Training Log Archive: W

A little shop strength after work, the usual old CCC testing protocol, Chin-ups, Sit-ups, Push-ups, Box Jumps, Dips. 1 minute on, 1 minute off, 2 sets. Legs still a little fatigued from yesterday, arms a little fatigued after 1 chin-up. Geez.

C • 1 chin-up... 3

I got pressured into doing a VO2 max test! Okay, well, not really pressured, I volunteered. I've been thinking about it for a few years and thought I must surely have improved some since I last did.

They started me off a tad slow, but eventually ended up at 9.5 when they started ramping up the incline. It went quickly downhill from there. I made it to 10% before I called it, which the minute I did, I promptly regretted it. I hate having to stop, I wish I had a harness so that I could just keep going until I fall over. But, I'd really rather not fall off the back, I like my skin. I felt, and still feel quite bad about stopping, I think I could have plugged out another 30 seconds or so.

Anyway, I dug out some old results, and here's what I've found so far (I should have more, which I'll add on to:

Speed | Max HR | Weight | Rel V02 | Abs V02 | VT
2002: 9.0 / 10% | 191 | 86 | 54.0 | 4.64 | ??
2003: 9.0 / 10% | 194 | 84.8 | 69.8 | 5.92 | ?? (questionable results)
2003: 9.0 / 10% | 193 | 88.8 | 58.0 | 5.15 | ??
2005: 9.0 / 8% | 195 | 86.5 | 63.3 | 5.47 | 4.6 / 84%
2006: 8.5 / 12% | 185 | 87.9 | 57.3 | 5. 6 | 4.5 / 90%
2013: 9.5 / 10% | 185 | 84.3 | 64.2 | 5.41 | 4.4 / 82

I think that my 2003 score, although maybe a fine year, was kind of flawed. I asked them about this 6 months later, and he kind of avoided the question and never got back to me. I suspect the tanks were poorly calibrated, which explains the unusually high score. Naturally, what frustrates me more is that I've shown literally no improvement since 10 years ago in my running speed. I KNOW I'm a better runner, but I've no physiological evidence to prove it. In 2002 I ran a 11:27 3000m, and two years ago I ran it in 9:22. I would have really liked some nice measurable evidence to back up my thoughts. But I'm exactly, exactly the same. Very disappointing.

Oh well, and thus ends the 2012-2013 season. Out with a Whispbang.

Night-o training at Kinsmen after my Vo2 Max test.

KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?

2013-2014 season starts now


Get off your ass and start training.

I am, unfortunately, back home. Boo-urns. After work, did a light run around Whitemud with Patrick.

Reality bites.

Okay! Last race in China, time to make it count. And boy howdy did I! I actually don't think I ran quite as hard as I possibly could have, there was a little left out there. I need to learn to ramp it up faster when I get to the last few controls. I think I can hang on to a final sprint top speed just a bit longer than I give myself credit for. Perhaps that's treadmill workout.

Anyway, really fun map at Ruins of Yuanmingyuan, a map I've been near before. There's lots of bridges, and very roundabout route choices. I think I lost time with multiple bad route choices, by made it up by being almost flawless most everywhere else, especially the tricky bit in the hills. I didn't find it all that tricky though, managed to read everything quite well and hit them bang on.

It stings a bit to be 11th, a top 10 result would have really, really made my year. Those 10 guys were really the class of the trip, the super-elite of orienteering and to get just one scalp would have really been awesome. Even though Edgars isn't a sprinter, being 2 seconds back is painfully close. After a year of epic frustrations and mis-punches, no other race this year matters quite as much as this one does.

Next year can't come soon enough.

Obligatory run at the Great Wall. Kind of raining at first, then it stopped and kind of cleared up a little. It was a super impressive day, and the wall was almost entirely deserted. That was definitely the highlight, no people.

Also, now I have the Strava course record for the climb! Woot!

