Discussion: Good.

Glad that you are feeling somewhat better. Do take it easy and do not feel pressured to train just because you were hoping for a 60-hour january. I know it's tough to force yourself to rest when you are so enthusiastic about going out to run, but sometimes it's necessary.

Get better! I mean it!

Well, the only way I can get in a 60-hour January now is by putting in a 7-hour day tomorrow. :)

does breathing count :)

yes, if you breath very havy

A 55h-month is also acceptable... ;-)

Boris, I just looked at your training since you started posting on AP 2000. Up until august 2005 you didn't have a month above 30 hrs. that I could see. The last 5 months have all been at 40 hrs. or higher!! You are doing a great job of handling the increase, don't worry about missing your goal for january. There is a tendency in any training diary, and especially here on AP for some reason, to chase hours of training. Be careful with that.

Now I'm not saying you should be training less, in fact with the goals you have set for yourself, you should be consistently doing this amount of training, but more importantly this QUALITY of training. You are in a mode where you have increased training very significantly in a relatively short period of time. In your situation (young student) I think this is possible but you have to be aware of the risks to avoid them. And I see 2 major risks: 1) sickness, injury. The only way to avoid this is to recognize signs early and listen to what your body is telling you. Remember, training actually breaks down the body, it's rest and nutrition that build it up again! 2) motivation. (I don't think you have hit this stumbling block yet, but you will) If you find yourself getting into a rut, find things you can do to motivate yourself. Those of us around you will help out.

How do you think you can handle these 2 risks? Any other risks you see?

Tom, thanks for the input and the concern! I have thought about the fact that I have increased training volume dramatically over the past few months and have heard many warnings of high risk of sickness, injury, and overtraining since i moved to Uppsala.
Here are some thoughts: even though i was training far less the last two, three years, i also had a more than full-time job in a stressful environment, in addition to an hour-long daily commute on the ever-peaceful NYC subway. If that doesn't add up to more stress and wear and tear on the body than training, then i don't know what does. As a result, since moving to Uppsala and resuming the student life, i have felt stronger, healthier, and more motivated to go out and train than i had in years (knock on wood!). I have been sleeping and eating more than i have in a long time and have led a virtually monk-like (by my standards) social existence - in other words, for the first time in my life i managed to create an environment where orienteering training is each day's top priority, and the rest of life (except for Kat :) has to revolve around it.

So this weekend i finally got sick enough to miss days of training. It's obviously frustrating and driving me nuts, but i also understand that setbacks will happen and want to take this in stride. Clearly, i don't really care about the specific number of training hours i do - just that at the end of each day i can say to myself that i did something to make myself a better orienteer. This past weekend, the best thing i could was rest. So i rested. I think i am well enough now to try easy running, and so that's what i will do tonight. I feel like I am getting better at knowing when to take a break and, with a team of attackpoint auditors watching my every move :) , i think i will be told when i need to rest in no uncertain terms, for which i am extremely thankful! (In fact, the support of the attackpoint community has been amazing and a huge help with motivation to go out and train on a daily basis!)

Frankly, i don't know how to deal with the risk of hitting the motivation wall. I understand that it may very well happen at some point, and i don't quite know what to do when it does happen. Any advice (though i hope i don't need it anytime soon!)?

As for other risks, the biggest one i see is the risk of disappointment, which is an inevitable one when you make a strong commitment to something, be it professional, personal, or athletic. But i think as long as i have no regrets about the decision i made to try this whole 'living in sweden' thing, i should be ok in that respect.

Sorry about this long and pretty egocentric post. This was originally going to be an email to TYRTOM, but i guess there's nothing wrong with just putting it out here.

Great Boris! You just confirmed to me what I already knew intuitively, i.e. that you had already identified the risks and were dealing with them. The main point of my post was to motivate!!

Go Boris! We are all your fans!

See, Boris? I told you that even hairy spiders had fans, and now here's the proof! ; )

I love furry spiders. The bigger the better.

i'll put a few small ones in the post to you... it's cheaper then sending a big one. they taste better too

Here is my 5 cents. Planning a 50% increase of volume of training in January was unrealistic, it is not impossible, but taking in consideration that your last increase was in September, and that was a big one too. If you feel that you can handle larger volume of training during winter months I would probably try to go a modest 10% a month. That would mean ~ 44-46 hrs in Feb. Here is another concern that I have. When serious racing starts in April plan for decrease of training volume, since racing is done on high intensity, it is extremely important to recuperate after race and before speed work which you will have to do as well, and then you will need to recuperate before the next race. You want to race with fresh feeling in your legs and in your mind. Listen to your body, you have done nice work so far preparing for upcoming abuse, if you train smart you will take advantage of it.

On another note - no way you have a monk-like existence, a monkey-like I can see, or more likely GOAT-like ;-)