Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

So not a great day for timeliness, but what else is new. After work I biked into the city to pick up a birthday present for Seabass and then found the Chinese grocery that my officemate suggested so I could buy Chinese five spice powder (and more hoisin, because Sam is addicted). Of course, by the time I had finished that, I was super late getting back to the apartment to grab the headlamp and oshoes and head out the door.

Crossed paths with the club as they were warming up towards the Stadskogen and I was biking frenetically to the clubhouse to get my map.

Tonight was two loops around, with a jumble of reflective controls to start each loop before joining up with the reflective terrain loops in the woods. The reflective course is awesome, Johan has nailed shinys every 5 or 10 meters along a fun course off trail in the woods. You can see it with a headlamp at night, but not during the day. I ran this pair of loops.

My orienteering was a bit hesitant, and I had trouble following the reflexbana in some places, but I did come across a fox (en rav) in the swamps near the south end of the course, so that more than made up for the feeling of slow navigation.

C • a fox in the swamps 2

I am too lazy to go get my Garmin and download it, but tonight was a trainingsbank session of intervals. 17 people showed up, so it felt like the whole club, almost. The session ended up being 9,6,3,3,3,2,2,1,1,1,1,30",30",30",30" with 2 mins after the first two intervals and then 1 after all the others. The lighted loop in the Stadskogen is great, but it's not really all that bright :)

Felt pretty good, and was able to keep up fairly well tonight. The boys group ended with just Olle, Henrik, Fredrick, Johan and me doing the shorter intervals. Johan suggested that we take turns being a rabbit for the 30 second pieces, where the goal was just to run all out and stay ahead of the group. That was a fun way to end the session, though I cheated a little bit by giving myself a 2 second headstart :)

Dropped my chain again last night, so this was me running into work. Any hints on how to keep a tight chain on a single gear, no derailleur bike? I've managed to fix it enough to bike on, but it still seems to catch oddly on each pedal and I'm worried that it'll just pop off again next time I'm late for something and biking in a hurry.

Nice morning, I love the trails on the way to work.

C • chain tension repairs 2

After work, went to fix my bike. Then Olle, and Mari biked past at the same time, and a few moments later, Gustav came walking along too. This really is a small town.

Whole club half marathon training, as it is moose hunting season, and so we're staying out of the woods as much as possible. Started out at a pretty good clip, heading into new uncharted territory for me again to the southeast. Running and chatting but then fell off the back of the leaders and it was just Olle and me for a ways. Olle is a great running partner.

At about 9k we swung back past the clubhouse and Anders caught up and Frederick picked it up to run with us too. Our pack of 4 headed back towards the science park before we said goodnight to Frederick and made a loop down by the river.

Olle looked at the watch and realized that we needed to pick up the pace if we were going to beat our time from last week. So as we headed up the hill again into the last 5 k, we picked up the pace from about 4:20s to about 3:50s and had a really strong finish. Felt great to push hard.

After training, Boris and I went into town to watch the football game, Sweden vs Holland, with Janne, Thomas, and Frida.

Training on a short time schedule. I stayed at work too long and had plans to grab a beer with Gustav at 8.

Boris suggested heading out with one of the Tuesday night courses ( in this case A2) for some night orienteering/running. We ran over to the clubhouse to grab some maps and then headed out, trails at first but then a line o with some tough navigation and also some thickish green sections.

It was great fun, though I was depending a lot on Boris for his lamp which was better charged, and his brain, which was also apparently better charged.

Running late so cut it massively short, but really happy to get out and get a taste of what winter training will be like!