Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

First day of O-ringen. Doing this without any prior preparation in Swedish terrain at an event where my past performances have ranged from poor to horrendous, and was feeling my way a bit on the first couple of legs, not getting great lines in the terrain and losing 45 seconds in the circle at 2. Settled after that although not quite confident hitting the controls on the complex short legs at 4 and 5, and was just starting to feel as if I was getting into it properly when I fell heavily coming downhill out of 6, creating a photogenic (or possibly anti-photogenic) scrape on my face, but more significantly giving my left knee a substantial whack, enough to trouble me on the rest of the run. Struggled a bit to get into a running rhythm in the next kilometre and missed 30 seconds at 8, better on the vague and fast final section.

This was a moderate performance - probably 2 minutes dropped all up, perhaps slowed a bit by the knee later, and the late starters probably had the worst of the conditions too - but I was still pretty shocked how far down I was. I was expecting a winning time perhaps in the 42-44 range, but in fact Per Ek did 39 and I was barely above halfway.

And, as I expected, the knee stiffened badly within minutes after the run ended. Past experience suggests that it's going to be a problem for two or three days. Of course I don't have two or three days; I'm reasonably confident there's nothing structurally wrong, so it will be a question of whether I can tolerate the pain tomorrow and post some sort of a time, then have 48 hours to get it right given Tuesday's rest day. I certainly hope so; hanging around the last few days of an O-ringen sidelined by an injury (something I have past experience of, in 2000) isn't a lot of fun.

Event: Swedish O-Ringen
 

Oslo, the morning after. Woke up to the sound of thunder which seemed appropriate in its own way.

Headed out for a shortish run with Rune, a little bit later than planned because we had a bit of trouble finding each other. Started from roughly the far end of yesterday's run and headed up on a track into the forest, a steeper hill than I thought it was going to be, but seemed to cope with it OK (at least from the injury point of view). Reasonably strong uphill but not feeling quite as smooth downhill.

There weren't a lot of people out, although that probably owed something to the weather too (the rain stopped not long before we started). Later in the morning there was more activity, as people realised that they weren't going to see anything new on the news.

Headed across to Sweden this afternoon - the flight went reasonably smoothly, but a few petty irritations on arrival (including having to walk 15 minutes to another terminal because the currency-exchange place in the terminal we arrived in closes at 4pm on Saturdays), and it was a bit frustrating to be in the air when the Tour time trial was on. Am now in Soderhamn after registering for O-ringen; I have a very late start tomorrow so may not see a lot of the other Australians, at least for now.

With the amount of travelling I do, I guess it was inevitable that I would eventually find myself in the same city as a bomb, but I didn't really expect that city to be Oslo. It would be suitably dramatic to say that I was dodging flying glass or bullets on forested islands, but the truth of the matter is that I saw nothing and heard nothing (being based near the university, about 4km from the city centre) and didn't know anything had happened until reading about it when I went onto an Australian website trying to find out what had gone wrong with Cadel Evans' bike.

Even when venturing closer to the central city to change from train to bus (on a transport system which, remarkably enough, seemed to be functioning more or less normally - perhaps I should take back the bagging from yesterday), if you didn't know something had happened it wouldn't have been obvious something had happened - just a lot of people (even by Scandinavian standards) talking on mobile phones and one police car, and a couple of extra guards out the front of the American Embassy (the fact that buses were still going past the American Embassy is one of several indicators that suggest to me that the police (a) have a pretty good idea who did it and (b) don't think it's jihadists).

(Whoever did it either wasn't trying to maximise the carnage or didn't think their plot through terribly well - at 3.30 on a Friday afternoon in mid-July the percentage occupancy rate in your average Oslo government office building would be struggling to reach double figures).

After getting home it was back to the realm of the ordinary, although with a bit more to think about during the run then on the last few days - as usual here, starting downhill and finishing uphill, but more rolling in the intervening stages than yesterday. Achilles probably about the same as yesterday, definitely not right but not a huge impediment either.

And here was I thinking the main local excitement of the day would be meteorological...

