Training Log Archive: Bashman

Ante RFC
Easy lap through strange northern Edinburgh with Fiina. Legs not so fresh as they were yesterday, racing this evening should be interesting.
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WU
With Purko and Euzie who was pushing the pace as ever!
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Dumyat Hill Race

Really not looking forward to this pre race and expected a lot of power walking/battling for 3rd place after starting hard with Tom and GG. They began to drop me up the road so I was about to settle down when Tom seemed to hit the wall. Came past him half way through the open and was happy to turn round at the top and see a good gap.

About a minute down on GG so gave the downhill a good thumping, very fun both for myself and some spectators placed at very sketchy sections in the forest. Somebody shouted 30s to me at the bottom of the woods so pushed on, but then died on the small incline to the uni so just cruised in, legs feeling defeated around 45s down.

Happy with the race considering how the legs were beforehand, and some absolutely stunning weather, dry underfoot conditions and plenty of spectators made things very enjoyable. Toe opened up a savage blister that could be tricky to fully heal by the weekend....
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C • Photos 2

WD
Lap of the lake, pretty much speed walking.
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Easy
Didn't set an alarm this morning by accident so missed morning drills and did everything in the evening instead, pretty sure that's how it works... Feeling good anyway so no harm done.
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Drills
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Easy
Flat bits of the seat with Will, Ewan and Purko.
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Easy
With Dalkeith and Skunk before gym.
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Gym
Focussing on remobilising.
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WD
Legs resurrected.
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Easy
First km dead, falling asleep and quads not moving. Quite a lot better by the end, probably one of the most functional runs I've done.
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Easy
With Yannick for 2.5km and then some drills on the way back. Nice vest weather, legs feeling quite good but knee a bit stiff from all this road nonsense. Could have twisted a bit in the terrain as well but had similar feelings before so should be fine tonight.
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10Mila 2017 - Turun Metsänkävijät 1 - 4th Leg (Long Night)

This was perhaps the biggest race so far this year, and in the days leading up to it, the pressure was mounting over a huge team dependancy and the implications of being dropped by a train, as I brutally was last year. I talked tactics with the team, especially the manager, and everyone expected me to be fit enough to hang on to any train I was given, although I was slightly less confident. A tired pair of legs on Thursday certainly didn't help but by Saturday I was raring to go. The manager decided we would see how the race went beforehand and then spend some time in the box looking at live results and deciding what I was to do (wait, sprint, or just follow off the start).

Then came the next problem, nutrition. I got this very wrong last year but thinking back, I think I was nervously eating. Made sure this wouldn't happen this time round, and instead went for the following, which worked really well. Night before, full dinner, big breakfast, snack after a run at 12pm, big lunch at 3pm - pasta and salad, 2 porridge pots at 7pm, 2 bananas and coffee at 9:30pm, race at 12am although delayed, but still worked fine. Final drink came about 90mins before.

Map + Route - http://www.scottish-orienteering.org/doma/show_map...

So after a short WU, having taken a while to decide to wear a thermal under the top as it was freezing outside, it was straight in the box with 15mins to go. A few drills but otherwise found the manager and began to talk plans. Our 3rd leg was 30s down on the Gustav train as he came in, so my manager shouted to me to run as fast as I could off the start, and I did, but I knew the efforts would be wasted. What I didn't expect is that the paths were so hard to follow off the map at the start and after a few minutes I was lost. Set my compass onto the 4km leg and ran along for a bit, looking for a relocation hotspot.

Eventually found myself and went on to make a full plan of the leg. Left of the lake looked good but later changed my mind when the natural line seemed to take me right. I also caught Helsingin Suunnistus runner Olli-Pekka Heikkila whom I've raced before, and was relieved that even being such a good runner, he was dying the terrain, one big marsh this night. I overtook and he latched on, which was nice. We smashed through onto a path eventually and while I was making a plan for the rest of the leg (oragami folding of the A2 map included) I fell and was suddenly doing breaststroke to get myself out of a huge puddle (pond). This was a shock to the system, and although made me pretty cold, we both laughed it off and in the end I think it gave me a bit of a boost. Screwed up the execution of the final third of the leg, would have been an okay route otherwise. Just couldn't get my head round direction when following the edge of the lake and first turned the wrong way (turned round to find Olli and pointed the other way, to which he said "Oh, fuck!"), and second, boomeranged too far around the edge. Hit number 1 eventually with Olli and went on to join a pretty tame train of about 6.

