Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Still not brilliant so decided to give it a rest. Calves also very tight the last couple of days, possibly through over-compensation, possibly through six massage-less weeks.

I know just enough Norwegian to be able to work out what the front page of the paper is about most of the time (although sometimes it doesn't require much translation, an example from my last visit to these parts in 1998 being: "Monica: Jag Hadde Sex Med President Clinton 12 Gange"). This enabled me to ascertain that there was some sort of scandal relating to building delays at the ski jump where the WOC arena is. Rumour has it that it will not be ready in time for winter: catastrophe!.

Off to the WOC relay soon.

Disappointing end to the competition part of this trip. The Achilles wasn't good in the warm-up; I decided to give it a couple of controls to see if it improved. It did, sort of, to the point that in a race that mattered I would have been prepared to keep going on it, but I didn't think it was worth taking the risk for a race that didn't matter. Jogged home the rest of the course (cutting from near 2 to 14), getting to see a bit of the WOC terrain and probably confusing the chasing start midfield as to why someone going so slowly was in amongst them.

The succession of races on soft terrain has clearly been more than my body is able to handle at present. I'm definitely hoping I haven't gone back to where I was last November, and suspect I haven't (if only because the injury does appear to warm up). I won't be in terrain again for a while which may settle it down. Will wait to see how it feels tomorrow before deciding whether to attempt to run in what's left of the trip or take a break until I get home.

IOF Congress day. Achilles very tight today, although that may have been related to the shoes I was wearing.

Not surprisingly there has been a bit of discussion of long distance event following in the last 24 hours. Looks as if I might have (some of) the responsibility of trying to do something about it - I'll be nominating for the Foot O Commission. Should be interesting; the people I know there are good value, but none of them have experience in international elite competition* in the last 20 years, so hopefully I'll be able to provide something of a fresh perspective on problems like this. For what it's worth, I think if there is going to be a solution it is going to lie in course-setting (the butterflies yesterday were so short as to be largely pointless) rather than the creation of rules which are either unfair or unenforceable in practice.

(* - this is assuming that describing me as an "international elite orienteer" is not in breach of relevant consumer/trade description laws).

There are posters up around town for A-Ha's "farewell tour", although I am reliably informed by the locals that A-Ha have had as many farewell tours as John Farnham.

Road/track run in Trondheim in the morning before the long final. Feeling a bit better this morning than I was yesterday, but still not brilliant for running, in a sluggish-not-inspired sort of way.

Urban exploration was the name of the game here (although following unknown lines on city maps can sometimes take you to unappealing running destinations, like industrial areas or the city dump). At its nicest up around the university and in the more elevated suburbs.

The route to the university did take us on the route used for the 1998 World University Championships opening ceremony march, a desultory affair even by the usual standards of such occasions. At one point everyone sat down on the road to try to get a Mexican wave going, and someone asked "what are you protesting against?". (There had been a number of sit-down protests in that year's Tour, if I recall correctly mainly because the French authorities had had the temerity to start busting people for drugs). This was also the route back from the post-event party, the only time (to my knowledge) that I've been the subject of any international-event gossip (involving a well-known Eastern European who has run in a great many WOC finals and who may or may not be a relative of someone mentioned in these pages a few days ago).

Came down with a bit of a cold overnight and was lacking a bit of enthusiasm for today's sprint, but wasn't too bad once I started moving. Not much strength on anything resembling a hill. An annoying 30-second mistake at 7, and a more annoying route choice miss on 16 - earlier in the course I'd noticed that there were no controls in the fortress and assumed they hadn't been able to get permission to use it for the public race, but didn't contemplate the idea of a route choice through it. Probably another 20 seconds there.

Closer to the lead in percentage terms but further down the list, and I was Honked.

Frederic Tranchand won bronze in the WOC sprint and was 7th today, so our field must be stronger :-).

