Training Log Archive: BorisGr

Running some of the men's course from Wednesday's Jukola test. Felt a lot better running than I had all week, but didn't want to push my luck, so only ran about two-thirds of the course. Spent the rest of the day laying on the beach at Siggefora with my parents and brother.

C • Nice photo. Your Dad has ... 1

Warming up and cooling down with Patrick and Micro.

Uppland District Champs in sprint, in Östervåla. A lot of our stars didn't show up, probably because they don't think sprint is real orienteering, so I figured there was a chance for a good result on this really hot Swedish day. The course turned out to be fairly simple for a sprint, with a few slightly more technical areas of bushes and greeen patches, as well as a couple of nice route choice legs. Running felt hard, probably because I've been sick all week and because it was hot. I managed to avoid making any significant mistakes and was quite pleased to catch Patrick (wildcolonialboy on AP), who started two minutes before me. Ended up 3rd overall, 2nd in the district, about 1:00 behind Millinger. Nice to get my first DM medal.
It was also really cool to watch my dad go out and run an open course. Been a while since we've been to an O-meet together!

Results: http://www.svenskidrott.se/Downloads/31279/docs/Re...

C • Sounds like a special day, wel... 8

My parents are in town!
Came down to Stockholm to surprise them yesterday, and ended up staying on the floor of their hotel room. Spent the whole day today wandering around Stockholm and sightseeing, very nice. No training, which is just as well - maybe I'll finally kick this cold.

Warming up for the Jukola test. Clear right from the beginning that I wasn't 100% healthy yet, so for once in my life, I made a mature decision and decide to switch down to the women's course and take it fairly easy. (I thought about trying the men's course and taking it easy, but knowing myself, I would have forced myself to run hard anyway.)

Jukola test race, women's course. We ran at Siggefora, a tough area with a lot of blueberry and other random undergrowth, making running quite hard. It's also a very technical area, so it made for a challenging course on this really warm Swedish National Day. I ran at "cruising" speed - speed at which you don't need to slow down to read the map. Made a couple of mistakes along the way and really didn't feel good, and was glad to have the shorter course. Ended up 2nd, 3 minutes behind Sophie. Hoping to be healthy in another day or so.

With the Jukola test race looming tomorrow, I figured it was worth trying to see how it would feel running hard through the woods, keeping an eye on my cold and on my shoulder. Tonight's training was an all-club relay training. Everyone who turned up was split up into teams, with each team consisting of 1 H21, 1 D21/H35/H17, 1 D17/H14/HD50, and 1 D14/H12/HD60. The H21's run the first leg. When they come back, they tag the next runner (the D21/H35/H17) and run the whole course along with them. Then these two tag the next runner and follow along with him/her, and the same for the final leg. The whole team needs to cross the finish line in order for the result to count. Obviously, this was more of a get-to-know-your-clubmates type of training than a serious thing, but it was still fun.
Right from the start I knew that I wasn't 100% healthy yet, as breathing was hard and running did not feel good. We more-or-less stayed in a pack, though somehow I found myself at the front with Albin and Michele after Lars, Tomas, and Ulf missed various controls. Of course, it was our turn next. I misread the control description (as did Albin, it turns out), and we both circled around looking for a flag on a hill, when it was really on the cliff below. Oh well. Ended up about 1 minute behind Ulf, who snuck by us, in the end. Then the pace slowed down, as I got to jog along while my teammates, all the way down to 10-year-old Sixten Jonsson, took turns navigating. It was actually fun to watch a 10-year-old navigate and remember the kinds of mistakes I used to make (much more recently than when I was ten!) In the end, Sixten took an excellent route choice to the last control, getting us ahead of two other teams, whose ten-year-olds were running off in the wrong direction, so it was a nice finish. :)

The rest of the relay - jogging behind the rest of the team.

Still sick. Tried to fool my body into being healthy, but it caught on pretty quickly. Grrrrr.

It was way too nice a day to not get myself outside, even if I have been feeling so-so all day. Nice, easy run around Stadsskogen.

Crunches and so on after the run.

So it was seven years ago this week that I started logging my training on Attackpoint after Kenny Walker told me to try it out. It's been interesting to watch the site change and morph over these few years. In the beginning, it was just North American orienteers, and it probably took a couple of years until people whom I didn't know personally started logging. Then there was the scary phase when it seemed like adventure racers were about to take over and start dominating, but that somehow passed, though a lot of them stuck around on AP, some of them turning into orienteers in the process. Then, through robw, attackpoint suddenly had its Australian explosion. Out of nowhere, all these people from Down Under appeared, and it again seemed like they'd take over, but they seem to have integrated themselves into the AP world just fine. At that point, I could browse the training logs and claim that I knew about 50% of those logging personally. Then, in the last year, AP has gone truly international. Not counting a certain Masai Warrior, we seem to have 32 countries (and all continents but South America and Antactica) represented. Pretty cool. It's gotten to the point where I have met in real life a number of people whom I had only met on AP previously. It's been really cool to see AP grow like this and yet remain primarily orienteering-focused. Well done, Kenny, and keep it up!! Oh, and by the way, as of today, I know just about only 25% of those logging on AP personally.

C • Yeah 11