Training Log Archive: Ruhis

Sjätte etappen. My preparations were supposed to be good but something went wrong. Here's a short summary of the evening: arrived at the hotel far too early. Everything was dead and eveyone who was already there wondered where all the 1800 people are? Was waiting at the lobby for the fun to beging and talked to a Swiss matchmaker who spoke his funny Swiss German. After a while still sitting in the same chair and Georg from Wiener Neustadt joins me. We talk about our mutual friends and the connections my club has to Austria. Joonas walks past us and we all move to the balcony. People are sipping their pear ciders so I decide to take one as well. There's a good crowd on the dance floor already so I join them and dance with the people from RR. Pyry was being a bit too frisky. Annika has arrived and I go and get her to the dance floor. Time for another cider. We find Anu in the piano bar. The band has started the show and I hit the dance floor with Anu. Good party music. I see Erik S-N from the Austrian army team and have a little chat with him. I dance away and Anu and me get a good spin from some random Swedish teenager. Any takes a break but I keep dancing with the boy. It's too hot already but the boy won't let me stop. After a few more songs the band leaves the stage and I leave the boy. Anu wants to go and tease Mats Haldin who is talking to Vendula Klechova. I err to complain that it's hot and Mats decides to pour the ice from his glass on my head. It smells like cider. Anu returns to her husband and we move to a more quiet space. I talk to a Finnish guy who doesn't know where he came from nor where he is going and has lost his friends. Poor thing. I tell him to wait for his friends in the lobby. I start making rounds but I don't find any familiar faces. I'm bored and sober and don't really feel like hitting the over-heated dancefloor anymore. I decide to flee "Anu and Anders the matchmakers" half an hour before the closing time hoping to catch the second last bus back to Tandådalen. The second last bus never comes.

Hiking day. My achilles was a bit sore + I had a sore throat so I decided to take it easy. So I didn't give a damn about the chasing start. Missed #1 a bit again when I didn't play it safe in the end. I was walking to #3 but still managed to miss it quite a bit even though I knew exactly where I was 100m before the control. I couldn't understand the green detailed area at all. From that control on my brain was more or less in my pocket again. I thought to myself on the way to #4: "Don't do anything stupid now!" But I found myself lost in the middle of the marshes anyway... It got very amusing when some junior guys showed up in the area. They were running around in circles and one of them kept shouting: "Anders! Anders!". I thought that he was shouting it because he had found the control but I guess he was just missing his friend. I was eating lots of blueberries in the forest and I was happy to notice that I would get some water to go with them in #7. But my disappointment was huge when there was no water there after all because the man was just carrying the water buckets to the control when I passed it. Luckily I got some water after #8. Had some problems to find #9 but was happy to, maybe for the 10th time during the week, to help someone at the control.

to the start again.

Open fjäll. I wasn't really able to enjoy it as much as I would have liked to. Went too much round to #2 and lost a minute there. Then screwed up #4. I knew where I was 50m before the control but got distracted by some other controls and didn't check the compass... I should have stopped to take a good look at the map but failed to do so and lost more than 3 minutes. I was annoyed by the behaviour of a woman I had caught. She was totally lost and bubbling English and German to me so much that I couldn't even hear my own thoughts. Well, we both managed to find #4 after a while and ran ok to #5. She was faster than me (it doesn't take much these days... :p) so I was keeping her back in sight to #6 and kept doing so towards #7 before I realised that we were far too much on the left and she kept running to a completely wrong direction. Annika caught me by 5 minutes (=the amount of mistakes I had made) just before #7 and puched the control some seconds before me. I was running just behind her until #10 but I slowed down a bit in the downhill to #11 because I was a bit unsure. I caught her again at #13 but she was faster in the downhill to #14 and #15 so I was able to overtake her only about 30m before the finish line. I was being a bit careful in the downhills because of my foot. The more my ankle twists and turns the worse it it for the achilles.

20' to the competition center from the cottage and 10' in the start area.

The most difficult course of the week. I took it pretty easy but made quite a lot of mistakes anyway. I just don't have the skill to orienteer fast in these kind of "brown hills" yet. I have to get some more practice. Maybe 7 or 8 minutes mistakes today.

to the start.

Couldn't find anything straight. I had a pretty early start time so maybe I wasn't awake yet. Or maybe I got too distracted by a Finnish dude who started talking to me at the start. I understood the brilliance of his opening line with a little delay. Whatever the reason, my brain was turned off during the whole race. I also had some huge problems adjusting to the scale 1:10000 again at the start. It wasn't even fun anymore in the last slope when there where so many people running in a small area that it actually became dangerous...

to the start.

Event: Oringen 2008
 

A wonderful terrain and a good course! :) A little miss to #1 because I didn't notice a rock under the control circle.The circle was cut but I guess I should check my eyesight (or get stronger contact lenses) because I made a similar mistake at KRV too... Lost a bit time at #4 as well when I didn't really understand the contour level. Some wobbling to #6 but not a real mistake. Made a pretty big mistake to #9 when I didn't understand the green/yellow/white vegetation. I should have slowed down more. Max 7 minutes mistakes altogether but running felt surprisingly good.

to the start.

to the map from the cottage.

A training on the map Flatfjället. I was using my 1:15000 map from last year's Sälen 3+3 training camp. It was so good to be back in Sälen! I was walking and jogging all the 25 controls they had put out. I think this turned out to be the best training of my whole stay in Sälen this year. I truly enjoyed it and I found the controls nearly perfectly.