Training Log Archive: BorisGr

Event: Rånässtafetten, Relay
 

Warm-up, cool-down

Rånässtafetten, OK Linne 3rd team. By the time I started, Mats had already asserted Linne 1st team's domination on the second leg, with Rob Hart handing off to me in 9th, with a sizeable pack of runners starting at the same time as me. Well, after a series of races I've been happy with recently, I was due for a disappointment, and here it came. I stayed with the pack in the beginning and kept having different forkings from everyone in that pack and had to run hard to rejoin them on the common legs after finding my controls until on the 5th control I finally came to a control on the other fork... It took about a minute to relocate, and by then the pack was gone. I followed with a beginner's mistake of running too hard and lost another minute on the next leg. Then I settled in and ran well for a few controls before being passed by Tomas Dlabaja on a long leg. I stupidly tried staying with him, since that meant basically running all out and only occasionally looking at the map. Sure enough, he was on a different fork, and there goes another lost minute. After losing 45 seconds more on the second-to-last control, the finish chute finally put me out of my misery and I handed off to Olof Borell in 15th place, having lost 6 spots...
My teammates ran well in the end and we finished 12th, with the 2nd Linne team coming 8th, and the 1st one winning in dominant fashion.
Results: http://www.ranasok.se/ranasstafetten/res_staf07.ht...
Splits for my forking: http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/sv/default.a...
AspLövet's musings on how Jan Troeng runs so fast: http://aspleaf.blogspot.com/2007/04/vilken-jvla-vi...

C • disappointment 3

Event: Lännasprinten, Middle Distance
 

Did a longish warm-up to wake up the body.

Lännasprinten, running H21 because my ranking isn't good enough for elite.
The course wasn't too difficult, but lots of branches and cut-down trees underfoot and hidden controls made this a bit more challenging. On several controls I came right to the feature and couldn't find the flag because it was either tucked into a corner or hidden by a bush or something. Very irritating and not good for flow at all. Probably lost a total of about 1:50 for the course. Felt ok running, but not as good as last week-end: the cold must have taken a bit of a toll. Ended up 4th on H21 out of 98 starters, which is kind of cool. Still, would rather have run elite.
Results: http://www.svenskidrott.se/Downloads/29292/docs/Pr...
Splits:
http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/sv/default.a...

A few thoughts after the JK. In the winter, I decided that the JK would be my big benchmark event of the spring, and I treated it as my most important individual competition of the season. My goals coming in were top 20 overall and top 10 on my relay leg. I ended up 15th overall, 7th on my relay leg. Since I also ran the JK last year, and the strength of field was quite similar, it's good to compare last year's form with this year's. Last year I was 29th overall and 18th on my relay leg (also first leg.) Noticeable improvement. I also remember last year being really impressed by how well Hammer ran at the JK and wishing I could run like that one day. Well, last year he came 22nd and 16th in the two races, compared to my 19th and 18th this year. Quite similar, which is also encouraging. Anyway, the point of this self-congratulatory musing is to say that I have finally convinced myself that this whole living in Sweden thing is paying off so far. Still a long way to go till a WOC final becomes reality, but it's progress...

C • Last thought 2

Taking a day off to hopefully put an end to the cold I've had the last couple of days.

Technique training on Hagby. I started off by running a contours-only line-O. It was really fun and went pretty well. I felt a lot more comfortable with Swedish woods than I did yesterday.

After the line-O, I ran a normal course on a contours-only map. The orienteering felt almost easier than it normally does on a full-color map. At the very least, contours were a lot easier to read. Of course, route choice becomes harder this way, since you don't know if the large contourless area in the middle of the leg will be a fast, open field, a clear-cut area, or a deadly swamp.

C • Mmmm, gotta love those deadly ... 1

Got back to Uppsala with a whole hour left before training, so of course I had to go. This one was on Åland, a nice but little-used map about a half-hour's drive to the WNW. I did the short course and took it pretty easy (medium pace), but still managed to make two mistakes early on, while getting reacquainted with Swedish woods and mapping. After that, things went better and I had some nice flow going towards the end.
I've also been feeling on the verge of being sick the last day or two. Will try to fight it off before the weekend's races.

Spent the day wandering around Kew Gardens in London with Kat followed by dinner at Abi and Matthias' apartment and checking out Matthias' impressive, 30-strong, collection of orienteering books, mostly acquired on E-Bay. He also has an orienteering board game, Route Choice, apparently made by Silva before the dawn of time. Pretty cool.

C • I finally read 'Murder at the ... 8

Results from the JK can be found at http://www.jk2007.org.uk/

I am pleased. More when I am back in Uppsala.

C • woa.. good stuff... 5

JK 2007 Relay.
Caerwent military training area, a weird mix of fields with lots of fences and earth works and thorny green woods.
Team Oxford: Boris - Scott Collier (lost on AP) - SGB (sgb on AP) - Ian Webb (distracted on AP).
Standing on the starting line, I felt totally intimidated by the stars standing next to me at the start and dead from the race the day before. Predictably, I felt pretty awful in the beginning, but managed to avoid mistakes and stayed with the pack through the second bit of woods, where I suddenly found myself alone for a little while. When I came out of the woods, I saw a pack of David Roome, Allan Bogle, Andrew Llewellyn, and a couple of others ahead of me and ran hard to catch them. Ended up running with them for a while, the pack splitting and joining again after forkings. In the end, David and I got a bit ahead on a route choice, and Ralph Street, a junior from SLOW who is a dead ringer for Swisschees, passed me in the finish chute. Ended up 7th, which I was quite pleased with, 3 minutes off Graham Gristwood's winning time, and ahead of some of the stars I had been scared off. Our team ended up 24th in the end, and the OUOC girls a very solid 9th.
Results: http://www.cix.co.uk/~neper/jk2007/day4/classa.htm

The JK was a fantastic week-end of orienteering with a great format and a really good atmosphere. I felt like the event really lived up to its name - the JK _Festival_ of Orienteering. It really felt like a festival, or celebration, of our sport. Way to go, organizers!