Uh oh! A middle distance! Fortunately, this was not a remarkably difficult middle distance. I felt like today my cold, which is finally getting a bit better, really was a limiting factor. As I got halfway through the course I was just feeling really quite drained. The Dane who started 2 minutes behind me caught me just then and I was able to hang on to him, which perhaps also suggests that my navigation, although good, was not high enough speed or smooth enough. I definitely could have stood to bomb down the hills a bit more with reckless abandon. But, its a middle, and I'm not programmed to do that. I was sufficiently pleased, though, that there were no major mistakes, and I was not so far behind Edgars.

Race time in Changchun! First up is a prologue sprint style... thing. Its a map I've been on before, and totally botched as well. So, I knew where the problem areas might be, and was hyper vigilant on them.

I honestly thought I ran fairly quickly, but clearly I didn't. I suspect I lost time in the first middle-y part, because I was being more cautious. I can run fuller speed in a sprint, but the fact is that these guys run that speed in the forest too, and its a speed I sorely lack. Once the downhill leg to 7 came along I bombed down the hill and was able to stretch it out a bit, but that was probably too late.

In all, I'm pleased to be in the middle of the pack, but none too thrilled to be so far behind. Yannick made a minute worth of mistakes and still was ahead.

Another race! This time a straight up sprint after the somewhat meaningless prologue. It might have been more interesting if, say it was some sort of pursuit, but no, it was just a regular sprint. And, I'll admit, it was pretty regular. I enjoyed the first 7, or so, but the long leg was just that, a long leg. I could see Ghost Marten running away from me up and across the field as I vainly tried to run as hard as I could. In retrospect, I should have spent this time planning the other long leg, which I think I got wrong, but I didn't. I did have time to figure out the potentially tricky leg on the way there, but did not get to the long leg. So, when I came to the long leg, I saw two options, and picked probably the wrong one, which seems to be a recurring theme.

Still, a cool park, with several hundred sculptures, but I was a little behind the ball on this one, which just goes to show that perhaps my navigation makes up for my running sometimes, not the other way around.

Spent the day on the sleeper train from Beijing to Changchun. This was not doing wonders for my cold. Chinese people just can't seem to go longer than 10 minutes without a cigarettte. It was a cool experience, but also not my favorite experience. Did lots of chatting with plenty of cool guys, had a long chat with Yannick about his training strategies which I hope to implement this year (in short, slow workouts are pointless).

We got to Changchun just in time to hustle to Jingyuetan park to do a quick training session around last year's map. Only problem was it was basically dark so I couldn't see jack. It was not my finest session.

After several days of taking rest, and what seemed like several days of travelling, I arrived in Beijing! Followed around two world champions as they went to buy suits from the fake market, and then joined up with a group as they went for a jog. We hit this "river" near the hotel, which was "gross", and probably had a lot of "sewage" in it. Shocking to see people fishing in it, since I presume eating whatever was in there would almost certainly cause you to grow a third arm, or "die".

Time to turn that momentum into 势头.

C • Momentum 3

Okay! The long distance. Its a bit of a bummer that the map wasn't 1:15000, but I was expecting some long legs with big round hills, and that's pretty much what it was.

In general, I didn't feel like I was moving too fast. I was making mini-mistakes here and there, and although I was fatigued, not, WUOC 2012 in Spain fatigued.

The biggest problem I had was my darn shoes. Yes, it was dumb to wear almost new shoes, but it wasn't really a problem with the shoes, it was the laces. The tongue kept slipping sideways and exposing the laces so that went I flexed my foot, the laces were pressing directly against my foot. It was extremely painful, and I stopped to retie it at 3, then again at 8, and then again a little later. I kept having to un-tie, adjust the tongue, and tie it quite loosely. Ironically after the third time, the laces near the toe-end got caught on a tree and snapped. At that point I was hoping my laces didn't just unravel entirely and my shoe came off. Even now, a month later, there is still some bruising where my foot was being pressed by my lace. I didn't know laces could do that much damage.

Then, to complicate things, at 15, my Garmin strap broke. Just "blip" broken. Fortunately it fell out right at the control and not into a swamp somewhere. So I picked it up and stuffed it in my back pocket on the way to 16, all the while wondering if I remembered to punch 15. Oh well, I was not going back.