I hadn't originally planned to run today because I didn't think I'd be able to get back in time for an IOF meeting at 2 without my own transport, but in the end decided to take a punt on being able to find a ride (which I did, albeit through the thumb-at-carpark-exit method in the company of Sebba). Another nice area on the whole, almost subalpine in places, and a bit hillier than yesterday. Still struggling, though, with strength in the terrain - even at my current level of fitness I'd expect to be able to run a nine-contour hill early in the course on the harder ground at home without too much trouble - and felt as if I was really pussyfooting around on the steeper downhills. Tired in the last 20 minutes - back-to-back 90-minute races is a challenge in this terrain.

Technically it was a little better than yesterday with nothing bigger than 45 seconds or so, probably 2-3 minutes of mistakes all up, most of them in the second half of the course. The first error, at 6, was annoying - a pack went through me at 5 and I made the mistake of assuming they knew what they were doing. A little closer to the lead than yesterday but a couple of places further down.

The disappointment of the day was that I couldn't find a ride back from the IOF meeting to the long qualification and had to watch it on the internet like the rest of you. Still, there are bonuses to being an IOF delegate, one of them being a free meal tomorrow night at the expense of the Trondheim City Council (and a free meal in Norway, a country where even pizzas go for $40, is definitely not to be passed up).

Event: WOC Tour 2010
 

A few of the things noticed at WOC outside the headlines:

- the Warwick Capper shorts have made their first appearance on a sporting arena since the early 1990s, as worn by Olli-Markus Taivainen in the sprint final.
- there's a substantial Brazilian contingent and the men are not completely hopeless (i.e. their three middle distance runners were clustered around the sort of time in the qualifiers that I would have expected to do myself). There's also a North Korean here (I'm intrigued by the thought of what the North Korean domestic O scene might be like)
- Beata Falk, whose name will be permanently ingrained into the head of anyone who had anything to do with the 2008 JWOC selection appeal, made her senior debut for Sweden here, coming 18th in the sprint.
- Ireland, Croatia and Kazakhstan all have middle finalists. As far as I can tell it's a first for Kazakhstan and a second time for Croatia. Ireland have had a few sprint qualifiers but nothing in the other distances since the finals were reduced to 45 runners (they used to be 60).

C • oh dear, yes i noticed ( as... 4

C • Australian Media Coverage 6

First foray into Nordic orienteering on this trip. Very tentative through the first couple which were a bit green, then got into a bit more of a technical rhythm, although really felt my lack of strength (something that has definitely gone downhill this year with interrupted training), in the often very soft ground. Eventually worked out that marshes were often the best running option here (they're often good for navigation, not so good for running). A nice, if tough, forest, and really enjoyable to be out there in it, especially in a race where the pressure wasn't really on.

Technically I made an annoying one-minuter in the circle at 4 after successfully executing 95% of a tricky long leg, with other minor losses at 10, 12 and 13 (probably about 3 minutes across the whole course), but for the most part I was navigating with a reasonable degree of confidence, which is more than can be said of my last visit to Norway where if I found a control it was by more or less stumbling across it by accident. Had people around for quite a bit of it in the form of those who started 1 and 2 minutes ahead and 1 minute behind, which was tangible evidence that my performance wasn't totally embarrassing. I'm not really competitive in international elite races any more (especially ones which feature a bronze medallist from yesterday), but ended up about 3/4 of the way down.

Not for the first time in this part of the world, I don't think my shoes will be going home; the metal is starting to come through the sole.

Unfortunately I don't think the logistics required are going to allow me to partake in all three of tomorrow's activities (the event, an IOF meeting and the WOC long qualifying), and the event looks like it will be the one to go by the wayside. Before today I thought that may not have been such a bad thing but the Achilles, which was very ordinary when I got up this morning, was fine on the run.

And, entirely predictably, the WOC song was running through my head for most of the run (it didn't help that they played it just before I went to the start). As noted yesterday it is as bad as previous examples of the genre. (One oddball member of the genre was the one from JWOC 2006 which everybody seemed to assume was a JWOC song - it was certainly bad enough - but was actually Lithuania's entry in that year's Eurovision Song Contest).

Update: just saw the splits. I thought I was fading away at the end, but in fact my best splits of the race (by some margin) were on 19 and 20, the two uphill legs on the final loop in the green. Obviously the others were tiring more :-)