Training Log Archive: W

This was initially going to be a long run, but I had a few things to do over the afternoon and so it got split up into a two runs, the first being your basic run around Laajavuori, but in a different direction than usual. Its starting to get fairly cold out here! The autumns here are very similar to Edmonton, with the exception that whereas in Edmonton its cold in the morning and then gets to +20 during the day, here it gets cold in the morning and then stays cold in the afternoon and then stays cold and cold and cold.

But not really cold, just that, +3 to +7 not quite warm / too cold to feel pleasant temperature.

At least its not raining, yet.

Afternoon run behind the house. I added a loop that includes a little bit of fairly nice forest where I'm going to start doing some terrain strides - the forest is pretty open but not totally open. Its still lumpy and has branches and stuff, so I head over there and do some 15 second strides up and down this gentle hill through the terrain, just as part of my overall hope to be more effective running fast through terrain and feeling confident in my ankles/balance/agility. Baby steps. Baby step.

Also, more nostalgia! I don't even own a Wii U, but I've been way addicted to its 14 hours of childhood music!

I was't going to go as long as I did, but it was a nice day and I was feeling alright so I extended the loop to end up being a nice 1:15 option when I feel like. It involves the ski trails and then a little single track section and unfortunately some bonus climb. It seems relatively flat around here but then I keep running into uphills and it turns out to be way, way hillier than anything I get around Edmonton. Which is probably a good thing.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing with my training right now. Its October, the season is generally over, but there's still a few ultra long races to go, I could have taken a bit off, but September, with all its racing was kind of a month off in itself since the training between the hard races was really not extensive. Also, my life has gotten exceptionally busy and I'm frequently feeling as though I don't have time to get in the training I'd like to, since now I feel it should mostly include more volume and less intensity. And now, the Half in CIs is getting thrown a bit into question, so I'm not quite sure what I'm doing right now!

So, Ijust ran, for a certain amount of time. That was about it.

Kurko Cup is starting again! Time to flail around in the dark! Sure, I didn't do amazingly well, but I could make the argument that it went far less worse than it did at this time last year. I didn't run off the map, get hopeless lost, or be so far behind that people were pretty much changed out of their gear by the time I got back.

Still, keeping a good direction in the dark is really tough for me, and so is recognizing how far I've gone. I definitely wasted some time when leaving controls quickly and poorly, and losing my bearing on the longer legs. But, I did some things right, read my map okay and saw the big features, and had a fairly fun time! Bring on the Night-o!

Legs felt happy enough to go for a little longer run at a little faster pace around the soidenlampi and Ladun Maija. Even after a year of running in that area I'm noticing new trails that I haven't run before that I could try. They just keep popping up out of nowhere! Which is a good thing! Except when they run closer to the dump. That smells less nice.

Monday evening run, with my legs feeling sore, maybe from the long run, maybe from the race on Saturday. In all my legs have been feeling pretty tired lately. Which, of course means, I should probably just train harder. Right? RIGHT??