonably comfortable reading the map on the run at night. It was great to come home to steaming couscous and chicken courtesy of Sam, who is back from her Swiss adventure.

C • BEAST! 11

Night-O training for Smålandskavlen at Stenhagen in the cold rain. It was a mass start, with 3 forked loops on the long course. I ran and orienteered well and was maybe 2-3 minutes behind the lead when I came across Arianna, who was out for her first-ever night-O, and whose lamp battery had died. I then walked her back to the finish. Thought about going out to finish the course, but was just too cold by then.

359/2000

Recovery run on trails with Ross, Olle, and Bara, and Melissa and Cristina from their place. Nice slow pace, as everyone was tired. They have some beautiful woods just outside the door! I am a little bit envious.
It was a great weekend with great friends. Thanks to Melissa and Cristina for hosting us and to Bara for driving to Oslo and back!!

C • You are welcome here anytime, of course! 4

Event: blodslitet 2011
 

Blodslitet survived. Tired, but pleased.

343/2000

Maps:
Loop 1
Loop 2
Loop 3
Loop 4

C • Nicely done. Looks like you... 4

Blodslitet.

I wasn't sure I was going to run until the last possible moment, as I had felt quite sick the two days before, and also in the morning before the start. But hey, I am in Norway, and this is a race I have always wanted to run, so I came to the start thinking I could always stop after one loop. It was fun to stand at the start line with Ross and Olle - we had our own race within a race to battle out.

Right off the bat, I did the idiotic thing of choosing my own route to the first control, trying to save some climb. If I had executed well, I probably would have been right with the leaders, but I lost confidence and stopped short, losing 30 seconds and the pack. Only one other person was with me at 1 - Olle. On the way to 2 we picked up Ross too - none of us had a good start.

The rest of the first loop I kept having trouble, as I was just not used to Norwegian terrain and maps. I made two more big mistakes on that loop (probably two minutes each), but the last three controls before the map exchange, and I decided to continue, going through the arena just seconds ahead of Olle and maybe two minutes behind Ross.

The second loop was better. I was moving slower, but orienteering much more confidently. No mistakes on this loop, and I passed a few people, and saw Ross along the way. Ate a Gu and some banana at the exchange.

The third short loop seemed to fly by. I was feeling really good here and passed a few more people along the way. Another Gu and more banana here.

Then came the long, 11.3km, final loop. I passed the arena with two other guys just ahead. Unfolding the map, I saw that getting the two first controls cleanly was really important, as they were very long legs, and the rest of the course would feel like coming back in to the finish. I ran well here and spiked 1 and 2. A bit more of a group formed for 3-8. I was getting tired here, but could tell that the other guys were even more tired. I pushed hard on the hill up to 8 and got a bit of a separation from the guys behind me, but then promptly screwed up 9. This demoralized me, and I was really slow on the short legs towards the final spectator control. I stopped there and ate one more Gu and drank a bunch before heading out on the last loop. Didn't see anyone there and orienteered slowly, but cleanly.

Finished in 44th, nearly a full hour behind the impressive Anders Nordberg. I probably made about 9 minutes of mistakes, 6 of them on the very first loop. I am not sure how much faster I would have run if I managed to not lose the pack right away. It is quite possible that I would have run out of energy earlier and not even finished.

Anyway, I'm really glad I ran this, and I ended up really enjoying it. One more event crossed off my list of Orienteering Races to Run Before You Die!

Speaking of corn mazes: http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/10/fam...

Intervals with Linné at Stadsskogen. I did 9(2)+6(2)+3(1)+3 minutes. Certainly didn't feel fast or fresh after yesterday, but wasn't croaking either.

Signed up for Blodslitet . Should I be scared?

C • With a name like that... 15

Part of an old Tuesday night line-O with Ross. Wet and a little bit cold in the woods, but a beautiful mist over Hågadalen and the dozen cow eyes emerging from the fog more than made up for it. Good times.

Warmup with Sam and cooldown with Ross

25-Mannakorten, a middle distance race on the same map as 25-manna the day before. It is normally Sweden's biggest one-day competition, with about 4000 entrants this year. There were four H21 classes, Elite, and 1,2,3, divided up by clubs. We ended up in H21-3, as did Robbie's GMOK and Andrew's Lidingö.

I had a frustrating start to the race, as I spiked #1 only to never see it. The boulder it was on was small and on the other side of the tree I was standing next to. I made a short loop and returned, convinced I was in the right spot. Still didn't see it, came back to the trail I attacked from, and saw it from the trail. Grrr. Then another small mistake at 3, and I was already caught from a minute back. Ran better after that, exchanging the lead several times with the guy who caught me. The one time i tried to run away, I clearly ran too fast and made a mistake, letting him catch up.

Ended up 52nd of 107, over three minutes behind an impressive Robbie.

Results: http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/sv/default.a...

