Training Log Archive: BorisGr

Warming up.

Nobscot Park NEOC local event outside of Boston, where I traveled for Will Hawkins' wedding for the weekend.
The map and terrain were really fun, and i had an ok race given that i had flown in the day before and that my hamstring hurt most of the way. Made about 3:30 of mistakes, meaning that I would have had to run a clean race to beat the groo that day.
Unlike the map and terrain, the rest of the meet organization made me mad. There are things that we can't fix overnight in US orienteering, but there are very simple things we can do to at least bring the sport into the 1990's.
Here are the two biggest things:
1) copying the map ON TIME. WHY??????????
How has no one in NEOC done anything about this idiotic practice? I can understand not pre-printing the maps - not everyone has the resources to do it. But why force the runners to copy the maps on time? How can that possibly be part of the results and how can it possibly add to the runners' enjoyment of the experience? If someone has some sort of justification for this, please tell me. I'd love to hear it.
2) This one is even better. On at least two of the controls, I got to the right feature only two find two flags hanging there. "Strange", I thought, but wasn't bothered. Then i looked at the code of one of them and saw it wasn't mine. Ready to run off and try to relocate, I decided to look at the other one quickly. Sure enough - mine! Yes, two controls on the same feature with different codes!!!!!!!
I don't think I very often just plain bash things that happen in US orienteering - it's a volunteer-run sport, and I appreciate the effort the organizers put in and try to thank them for the experience whenever possible. I want US orienteering to grow and thrive, and alienating volunteers is not the way to do this. However, the two grievances I listed above take neither extra time nor effort to fix. In fact, the second would save the organizers the effort of putting out extra flags. I just don't get it.

C • I'm not going to defend NEOC, ... 13

Red - Splits

Running from home to Polacksbacken, warming up, cooling down with Hammer, and running back home.

C • Jukola relay 1

Tempo Cup #1 sprint race at Polacksbacken, a rare race in Uppsala with 5% climb on the course! Basically, there was one big hill (The Hill in Uppsala), and we went over it a bunch of times.
The course consisted of loops run in different order, so people were running in all different directions, and a lot of people were making mistakes. I ended up doing ok, despite feeling pretty beat on the uphills, and avoided major errors, though still had a couple of hesitations and stupid route choices. Hammer was in the process of kicking my butt for the second day in a row, but made a mistake in the end, graciously letting me even the Canada-USA tally at 1-1 for the week. Jan Troeng won in 19:06, which does not seem like a spectacular time for the course. Splits at http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/sv/default.a...

C • USA vs Canada 3

Warm-up / cool-down with Hammer, Rob, and Carl Fey

Stockholm City Cup - Stage 2.
The race was at Langholmen, a little island in Stockholm with an old jail in the middle.
The race was really fun, a nice mix of forest and park with some good route choice decisions to be made. My legs actually felt pretty good and fresh, probably because i've barely trained since the Team Trials (the hamstring still hurt, but neither more nor less than before), but i just wasn't fully concentrated mentally. It was almost as if i was being lazy with my orienteering - half the time it seems like i needed to take maybe one or two more glances at the map and i'd be fine, but i didn't and paid for it. Did a stupid mistake out of #3, losing at least 20 seconds running towards a dead end and then made many small mistakes around the controls that added up to quite a bit. A mediocre effort all around - 54th place out of 300 or so, including old folk and the like. Hammer had a nice race - was a good 1:15 in front of me in 30th place.
Results: http://www.stockholmcitycup.a.se/etapp2/resultat/H...
Splits: http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/sv/default.a...

C • Old Folks 5

Tonight's OK Linne club training was tree planting! Apparently, someone is paying the club to plant a bunch of trees in a few big clear-cut areas outside of Uppsala, so here we were, planting. It was pouring rain and hailing right before we started, but actually stopped raining as we were about to begin planting. So wearing boots and clothes we weren't afraid to mess up, we slogged through the mud carrying a big tray of tiny little baby pines (no more than 15 centimeters each - so cute!) and this implement that we shoved into the ground, created a hole with, and used to shoot the plant into the ground. This was actually lots of fun, especially as the weather got better, and I enjoyed it a lot and actually felt pretty tired towards the end. As always, i continue to love the fact that it's not just the old folk or scrubs like me in the club who go out and do stuff like this - i was walking around planting trees alongside Lina and Mats, Swedish team members. By the end of the evening, the fifteen of us had planted about 5000 little trees. Maybe we can come back in forty years or so and see the fully grown trees!

C • Club 8

Club training in Southeastern Lunsen. The course consisted of several clumps of controls with long legs between them. I ran quite slowly, trying to keep my hamstring from being pulled or overextended, but this was hard in wet woods with lots of deadfall and rocks to hop over. The orienteering was going very well until my compass needle got stuck and i was totally lost for five minutes or so before coming to a flooded ski track in running down the middle of a thick green area. Time for a new compass for sure, hopefully before Jukola!! Might run the Stockholm City Cup with my old baseplate tomorrow. Hamstring felt neither better nor worse....
After training, the club had a nice little ceremony, complete with cake, celebrating the women's 6th place at Tiomila, the club's 2nd place at Halsingejavlen, and Ulf's sprint bonus win (the prize being a weekend stay for 20 people at a mountain resort) during the first leg of Halsingekavlen. The club president, Anders Edling, also acknowledged Rob and me for making our respective WOC teams. That was pretty cool.

Hammer and Mats Troeng were both interested in going pool running today, so we drove down to Fyrishov and went for a run. I'd never done one of these workouts before, but had just heard that they are quite boring. In fact, it was really fun to jog along and have good conversation, so i think good company is crucial. We even managed to borrow some running belts to make the workout more comfortable, and although it felt easy the whole time, there was definitely a bit of burn in my legs afterwards.