Training Log Archive: BorisGr

A rest day. Low-volume week begins.

C • Low volume, high intencity? 2

Warm-up for the training race.

OK Linne training day at Åkersberga.
We started off with a training race, which will be used to help select teams for next weekend's Måsenstafetten. The terrain was both very physical and technical, tougher than most of the stuff we have in Uppsala. It was easy to lose a lot of time in a hurry, as lots of people did. I started off feeling very heavy in the legs and not very fast, but traded off by being careful in the trickier areas and not losing much time there. By #8 I had caught the two guys ahead of me, including Joffe from 6 minutes back. Unfortunately, I then rushed to try and get away and followed a stupid route choice by poor execution, losing two minutes. I was then tentative on the long leg, almost ran out of bounds on another leg, and finished off with complete idiocy on the last control, making a parallel error that cost another 3 minutes. About 8 minutes lost in total - not a very impressive run after a promising start. Johan Höij was impressive, wining in 55 minutes, 4 minutes ahead of Jan.
Kat and Zan both did pretty well, beating up on a bunch of Swedes. Plus, Zan saw a moose!

Jogging to the start, from the finish, and between loops in the afternoon.

OK Linne training day at Åkersberga.
With stomachs still full of pizza, we headed out for the afternoon training. Ulrik and I ran together, taking turns starting 20-30 seconds in front of each other on each of 4 loops of about 1.5-1.7 km and 4-5 controls. We were both tired and full, and so the pace wasn't particularly fast, plus the terrain was very tough, especially for the last two loops (my four loop times were 10:25, 9:42, 13:13, 15:17.) It was good training, and I was very tired by the end. Next week is planned to be easy.

Aqua-jogging at Fyrishov with Kat.

Morningjogg - the usual trail loop in Stadsskogen on a gorgeous spring day. Still, the occasional ice and snow piles reminded me that winter may well be back in force and I shouldn't get my hopes up too high for good weather all the way through spring.

Warm-up, cool-down, jogging between intervals.

Intervals on a bike path near Gottsundagipen. We ran a 1.4km loop, with 2 minutes rest.
5:17
5:08
5:11
5:12
5:16
Not the most consistent pacing, probably because I was on my own for the last two intervals, since guys who were running my speed either dropped out or took less rest to start with the fastest people.

Circuits after intervals. A number of guys commented on my post about the Linne training group, mostly agreeing that a club coach would be great, but also pointing out that this is reasonably uncommon in the Swedish club culture.

Jog to the start and then cool-down with Kat, Johan, and Liutas after the race.

Uppsala Night Cup #4, OK Linne. This night cup was on the South Uppsala map, which has large chunks of city blocks interspersed with some trail-rich woods. In other words, the kind of terrain I can actually be competitive with Swedes at night in. The pace was fast right from the start, with Mats blasting out of the gates, but as usual, as soon we hit the woods, the pace slowed. On the way to 2, I went through two controls on another forking, but only lost about 30 seconds or so. Still, I was surprised to see Jan pass me on the way to 5. Stayed behind him in the beginning of the long leg to 6, but dared to take a different route choice and actually made it to the control at the same time as him. After a few short legs, another pair of long ones, and I was surprised to see Jan pass me again at the end of the second one. The last few controls were in the Norby woods, and I entered that section together with Liutas, but he got ahead and stayed ahead the rest of the way. I ended up 6th, 3:43 behind Johan's winning time. Quite happy with the result, but even happier with Kat's 2nd place in D21, and just 4 minutes behind Albin's time on the same course.
Results: http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/sv/default.a...
Route Gadget: http://www.oklinne.nu/routegadget/cgi-bin/reitti.c...

C • Nice run 3

Morning gym session. Felt strange to be in a gym on this lovely, sunny day, but at least walking home in shorts felt great. Found a scale at the gym and weighed in at 74.0kg - lowest since high school. I celebrated by eating a chocolate bar upon returning home.

Tuesday night run - course Ä. I ran from home and just did a shorter version of the course, wanting to take it a bit easy tonight and remembering that the longer version involves a long not-field-checked green part. The pace was quite brisk in my pack, leading to a bunch of navigational errors, but nothing too major. Legs felt quite fresh - taking a day off from running must have been good for them.

As I am a member of OK Linne's "training group", I am supposed to occasionally go to meetings where we discuss and plan club training for the next few months. Yesterday was my first such meeting, and it was an interesting experience. It was interesting that the training schedule is decided by consensus, not really according to any training plan or anything written up by a coach but, more or less, according to the desires of the person "responsible" for a given week. Of course, there is a framework within which we make these decisions: in the spring, tuesdays are usually intervals and thursdays technique trainings. Most weekends have races already scheduled, and so on. I made two suggestions, both of which were adopted: one was to have a couple of interval sessions on the track (seems like a no-brainer) and the other was to continue our Wednesday mini-races past Tiomila (before, they used to be replaced by circuit training) and all the way till Jukola. This was approved on a bi-weekly basis.
While it was undoubtedly very cool for me to participate in such a meeting and get to help plan my club's training, it also struck me as very strange that a club as large and successful as OK Linne relies on a group of amateurs, selected based on volunteering and not on any qualifications, to plan the whole season's training. How does this work in other Scandinavian clubs?

C • Not just any group of amateurs 4

Spinning. Felt weird to be inside on this nice day, but I wanted to stay off my feet today to see if my swollen, painful toe gets any better.