Training Log Archive: BorisGr

Jogging to and from backbana.

Had a headache and was nauseous in the morning, but dranlk a bunch of water and felt better. Probably got dehydrated from sweating tons last night - they finally turned on the heat in the house, but i didn't adjust for it. Anyway, ran over to the backbana and did one lap, starting out easy and working harder as it went on. Felt good to finish strong.

Janne's backbana in Uppsala - Splits

Little by little, getting back into training. Thought about doing part of the club's interval workout tonight, but decided against it given the really cold, rainy evening and my desire to avoid getting sick again immediately. Went instead to the gym (for the first time in ages!) and took a spinning class. Nice and sweaty, just as I remember it. Felt good and enjoyed being indoors for a workout.

Easy jog through Stadsskogen and then Eriksberg with Rob. Really sad that he, Allison, and Max are leaving so soon...

One more day off, in the earnest hopes of being able to officially declare myself healthy tomorrow. And i am recording this now, before the day is over, so that i don't talk myself into going for a run, or a spinning class or, worse yet, come along for the 10000 meter time trial on the track tonight.
But it's sooooo tempting...

C • Peter's routes 1

Jogging to the castle and back

Was going to just go for an easy jog, but saw that there was a class for university students wanting to try orienteering being run by Lina tonight, so I decided to jog around the course she set instead - always more fun to run with a map in hand if possible. It was a course on the castle sprint map, and I jogged it. The plan was to never stop nor speed up and read ahead on every leg. This worked out pretty well - chose one questionable route and also ran by one control after stopping to talk to Lina for a minute or so.
Nice to jog around a bit, but definitely don't feel 100% - similar to the way i felt after a bad cold in February, when I ran the Varsity Match in England.

Having learned my lesson (for the time being) about racing when sick, I instead spent Sunday eating sandwiches and spectating the World Cup Final with Kat and Sandra in "downtown" Stein-am-Rhein. Fun spectating, but pretty awful announcing, with a very pro-Swiss crowd and a very pro-Swiss announcer, who basically cheered when Norwegian Öystein Kvaal Österbö, who came in with the lead, turned out to have mispunched, putting the lead back into Swiss hands. Speaking of the mispunch, the runners had the same control twice - once after passing the spectator area after the first loop and getting a new map, and then again as the last control. This seems like the kind of thing that the runners should be notified ahead of time. A number of people (Österbö, Marianne Andersen, a few others) mispunched here, and a bunch of others (including Annika Billstam) missed lots of time by not seeing it and having to come back. It seemed quite unfair, especially since some runners got to start at the same time as another runner was running through the spectator area (same chute as the start) and saw the other runner punch. If I were a Norwegian team leader, I'd consider protesting...
Between this and the fighting and myriad mispunches at 25-manna, sounds like this was a pretty controversial week-end in orienteering.
Oh yeah, you can see the maps on Österbö's website: http://folk.ntnu.no/oysteios/

C • controversial 32

Warm-up

World Cup Round 9, "Middle distance".
What a weird format - supposedly middle distance, but with a 47-minute winning time and 1:15 scale. Strange.
Definitely did not feel 100% healthy, but started anyway. Stupid. I just absolutely hate not racing and just sitting by and watching, but I think I am slowly learning the hard way not to race sick. Got stuck in the green on #1 and missed #2 by about 30 seconds, passing on the wrong side of a treed from it. Was caught by Scott Fraser already on the way to 3 - not a good sign. Orienteered well for the next few controls and stayed ahead of him, but quickly realized that I just had no speed or strength at all and faded on the first steep hill, going up to #7. Pretty much clean, but slow after that all the way to the TV control, where I did not understand the map at all and was milling around about 10 meters away with like five other people - lost around 45 seconds, I'd say, probably all of it caught on video. No mistakes after that, just a couple of hesitations in an area that was unreadable at full speed at 1:15. Then trudged down into town for the last couple of controls, through the streets of Stein-am-Rhein. Felt like I might need to stop and walk the finish chute. A pretty pathetic effort all-around.
As usual, one needs to take away some positives in order not to go home and just give up altogether.
1) I guess my actual shape isn't as bad as the result shows, as the sickness must have had an effect. Does anyone know how big a difference being sick can actually make, in terms of minutes or percent?
2) For the first time since, perhaps, July, I felt like I was actually right on target with all my compass bearings. This is encouraging. It's totally lame to blame equipment, but I finally feel comfortable with a compass for the first time since I broke the last one I liked on Day 1 of O-Ringen. (I've gone through 4 since then!!)
3) I managed to focus and run my own race and actually had attackpoints and mental images of what the control circle would look like for most of the controls. This may have been, though, partly due to my low speed.

C • Does anyone know how big a ... 5