Training Archive: NixonIn the 31 days ending 2007-08-31:
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| W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Friday Aug 31 | ||
| Orienteering 12:00 [4] *** 2 km (6:00 / km) | |
| spiked:8/11c | ||
| Final training session before the Euromeeting. We dropped down into a big valley for a sprint session on one of those micky mouse 1:5000 jobbies. I decided not to do controls 7, 8 and 9 because they were clearly planned by the Grand Old Duke of York. I felt pretty good, maybe because we had dropped back into the oxygen layer. I still wasn't that used to running on 1:5000 though, it was the 4th time this year.
Some of the other teams had turned up by the time we had finished. Norway were there with a good team. The Swiss were there with a not as good as the Norwegians but still better than us Team. Maybe some others, I can't remember. What I can remember is that the Norwegians were wearing there nice Norwegian national team kit. I, on the other hand, could not wear my British kit because I don't actually have any. You'd think that being selected for the World Cups, Euromeeting and reserve for WOC might actually get me an O-top, but it didn't. Thanks Hilary. Atleast the coaches can stand around in their's... | ||
| Orienteering race 17:14 [5] *** 2.9 km (5:57 / km) +85m 5:11 / km | |
| spiked:18/26c | ||
| Euromeeting Sprint, Seefeld-Wildsee
1) 15:44 Anders Holmberg, SWE 2) 16:03 Magne Daehli, NOR 2) 16:03 Erik Rost, SWE 17) 17:14 Mark Nixon, GBR The pressure got to me. I was rushing and orienteering like a punter at the start. I settled down after the long leg, but then made a stupid mistake on the first urban control and Rost caught me as I was leaving it. I stuck with him for the next few controls, although I took some different routes (like not trough the olive green to 19, it's not really his fault, sprint maps are just shite), and then he just dropped me on the longish leg back to the finish, there was nothing I could do, he was fast and I was not. I think I learned a lot from today. I don't like sprints, but I think they can teach you a lot, so I will try and do some more for training. | ||
| Jogging (Warming up / down) 50:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. I had some nice healing water to drink before the sprint from the fountain. It was tastey.
Short evening jog with streching, again. | ||
Thursday Aug 30 | ||
| Orienteering 34:12 [4] *** 4.3 km (7:57 / km) +110m 7:03 / km | |
| spiked:14/14c | ||
| A downhill(ish) course, planned by an Austrian. I have learned about the forests and the maps, now I must learn about the course-setting. It was nice, nowhere near as hardcore as Big Jon's courses. The jog to the start did have 250m of climb though. My orienteering was much better today, no mistakes. I felt better running too, but it was nearly all downhill. Control 3 was quite hard, I had to go through lots of wet bush and I couldn't really see much. So I just kept my head down and waited til I came out the other side and then had a good look around. Still on line, you beauty! I had put my compass through my map bag at some point, and as it was still raining my map got a bit wet, and as Austrians are cheap the map was printed on some guys home printer and so all the ink ran, making it quite hard to find 11 and 12. All that is left now is the black ink. | ||
| Jogging (Warming up / down) 34:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. It was 1km to the start with 250m of climb. The ski lifts were not operating, probably due the lack of skiers, which was probably due to the lack of snow. It was raining though.
Another short evening jog followed by stretchy time. | ||
Wednesday Aug 29 | ||
| Orienteering 40:00 [4] *** 4.8 km (8:20 / km) +260m 6:33 / km | |
| spiked:15/20c | ||
| First session in Austria, a short course planned by Big Jon on a very big hill. The aim was just to learn a bit about the terrain and maps. The forest was nice to run in but bloddy steep. They weren't detailed like in Helsinki but the orienteering wasn't easy. I was OK, I wasn't forcing the technique too much, just running round and seeing what happened. It was raining.
Before the training we popped down the Seegeld spar to get some supplies. Unlike every spar in the UK, this one actually had some nice food. It also had a life size Milka cow. Now that I've seen a giant purple cow, I'm definitely going to buy their chocolate. | ||
| Orienteering 29:20 [4] *** 2.4 km (12:13 / km) +175m 8:57 / km | |
| spiked:7/9c | ||
| Slope orienteering: A whole course of wonderful contouring on a nearly vertical slope. It's almost impossible to run at any speed when it is so steep, and the orienteering can be quite tricky running across a blank slope looking for a tiny crag. I wasn't really enjoying this type of orienteering, I find it boring and pointless, like Hollyoaks. Despite this, I seemed to have good altitude awareness, and did OK. My alpine route-choice making is not quite as good as Hannibal's. It's still raining.
