Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

Enenracet in Enköping. A middle distance race with a distinctly sprinty flavor. My personal goal heading into the race was to run hard and clean and I thought that if I did that I might be able to be within 5 minutes of the winner (presumed that would be Thierry).

Pretty chilly day, but not so cold as to really need an extra layer... still I opted for an underlayer and was happy.

The start of the course did not go exceptionally well, on my way to the first control I was thrown off by what appeared to be an unmapped powerline to me, and then when I didn't see the gigantic cliff in front of me I really hesitated and waffled about what to do. I was still flustered after this and really stuffed up 3, I was within the circle but simply did not understand the contours, but after this I settled down and did a pretty good job of making a good plan and pushing hard.

A few bobbles, which were not big enough to show on winsplits. Had some company near the end of the course and that helped me keep a strong effort. An all important 5 seconds ahead of last week's personal benchmark, Andrew Quinn :)

Winsplits

Sam did great! She's on fire just now. I think with a slightly better start, my 5 minute behind goal would have been reachable... something to work on for next weekend.

Long Saturday run in the warm sunshine with Sam and Lisa. I was invited to join the ladies for a run, starting at 10. At 10, when I was not yet dressed, Sam threatened to leave me behind... but luckily they waited until I threw on my clothes and got out the door.

We followed Lisa out into Nåsten and then down towards towards Uppsala Näs, and back. It was a lovely run, good company and good vibes. We stopped for a moment to climb a rickety ladder up to the top of a boulder and bask in the sun. Yay!

David convinced me to go for a morning jog. We met at 7:30 and both were - surprisingly - basically on time. A lovely sunny morning, out through nåsten and back along the rail trail. It's nice to start the day this way, but it was tough to get out of bed...

Another week of Innebandy where we were just enough people to play 4 on 4. Super fun to play with this group, and I'm getting better every week. Legs were a bit tight, but I was pleased to be able to work hard the whole session.

I have been wanting to do a track workout where I run 20 x 400 for quite awhile now, ever since reading an article that coach sent back in 2008. As with most things, the hardest part was just deciding to get out there. I saw the opportunity for Thursday of this week and posted it to trainingsbank. I was pleased to have a bunch of other wanting to join me on the track, though all doing their own intervals instead.

I set out from the lab, and did a rather short warmup around the track waiting for others to join, and then got ready. The plan was to run on a 2 minute cycle at 70-75 pace. I ran 400s a couple of times last week, gearing up for this, and found that 70 was going to be pretty tough.

Weather was warm and sunny and the first 8 went very smoothly. Oskar jumped in to help me for a set of 400s in the middle and that was great, having someone just behind, pushing the pace. I was on my own again until the last couple, when Jakob joined me for support. He was great and I was super psyched that my 20th interval was my fastest.

Then, totally wiped, I did a slow jog back up the hill to grab my stuff frm work.

Sidenote, mew club member, Matt Ogden has arrived from New Zealand. After an epic travel day, he still made it out for a run down to the track and back.

Was close to my goal, only a few near the end were slower than planned, and I am very happy to finally check off this my list. Feels good to write something in a yearly training plan, and then get to check it off.

C • good workout, keep it up. 3

Running late for training. Still not the last to the clubhouse -- David -- and pushing hard to make it to the start before the intervals left was a nice warmup.

Super fun interval training in Nåsten. Didn't think that it made sense to run with the super elite pack tonight, since I was still a bit tired from yesterday and the course was quite long. However, Simon, Mats F, and a few others packed up for intervals and that was just about right, regular elite pack :). Running pretty well tonight, though there were still quite a few goofs. Very pleased with how much better I ran in the tricky areas where I made mistakes last Saturday.

Marshes still a bit cold, and happy for wetsocks. Summer is coming :)

Running late for training. Started out towards the clubhouse and met up with the group as they headed towards Flogsta for our paved intervals tonight. After the warmup we did some drills and then 5 x 30 quick intervals to get the juices flowing.

Intervals tonight were long form. 2 x the flogsta loop (3.3k) with about 4 minutes rest between. The flogsta loop is mentally tough to start, you head up a gradual hill for a ways, and then shortly after that hill there is a steep climb. That being said, it's a nice loop, with fun twists and turns and I was feeling pigg och fräsch but the stomach does clench a bit when the pace is blazing right at the start.

The lead pack quickly pulled away on the first loop, but I was running with Anders B and Fredrik and Fredrik in the chasing group. I made a little gap on the group at the start of the loop and then kept about that same distance for the rest of the loop.

The rest was a bit haphazard, my watch got stopped for a part of it, and so we all just hovered around a little waiting a bit from when the leaders went out. On the second loop, the rest of the guys were really pushing the pace. I fell a few meters behind the Fredriks early on, and worked really hard to keep in contact. Near the end of the loop there is a steep downhill, and I had really good flow and form and was able to work my way back up to the front and that gave me the energy to finish out the rest of the interval at speed, even increasing the lead a bit in the end.

Very pleased with how it felt tonight, and very positive about my running shape.

Skipped the warm down with the club in order to jog home with Sam and friends. We made dinner and played games with Lisa and Seb. And we had cardamom waffles from the new waffle iron :)

I totally forgot that we had a new format for Monday strength, including a bunch of spenst explosive jumping type exercises outside. I only had shorts and a t shirt, but that ended up being okay because of the warm weather.

Oskar led us in a warm up jog, and then jumping up stairs, then some more balance and jumping drills before heading back inside to do a shortened rockgympa core set to Johan's awesome "Wake me up" playlist. 20 minutes of Avcii's wake me up remixes and covers. Surprisingly fun and funny.

We had some time leftover, so innebandy! Great fun, even when being destroyed by the other much better team at the end :)