Training Log Archive: W

So, Terä's main sponsor is this big ol' forestry company called Metsä. (Apparently they don't sponsor us enough to allow me to be able to have/buy/acquire in any form some matching pants & socks to go with my jersey, but that's aside the point).

Apparently once a year (maybe more?) they do a hunting day where members of the team go and walk through the woods in a line making noise so that we chase the animals towards the big wigs and they shoot them. I'm not hunting expert, but, this feels like cheating.

Nevertheless, I gamely borrowed some rubber boots and ventured out hoping not to get shot and quietly encouraging all the animals to run the other direction (a snowshoe hare actually listened and was saved from death). At the very least, it was an interesting experience, though probably not one I'd wish to repeat. However, to be fair, the moosemeat soup we had for lunch, was delicious. Real real good.

Quite a few people asked me too if I'd seen any moose out there in the forest, I think thinking that it would be a big highlight for me. Me and moose, though, we have a history. I did see several dead ones, though, which was not exactly my preferred way of seeing them.

Anyway, after all that, despite being fully roasted when I got home, I managed to get out and do a short run and then do my extra indoor workout. So that was good.

Criminy, it gets dark early in this place! I suppose that's not actually news.

Anyway, headed out for another run on a different loop, which turned out to be about the same distance and time as just about every other loop I know. But, this one had a nice climb in the middle over at the Laajavuori. That's going to be quite the climb come winter time. The first part is steep, I'm not sure if I'd be able to climb in the tracks, and then it gentles out a little but is still quite relentless, and then followed up with another little steep pitch. It could be tough! Then, it was down the hill, around the Killeri and home.

I notice Strava seems to be having some brain function issues too, as it and Garmin Connect strongly disagree on elevation. Strava seems to think that I did 344m of climbing, and Garmin thinks only 98. That's a bit of a difference. Like, quite a bit of one. Ah... technology.

I had thought that my shoulder was pretty much back to normal after NAOCs, but it got pretty stiff tonight, so its not quite there. Perhaps its less so a sign of it being back to normal as much as my probably need to relax my shoulders when I run. Or maybe my side training projects are just a little too hard on both shoulders! Either way, I was distracted by actually listening to a podcast, specifically, BBC Radio 4's Friday News Quiz podcast.

Also, did you know that Apollo 440 still makes music?!? Hawt dawg. I liked their mildly repetitive dance music of the '90s before it was cool. (everyone's heard "Stop the Rock", they just don't know it)

Wow, my Garmin really lost its mind tonight. I suppose I didn't quite wait long enough for it to find the satellites, but it clearly never did because where it thinks I went isn't even remotely close, and I did a few of those kilometer splits in 1:50. Man, I got fit, fast.

If I were to guess, it was really closer to about 9.5k or so, but its certainly not exactly clear. Oh well. The big question: Garmin 620, Suunto Ambit3, or Polar V800? I'm leaning towards the Polar, actually.

I've got a race to train for now, so it feels worthwhile getting out and trialling by mile-ing again. I've also been doing some other work that's been focusing on dynamic movements and core, which I hope will help me out both with endurance and stability in the forest.

One upside to moping around is that I listened to lots and lots of new music. I think I found a satisfactory alternative to Songza. Not quite as good, but good enough. I'll have to look somewhere else for my Disney playlist fix.

So, what is it that I want to change over the next 6 months before I have another chance at qualifying for WOC? Well, some of the things I have thought of:

- Lose weight. Not necessarily by any unreasonable means, but just cutting down on some things and jacking up consumption of other things, like, fruit. I like fruit. (good plan on doing that once moving to country where fruit is, in general, wildly expensive)

- Find a coach for orienteering technique. I feel comfortable in my running coaching situation at the moment, but I perpetually have a lot of thoughts about technique or way of organizing myself cognitively while orienteering, but I don't keep them all firing consistently enough. That sentence was mouthful. Hopefully I can find someone who can get me straightened out.

- Enjoy orienteering again. I shouldn't have to go to China every year to get reminded of that. (although.......)

- Learn to move quickly and lightly in technical terrain. Agility? Power? Confidence? I want to stop moving like a heffalump and more like a gazelle.

- Let things go. Sure, sometimes things happen. But there are times when I just care too much for that. I'm taking a mindfulness course at the moment. Let's see how that goes.

And, by qualifying for WOC, I mean in the forest. I don't want to be presumptuous, but I *think* I've got the sprint in the bag, at least. I mean, really.

Well, I suppose I finally dragged myself out and went for a first run after Failpocalypse ‘014. Although I have been doing some exercise, it has not been in running form until now.

I was generally, uninspired.

On the upside, all the planned winging and moaning about NAOCs I had thought I was going to do on AP about has gone by the wayside. It sucked, I'm moving on.

Now.... to figure how.

It is not entirely clear to me why I bother getting up in the morning.

C • Estonia. 1

Sprint - Course 5a - Splits

Long - Course 10 - Splits

Middle - Course 10 - Splits

Long day in the cold and rain to kick off travel.... days? Did the first part of a study where I ran on the track with reflective balls all over my legs, that should get some cool results. Then four hours of pretending like I had any ideas for my Master's thesis (which I don't), then home for an indoor quasi-workout, didn't want to go outside and get too wet and cold. Then packing, riding my bike to the bus station, hoping my bike doesn't get stolen after its locked up for a week, and then on the onnibus to Helsinki, several hours overnight in the airport, then Amsterdam, Toronto, Ottawa.

Fun-adjacent!

C • 4 hours! 1

I went to the track that everyone says was open to the public, but when I got there, its surrounded by a big fence. I'm not entirely sure how "the public" is supposed to get in there....

