Training Log Archive: TGIF

Skills training in Lunsen.

Rushed to get it done before darkness. Quite well executed, even do the thickness of the corridor was a little bit wider than usual (1,8mm at 1/15.000, i.e. 27meters large). The standard I use is more around 1,4mm (i.e. 21 meters). But I made it easier for myself as I wasn´t sure if I could keep up with a high focus after a weekend of sadness.



+ some candy as well at the end.



Note: Why corridor?

That was basically the question I received from a young orienteer from Finland some days ago. Well, his exact interrogation was more precise: ”You seem to do some corridor-orienteering trainings (at least what I've seen on Twitter). I have done only a few corridor-trainings, but I've always felt that these kind of trainings are completely useless. Because the way I see it, training with a corridor-map goes against the idea of using the clear and big features of the map and terrain. […] What is the use of corridor-orienteering considering that it kind of goes against the " big features of the terrain" technique? What is your way of looking at this?“

That was an interesting one and I comeback, once more, to the book of Kasparov (probably not the last time…). He quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said : « The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss. »

In forest, if you are able to have a clear answer at the 3W questions,
- What ?
- Why ?
- Where ?,
you´ll never be in troubles and control your orienteering at every moment.

But, for this time, let´s stay with the « why corridor ? ». Orienteering, for me, is very much like golf. Every situation is specific. If you are stuck in a sand trap, you will not use your putter or driver to escape. You need to choose the right golf club for a particular shot. During an orienteering course, you´ll also have to find, in your toolbox, the best tool to solve your problem.

Here is part of the answer I wrote to the Finnish orienteer:

“[…] If you want to be a successful orienteer, you need to master all the techniques to be able to master all the terrains. Using the big features of the terrain is one of the technique and also one of the most reliable. But, many times during a race, you need to change the map reading frequency and the number of details you pick. For example, when you are attacking a control in a very details and uniform area, it can be hard to see some bigger details and you'll need to read everything to get the control quickly without mistake. It is always the terrain and situation which should tell you which technique to use.

When it comes to corridor. You should see it as a tool to improve your technique globally. If you are able to stay in a very narrow area of a map, it means you master the compass, especially if your corridor has lot of turns. Corridor exercises helped me a lot to improve my compass technique and also my sense for distances (because I mostly use contours maps as background and there are only few details shown).”

I already talked about compass in an article I wrote for O´ringen magazine some years ago. But, in fact, I am not only using corridor for developing my compass routines. There is another important issue. I am running lot of orienteering trainings at an easy speed. The main reason is that I believe it make my running efficiency in the terrain better (call it, natural strength training). But it is hard to keep the focus high all the time when the speed is so slow that you could solve crosswords at the same time. I usually do bigger mistakes when the speed is lower. Corridor is the best exercise I have found so far to keep my concentration and my map reading frequency very high even do the speed is low.

All this to say, corridor rocks! ; )

C • What about Line-Os. Do you ... 6

C • Sand trap driving 3

C • Corridor design 9

Easy run in Lunsen.

Vinterrejset from Johan Hamelius. A nice piece of art.

But hard to enjoy anything today.

This World sucks : (

C • :-( 8

Another training "à la Canova".

Deadlift: 3 sets of 5 reps @100kg
Right after, 5 sprints (40") in uphill at Sten Sture.

----

HILLS

Unlike the highly aerobic hill workouts cross country coaches have been using for decades, these hills are meant to develop raw power. "If you want to develop strength you need to recruit the maximum number of fibers, which means you have to run very hard," Canova's assistant says. "In order to run very, very hard — particularly at altitude — you have to have a long recovery." A typical hill session will be 5 x 300m up a moderate incline with a 5:00 walk back rest, increasing to 6 x 400m by the end of the global period. The intensity is all-out.

Putting up controls

Fredagsmys in Lunsen.

Lot of good things tonight. Could control my orienteering a lot better than usual. Got inspired* before the training and set a simple plan, but, most important, stuck to it the whole way.

The idea was quite basic. At day time, on the last meters before the control, I usually pick and look at a (big) feature in close sight, in the direction I want to go next. So that I can keep a good speed right after the control. Typical middle distance technique I would say.

But the story is different at night as the perimeter of visibility is a lot more reduced. The role of the compass becomes thus primordial. Tonight, I tried a simple mechanic change to improve my efficiency in the very first phase after the control. I forced myself to grab the map with two hands which resulted in a slower process but more stable compass and a full understanding of the map. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast! Effective tonight, but need to test it more.


Controls #32 and #33 were on wrong spot.

