Intervals with Fel's running group. Lovely evening on the Islands of Stockholm.
Session was 3 sets of 4x200m w 100jog recovery, 2mins between sets. Most did 4 or 5 sets but my legs were already feeling a bit tired from the start. Looking forward to getting some speed back..
Joined the Julian Dent pool running academy tonight for a mona + 20mins straights and bends. Time went fast with company and entertainment (the other characters at the pool), for my longest pool run ever.
Swedish Silva league, ran D21E2 to run a shorter course (long middle) rather than another long distance. Felt good about this run, much more confident with the shorter distance and 1:10 000 scale, navigation was really under control and was pushing hard. Really enjoyed the terrain. Still some things to improve of course but getting there..
4mins behind Linnea Gustafsson (9% though the top runners would probably have been a couple of mins faster again?)
Swedish Silva League long distance. Struggled a bit physically especially towards the end, it was hard work the whole way but didn't feel like I could push harder and HR was lower than I expected. Made some 1 mins mistakes in the very difficult to read depression detail and one route choice I would have done differently. Compass good on the large scale but lost direction at a few crucial moments. Hopefully tomorrow in a shorter race I will be able to run more aggressively and have a better race feeling, must not have negative thoughts and enjoy running in such nice, challenging forest!
79th, 30mins behind Simone (41%).
Orienteering in Stockholm from Jules and Fel's house. So nice for orienteering, reading all the subtle little contours well though I will have to be super concentrated when going a bit faster. Still feeling a little unco in the terrain but hopefully won't feel that in a race so much.
Looking forward to the weekend :)
Was in a very bad orienteering mood today. Had no oomph and spent the whole time being pathetic about the steep slippery muddy snowy slush (I thought winter was finished?) and cursing the forest for whipping my frozen skin with its spring saplings. I think I spent about 10mins stuck on steep mud slopes with my map between my teeth clutching onto roots, not being able to get back up and being too scared to slide down. At one point I was knocked free by a guy hurtling down the slope so fast that I thought he was an avalanche and screamed accordingly. I think I have a dislike of sliding after my Tobogganing accident.. Anyway found the controls ok despite not really concentrating at all and it was good to have a longish in terrain even if I didn't enjoy it till I got my warm punch at the finish line. Normally that would have been good Vanessa terrain and the course was interesting. What a whinger, we'll have no more of this behaviour ;)
Ol training near Zurich with NLZ. 7.5k course with tracks removed for lots of it, quite vague. Mostly practiced running on compass in anticipation of Sweden. I felt like I was hardly reading the map and was pleasantly surprised that I ended up pretty much right on for most controls after feeling quite uncertain about keeping my line in the rough terrain. But I run faster when feeling certain so obviously should use more than compass..
Didn't take it too hard.
Fun run in Buechberg on the Vitaparcours loop (forest path with contraptions for various strength and excercises). Tobias came too, though left the running to me :) Lovely hot evening with incredible view of the sunset over the lake and green leaf buds everywhere...ahhh spring!
Strength18:00 [1]
Vitaparcours. Some jumping exercises (not too much as legs a little sore), core and upper body. Tobias tried to teach me some gymnastics on the bars and rings but my arms are too weak..
First running with the TSV Laufgruppe since the injury. 12mins warm up run towards Nuolen then they did a 10km tempo at 3:50-4m/km pace- I held on for a long as I could (only about 2km) then continued at my tempo pace accompanied by the group coach Paul on the bike for 18mins tempo. Then short pause before another 10mins tempo starting with the group again on their second loop.
Hard work pushing the pace on the flat, legs really not used to it but felt like a good session.
Shuffled home over the golf hill.
Swiss NOL Sprint. This was a really cool town sprint with a really tricky slope of narrow alley ways and tricky little route choices. I started well running hard and planning ahead, but had physically hit the wall a bit by the time I got to the trickier and steeper part and the navigation and running slowed down- didn't feel I was always making the best decisions, rather just trying to find my way.. However no real errors until right at the end where I headed off in the wrong direction following a line on the map from a nearby control from earlier in the course, though not too much time lost. I flet most time was lost on running speed.
3:43 behind Simone, 24/31, 25% behind.
Need to focus on sprints a bit more which I have never really done, for the NORT world cup in June.. Despite not feeling quite up to it I really enjoyed this :)
Running30:00
8 warm up
22 warm down, including barefoot in lush grass.
Got sunburnt and went swimming on the way home in a freezing cold river... summer is on the way!!!