I dislike Germany for many reasons, but the biggest one just now is their relentless dubbing of foreign TV into German. Literally everything is translated by mediocre voice actors with poor timing. I know English is my first language but let's face it, it is the international language. I did do 5 years of German at school, but that was 7 years ago and I wasn't good, even back then. Luckily we have eurosport and the World Athletics Champs is on, unluckily I am British and therefore have very little to lookforward to. | ||
| C • I hate dubbing too. Voice/spea... 1 | ||
| Jogging (Warming up / down) 44:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. I seem to be getting out of breath really quickly. I'm not sure if it's the altitude (1200m) or the fact that it's always uphill.
A short jog in the evening followed by some stretching. | ||
Tuesday Aug 28 | ||
| Jogging 30:00 [3] | |
| My plane doesn't leave untill the evening, so I went for a wee jog to keep my legs moving. I did a couple of spurts just to make myself feel good. It#s got really cold in Helsinki now, the summer is officially over. Boo. Matti gave me a lift to the airport on his way to orienteering which was nice. The place got delayed because all baggage handlers are layz, but Captain Jack put on the afterburners to pull back a bit of time to München. We then drove, the wrong way at several points (Duncan was navigating), to Austria, had dinner and went to bed. (Duncan and Joe went to the same bed)
| ||
| C • Good to hear that Duncan and J... 2 | ||
Monday Aug 27 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| A nice lie in, followed by pretty much nothing. I did some laundry, moved some mess abobut my room and re-organised my maps. Tomorrow I fly to Austria (I'm actually flying to Germany and then driving to Austria, but it's a bit long winded to write that) for the Euromeeting. We have a Sprint on Firday, Relay on Saturday and the Long on Sunday. It should be good. | ||
| C • euromeeting 3 | ||
Sunday Aug 26 | ||
| Orienteering race 46:21 [5] **** 7 km (6:37 / km) | |
| spiked:14/20c | ||
| Husqvarna kista, Broböle. Before hand I felt OK, but still not exactly fantastic.I still started quite fast, and tried to focus on my orienteering and not think about the lawn mower which was up for grabs. It started well, I nailed my first loop with only 1 small wobble, and maybe a bit of a softcock route-choice. We then had a bit of a long route-choice, for which once again I took the softcock option, because I hadn't really planned ahead. Oops. I was thinking that it was a bit lame whilst I was running it, but there was nothing I could really do about it. I ballsed 11 big time, this time I took the mantastic route-chioce straight through the open shite, but then ran straight past the control which was on a line of very obvious crags that could see. What a muppet. There were a few wobbles here and there, including running straight past a path junction. But it was still a pretty good race.
Results: http://www.sipoo.fi/sibbovargarna/orient/kilpailu/... I got a lift back to Helsinki with a limping invalid who had somehow, despite only having 1 hamstring, managed to win a Black & Decker drill... | ||
| Jogging (Warming up / down) 25:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. Legs feeling a bit heavy. Bumped into Anders and Hannamaria when warming up. | ||
Saturday Aug 25 | ||
| Jogging 35:00 [3] | |
| Some easy jogging in the evening followed by some good stretching. I was meant to go the the Iron-Man party, but I was mega-tired and could hardly walk. Jogging seemed like a bit of an effort, and I could tell that I was running like a bit of a mong to compensate for my muscular tiredness. I did some spurts, which felt OK. And I think the stretcing helped. Still not sure about Husqvarna race tomorrow... | ||
Friday Aug 24 | ||
| Kick-biking 2:35:00 [3] | |
| Kickbiking back home, the other "scenic" route because Tiina was there as well. In the morning it felt like there was no way I could do any more kickbiking, I was seriously thinking about getting the metro home. But when I got on the bike my legs felt OK. My left one was sore and tight, but it wasn't too much of a problem. My technique was also perfected so I wasn't using as much energy to go as fast. Just as we were about to set off it started raining. A bit annoying, but it wasn't that cold so no problem. We, once again, stopped for some cake and coffee.