A little more ambitious tonight with the Achilles continuing to improve gradually, with a circuit of the Kolsas mountain, involving some small and pretty rough tracks (which looked bigger on the map than they were in reality) across the eastern side (although this section was mostly flat to downhill), before coming back on roads and paths. Unless you climb the mountain at the start, there is no way to avoid having a 20-contour climb at some point on the way home, it's just a matter of exactly how it's done - the Galibier it ain't, but it's still pretty hard work. A reasonably steady run once warmed up and ground out the steep last few minutes.

The route took me past the Kolsas station, which hasn't seen a train for a long, long time - the line out there has been under reconstruction for the last eight years (part of it's reopening next month), partly because of wrangling between two levels of government (Oslo city and the broader region) over who was going to pay for it. Oslo is also struggling to implement a new electronic ticketing system which is billions of kroner over budget and still isn't fully operational after more than two years. Sound familiar? (I'm fortunate in my commute to be on what appears to be one of the few routes which isn't affected by summer building works; the mainline Oslo Central station is totally shut down, as are large parts of two of the six metro lines).

Problems Australia doesn't have with its meteorological observing network: two sites on Svalbard stopped functioning earlier this year after being attacked by polar bears. I was also a bit disappointed to find out that it wasn't really -26 when I was here in February (the report I saw was supposedly for the old airport but it turns out the site number has been reallocated to somewhere inland). Will have to settle for -19 (city centre) or -23 (airport) instead.

Did this one in the early evening after accompanying Cassie and Max to the local Ikea (and yes, they sell Swedish specialties at Norwegian Ikeas too - although I didn't see whether any Norwegians were actually buying them).

Achilles wasn't as bad today (although I had cramps in my calf muscles overnight, the first time I can remember this for a long time). The first few minutes were again hard going, but while it was never comfortable after that, nor was it too bad. A flatter route than yesterday (this time to the north-west). I wasn't really looking forward to the steep final climb coming back, but handled it better than I thought I was going to. Definitely an improvement on yesterday. Spent some of the run fantasising about one or more Murdochs spending some quality time enjoying the hospitality of Wandsworth at the pleasure of Her Majesty.

Watched the final hour of the Tour (on tape) after coming home. My knowledge of Norwegian is very limited but one needed very little knowledge of Norwegian to work out from the TV commentators when a Norwegian hit the front. (They're getting quite a bit of practice in handling this).

And for those who are going to O-ringen: looks like heavy rain in the lead-up (although not as much as in Oslo, where 60mm is forecast for Friday/Saturday), showers until Monday, then fine for the few days after that.

Achilles again very ordinary today, but this is an injury I've been living with for a long time so I know now pretty well how it behaves - or at least know it well enough to know that a short run was likely to do it more good than harm.

I would have preferred to do something flat but that isn't an option when you're on a ski hill. I went looking (or rather Cassie looked on my behalf) for the least steep option available, but that still involved a fair bit of climbing in the second half, although not especially steep. The first 10 minutes were very hard going; warmed up a bit after that, although climbing was still pretty hard work, probably at least in part through upper legs doing the work that lower legs weren't. Did feel less sore afterwards which was a major objective of the exercise.

The last bit coming back makes you think that you've taken a wrong turn and ended up in Wybalena Grove. As Cassie is a past resident of that area I suspect this may not be entirely coincidental.

Had planned a rest day for today; wouldn't have fancied getting up too early after not getting to bed until close to 1 this morning. I'm in Oslo for this week, partly catching up with family, partly doing some work based at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (mainly clearing some decks in advance of an international review of my project in three weeks' time). Those familiar with Scandinavia in July will not be surprised to learn that the office was virtually deserted.

Not sure if it was flippant or real but I saw a reference to betting in JWOC discussion. Anyone betting on JWOC, like anyone betting on the NAB Cup (or on Nick Maxwell to score a goal at any time), should seek help immediately, but seeing that did prompt me to think that we don't have any procedures in place and perhaps we should (although if someone did do anything really dodgy it could probably be dealt with under 'bringing the sport into disrepute' or something like it) - one could imagine that people wanting to carry out gambling scams might be interested in an obscure and weakly-policed sport. That said, it would be very difficult to 'fix' an orienteering race if betting is only for the win/place, but I don't know if there is head-to-head betting or similar anywhere?

Achilles was pretty good yesterday but didn't like sitting at a desk today.

C • Oslo 7