I think stopped paying attention and made a silly mistake at 18. I was trying to take a little shortcut to the path and went too far down, being forced to then come back uphill.

At the second to last control, I vowed that I would not walk up the final hill. I was going to run the entire thing and not stop until the finish line.

And it made all the difference.

Long Course 10 - Splits

Nationals Middle distance. I knew what I was getting myself into, having been on this terrain before. Its not easy, but, kind of sort of easy. I likened it a bit to Whitehorse middle, but I think the difference is that this was much faster. Whitehorse forced you to slow down, where as it was easy to get carried away and fly around the course. And that's just what I did.

It was 4-5 where I took a bad bearing out of the control, partly to avoid a climb, and partly because I was in a hurry. It means I left in the wrong direction and was making multiple parallel mistakes. I crossed the deep ravine to the right hillside, but I had gone one re-entrant too far, and then confused another deep gorge for a clearing. All you could see is horizon. It was at this point that I theorized that this might all be going wrong because I skipped over a control, one I couldn't remember if I had punched or not. So I decided to re-locate by going right back to 4. Turns out I had punched 4, and so I left it more cautiously and problem-free hit 5.

But, after that, you're hurrying, or a little cautious, or both, and I was just too far behind to make any headway. A bit of a bummer, but middle has never been more forte, and it almost always comes down to one mistake. Eventually I'll take a middle title, but it won't be this year.

Middle Course 10 - Splits

Event: 2013 Nationals (Hamilton, CANADA)
 

An easy stroll around the training area in Hamilton. Wanted to get out in the forest, but without doing much running at all, since my cold from yesterday is definitely a cold. I'm doing everything I possibly can to keep it away, plowing back the vitamin C, hydrating profusely, lots of tea, but I can feel the subtle sore throat and the colour of the mucus is, well, you know, changing colour. So, this kind of sucks. I knew I was due for a cold but figured it would happen during China. As it stands if I were to tick two weeks from now, that means it'll pretty much finish the day I get back from Asia. Doh!

Okay! Nationals Sprint. Definitely have a solid cold kicking in. You know, just check the colour.

But, no matter, it didn't seem all that bad, I could still breathe just fine through my nose and it only meant a bit of a dry throat.

Had the pleasure of starting dead last, so lots of time to hear what was going on, see what was going on, and worry. Lots of worry. Warming up on that turf field is nice and soft, but its also a little draining, I suspect I felt like I wasn't running as fast and being a bit more fatigued because that surface is relatively slow, at least compared to the track beside it.

Anyway, the race itself. I studied the old map a lot and used the Google street view to tour campus so I had a good idea of where the dead ends and the gaps were. I didn't actually expect the course to cover so little of the campus, and I ended up running the same passageway three times. Not to say that was the only option, but sometimes I like sticking with a familiar route, since I gives me time to do other things. I got really lucky at one control where I was reading ahead and very nearly forgot to go to it, but it appeared in my line of sight so I double-checked and realized I was actually supposed to go there.

On the long leg, I ran quite slowly and spend quite a while studying the best option, in case going straight across the track was a good choice. But, going straight meant going down the ravine and going back up, whereas around meant you could bomb straight down the spur into the control, which I think was the best choice. After that the course was straight forward, so I really really opened it up and pretty much run balls out from there. I tried to channel all of those times I finish uphill intervals by sprinting right over the top, though in this case the top happened to be another, like.... 400 meters. It felt real nice.

So, no major mistakes, I think, but there were definitely times I should have been more productive with my planning, once I started to see other people I was too focused on gaining on them than planning. Still something important to work on.

Sprint Course 5b - Splits

Travel day to Hamilton.

Also, sucky news, I'm getting a cold!

A short mountain bike spin with Nevin to watch some of the XC race at Saskatchewan drive and spin out the legs before the weekend's races. Nice evening, and a distinct difference from last year where it snowed for the first time and stuck all winter. No winter on October 9 this year!