When we got back we had a lovely lunch of pasta, ketchup and tuna. Then another long sleep. After which my legs had stiffened up and walking became a bit of an issue. I have ust noticed that the keyboard ha stopped being Finnish and gone back to the normal QWERTY board, Its never been like this before. Maybe it's because this site is American. | ||
| C • yeah 1 | ||
Thursday Aug 23 | ||
| Kick-biking 2:20:00 [3] | |
| Kick-biking out to the island in Sipoo, taking the "scenic" route. My technique was still a bit bad at first, but I perfected it over the first hour. I was suprised at how fast I could go, Matti was on his bike and I was keeping up OK. But he wasn't really trying. Downhill the kickbike is king, it has an awesome aerodynamnic profile. It also only has one cable brake, on the front wheel, that wasn't as tight as it could be, which led to some interesting cornering. We stopped for some cake and coffee on the way.
Was feeling damn tired by the time we got to the cottage. Had some lunch, and then a cheeky sleep. Then cleaned the boat and played some basketball. My legs were feeling seriously tight in the evening. | ||
Wednesday Aug 22 | ||
| Kick-biking 1:00:00 [3] | |
| My knee is better, but I go kick-biking instead of running just to give it 1 more day to make extra specially sure that it's fine. A kick bike is pimped version of a kinds scooter. It took my a while to get my technique, which was still pretty bad. I'm not a cross country skier, so I aint used to the kick-back. Me and Matti just cruised a bout for a bit, and then went and tore up a car park like real hell raisers. The Spaniards boarding the big ship were very interested as to what I was doing. | ||
Tuesday Aug 21 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Knee still still hurts. It is getting better though. No WOC today, which is a shame. So I played minigolf instead. Some hole in 1's, and some 7's (max score). I also learned that it is imortant to actually read what you are writing in an SMS, and not to assume that the predictive knows what you mean, especially when you make spelling mistakes.
Here's my predictions for the middle final tomorrow. Men: Thierry Gueorgiou Valentin Novikov Martins Sirmais Women: Tatyana Ryabkina Simone Luder Heli Jukkola | ||
Monday Aug 20 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Knee still hurts. It's not bad, I can still get up and down the ladder to my bed. But it's enough for me not to want to run on it. This means that I literally have nothing to do. I bought some frozen peas to ice my knee, looked at WOC results (Losman isn't having a good time) and watched some Finnish soap opera which is filmed round where I live. | ||
Sunday Aug 19 | ||
| Orienteering race 44:28 [5] ***** 6.91 km (6:26 / km) | |
| spiked:9/13c | ||
| Distric Relay Championship, Lakeissuo. I ran first leg. There weren't that many teams on H21, but 6 classes started at the same time. So there were lots of old juniors and young vets around with similar courses. As per usual, when the (shot)gun went off everyone nailed it out of the field much faster than was needed. I just took it easy for a bit. The first leg was quite long, after about 400m there was a nice big track to run on the other side of a ditch (with compulsary crossing points). Everyone went onto the road. Everyone, that is, except for me. I took a mantastic route choice of running in the forest about 20m from the track. I ran the rest of the course at the front on my own. I think I had the long first loop, at 1 I was well alone, and I couldn't hear anyone, but at 2 some people were running infront of me in a different direction. 3 along. Then on the way to 4 I hear them coming back in again to my right. 5 was the spectator and I think another HS was close behind me, but he made a mistake to 6 and I never heard or saw anyone on H21 after that.
I had a damn good race. I only had about 4 wobbles, no real mistakes, and running felt good for the first time in a while. I'm not sure what this will mean for SM, but it would be good to run first let there. There'll be some awesome head-to-head racing there. We (Me, Tapio & Jukka) won the relay, HS-3 were 2nd. Lynx were 3rd but didn't show to the prize giving, clearly hiding in shame after getting wasted by our 3rd team... | ||
| Jogging 25:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. After my warm down I have some wierd pain in one of the tendons behind my knee. This can't be good. | ||
| Note | |
| (injured) | ||
| Bad knee. Boo. | ||
Saturday Aug 18 | ||
| Orienteering race 1:19:07 [5] ***** 10.4 km (7:36 / km) | |
| spiked:13/23c | ||
| District Long Champs, Juornaa. Pretty poor effort to be honest, my mind was wondering for a lot of the course. Started quite well, some small mises on 1, 3 & 5. Dicked up 7 big time, was too early. Was about 2m from 8 but couldn't see it. Knobbed 9 and 15. Ballsed 16. Bendered 19. Fannydanced 20. My worst run in Finland. Despite all that, there is no way I could have run Jukka's time today. What a Man (N.B. capital 'M'). It's good to have a shit run every now and then, it stops you from getting cocky in the forest. And real mistakes only really occur at race pace.