Johan Hamelius' QR: http://www.dxdeluxe.se/linnekartparmen/show_map.ph...

300/2000

Event: 25Manna
 

Event: UNO Boulder Dash 2-Day Classic A-Meet
 

Event: Ontario Orienteering Championships
 

Warmup/cooldown

25-manna - OK Linné Team 3, leg 24 (unforked long men's leg)

25-manna is always a wonderful experience, and this year did not disappoint. Linné had four teams, which means 100 people ready to cheer, led by Ross' booming voice and vuvuzela. The club spirit was great, and the fact that Linné 1 was in the lead pack from start to finish (ending up 5th) added to the excitement.

I ran leg 24 in the 3rd team. Teams 3 and 4 were made up to be approximately equal, and they were exchanging the "lead" many times during the relay. I went out about 3-4 minutes after my Team 4 counterpart (the exact times are unknown as there are still no official results available!) and tried to chase him down. I ran too fast in the beginning and got confused on the way to #1, probably losing a minute or so, but got it together after that and ran well. Coming into the spectator control I could see Sam in front of me for a long time, but I don't think I managed to close the gap on her. She is quick!

This video is a cool look at 25-manna: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm-05gyP63g

282/2000

Czech relay training from Flottsund on Lunsen. Ran in a pair with Oskar W until it got dark and a bit too dangerous to run. I was jogging with Millinger and told him I was going to stop due to darkness and tried to get him to stop too. He didn't, and split his knee open on a rock on the next interval and had to go get stitches. Poor Micro...

257/2000

I guess I have now won (sort of) a Highlander (2011), a Billygoat (2010), and a Blue Hills Traverse (2009). Who else has done that? I assume Will, probably even all in one year? Kenny? Sergei? Eddie? Anyone know?

C • Triple Crown 23

Easy run in Stadsskogen while everyone else was doing intervals. Legs felt ok except for a pain behind the knee, in the very lowest part of the hamstrings. Anyone know a stretch for that?

C • Stretch your hamstring 2

Recovery run in Stadsskogen after getting into Uppsala and taking a nap. Felt ok, probably more sore from the flight than from the Highlander.

Survived the Highlander. A pleasant cruise around the course with Will, who mercifully let me tie for the win with him. Now, off to JFK.

C • Highlander 2

Hudson Highlander XVI.

See the maps with PG's routes on his log: http://www.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_62/per.... I don't have my first map and haven't scanned in the others.

After hurting my back just before the Highlander last year and not getting to run, I was excited to find out that this year's date coincided with the last day of my brief visit to the States. (Incidentally, I hope that next year's date is somehow tied in with NAOC and the surrounding training camp, so that potential European visitors have an epic race in Harriman to look forward to.)

Before the race, I was thinking to myself that good goals would be (1) to survive, (2) to be less than 20 minutes behind Will and (3) to finish ahead of everyone else, in particular, Wyatt, who raced better than me all spring. I have trained reasonably well the last couple of months, so I felt like this would be a good test of my fitness, and that the goals were fairly reasonable.

In the past I had enjoyed running with people during this long race, so I asked Will before the start if he wanted to keep me company for a loop before disappearing.

I: Jackie Jones

S-1: It was obvious from the shape of the map on the ground that we would be on Jackie Jones, so I was facing in the right direction from the beginning and was in the lead group right from the parking lot. After crossing the campground I let Andrew and the cadets navigate into the control as I tried to figure out the best order for the Scramble.

1-2: Bashed out through the green and crossed the trail well East of the line, but it was easy to correct, and I hit 2 with the cadets, Will, and Andrew.

2-3: Jogging on the trail, still trying to figure out the options for the Scramble. Thought about ACDG at first, but then saw CDEF, and suggested that to Will.

3-C: We were still discussing the decision on the way up the road, but when the two cadets ahead of us turned off towards A, it became clear that we would go to C. I think we picked up the pace a bit on the road and were pretty much alone after turning off the road at the bend.

C-D: On the climb out of C Will picked it up some more, and it was clear that he was stronger than me on the climbs. I caught up a bit on the flat part, but we were too far south and had to fight through the green some to get to the control. As we were leaving D, Wyatt and Andrew were coming in.

D-E: Well east of the line towards the yellow trail, but the woods were open and white, and so I don't think we actually lost time here. Will thought that Wyatt might have gotten by us with a better line, but we woke up the unit.

E-F: Nice, fast running here, staying in the white. No problems.

F-8: I wanted to find the white passage through the green just west of the swamp that PG found, judging from his routes. We took a look but didn't see it, and so ran around to the trail. Then up the big hillside, staying in the reentrant and across the top down into the control. Woke up this unit too, so we knew that no one managed to pass us with a smarter Scramble route.

8-9: Diagonally towards the road and then to the map exchange. Ate a Gu.

