Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

Rånasstaffetten, a 5 person relay just a short drive away. I got placed on the 2nd team and was running the 4th leg, and I was very excited to race. Loppsugen is the right word perhaps. My team was very good though, which made me quite nervous, as I didn't want to let them down.

I had a good race, and it was a good feeling to run well two days in a row, and to feel very much in control of the orienteering. Still not perfect, but I am seeing improvement and that is motivating.

Liutas came back and tagged off to me and I headed out mostly alone, and didn't see too many people on my course while I was out there. 1st was a long leg, and that gave me a chance to get into the rhythm of orienteering. 2nd was a mistake, wasn't careful enough with the compass because I was following a vegetation boundary, but the vegetation was tricky to interpret and I lost about a minute lower on the broad spur. Pleased with the rest of the course apart from a hesitation on 5 when I came upon a different control just before my own and stopped, feeling confused that it wasn't mine, had the presence of mind to recover quickly.

Also lost some time to 14, I tripped in the slash on the way to punch the 13th control but popped back up again quickly and continued on to the flag. I then discovered that my compass was missing and I knew from Matt when he ran the second leg that the next control was super hard and super vague. I scurried back a bit to search for it, but with all the piles of branches I wasn't confident that I could spot it quickly. It felt like I spent about 15 seconds looking before I just moved on (Quickroute shows it to be about 30 seconds wasted there) so I was a bit hesitant on 14, really relieved when I saw the hill with the boulder and could navigate by features again. (went back afterward and found the compass, just a few meters farther back than I had searched, in plain sight, not like the time that dad and I found his lost contact lens)

In the end Pontus anchored our team to a 17th spot, a nice fight to beat Umeå into the finish.

Quickroute
Winsplits

A good race for me today at the Lännsprinten. Perfect weather for racing, and so much fun to see everyone out and about. There were over 1000 runners there today with a few big names mixed in after the SM-natt race from yesterday.

Terrain was open with high visibility. Runnability only hindered in a few places by marshes or rocky ground.

I ran well, picked good routes mostly, and felt great, and so I am happy with my result. Comparing splits, I should have run straight on 13, because I lost 30 seconds to Mandus and also Winsplits thinks it was an error for me. I had decided to run out along the trail and keep to the higher ground, but I guess it was just too far off the line. 5.21 behind the leader, Matt Ogden, already making waves for his new club Linné.

Quickroute
Winsplits

C • Great run! 4

Last week the morning run with David was really fun, and so I managed to convince myself to go out on a similar loop again this week. Weather was crummy, drizzly and grey, but it's nice to get out and start the day out right.

Weekly Friday Innebandy. We played 4 on 5 and it was a pretty even game. Lots of running lots of sweating. The new PhD student, Yang, came with us today, and played very well. I think he likes it enough to play next time as well.

A Thursday trip to the track. Met there by Andreas S, another one of the Team Sportia guys (I really should know his name after all the interval sessions we've run together now) and Sam.

My plan was to do 6 x 1000 with about 1:30 rest between at just a bit slower than 3k race pace. I was optimistic when I made this plan a few days ago, and had chosen a goal time of 3:10 per k.

I was perhaps already counting myself out of the workout when I got down to the track, it was windy and I was tired from not sleeping enough the night before, and I wasn't really sure how well I would be able to hit my paces. Sam did her own workout, but the other guys tagged along with mine. After a few warmup laps and a couple more laps worth of strides, we set out.

First interval felt quite slow, as it was very windy on the backstretch, and my legs were a bit tired from this week's trainings and the time was 3:16. It didn't feel great, but it was much much better to run with people than to run alone. The rest ended up being to wait for everyone to finish and then to jog the 200 before setting out again. So the rest was between 1:40 and 2:00 each time, and that was okay.

Did all 6, which I was proud of, and did them all in 3:16, which I was also proud of, though each one felt harder and harder. I'm really impressed that it was Andreas' second interval session of the day.

Next week will not be a track week, but once we get back from the Easter trip, I hope to make Thursday Track Trips a permanent thing.

Orienteering out in Lunsen. It was a Natt SM training but I am not running Natt SM and so I opted to run during the day instead, with all the normal sane people.

Parts of the training went very well. Spiked 1, 4, 8, 9, 10, and 11. And for the rest of the controls I felt like I was orienteering well but missing some crucial detail that had me off my planned line or faltering in the circle. Fighting my compass quite a lot. On the whole, the legs felt great and my confidence for running hard and for relocating properly are high. Ratchet it up one more level and I'm ready for the weekend's racing!

Intervals were at the hill directly behind the lab tonight, so I opted to head straight from work to the workout. Met up with Andreas and Niklas and we did a little loop as part of our warmup. Then Josef had us do some uphill accelerations. Drippy and slippy tonight, but a good crowd of runners.

Headed out on the intervals using Johan as a rabbit. The trails around Sten Sture are pretty much single track so we formed a line, Lukas, Niklas, Matt, Joffe, Johan and me with the leaders finishing a lot faster than the trailers (me).

Jan had set two pretty equivalent loops with some down, flat, and up sections. We did 6 intervals 3 x each of the 2 loops. Just over 4 minutes a loop, and kept the pace pretty well on each one. On the 4th interval I was really feeling great, but skidded out on one of the wet wooden bridges and scuffed up my knee, in the process damaging my nicest and newest tights, managed to not break stride too much, which is either remarkable or a sign of a misspent youth :)

By the end it was actually only Niklas, Staffan (a friend of Inga's) and me that did the last interval. Awesome to have another great workout.

Once more, Sam was crushing the intervals, following Inga and making it look easy!

Spenst drills and Rockgympa, pretty much the same as last week. A little rainy all day and so the stairs were slippery but we all survived. The music for the core strength section was perhaps the best yet, Johan set a "Rockgympa Classics" playlist for us to work with.

Not much time left over for Innebandy, but we played a few high intensity rounds, so much fun to play this game!