When I got back to Hinki I watched the Helsinki City Marathon for a bit. I had to walk most of the way home because the marathon crossed the tram route. I got to listen to an awesome live set by some Finnish DJ down in Kaivopuisto, some cheesy classics to help the marathoners on there way. I was at the 27.4km drinks station, and there was some damn tired looking people. Heroes, all of them. Then when I got back to the flat I had the pleasure if looking at the WOC Sprint Qualifcation results. Then men cruised through in style. In the women's it wasn't so good. 1 did better than I expected, 1 slightly worse, and 1 just as I thought. I look forward to tomorrow's long Q | ||
| Jogging 25:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. Ingenting att anmäla. | ||
Friday Aug 17 | ||
| Jogging 25:00 [3] | |
| Some easy jogging along the sea-front to loosten my legs off after my wonderful massage and to get ready for the weekend. Followed by the fastest shower in the world, 500g of pytt i panna and then off to Linnanmäki theme park. It was amazing! I aint had that much fun in ages. It's probably more fun when you don't have to pay for it (you know who you are...). I'm not sure what my favourite ride was. The old school wooden one was pretty cool. I was genuinely scared of the Ramases Revenge style one (if you don't know what that is, google it. Interestingly, Chessington World of Adventures don't know how to spell Ramses, unless Egypt have copywrited the name). I got the iso plate of meatballs for dinner. I shouldn't have. | ||
Thursday Aug 16 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| I'm literally going to do nothing today. Except have a massage. I wan't me legs to feel, and to be felt, good. | ||
Wednesday Aug 15 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| I went down the swimming stadium to do a bit of aqua-jogging and swimming. Thing was, it was sunny and 30'C, so everyone else in Helsinki had had the same idea (I love it when you use the same word twice in a row!). My legs have been feeling majorly tired and heavy due to massive amounts of terrain running and football. Aqua-jogging was a bit too hard to be recovery, so I went for a swim. Now, I'm not that fast at swimming, but I still went in the fast lane, and bugger me there were some slow arses in there. If you are going to take 1 minute a length then get in the slow lane! There should be rules about people doing any other stoke other than front-crawl. Don't do it, it's slow and it takes up a lot of room, unless you are doing back stroke, in which case you just swim into people because you can't see where you are going. I swan for a few minutes, but it was just far too busy. So I spent the rest of the afternoon/evening sitting in the sun on some granite. | ||
| C • Had had... 1 | ||
Tuesday Aug 14 | ||
| Orienteering 52:00 [3] *** 5.8 km (8:58 / km) | |
| spiked:14/17c | ||
| HS Firmaliiga, Letku. I decided to go without a compass today, I'm sure why, but I think it was because I just couldn't be arsed carrying anything other than the map. I have to keep my racing weight down. I wasn't racing. Far from it, I didn't realise how slow I was going. Technically I was pretty damn good, a few small wobbles, but no real mistakes. I think the fact that I didn't have a compass forced me to concentrate a lot more on not getting lost.