II: Trail run

9-10-11-12: The first part along the lake was a lot of fun, the rest kind of boring. I told Will to run away if he felt like it, as I didn't want to push hard on the trail run for fear of my butt starting to hurt. He didn't feel like running away, and I appreciated the company and set a steady pace that wasn't particularly hard. Towards the end we saw Andrew racing Sergei F on the final loop, both running really fast.

III: Rockhouse

12-13: We stopped to eat and were still eating as we ran along the road towards 10. I had a few cookies, half a banana, and a Gu. We were both still eating when we were attacking 10, when it turned out neither of us was reading the map. Oops. We missed way low and had to come back up.

13-14: Along the road and in. Could see the flag from a distance.

14-15: West to the road, and then along the road, around the two bends, and up through the saddle between the two hilltops. Down, then across the flat white area, across the stream, and then along the hillside right down to the boulder in the green. We were running at a pretty easy pace at this point, and Will again insisted that he did not feel like racing or running away from me unless Wyatt showed up.

15-16: Trail to the bend, then across the power line and contouring to the control.

16-17: This leg looked tricky. We climbed a bit out of the control in order to read the cliffs to the right. That worked well, and we followed the line of cliffs nicely to the control.

17-18: Very slow and careful down the slope and to the control, where we realized this was the beginning of King of the Mountain.

18-19: Will said he wanted to race it, I said I didn't, and we agreed to meet at the top. I set off first and was feeling quite out of energy on the climb. Somewhere along the way Will went past me, and then apparently Wyatt saw us, but I didn't realize this. I lost focus about 2/3 of the way through the leg and sort of drifted along until Will yelled at me from above to climb up. He was a bit unnerved by having seen Wyatt and wanted to speed up again.

19-20: This was probably the part of the race when I felt worst, and I really appreciated the company. Will ran off quickly, and I set off in pursuit, not reading the map until we hit the trail. On the trail I caught my breath a bit and started paying attention to the map again. We attacked off the trail from the saddle, and the knoll just above the control was very obvious.

20-21: To the trail, along the trail until the first white gap appears on the left, then around the green, staying in the flat swampy white area. We almost ran by the control, but managed to spot it as we were going by.

21-22: I turned my ankle coming out of 21, and stopped to tie my shoelaces tighter to prevent it from happening again. I was also feeling pretty bad and told Will to run off. After some convincing, he did, and disappeared pretty quickly. I was low on energy and in some pain from the ankle, and so I walked for a while, half-expecting Wyatt to catch up. When I reached the bare rock linear gap in the green, I started jogging again and then returned to normal running speed on the trail. After crossing the stream and climbing up to the end of the green blob, I left the trail and realized that I was feeling pretty good again. The navigation wasn't hard, as I just had to climb to the top of the gentle ridge and then just stay on top of it all the way down to the marsh just west of 22. Running on the ridge was nice, so I sped up again. Hit the swamp, went around it, and right towards the control, where I was surprised to see Will, who had been there searching for a little while and still hadn't found it.

22-23: Now it was decided that we'd stick together unless I completely fell apart. Straight to this one, no problems.

23-24: Along the slope to the NW, and then back up the same ridge I had come down to 22. We saw Wyatt coming towards us. I was guessing he was maybe 4-5 minutes behind us here, but he didn't look very fresh. We saw Vadim a while later, looking very strong, and wondered if Vadim was more likely to catch Wyatt than Wyatt was to catch us.

24-25: Straight. Feeling pretty good on the flats, but struggling a bit on the slightest uphills.

25-26: Clearing, underpass, then straight down the hill to the parking lot.

IV: Lake Welch Beach

26-27-28-29-30-31-32-33: I was happy to see that the last map was very short. I stopped to eat a bit (half a banana) and to tape my laces again to avoid more ankle twists. Will was a bit impatient and wanted to get on with it, but was gracious enough to not abandon me. Even with the taping, I still don't think we spent much more than a minute here, maybe 1:30.

The sprint course was straighforward and not very interesting. I think it would have actually been really fun to have a challenging sprint course at the end of the Highlander, but maybe at the pace one moves at after three hours it doesn't matter anyway. The route choices were pretty obvious, except for 31-32, where we debated for a while whether it was allowed to run next to Lake Welch Drive (J-J said something about it being forbidden before the start). We decided not to risk it and took a silly winding route instead.

33-F: A very slow speed "sprint" to the finish. We tried to punch the finish at the same time, but failed, and my punch registered first. I obviously don't deserve to be the winner here, so I repeatedly asked Guy to count us as co-winners, which he agreed to do.

This was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed the race. Thanks Will for the company, and J-J, Alan, Bernie, Guy, and others for all the organization! The Highlander is one of the best events in the US year in, year out.


251/2000

Highlander - Splits

Easy run with Kat (for the first five minutes) and Becky at West Rock. Nice and fun. No squirrels were harmed.