First Swiss NOL for the year- middle distance. It was a great day with the first spring weather (20+ degrees and full sunshine!) and I was just so happy to be orienteering and racing :) My run was pretty clean with perhaps one 30sec overshoot and some other little uncertainties, everything was working pretty well technically. I just had trouble pushing the pace due to the lack of hard running training- I especially felt it on the tracks and hills, though didn't have too much trouble with the sometimes rough forest terrain.
8mins behind Simone (who again won by 2mins) 19/34 in elite class. I was happy with that considering the top runners won't be getting much quicker in the next few months but I feel I definitely will as I start some proper running training and lift the expectations ;) Last year I started a list of how far behind 'world champions' I am in races and todays 26% behind is actually better than lots of reasonable runs last year..
9mins warm up, 12min warm down. breath taking views of mountains in the distance from the finish :)
Todays typical Swiss event set up included the event centre in a school with showers, hot food, o-shop etc and then a 15min bus ride to and from the start/finish with all the socialising done at the event centre afterwards. About 1500 runners all together I think.
Longer ride home in lunch break, hoping for some sun..
7 PM
Running32:00
Legs (glutes) very stiff/sore in the afternoon, I suppose from TSV strength lastnight though the lunges we did didn't seem so hard. Perhaps also on top of Saturday and the pool running 'sprinting"..
Anyway there was no way I could do intervals but though an easy run might loosen the legs.. but they felt like logs the whole way.
Short but hard sesh between finishing work late and dashing off to TSV training. Did hard 'sprint' laps (high knees, bum kicks, fast cadence, arms, straight legs etc) with a short breather between each. Legs sore during the day but felt better after this.
'High Technical High Speed' training day with Swiss squad and NLZ, in Goldau. I was a bit nervous beforehand after feeling generally demoralised this week about my bad start to the year training wise and lack of confidence in my knee in terrain.. but when I saw the forest with HUGE rocks etc I got excited and remembered how much I love orienteering :)
First exercise was 5x 5-7mins O intervals on a sprint map with a mix of urban and forest with huge rocks. We ran in pairs (me with Karin from Austria which worked well) starting each interval together but had to go different ways to the first control (generally longer leg) with one of us yelling out our decision. Good practice at fast decision making, trying to catch up after taking a slower route and running flat out with lots of other people in really technical terrain.
Made about one error on each interval as I was pushing beyond my limit, but a good experience.
Knee was totally fine in the very rough terrain and I was very happy to feel I could run with my usual full terrain aggression.. just what I was afraid I had lost. wooohoo :)
orienteering race 51:00
After a typical Swiss athletes hot pasta lunch we headed back out for a Middle distance race. The map was at 1:6000 with 27 controls in 4.1km, awesome course with three sets of butterfly loops and a section at the end which was like a hilly maze amongst huge rocks.
I was mostly very happy with my navigation, I managed to stay on the ball while pushing hard and concentrated well despite lots of other people running in different directions in the technical parts. Lost about a minute in a couple of places- when confused by seeing a new track, exiting a control badly and getting stuck in rock jungle, and from approaching the second last control in the green badly. Definitely felt the lack of hard running fitness when on tracks and up hills, lungs were burning and didn't feel I had my full brain power when running hard. However I was heartened to feel I can run hard in the terrain again :) Though I am definitely a bit unaccustomed to this leaping about in forests as I pulled up with some very sore muscles, particularly calves.
10mins behind Simone who was fastest by 2mins, 10th/16.
10 mins uphill run to the start, 7mins run to the train station after.
orienteering50:00
NLZ OL training Regensberg, a middle distance course with finish quite a bit lower than the start. At the beginning there was snow on th ground and lots of fallen timber and I felt very nervous/cautious about the knee but once out of the snow I got some confidence back and was managing to run more aggressively. Felt a bit unfit and lacking speed/ability to push along the tracks, a bit demoralised about the fact that it is already april...
Flat night run after a long day at work. Felt good and decent pace for the first 20mins then hit some kind of wall..felt dizzy and floaty and struggled the last 10mins home. Just tired I suppose. Feet and lower legs also a bit sore from standing all day.
Flat run with an attempt at Fartlek, but after the first fast minute my knee tendon felt rather suddenly sore so i walked 5mins and ran the rest easy without problems.
running drills/plyo5:00 [4]
Running drills in warm up
8 PM
water running45:00
Pool running 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 with 1min rec. took it really hard, switching techniques to share the fatigue amongst different muscles