So, I had to do my sharpening workout around the lake loop, which I think is slightly shorter than a mile around. I didn't do it measured, instead doing 5-4-3-2-1-30-30 with 3 minutes rest. The 5 and 4s actually felt pretty good, less so when I got to the minuters. I hope that for the sprint that means I'll be really strong in the middle section of the race, and then I'll just tough out the last 5 or so minutes and then keel over and die. That sounds optimal. But, first things first is the middle and long.

And.... not missing any of my connections.

My muscles woke up this morning and remembered I did that Herveton yesterday. So, the idea was to go for a light shake out jog for maybe an hour or so to make myself less sore. Unfortunately I ran into Jarkko who was going for a bike ride after his knee surgery. And he's irrepressibly nice, so he promptly gave me a tour of the ski trails around Laajavuori and my workout ended up being a bit brisker and going for 1.5 hours.

It was good, though, I learned about the general 'round the mountain' trails, and got a better sense of where I was at most points relative to the base of the hill. Saw the Vuorilampi (mountain lake) which has one of those dry ramps for the aerials guys into the lake. You can stand at the top and it looks INSANE.

Anyway, I think I'll be slightly more sore after that run, but its always great when someone forces you to do some bonus training, especially on a nice day like that.

Hervoton!

What is a Hervoton? No idea. But this day it was a really sweet ultra-long distance race down in Jamsa. It was measured at 18.15 k, with 42 controls. Basically everyone from Tera was planning on using it as a nice comfortable training, which was my plan too. Don't kill myself too much, but work on good habits and mental focus (the mental focus only appeared about 3/4 of the way through).

We ran one side of a map to control 18, and then did a 1:2500 box, followed by 32-42. Amazingly, it was all at 1:10000 too. I would have really liked it at 1:15, but this was nice too. Plenty of variety, some flat areas, some rocky areas, some hillsides. I made a dumb mistake at 5 and lost the train of Teemu, Toni, and Jani (well, I was really more like the wobbly caboose), but that was really okay because then I did a ton of independent navigation. In general the solution was "go straight", with a few exceptions. I made a dumb mistake at 13 when my mind started to wander, and I have difficultly distinguishing when its "grey rock" or "white forest" or "open", sometimes these tend to blur into similar looking areas.

Aside from that, I just happily mosey-d on my way, generally being very clean and just not moving very fast. On a few legs I had absolutely no idea where I was, but trusted my direction and I picked up things along the way. I'm really not comfortable doing that, but I just need to remember to have a final destination, and not worry too much about the stuff in the middle. (Remember? Release myself from the icy grip of "feature paranoia").

I'm really, really bummed, though, that my GPS crapped out 2/3 of the course. I think I can no longer take laps at controls, because eventually that'll cause the watch to think the battery is dead and sometimes eat my workout. I'm close to just trying to get a new GPS. The 620 is nice but apparently has terrible accuracy, or I could try the new Suunto Ambit 3 coming out right away here, but my last Suunto, the T6 was a total dud.

So, I had to guesstimate the distance since my watch stopped tracking at the end of the box at 14.4k, but with the course being 18.15 and generally going straight, I'm guesstimating about 20.5. Nice!

Interesting side note, Strava and Garmin Connect actually disagree about how far I went. Garmin says 14.33, Strava says 14.44. This isn't the first time they've put different informationm (the elevation is always wildly different), especially when my watch eats the workout. How does that happen?

Played floorball instead of running.

I told them I'd never played before, but that's not true, I've played once before.

SHHHHH DON'T TELL ANYONE.

Sometimes things go so well.

Until the don't. And then you do a 180 and get totally lost in the dark and your only way to relocate is to find the lake. Oh yeah, and you're on an island.

That's pretty much how Kurko Cup #3 went. I was actually quite pleased until 7-8, which was a long leg back along the hill-top to the hub control. Once again, I decided to branch off on my own, and immediately lost contact and all the other lights. After looking at my GPS track, it turns out I was on the right track, THEY were actually going too far right. But, then I hit was I thought was the second distinct vegetation boundary, and I tried to follow along the edge of it go around. It was actually the first one, and it extended in weird ways that caused to start sort of going back the way I came (the doing a 180) part. I had a lengthy argument with my compass, as it kept doing weird things, or possibly it was me doing the weird things. I think I had decided to bail back to the road, but bailed the wrong way, and I generally stopped paying attention to the contours as well.

Slowly but surely I ran off the map, until I hit the lake, then followed it along until I got to some place I recognized (HALLELUJAH), and then I continued on.

Humiliation and frustration tempted me to quit then, but I realized that that would be totally stupid and might as well mean I should just pack up and go back to Canada. I'm not here to quit, so I tried to brush it off, have a nice brain cry, and then continue on.

Things went fairly well after that, in fact, I was able to spot big features on the map and in the terrain, and stayed pretty well on my compass, except at the end on one control when I lost confidence in my direction and turned back too soon.

So, in all, a *little* better. Except that one bit. I know people who look at it in a binary way - either you make a mistake or you don't. Size is irrelevant. That feels nice right about now.

Oof, I had a real tough time getting going tonight. Felt a little tired, amotivated, and all around lethargic. But, have to get out anyway. I decided to explore some of the single track trails on the maki right behind my house. There's plenty of little trails, very twisty and kind of rocky. It could be a nice little area to work on my agility and speed on rough terrain. Its also fun enough that on days like this when I'm not too motivated, it still feels like a mildly productive 30 minutes. Just dancing around, some light agility and strength, and hopefully more than anything, some confidence.

In my ankles.