Training Archive: NixonIn the 30 days ending 2007-09-30:
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Tuesday Sep 25 | ||
| Note | |
| So I ain't really written much in a while. In Summary:
1 week in Czech Republic on a WOC training camp. The BOF super-computer managed to come up with a brilliant schedule where we only actually spent 3 days training in the WOC terrain, and then drove half way across Europe to run the Austrian Champs, although we couldn't actually run the long because we had to leave very early to drive back across Europe to get out flights because they obviously don't have any airports in Austria. That was a good Sunday though. Breakfast in Vienna, Lunch in Prague, Dinner in Copenhagen and Supper in Helsinki. I think I have have left a significant carbon footprint that day. Due to the hardness of training I succumbed to Craney's lurgy and got ill at the weekend on Austrian Champs. So last week I rested and read 2 huge Dan Brown books, Deception Point and Digital Fortress. Bloody good books, especially Deception Point. I ain't read fiction in years, but I could hardly put these ones down. I hope they don't make them into films starring Tom Hanks. The weekend just gone was the Finnish Champs, due to me having Craneylitus I only did the relay. I took it easy to number one, and let the school boys fight out the front. 2 was a longish leg, and I took a maverick route choice, breaking off from the pack on going it on my own. 1 dude followed me. A wise decision. As I legged it off on my own I could see the whole pack silhouetted on top of the hill and thought maybe it wouldn't pay off. I made a bit of a mistake coming into the control, going a bit off line but worked it out straight away as I head into the bush for the control, I was listening for the pack, but didn't hear anything.. then a few snaps and I saw the Pyrinto dude who was leading the pack earlier coming my way, a quick check of the map and then a look up to see the control to my right. You beauty! I just spanked a whole pack of Finnish runners, ha ha. I was no where near the front of the pack when I left it. A few more controls of running just at the front, and then then suddenly some fat straglers appear infront of us. It turns out we had a bit of a long gaffel at number 1, and despite no mistakes we were 2 mins down and the next common controls. Boo hoo. I few more long gaffels, a bit more fanny dancing and a few wobbles later and I had lost the chasing pack for good. On the long road leg back to the arena I was running with Kalevan's second team, as we came round the corner there was a line of joggers infront of us who had all found H21 number bibs from somewhere. It was then that I knew we were miles down. Not satisfied with that I then screwed one of the last controls for a few minutes before putting it away and heading to the finish 7 mins down. Oh shit. We never recovered, and got bummed by our second team. Back in Edinburgh at University now, although I have no lectures today which is a result. The Great Winter Offensive shall start in Oktober. | ||
| C • BOF super-computer 3 | ||
| C • Lahti 6 | ||
Tuesday Sep 18 | ||
| Note | |
| (sick) | ||
| Resting. Reading mostly.
This morning's choice of TV was the Finnish 2008 Budget Report or Synchornised Trampolining, live from the Birmingham NEC. How the hell is that in the olympics. Whilst I'm at i, I've got a few other grduges against sports. How can you really consider it a sport if you have to get judges to vote to see who is the winner. Gymnastics, Diving, Synchonised Swimming etc. I know it's all very hard, as some muppet always uses as an excuse for them being in the olympics, but lots of things are hard. The fact that people vote for who is the best puts it alongside with Eurovision or being the President of the USA. Voting may of may not be open to slight manipulation. Another issue I have, what the hell is with all these wieght catogories? Who cares how much a 60kg dude can wieght lift if the 120kg can lift twice as much. And it is all very well being the Light Flyweight Champion, but that still means there are at least 10 guys who could kick you ass at the olympics. They don't have basketball for short people, or running for fat people, why should they have catogories for fighting or lifting rocks. Swimming... an interesting one. I think if one person can win 8 gold medals in one Olympics then you probably have too many disciplines. I don't see why there are 5 ways of swimming a race. Surely there is a pool, fastest bastard to the other side is the winner, quite simple. Why do you have to confine them by saying "actually, no, you can't swim the fastest way, you have to swim backwards, or sideways, or like a dolphin" they don't have running backwards races, do they? Well, except of course for race walking. Which is stupid. Race walkers are an insult to all the real athletes at the Olympics, shame on them for even turning up. Sailing aint a sport. Nor are Shooting or Archery. No one plays baseball except the USA, and Cuba have still won 3 out of 4 times. | ||
| C • making controversial statements on the net 3 | ||
Monday Sep 10 | ||
| Running tempo 1:02:13 [4]15 km (4:09 / km) +450m 3:36 / km | |
| ahr:168 max:184 | ||
| Tempo run around Paloheinä, trying to do what I was trying to do yesterday. I was running at a comfotable fast steady place, which still eneded up being a bit too fast. 5 min/km's must be quite slow. It's a really nice track to run round, it has a thin layer of sawdust, for the nordic walking poles, which makes it nice and soft to run on.
