Training Log Archive: BorisGr

I did a pretty long warm-up to get my body ready to go for a 4am race. A shorter cooldown, as I ran around the event center trying to figure out how team 1 was doing.

Jukola!

106 45 OK Linne 2 SWE 8:56:43
1 Johan Hamelius 1:20:24 139.
2 Mats Fröberg 1:32:46 291. 2:53:10 227.
3 Jörgen Ohlin 1:33:00 83. 4:26:11 138.
4 Ulrik Imberg 46:11 93. 5:12:22 132.
5 Boris Granovskiy 46:02 92. 5:58:25 116.
6 Smith Ross 1:17:47 121. 7:16:13 110.
7 Olof Eriksson 1:40:30 92. 8:56:43 106.

This was a weaker Linné 2 team, as the club was missing at least a full Jukola team's worth of top runners, so we did not have ambition to match last year's impressive 45th place. However, we figured that a top 100 should be doable with seven solid runs, and top 80 was not out of the question. However, we got a tough start as Johan made a mistake early and had to fight hard to gain back places for the rest of the leg. He did a great job fighting back to exchange in 139th place after dropping to about 300th early on. Mats Fröberg had a tough day physically and technically and was disappointed with his run. However, we got a boost on the long night leg, as Jörgen was a machine picking up nearly 100 places with a great run. Ulrik was solid on leg 4, and then it was my turn, going out in 132nd.

I didn't get any sleep this time, as the Linné 1 boys were providing far too much entertainment on TV to make sleep and appealing option, and so it took me a while to get the body in racing mode. However, when it needed to, the adrenaline rush came, and the usual excitement that I get before racing a Jukola or Tiomila leg was there. When Ulrik exchanged to me and I ran off towards the start triangle, my legs felt great and I was flying.

Jukola is a bit special in that massive elephant trails form to virtually every control as a result of 10000 people romping through the forest all day and night. This means that a lot of orienteering is reduced to following the right elephant path and not getting dragged off to the wrong control. This went really well for me in the beginning, and I was having a really good race through 7 controls.

On the way to number 8, however, I got too comfortable relying on elephant tracks and left #7 in the wrong direction. I adjusted as soon as I figured it out, but then had to attack a control on a boulder in the middle of a green bland hillside, and did not know exactly where I was attacking from. I missed with my first attack, relocated, and finally got the control on the second attempt, losing about 2 minutes in the process.

I made another mistake a couple of controls later, also in pretty bland terrain, where I was off on my bearing, and lost another minute. The rest of the course went well, and I felt like all the other controls were exactly where I expected them to be, so there are some positives to take away from this.

I exchanged to a smiling Ross in 116th place, having picked up 16 spots for us. It was an ok race, but could have been a very good race given the speed and focus I had for most of it. Still, encouraging with still some time left to improve shape before WOC.

Ross and Olle had solid runs on the final two legs, and brought us back to the brink of the top 100, finishing in 106th, the best Jukola placing ever for any team I have been on.

C • Yay Linné 1

Jukola model event. Got off the bus after the three hour ride from Turku to Jämsä, dropped off our stuff at the team tent, and went out on the model map adjacent to the event center. I was joined by Ross and Andrew, and we mostly stayed together the entire time, sometimes stopping to discuss routes. It was nice, and I enjoyed orienteering and chatting with the boys. We finished with some strides on the trail back to the event center.

This was followed by spectating Venla, where our girls did an amazing job. The first team got a great run by Cat leading off, followed by solid legs 2 and 3 from Inga and Lina to keep us in striking distance. Then Annika did the rest on the anchor leg. After a shaky start, she rocked the rest of the course and ran through a bunch of other top runners such as Helena Jansson, before out-orienteering Tove in the end to bring Linné to the finish in 3rd place, the club's best-ever performance in either of the big relays! It was an amazing feeling when Annika appeared at the last control alone in third place, and our mob of adoring fans could not stop jumping and shouting as the team ran up the finish chute.

The other Linné teams did not disappoint either. Teams 2,3,4,5 were really even the whole way and finished in places 29, 34, 49, and 39 (out of about 1150) to show the amazing depth we have in the club. Team 6 finished 132nd to round off a great day for Linné ladies.

Traveling to Finland with the club in the evening

Wanted a slower map-reading session today, as i was not super-happy with my orienteering yesterday. So I joined Sam and Hanna for control site tagging at Östfora for their DM-middle courses this fall. There was some great terrain there - it will be a really good event. Got what I wanted out of this session, with a lot of detailed map reading, focusing on looking up to see things ahead of me and being careful with direction out of the control. I rolled my ankle near the end, so decided to skip the running session I had hoped to do later in the evening.

Lunchtime hill intervals on the gravel road that goes up the hill just before the start of backbana. I did six intervals, all between 1:26-1:29, with 2:30 jogging rest to get back to the start. Felt tired.

Orienteering training at Fiby with relay start. Three loops, coming back to the start each time. I had an uneven performance, with some stretches of really good orienteering and some stretches of panicked, unfocused running. Need to get my head back into training.

Also, after enough injuries on Linné's second Jukola team I have been called in to run leg 5, so I will travel to Finland with the club tomorrow.

C • cool! 6

Lunchtime run on Jan's hilly loop on Sten Sture.

Back from St.Petersburg. Went for a morning run on Nåsten and got caught in a downpour - kind of nice, actually. Then went to MP for a needle treatment on my back, which has been giving me weird twinges after training the last couple of weeks.

The evening, much like the one before, was spent with Ulrik poring over winsplits, eventor, world of o, and all other resources of orienteering trivia as we tried to place 28 Linné girls into 6 Venla teams plus reserves in the best way we could. It proved to be a very difficult task, as the results are very close, and in many cases one just has to go with a gut feeling when all else is equal. Part of the job also involves delivering difficult and disappointing news to people, and that is the part I hate most, especially when those people are your friends and clubmates, people whom you see training hard alongside you all winter and spring. I don't know if this experience is teaching me to better handle having to disappoint people or will scare me away from any position like this in the future, but I am learning to empathize with selectors: someone will always be disappointed and upset at you, and someone will always think you made a bad decision or made a decision for the wrong reasons. Regardless, Ulrik tells me that when the teams do well, it is a fantastic and thrilling feeling for the UK, and I am looking forward to experiencing that this weekend.