The orienteering was quickly followed by a dip in Kaitalampi, which was most tepid. Then we did one to the nearest McDonald's and capitalised on the cheeseburgers for 1 euro special offer. Unsuprisingly, being staffed by retards, they didn't have lots of cheeseburgers ready because of this offer, and it took ages to get them ready. Then we did one to the sportshall for the footy. HS has a team in some local league, and I was playing. I got there a bit late, but soon made my debut. I aint been than nervous before an orienteering competition in years, but just some small footy match and my legs went to jelly. Luckily, I'm not crap, so it was OK. Unluckily it was 0-0. We had loads of chances, but no Thierry Henry. Theirry Henry is amazing. | ||
| Jogging (Warming up / down) 15:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. A woman I didn't know knew my name, I'm famous! | ||
| Football race 30:00 [5] | |
| OK, so it was hard work and I think it deserves to go in the training diary. I know I gave GG shit for doing that, but I raelly want a new colour on my graph. | ||
| C • That's more like it. 1 | ||
Monday Aug 13 | ||
| Jogging 30:00 [3] | |
| An easy jog down the track to see if my blisters were up for a bit of running. The right one was a little bit painful, but nothing an 'ard bastard like me couldn't handle. I did some nice stretching as well afterwards. Judging from the screams coming from Linnanmäki amusement park, one girl was less than amused at Raketti (the tower of death!). | ||
| Orienteering 1:12:32 [4] ***** 9 km (8:04 / km) | |
| ahr:163 spiked:14/16c | ||
| Iltarastit, Halkolampi. My blisters were ok on the tack, but the terrain made my feet twist and turn in the shoes a bit more and it got a bit uncomfortable at time, I couldn't attack the terrain like I normally do, instead; lots of mincing. I was feeling pretty tired, maybe the heat, maybe the lots of cycling. I took it quite steady. Made an absolutely massive cock-up. I was full on lost for a couple of minutes. Lost! I aint been lost in ages, wobbles and misses yeah, but I literally had no idea where I was... I got even more tired after that, it's been above 30'C today.
Something occured to me on the bus home. I've never seen a broken down motorbike, ever. I've come up with three reasons for why this is the case: 1) There are hardly any motorbikes compared to cars, and it's not like you see broken down cars all over the place 2) Motorbike people tend to love their bikes, they have tattoos, long dirty hair and know how to maintain a bike so it doesn't break down. Most car people know nothing and take it to a garage to get ripped off whenever it breaks down 3) Motorbikes are made by mechanical gods and never ever break down. | ||
| Jogging (Warming up / down) 20:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. Had to help a woman find a control 3 meters from where she was standing on my warm down. | ||
Sunday Aug 12 | ||
| Swimming 25:00 [3] | |
| Swimming in Djurgården. It's been a while since I've been in the pool and it showed. I really need to learn to breathe to the right aswell. I attempted to have a sauna, but old fat men kept putting on the water until I was actually getting scolded by the steam. I saw a fad kid lying down on a bench whilst showering: lazy bastard. The cleaning staff in the guys changing was female, interestingly.
There was some sort of cycling race going on in the park aswell, the seemed to be going pretty damn fast. Team Bianchi were there. Blisters are getting better, I might be able to run on them in a few days... | ||
Saturday Aug 11 | ||
| Cycling 3:00:00 [3] 72 km (2:30 / km) | |
| ahr:131 max:169 | ||
| My blisters don't hurt when I wear my cycling shoes, so it looks like I'm going to be on my bike for a few days. I cycled out to Lahti again today. It was bloody hot. I went a bit further than last time, my bike computer and I seem to disagree as to how much further than last time. Another new top speed, 68.8 km/h, on the same "hill". I had a kebab and ice-cream at Luukki again. I saw a few more people on real bikes today, but none of them seemed to be real cyclists. I'm starting to think that they just don't do road cycling in Finland.
I enjoyed the Huippuliiga on TV tonight with some popcorn. It's amazing to live in a country where their elite races get onto the main sports channel at peak time. They had a prologue followed by a middle. Heli took 15s out of Minna on the prologue, that soon disapeared. They ran round most of it together and Minna outkicked Heli big time on the last control. In the guys Jarkko won the prologue and lost the final, big time. All the top guys had GPS and he made some dock-off mistakes. Pasi "one hit wonder" Ikonen took the title. It was damn close, loads of guys in packs. | ||
Friday Aug 10 | ||
| Note | |
| (injured) | ||
| Running without socks; megablisters of death. I can't actually walk. I have one on the ball of each foot. Nightmare. | ||
| Jogging 20:00 [3] | |
| Some easy jogging to loosten up before the eGames. I forgot my socks. This turned out to be a bit of an issue, it was very hot and dry, and I ended up getting some big blisters. The didn't feel bad at all when I was running, but when I stopped and took my shoes off they started caining. Walking turned into a nightmare. I went to the apteeki and got loads of medicines and potinos to try and make it better. I'm just gonna have to sit and wait. Atleast I can sit and wait on my bike... | ||
Thursday Aug 9 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Woke up drunk this morning, a spinning head and ringing ears. That will be Onella's fault again. Before that I went to the Aussie bar to see some awesome live musis from Bryn Jones. This man is an absolute legend. He has been the warm-up act for Aerosmith on their world tour this summer. He was playing some damn good folk music. I've never heard anyone with such a good voice, and I've seen James Brown live, so that's saying something. He did an immense cover of Subterranean Homesick Blues, I don't think I will ever hear anything as good as that again. The punters there really didn't know how good a show they were getting.