Other than training I didn't really do anything yesterday. I saw Jörgen Wickholm won the Finnish Long Champs be just under 4 minutes, what a legend! I'm running the middle champs on the 22nd, and it's going to be pretty hardcore. There were 7 heats last year, and top 9 make the final, which is normally about 2 mins behind the leader. I thought Finnish TV might be rubbish, but actually their producers are absolute legends. Last night was the first in the series of Fawlty Towers, and the Mighty Boosh is on as well. Classic. | ||
| C • 5m/km 5 | ||
Saturday Sep 8 | ||
| Running tempo 27:55 [5]7.5 km (3:43 / km) +225m 3:14 / km | |
| ahr:183 max:192 | ||
| Tempo run around Paloheinä. I was going to run 2 laps steady at about 5 min/km's, but I don't actually know how fast that is, so it turned into a 1 lap quite hard run. Some joker has gone round and ripped up all the km signs as well, which made it a bitch for me to keep check of my pace, not that I was anywhere near the pace I was meant to be at. I noticed today how hard it can be to run downhill when you are tired. Nordic walking is back on the gay list too.
I was looking at the live results/radio from the Finnish champs long race today. Tiina, Heidi, Minna and Jukka made it through to tomorrow's final. Should be interesting, plus there is the end of season battle royale showdown mega death match between Minna Kauppi and Heli Jukkola. I'm now in trouble because I am writing this instead of helping make dinner. Ooops. | ||
| Jogging 20:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. Can't talk, must cook. | ||
Friday Sep 7 | ||
| Orienteering 31:42 [4]***** 4.4 km (7:12 / km) | |
| spiked:10/16c | ||
| Me and Matti headed out to the forbidden kingdom of Nuuksio for some secret stealth training. First off was the H40 Finnish Middle Champs Final from 2006. My plan: I'm not sure, I can't remember having one, which is probably why I was so shite. It started badly at 1, and didn't get much better. I spent a lot of the time not really knowing where I was, there were some interspersed moments of glory, but mostly I was generating learning.
1) 26:10 Jan Donner, OK 77 My time of 31:42 puts me in 32nd at the last control (where I stopped), but I reckon I could have plucked to 10s to Kalle Virtanen, maybe. It shows that it doesn't really matter how fast you are, if you can't navigate then you are screwed. | ||
| Orienteering 25:35 [4]***** 3.9 km (6:34 / km) | |
| ahr:165 max:179 spiked:10/11c | ||
| Second session, H35 Middle Qualification Heat 1. Having been quite shite on the first run, I was determined to be not shite on the second one. I swapped compasses, I used to like using a baseplate, but it was just annoying me earlier. The forest has grown up a bit since last year according to Matti, but there was still a massive track to the start point and by some of the controls. I got off to a well good start, orienteeringness was just flowing out of me, it was automatic. My aim was to go back to basics: attack points and plans. I only had a one small wobble in some green, apart from that it was awesome.
1) 24:09 Sören Nymalm, Pargas IF My time of 25:35 at the last control puts me in 12th, a bit better than this morning. And I could have chomped up the 9s to Mika Honkasalo on the spurt, nae bother. The first session I was thinking about racing the H40's time: this is not a good idea. The second session I was thinking about orienteering: this is a good idea. Still got nailed by gubbars though... | ||
| Jogging (Warming up / down) 20:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. We nearly didn't find the start for the first session. I then went for a warm up without the map and nearly got lost. Good times. | ||
Thursday Sep 6 | ||
| Running intervals 20:00 [5] | |
| Intervals on cinder track at Pirkkola, 8 x 400m. Spent a lot of time veering round stray girls playing under 16 soccer in the middle, badly. It's not that they had no skill, the had some but not very much, but they just had no sense of positioning or tactics or off the ball movement. For most of them the only acceptable move was to hoof the ball as soon as they got it, which doesn't work very well when you can't control where you hoof it.
My legs felt pretty stiff, like they didn't want to move fast. They did move fast, faster than last time I ran 400's, but there were most definitely stiff. Anti-flaccid as Embrey might say. | ||
| Orienteering 15:39 [4]*** 2.45 km (6:23 / km) | |
| spiked:9/13c | ||
| After the intervals I jogged for a bit and then did some Sprint orienteering on a 1:5000 map. The course had 3 sections. It started well, I couldn't find the first control. Not because I'm crap though, it was for a different reason: it just wasn't there. The mapper obviously thought it would be funny to put a stone on the map where clearly there isn't one. I doubt anyone has half-inched it. Helsingin vandals don't seem to steal road-works, let alone 2-tonne boulders. The mapper must have been either a) blind, b) drunk or c) Dave Peel*.
