Training Log Archive: Kat

Flew to Kiruna in the morning, took the bus to Nikkaluokta, then made the hike out to the Kebnekaise Fjällstation. Boris and I did this section in three parts - 6km hike, followed by 6km boat ride, followed by 8km hike. At first I felt a bit worried about the hike, because the backpack I have is too big for me and my feet were in bad shape after Oringen, but after patching up my feet and getting used to carrying around extra weight, I was optimistic. The weather was fantastic and seeing the mountains in the distance kept me moving forward. [We moved at about 12-13 min/km, but I will log only roughly half the time.]

Drove back to Uppsala today. Did an easy run with Sam, Ross, and Greg around Stadsskogen. Legs felt good! Amazing.

Boris and I got a last-minute flight to Kiruna tomorrow morning, so we will be spending the next few days hiking and climbing Sweden's tallest mountain!! Life is good.

I decided to skip today's chase event because of the blisters on my feet. One more run would have led to blood and I want to be able to run the ultralong champs next weekend.

Running to the ski lift. Really excited about today!!

EVENT: Oringen World Cup Middle distance
COURSE: Women's, 6.2 km, 130m climb, 14 controls
MAP: Hundfjället, 1:10,000, 5m contours
TERRAIN: The course was mainly in the open on top of the mountain, with lots of really technical contour detail and awesome visibility. The last part went steeply down the hillside.
MY RUN: I twisted my ankle during the 220m run to the start triangle and instead of stopping to really check my direction, I tried to keep limping in the direction of the first control. Mistake! The first control was basically a compass leg several contours down to a reentrant, and I ended up being too far right of the line and had to correct. This probably cost me about a minute. Then I orienteered very well from there up until the 8th control. I was spiking everything and making up time on others - I got way ahead of Kirsten (who I caught by #1) and caught up to Sabine (who passed me to #2 but then kept making mistakes). But then I did something really stupid. After navigating so well for so long, I let my guard down. I had barely run more than 10 seconds away from #7 when I saw Sabine stop ahead of me, looking uncertain. This made me stop and lose confidence. I figured we were too low and went farther and higher, but I found a control that wasn't mine. Then I went back down and found yet another control, again not mine. Then I bailed back in the direction of #7 and succeeded from there. This was a terrible mistake. If I had not paid attention to Sabine and just kept going in my direction, I would have been fine. [Several days have passed and I still can't forgive myself for this mistake. It was completely unnecessary and avoidable and it cost me 4.5 minutes. Argh!!!!!!]
RESULT: 47/57, Hausken won in 37:17
THOUGHTS: With a clean race (i.e. without that big mistake and with a cleaner #1) I would have been 38th and I would have gotten about 1000 world ranking points. (This seems more easily achievable in middle distance.)

Run/Walk to the start with Sandra, Hillary, and Sabine. Tired, but looking forward to the course. Hoping it will be very technical!

EVENT: World Cup Long Distance
COURSE: Women's, 10.8 km, 555m climb, 25 controls, pairs start with butterfly loops
MAP: Närfjället, 1:15,000, 5m contours
TERRAIN: Top part of map open mountain side ending in very technical white woods (lots of contour detail!), then some bland white marshy woods and another steep mountain side.
MY RUN: I started with Kirsten Fairfax and we did a good job of navigating together to #1. For a while things were going well technically, although physically I was suffering. There was a lot of steep climb in the beginning of the course and the soft footing didn't make it any easier. I am not certain my route on the long leg to #12 was the best, because the cabins were taped off so I didn't go to the road as planned but ran alongside the tapes instead, but at least I found the control without getting lost. Then I almost skipped the second half of the second butterly because I was getting tired, but caught myself because I went too far off course. This still led to a ~4 minute mistake, but it is better than being DSQed! The rest of the course was mainly fine, but I was just slow and my feet started hurting because of blisters. At the end, Kirsten and I wound up running together again and it ended in a sprint finish (she won).
RESULT: 47/55, Hausken won in 72:41

Sprint model event in the morning, after the team leaders meeting. Felt kind of tired, but really excited about the upcoming races!

Jog/walk to the sprint start. This was entirely through forest and marshes with a significant amount of climb - a tough warm-up!

EVENT: World Cup Sprint
COURSE: Women's, 2.6 km, 85m climb, 16 controls
MAP: Högfjällshotellet, 1:5000, 2.5m contours
TERRAIN: Bottom half of the map was a steep open hillside ending in white woods, top half was cabins.
MY RUN: I took a good route to #1 and the next few controls were really easy (just straight running along the hillside), but made a mistake on #5. It was a downhill leg into the white forest and I knew it would be tricky, but unfortunately I chose a bad route, which cost me some time, and then had trouble attacking the control, which cost me a bit more time. (Possibly a minute lost in total.) I then ran the rest of the course almost perfectly, but I was quite tired and my time was not brilliant. In particular, I was very dehydrated (my own fault) and my throat hurt a lot because of the dry air. Will be more careful about this type of stuff in the next few days.
RESULT: 51/62, winner was Hausken in 14:16.

Cool-down jog with Jenny.

I meant to do the sprint model event this afternoon, but I forgot to bring my shoes, so I walked around the event center with Boris instead. To make myself feel better, I bought an expensive pair of Noname tights and beat Boris in biathlon shooting.