Sunday Jul 29 |
 | Note | |
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| Sometimes it is simply enough to do something well in order to feel good about yourself, but other times you need someone to say something before that happens. Sure, I was happy having achieved my goal for O-Ringen, but it didn't really sink in until the party Friday night, when (a slightly tipsy) Mats came up to me and said "Congratulations on achieving a quite high goal you set for yourself" (or something along those lines) and shook my hand. Yup, sometimes we need some outside validation.
This was a good O-Ringen for OK Linné, by the way. Both Mandus and Albin won their age classes (H14 and H16, respectively). What a fast little family! They are off to the US now, by the way, for a few weeks, so look out for them at your local races!! |
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| C • I can only imagine how that mu... 2 |
| Running 1:00:58 [2]7.62 mi (7:59 / mi) | |
| shoes: Saucony 2006 |
| It's good to be back in Uppsala. It really feels like home. I went for a nice afternoon run though Stadsskogen, then the Norby ski tracks, and back through Ekebydalen past the sheep with horns. Saw Linnéa and the Major along the way. I think I am getting used to living in a small town. |
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| C • Small town 3 |
| Strength 10:00 [0] | |
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| Abs and core after running. |
Saturday Jul 28 |
| Note | |
| (rest day) |
| After five days of racing and one night of partying, I am beat. Taking the day off and licking my wounds. O-Ringen was really fun, despite the weather, the questionable choices of terrain, and occasional sketchy mapping. There is definitely something very cool about the 5-day format with every day counting and a chase start in the end, and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't experienced the 5-days yet!!
Just three weeks left till WOC. |
Friday Jul 27 |
| Running 25:00 [2]2.94 mi (8:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: 2007 model Falcons |
| Warm-up for the chase start. Felt really nauseous in the morning, almost puked. Not sure if it was the nerves or the liter or so of peanut sauce I'd had for dinner at the sketchy "Thai" place the night before. |
| Orienteering 1:20:52 [4]*** 10.6 km (7:38 / km) | |
| spiked:15/23c shoes: 2007 model Falcons |
| O-Ringen Day 5.
Chase start. The high point of the race came when I arrived at the start and proudly pinned on my special pink bib #13 (top 15 in each class get special bibs.) After that, it was all downhill. Despite having two guys start within 30 seconds in front of me, I did not manage to see either one, and instead proceeded to blunder and mess up my way to 8 (!!) minutes of mistakes by the fourth control. The strange thing is that I felt like I was totally in control going into #2, but just could not understand the map in the last 200m or so. The trails, contours, and vegetation just did not make sense. There were way more depressions and hills than shown on the map, and then hill the control was on was actually a flat spot. Very strange. I was obviously quite demoralised, and the pouring rain and virtually impassable swamps around #7 did not help brighten up the mood. Eventually, as they usually do on days like this, things got better, and I picked up the pace. I ended up re-passing guys who started 14th and 15th, though did not catch the 16th guy, who had a good run. Ended up 14th overall, meeting my pre-O-Ringen goal, but was very disappointed with my collapse under pressure. Definitely something to work on for next time. |
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| C • my 5 cents 5 |
Thursday Jul 26 |
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| Event: OO Cup 5-Days
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| Running 35:00 [2]4.12 mi (8:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: 2007 VJ Falcons |
| The usual. |
| Orienteering race 1:22:14 [4]*** 12.8 km (6:25 / km) | |
| spiked:21/27c shoes: 2007 VJ Falcons |
| O-Ringen Day 4.
Long course, starting in a poorly mapped continental-like area, then going into flat, fast forest with no features, and finally a nice technical area with lots of ridges and depressions towards the end. Made far too many mistakes to be happy, including leaving about 2:00 on #3 and 1:30 on #8. Finished 19th, about 8 minutes back. Currently 13th after four days, starting the chase 18 minutes back of the leader, with two people within 30 seconds in front of me. Top 15 seems possible. |
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| C • Congratulations 2 |
Wednesday Jul 25 |
| Running 30:00 [2]3.53 mi (8:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: 2007 model Falcons |
| Another looong jog to the start plus cool-down. |
| Orienteering race 37:24 [4]*** 4.8 km (7:47 / km) | |
| spiked:10/16c shoes: 2007 model Falcons |
| O-Ringen Day 3.
All of the first three days were basically on the same fairly awful map, and the organizers managed to save the worst for last. This must have been the least enjoyable middle distance race I have ever run. Tons of deadfall on the ground, deep, wide swamps shown as linear ditches, and just generally crappy forest. In addition, I orienteered like a beginner, running too fast and misinterpreting the map in places. Made about 6 minutes of mistakes total, way too much for middle distance! Ended up about 5:30 back of the winner, which just means no one had a clean race. Down to 12th overall after three days. |
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| C • You're still holding above you... 1 |
Tuesday Jul 24 |
| Running 30:00 [2]3.53 mi (8:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: 2007 VJ Falcons |
| Another loooong jog to the start, plus a short cool-down. |
| Orienteering race 1:22:58 [4]*** 11.6 km (7:09 / km) | |
| spiked:15/20c shoes: 2007 VJ Falcons |
| O-Ringen Day 2.
No rain today, but cloud - good racing temperature. No broken compasses today - just a torn control descriptions holder. Ran ok in the beginning and was surprised to catch yesterday's winner from 5 minutes back at #5, where he must have screwed up. I prompty missed both 5 and 7 and played catch-up for a while, finally seeing him again at 7. About halfway to 11, he just stopped, obviously waiting for me to run off, hoping to lose me. I started going right, jogging for a second or two, saw him go left (that was my preferred route choice), and then went after him. This was rather pointless, though, since he ran right into an out-of-bounds area, which I ended up going around. Pretty clean for 11-16, though starting to get tired. Messed up 17, finding like 4 different controls before mine and losing about 2 minutes. Sure enough, yesterday's winner shows up and punches 17 with me. Ran pretty hard the rest of the way in, but legs definitely feeling two days of racing in them. I seem to be 11th for the day (winner did an impressive 74:14) and 9th overall after two days, with a handful of results still not up. |
Monday Jul 23 |
| Running 25:00 [2]2.94 mi (8:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: 2007 model Falcons |
| Run to the start and a short little cool-down afterwards. |
| Orienteering race 1:14:28 [4]*** 9.9 km (7:31 / km) | |
| spiked:12/16c shoes: 2007 model Falcons |
| O-Ringen Day 1.
After spending the whole morning sitting in the pouring rain and getting soaked while watching the World Cup mass start classic race, it was finally time to go and run. Three and a half km of a muddy slog to the start later, I went off, taking a mere 5 meters to bust my compass. After falling and getting up again, I looked at it and saw a big bubble and a wildly spinning arrow. "I am screwed" was my first thought. My second thought, however, was "I am screwed". I decided to try and find the first control anyway and, if that went ok, try to continue, but have some fun along the way and not worry too much about the result. On the long 1st leg, I ran about 30 degrees off my "bearing" and wound up bashing through the green for about 3 minutes to come to the control from the wrong side. I think I managed to find the only piece of forest that no one had run through. Great. Was caught by the guys from 2 and 4 minutes back right there. It got a bit better after that, as I started taking simpler route choices and using big linear feature whenever possible. The next bunch of controls went really well, but I made some mistakes near then end, losing about 4-5 more minutes along the course. Was surprised to end up 17th on the day, but a whole 9 minutes behind the lead. Still, sounds like form is ok.
Results: http://www.oringenonline.com/OLA/Default.aspx?Page... |
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| C • an annoying person would say "... 3 |