We nailed the next section and I began to relax a bit, but still felt like we weren't travelling nearly as fast as we should have, so led into 2, then 4 and 5 after a small banana to 3. I broke off after 5 surprisingly, and began to notice a huge train in the distance. I pushed on and was on my own again, coming up behind the train eventually on the way into 6 while the initial train was still following my light. Me and Olli then met up at the front on the downhill after 6, and this is when I think he recognised me as we began chatting about the leg on the road. He said it was a shame we didn't catch Gustav, I agreed but told him to check out our train now. We looked back and a good 25 people were tucked in behind, absolutely epic!

Tempo'd at the front of the train on the long path to 7 which was a really cool feeling. Couldn't help but notice I was tiring though and it was only half way round. So when Halden, Kristiansand (Kerschbaumer) and Paimion Rasti (Bartosz Pawlak) came past, I was happy to just tuck in and let them lead of a bit. Olli got dropped which was a shame and I began to worry that the same was about to happen to me. Think this is where the gel on the way to 6 kicked in though, and suddenly felt okay again on the next few legs. 11 of us split off the front of the 25 and began to attack. Dropped the rest quite quickly and soon we dipped into the continental stuff before spectator which really slowed everyone down. I chilled out here a bit, before breaking off the front through the adrenaline rush through spectator, coming through map exchange 50m ahead and then after saluting to happy teammates, walked up to the start flag taking my second gel and allowing the pack to catch up again.

The leg out of the arena was a big one and I certainly didn't have the energy to tackle it alone successfully. So let the pack follow me to the out of bounds a third of the way along the leg. When we hit it, I turned left and dropped 15m. Looked up, and the 10 guys were standing there looking at me. They turned right, bastards. I laughed and put in some effort to meet them again at the path on the other side. Definitely a waste of energy, but when I rejoined and said "That was f-ing stupid" I got a few laughs. I happily allowed Gernot to lead to the control, and then began putting some pressure on to 17, which was a really nice running leg. Overtook halfway through and lead through the radio and down to 18. I noticed no one was following me anymore after 16, they probably found out I was British. And just as well, as I was swimming again on the way to 19 in an uncrossable marsh....

This made me really cold and began to cramp my quads a bit. So I joined half way down the train and expected to be dropped any second. Struggled running up hill with my quads, but otherwise still felt okay. Lost all map reading energy to 20 so just let Gernot lead once more, on a very strange wobbly route. Somehow everyone was a pussy coming down the hill to the run in though, and I found myself at the front again. Gernot and Bartosz had more of a sprint though, so I settled down and enjoyed the atmosphere coming into the finish, just about welling up with exhaustion tears as the long night mission was coming to a close at 2am. Met a very happy Esa at changeover, exhanged many friendly hand shakes with the train-mates, and then found a very happy team on the other side of download. Awesome.

Would have been fun to have been in Gustav's train, but quite happy to be able to do so much on my own on what is notoriously a bit of a 'team bitch' leg. Lots of positives coming out of it anyway, especially having finished and realising it was Halden's first team, Gernot and Bartosz that I was running with (had no idea out on the race). Good leg time considering a 3min loss to 1 alone, and it's nice to know the best aren't running that much faster anymore. Team crawled up to a solid 18th (11th at one point too) which is great considering how unlucky Yannick was on first leg... Fun times ahead, and quite excited for Jukola now.

Exam on Monday went pretty poorly, very much worth it though.
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10Mila Training - Day, Easy - Rannebergen
Legs feeling awesome again, and orienteering spot on (although in the day). Hung some tapes round a short course for the night training tonight as I'm not in the terrain anymore until tomorrow night. Strides on the paths afterwards.
Wish it could have been long night then and there, as everything was perfect before+during this training. Just hoping I'll feel the same tomorrow.
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Easy with Strides
Still feeling good. In the pouring rain by the shop to get some bus tickets, bumped into Tess funnily enough.
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Ante RFC
Waking up round Majorna. Feeling stiff but good by the end.
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Gym
Quick maintenance set in the hotel.
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10Mila Training - Day, intervals - Råhult
Jog to the start with Scott and then aimed to put a few efforts into the 4.5km course. Mare to the first one, never seeing the kite, but then got into a good flow and nearly perfect orienteering. Legs a bit dead so an easy two days is really needed, but the terrain is much less heavy than I was expecting, so should be okay by Saturday night.
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10Mila Training - Night, Easy - Råhult
Testing out the club's headlamp, all good. Legs fried, put in a few strides and felt better afterwards. Good to find a control that I screwed up earlier so easily, in the night as well.
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