I killed my hangover with a greasey pizza buffest at Golden Rax. Helped BJ move some furniture and gave the guys a bottle of whisky. I went down the park for a wee bit of football, which turned into an hour of competative 2-a-side. We won both games. | ||
| C • Training 2 | ||
Wednesday Aug 8 | ||
| Cycling 3:00:00 [3] 68 km (2:39 / km) | |
| ahr:135 max:175 | ||
| Out 'n' back to Vihti. It took a while to escape the city, with all it's pedestrian crossings, traffic lights and other annoying things made to not let my go fast. Once I hit the open road it was great. It's proper summer now in Helsinki, so I did some good work on my cycling tan, although I was in the shade a lot of the time. New top speed, 66.4 km/h. It's more impressive than it seems because the nearest hill I have is still Caerketton. I nearly got mown down by massive tractors cutting the grass at the side of the road quite a few times. I stopped for a nice kebab, ice-cream and luminous sports drinki at Luukki.
I was feeling really tired in the terrain yesterday, so hopefuly this has given my legs a chance to recover. I very much doubt it though. | ||
Tuesday Aug 7 | ||
| Orienteering 39:36 [4] ***** 4.8 km (8:15 / km) | |
| spiked:11/13c | ||
| HS training, Brobacka Mountain. I was feeling very tired today, even jogging into the trees to take a forest dump was a bit of an effort. My focus for today was simplification. I have been told this a lot since I have been here. Use the open hills, look up and run to them. I was simplifying very well on the way to number 1. Infact, I simplified so much that I couldn't even find the control. After that I decided that I should simplify in moderation. Technically I was fine, but I was just running very slowly. Kind of like a fat person with asthma who doesn't exercise.
I was intendning to go to the orienteering shop today and buy some green socks, but somehow I didn't have time. I literally have nothing to do, and yet I aways run out of time. It's vexing; I am vexed. | ||
| Jogging (Warming up / down) 20:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. There was a massive psycho Rotweiler in the carpark whose image was severly weakened by the plaster it had stuck to its side. | ||
Monday Aug 6 | ||
| Orienteering 53:45 [5] *** 9 km (5:58 / km) | |
| ahr:176 max:194 spiked:12/17c | ||
| Iltarastit, Paloheinä. I thought I might try and blitz it today and put a bit of pace into things. It was a pretty flat area, with quite a bit of path running, but it was quite tricky running across the vague stuff. You had to keep a good compass. I didn't. But I wasn't off by too much. It was probably the easiest orienteering I have done since I have been in Finland, but I think I made more mistakes here than anywhere else. Maybe because I was running fast, or maybe because I thought it was the easiest orienteering I have done since I have been in Finland so was being complacent. It was bloody hot too. I put my top in a bucket of water before I started to try and keep cool, but it didn't work. I had a raging headache on the bus back home. I tried to further increase my Finnishness by buying a pair of white, near enough see-through, o-trousers. Very stylish indeed. I even got them a bit cheaper because they don't put the prices on them and the guy at the shop forgot how much they were. Cashback. | ||
| Jogging (Warming up / down) 24:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. It's so hot, I think I am going to die. | ||
Sunday Aug 5 | ||
| Nordic Walking 1:35:00 [2] | |
| Nordic Walking at Paloheinä. I realise that I may lose a few man points for doing nordic walking, but I was told it was a good form of active recovery, and I'll try almost anything once. I got shown some giant wooden tubular bell things, they didn't work very well as the hitting stick was broken, and most of the bells were pretty knackered too. Hannah showed by the bridge of death that she is scared of crossing. It's just a bridge. A normal bridge over a normal river.
