Training Log Archive: Tundra/Desert

Moscow Meridian stage 14: 6.96 km. Two missing controls; found one on the ground eventually, and the other one was 2.5 m off the ground in a tree, punch and all intact. I was the one who pulled it down from the tree and stuck it into the ground---no clue if right under that tree was indeed the correct location. The run was pretty messed up after the first missing control. (Metric) tons of "anthropogenic garbage" in the woods. About 6 minutes back (15th/113) with 6 minutes of errors/looking for missing bags. Looks like I'm over the jet lag; but see the comment. AHR = 164.

Looks like I have gastritis, hope it's nothing more serious. I'm in constant, albeit dull and moderate, pain at all times I'm not sleeping or running. I had this stuff at age 6... Ibu is EXPENSIVE here, and all the cheap stuff is acetaminophen (bye, liver dude).

To Avangard stadium across Izmailovskiy Park.

3 x 400 m with 1/2 lap rest. At Avangard with SY (he did 12 x 400; I was quite tired after the O and the gastritis). 77 76 71. First set of intervals after the injury. Coach Zherdev was watching.

Home.

1 - Splits

Through Izmailovskiy Park.

Felt like crap the whole day, and slept. Some abdominal issues; maybe it's just the jet lag has finally caught up.

The Belgian World Cup people lost our entry fee and accommodation payment, of which I was notified on Saturday. I read the e-mail on Monday, and spent 2 days losing hair over making a duplicate payment with no time remaining. I couldn't personally come, Kenny's emails were bouncing, Wyatt was in Kiev, thanks to various deities Sergey was still in touch. On Wednesday, they told HIM (but not me) that they "found" the E. I expect no less than a case of that overpriced yeasty stuff.

A morning run in Izmailovskiy Park.

Moscow Meridian stage 13. These are weekday events held in Moscow city parks. Jogged (16th/120) the course at AHR = 160 (11 minutes back); a surprising amount of map reading (= trail junction reading) for quite simple terrain.

1 - Splits

Moscow Champs Classic, the final: 12.45 km/feeble climb. Classic Moscow orienteering: light to medium-green woods, tons of trail running, controls on depressions in flat woods 100 m away from any other mapped feature. The standing Moscow team which ran in the Russia Champs a couple days ago was admitted without qualifying, plus 35 qualifiers from yesterday. I got through fairly unscathed, 14th/31 starters; 19:40 behind the winner. Several of the top 10 are Russian B-team, so I am fairly happy with the result (my best ever in Moscow Champs was I think 10th about 9 years ago---I have to check the old maps). It appeared to me that most runners I saw in the woods moved noticeably faster than myself, and slowed down a ton near the controls or made errors; they also seemed to prefer shortcutting through the bland light-green woods to going around on trails, and some split analysis showed that trail vs. woods made no difference whatsoever. AHR = 165.

MA - Splits

Moscow Championship Classic, qualifying race. Qualifying was top 30, which actually ended up top 35 as several non-Moscow club members ran. Caught up one of the people right away who ended up placing 7th; we got the intensity up to about my 5 for the first third of the race. Then I made a 2-min error, lost him, and continued at a fairly leisurely pace; felt the two nights of 3-hour "sleep" on a coach seat throughout. Was 26th/92 (select View->Encoding->Cyrillic (Windows)).

The very long series of flights (redeye to East Coast + redeye transatlantic) actually seems to work great against the jet lag. I'm on the new time already on Saturday morning, at least sleep-wise.

MA - Splits

An anti-jet lag run in Izmailovskiy Park.