Okay! Time to catch up on some backblog. I've got lots of writing to do, the blog, AP, etc. etc.

In my o+ blitz before nationals, I did part of a long-o that Chris planned in Whitemud ravine. Felt really quite good while running. Its again an area I know very well, but tried to do a nice brisk pace, and occasionally felt very excessively brisk for an easy run. That was nice.

A last kick at the university sprinting can with Nev before the weekend. Jogged over there, did a really good training sprint from Meghan. Ran briskly fast, then tried to ramp it up every now and then in more technical shorter seconds to work on making good plans, reading ahead, spotting good features, etc. Made a bit of a mistake in once place where I stopped reading briefly. I think I can attribute that to familiar campus setting. Legs felt a little tired though. Made good use of the magnifier too in really narrow spots, just to be sure. Yes, Finns may frown on it, but its a handy safety blanket.

Thank goodness Patrick decided to do only 2 hours of roller-skiing instead of three. Great day for it though, warm, kind of sunny, low traffic, no rain, smooth roads. We were able to go 4k faster than the week before in the rain, so hit 30k in 1:58 and then polished it off back home. Patrick was a tad distraught to see that his HR averaged around 140 and mine was about 115.

Apparently all this running stuff translates a little over to skiing! Woot!

A little warm-up run followed by some shop strength. The circuit of 2 x (5 x 1min) of Pull-ups, sit-ups, push-ups, box jumps, dips. Although I felt like I did a little better than last week, I was also a little more tired the next day. No more of that for a bit. Having strong arms is great for improved leg drive though. I already felt a tangible difference there.

Training at Blackfoot. Meghan planned the course, my mother put out the flags, and I rolled my eyes at inviting the club to come along.

No, it was pretty good. 12 people came, and almost half of them actually read the content of my e-mail. And most of them did the course in the correct direction!

The plan was a contours only control picking exercise, followed by a line-o, followed by a few more controls. The control picking went fairly well, good compass, reading ahead, big features (sometimes), questionable plans. The line-o got really tricky at one point with some sidehilling and then a trip across a contour-less plain and some really tricky almost flag bit. I think I overshot the corridor a little, but I think I got it back together. I haven't had a chance to plot my course to check. Most surprising bit - most people didn't understand what a corridor exercise was.

Still, it was a nice refresher and one of the few places in Edmonton where "straight" is an option. That will probably be my last chance to do that before Nats. However, the o-blitz will continue this week.

I've run into a major problem with my training plan. I'm getting carried away. This run was actually a touch too fast. I mean, it wasn't too fast, I felt great the entire time, but I extended the route a little, and inadvertently ran the same time as my 10 mile loop, but ran 18k instead. I basically hovered in the 4:10-4:20 range and forgot I was going that fast. I didn't look at my watch until Grandview and thought "woah, I thought this would've taken longer!"

At some point this will come back to bite me, if I don't reel it in a little. Just a little. A twag.

Wednesday Frank's Race at McNally. Drove to the shop and started the warm-up from there to run to the race. Because various trails have fallen into the river, this one was fairly bland, ans we ran on the paved (!) bike path to the Capilano bridge then back on the otherside, cross Dawson, and then a brief amount of trail. I think because of my hills yesterday, my legs were feeling a little sluggish. Lungs were fine, but the legs lacked that certain punch that got me some place last week. Although I pulled Jack back again for the most part, I ran out of real estate, while Brian had the energy to get past Jack for the win.

And, by win, I mean second place, since Francois won. But he always wins. So much so he barely even counts in my head anymore.

C • Winner 5

Back at the shop to do a short strength plyo workout with the gang. 2 reps of 1 minute on 1 minute off of Dips, Push-ups, Chin-ups, Box Jumps, Sit-ups with 5 minutes in between. Turns out my arms don't *quite* have the strength they once did (e.g. 15 chin-ups v..... 3).

Opted for a nice 5 peaks run through Whitemud in the rather chilly conditions. Spent a while thinking what my prep workout for nationals would be. My heart says some steep, steeper, steepest punishment intervals, but my brain says 10 x 400m on the track.