*A super interesting reading from Garry Kasparov and his "How life imitiates chess" book. A lot of similarities with orienteering:

The old chess saying, 'A bad plan is better than no plan at all', is more clever than true. Every step, every reaction, every decision, has to be made with its place in your planning clearly understood. Otherwise you can't make any but the most obvious decisions without knowing for sure if they are really to your benefit. This is even more important given the accelerated pace of the world today.

During my thirty years as a professional chess player we've gone from researching an opponent by digging through musty books and journals for days to being able to pull up every single game in his career in seconds on a PC. It used to take months for tournament games to be published in specialist magazines. Now anyone can watch the games on the internet in real time.

The implications of the information revolution go much deeper than matters of convenience. With more data becoming available more quickly, the ability to deal with this information must also move more quickly. When a game is played in Moscow it is instantly available for the entire world to analyse. An idea that took weeks to develop can be imitated by others the next day, so everyone must also immediately be aware of it and prepare for it.

This acceleration has also affected the game itself. In 1987 I played a six-game match of 'rapid chess' on the stage of the London Hippodrome against England's Nigel Short, who would challenge me for the world championship six years later. It was the first serious match of its kind, with a greatly accelerated rate of play. In these rapid games we had just twenty-five minutes each to make all our moves, a far cry from traditional chess where games can last up to seven hours.

I trained extensively with this new time limit and discovered that it was still possible to play deep concepts despite the impossibility of calculating deeply on each move. Instead of a profound study of a position we must rely more on instinct. It would be fair to assume that in rapid chess careful planning and strategic goals are secondary, or even ignored, in favour of quick calculation and intuition. And I would even say that for many players this is exactly the case. If you don't like planning during a seven-hour game you'll likely abandon it entirely in a rapid game. But the most successful players - at any speed - base their calculations firmly in strategic planning. Far from being mutually exclusive, the most effective analysis, and the fastest, is possible when there is a guiding strategy.

If you play without long-term goals your decisions will become purely reactive and you'll be playing your opponent's game, not your own. As you jump from one new thing to the next you will be pulled off course, caught up in what's right in front of you instead of what you need to achieve.

C • now that's something 2

Middle distance in Östuna, ran at competition speed.

T-CUP training, inspired by Sir Clive Woodward. T-CUP stands for ”Thinking Correctly Under Pressure”*.



What is it all about? Navigating, in the middle of November, in a quiet forest, when your main goal is more than 9 months away, is not the utmost challenge for an elite orienteer.

At the opposite, performing at a WOC race is mostly about handling an uncomfortable environment. There is not much room for improvisation and it is a lot about preparation.

That time, I was listening during my run (and warm-up) the podcast of the WOC 2004 middle distance. A race, commentated by the best trio ever (?!), Per Forsberg, Kjell Erik Kristiansen and Mats Troeng, where the volume is surprisingly raising when a Swede is showing-up. Probably the most comparable atmosphere of what is coming next summer. Better be prepared when you will be attacking the last slope toward the finish!


A mp3 player, mostly used inside the swimming pool, but which also create a WOC atmosphere even in wet autumn days.

*Effectively, it means contingency planning: preparing to the nth degree, so that the athlete can maintain his or her focus no matter what the distractions.

C • improv 4

"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure."

To the "garage" and back.

At MCW CrossFit Garage.

Full back squat: 3 sets of 5 reps at 80kg as warm-up.

Thereafter, 5 rounds for time:

- 5 strict pull-ups
- 10 box jumps
- 15 wall balls at 9kg

Time: 7´24´´ [Definitvely the most effective training I have found so far to be destroyed for 3 (4?) days. Well, usually the pain comes at D+2, maybe a chance for a good training day tomorrow!]


The "garage", full of good spirit, good music...


...and inspiration!

C • CrossFit 3

Sunny again. Hard to complain.

The exceptionally good weather somehow changed the original plan (aqua-running at the pool) to 3 loops of Sunnersta´s hilly course. A wise choice.

Cold bath anyway, in Mälaren, afterward.

November Nights 2 in Lunsen.

Still a lot to learn, not even close from the master.



Livelox / 2Drerun

Sunny : )

C • sunny 6

Got the best of this sunny day.
Started with the newly build playground close to home.



Thereafter, chased a fast biker the whole way. Even the E-bike speed didn´t help much in that case...



An easier training day today, hoping to reload battery before meeting one of the thoughest challenge of modern orienteering tomorrow - battling against Albin Ridefelt, in his garden, at night! #lunsen #novembernightcup #cantwait