I encountered the language barrier today; the tram driver got out of his cabbin and blabbed something in Finnish, pretty soon after most people got off the tram. Hmm, what the hell did he just say. It can't be cancelle because there are still some people on here. What do I do? I can't ask what he said because the only people left were wierd and might eat me. I reckon I should get off, most people have got off. It was a wise decision. I have also learnt that were I run intervals, where all the gays hang out, was also used for the youth Jukola a few years. Brilliant area selection. | ||
Saturday Aug 4 | ||
| Orienteering intervals 1:03:18 [5] ***** 8.6 km (7:22 / km) | |
| spiked:40/48c | ||
| Orienteering intervals at Halkolampi, 8 courses of about 1km. Lots of short legs, seriously intense orienteering. Managed to hold it together pretty well, a few small misses here and there. I got pretty tired, thirsty and hungry by the end of it. It was a baking hot day, and I didnät get a massive breakfast because I had to get up mega-early to get the bus. Luckily for me I had packed a very palatable picnic. I went for a wee swim in Kaitalampi as well. Having missed 3 buses finaly got one just after 5. Went shopping in S Market and then had a pretty average bolognese for dinner, which was followed by some awesome ice-cream and then watched 24 Hour Party People with Steve Coogan. It was a very long day.
I have also learnt that where I run my intervals, Laakso, is where all the gay men of Helsinki hand out for a good time in the bushes. I don't think I have seen any yet, but they are hard to spot as they look just like real people. | ||
| Jogging 40:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down plus recovery between intervals. | ||
Friday Aug 3 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Not really a rest day, cycling to the tennis court, then tennis, then cycling back the long way. There was no real running involved, so it's going to count as a rest day. Only a mincer would put tennis in their training diary. We weren't playing for point, which is good because I am not very good and he has Parkinson's disease. I started using Matti's old wooden racket, but I was getting dominated, so we swapped and I got the nice new metal one. The old guy next to us tried to steal one of our balls, but I wasn't going to stand for any shit like that. I think he soon understood the international sign language and shouting for "don't you even think about half inching my ball ya wee radge". On the way back we stopped for coffee and a croissant at a local market. Good times. | ||
Thursday Aug 2 | ||
| Orienteering 50:48 [4] ***** 7 km (7:15 / km) | |
| ahr:176 max:191 spiked:11/13c | ||
| Keski-Uusimaa Rastit, Gillerberget. A nice wee evening training event. Awesome area. Feeling quite thirsty, didn't run so hard. Decided not to take paths, as that is clearly for lame people. I can run on the paths in races, but in training I might as well run in the terrain. I didn't make many mistakes, but my head wasn't reallty with it today. Concentration was gone. I kept reciting lines from Peep Show. There was a nice new "fucking" lake, as Jukka put it, thanks to Tuesday's storm. I managed to make it into the Helsingin Sanomat today, from the KU-Rastit two weekes ago. Champion of the 7km! The most famous sportsman from Helsinki.
Yesterday evening I had strawberries in the park, and then needed a slash, realy really bad. Hmm, shall I search around and pay? Shall I do one home and go in comfort. Home! Home is always a better idea. It was quite uncomfotable, which then turned into almost painful. I actaully thought I was going to piss myself in the center of Helsinki. I didn't piss myself, but I did have to start running, it's almsot impossible to piss yourself when running, I tried it at TioMila 2004. I was running barefoot, because you simply cannot run in sandels; impossible. I was getting closer. Both to home, and pissing myself. I made it through the gate, but by the time I got to the stairwell there was just no chance I was going to make it up to the 3rd floor. What do I do?!?! Drinks bottle + shelter of recyling shed = nae bother. I am, as of yet, sill undecided as to what to do with the water bottle. | ||
| Jogging (Warming up / down) 22:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. I now have a new size S top, and bleeding nipples is not longer a risk. | ||
Wednesday Aug 1 | ||
| Running intervals 24:00 [5] | |
| Intervals. 4 x 1200m-ish on trails in Laakso. I was going to do them on the track, but I really couldn't be bothered to do 3 laps per effort, that can get a bit boring. Running on the trails was nice, it kept my mind busy all the time. That plus dog dodging and looking at the yummy mummies out for a wee wander with the prams. Feeling good again today, like Lasse Virén, although when I was leaving the changing rooms it felt like my right knee could colapse at any moment. Like and real runner, I ran it off. The Rolling Stones are playing the Olymic stadium tonight. The sound tests were going on whilst I was training. I'm not going to go and see them, it's expensive and I already have the greatest hits CD anyway. I am going to go and see the Simpsons movie though. Should be good. | ||
| Jogging (Warming up / down) 27:00 [3] | |
| Warming up / down. The heptathlete in the pink top wasn't at the track today. some hurdlers were though so it was all good. | ||