My focus was trying to stay ahead of myself. It didn't work on the first section, I was bad. It wen't OK on the middle section, I was OK. It went well on the last section, I was good. I did have to mince over the granite because it was raining and I aws only wearing fell shoes, I hope no one was watching. (*only joking, Peel maps are the best in the world) | ||
| Jogging (Warming up / down) 28:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down.
It seems that Helsinki transport think no one is going to be going home from a massive sports center after 6 o'clock, so I had to take a different bus home. Thing was, I didn't know which bus to take home. I went to the next nearest stop and decided to take a bus to another bus to the city center. I then saw a bus that went straight to the city center drive past on the other side of the road. Balls. Anyway, I got on the next bus that came past and ended up in Arabia. Interesting. From there it was a simple case of taking the tram home. Which was very exciting as some dude was getting arrested at a tram stop down the line for being a very naughty boy. I resisted the temptation to get a kebab. | ||
Wednesday Sep 5 | ||
| Running intervals 43:00 [4] | |
| A bit of tennis in the morning with Matti, which was good. It was sunny and no one else was on the courts. We just hit the balls about for a bit and the Matti wanted to play a real game. I won 6-0. But Matti has degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, so nothing to boast about really. I think I prefer playing with his old-school wooden racket, it's awesome, plus I look like Björn Borg, almost.
Then went running round Kaivopuisto with Tiina, did a couple of loops round the park as intervals. Fastest was 4:04. I still felt tired from Austria. Then Matti, Ville and I went over to the island in Sipoo, looked at a big stone and discussed how we could move it. Then we played some basketball, had some beers and ate some Finnish sausage. Good times. | ||
Tuesday Sep 4 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| I slept for ages and had a mega lie-in. Then did nothing much for the rest of the day. I had some pytt-i-panna for lunch with an egg on top, only because it had an egg on top in the picture on the packet. It was nice. Actually, I had 2 eggs on top, but that's kind of irrelevant. I went to see Irina Palm (it's a film) in the evening. It was good. Films are the best way to learn foreign swearing I reckon, but the subtitle-man always changes them to something different. Damn you subtitle-man. | ||
Monday Sep 3 | ||
| Jogging 50:00 [4] | |
| A wee hill jog up the nice mountain out the back of the apartments. I was just going to have a rest day, but I decided to save that til Tuesday when I woulnd't have a nice mountain out the back of my apartment to go jogging up. Plus, it was sunny and I need to work on my tan, it's been fading with the dull weather in Helsinki recently. We jogged up to the top of the ski-lift at about 1650m, I think this is probably the highest I have ever been. Which is a bit lame really.
We then drove back (the correct way) to Munich airport, Neil had to get up at about 4am because of Jess and her Geography. I had 6 ham rolls for lunch. Munic airport is huge, and is also the Best Airport in Europe and the 3rd best in the world according to Skytrax. It has lots of disco lights, which are pretty cool, but not as cool as the Disco Jeep in Seefeld. | ||
Sunday Sep 2 | ||
| Orienteering race 1:34:48 [5]*** 13.4 km (7:04 / km) +520m 5:56 / km | |
| spiked:23/30c | ||
| Euromeeting Long, Seefeld-Wildmooslam:
1) 1:26:34 Håvard Lucasen, NOR 2) 1:27:42 Mattis Millinger, SWE 3) 1:28:26 Magne Daehli, NOR 16) 1:34:48 Mark Nixon, GBR Physically, I felt pretty good. I got a bit tired in the loops, but a mars bar fueled me up for the long leg back home. Technically, it was OK. My biggest weakness is alpine orienteering and route choices. Mentally it was great, I was focused on my orienteering and it all came naturally, I didnät have to force it like in the relay yesterday. I have concluded that to become a better orienteer I need to get fitter and better at navigating, Simple. | ||
| Jogging (Warming up / down) 30:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. It was sunny today. | ||
Saturday Sep 1 | ||
| Orienteering race 51:19 [5]**** 6.5 km (7:54 / km) +280m 6:30 / km | |
| spiked:15/23c | ||
| Euromeeeting Relay, Seefeld-Wildmoosalm:
1) 2:23:19 Norway (Bjerkreim Nilsen, Lucassen, Østerbø) 2) 2:23:22 Sweden (Holmberg, Lind, Millinger) 3) 2:23:46 Finland (Tervo, Wickholm, Taanila) 11) 2:40:44 Great Britain (Mercer, Coombs, Nixon) Bloody hell, that was steep. I felt pretty crap all the way round, it started straight up and then get steeper. I made a few mistakes early on, and my brain just wans't focused. I kept thinking to myself "orienteer", but I just wasn't doing it. Muppet. The gaffling was pretty epic, which may have explained why Anders came through about an hour clear. The last leg must have been exciting; SWE, FIN, SUI and NOR all starting within 25s. | ||
| Jogging (Warming up / down) 30:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. Saw Anders attempting to catch a duck by trying to feed it a moutain flower. The duck was having none of it.
Evening jog + stretching. | ||