Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

First swim for a while, in a local outdoor pool in a small place called Ranea (about 30km north of Lulea), a couple of hours into the drive. (In case you're wondering how I found it, my original thoughts were to look for one in Lulea, but the local council website covered the whole commune, not just the city, and Ranea came up). Quite a busy precinct as there was a mountain bike race starting nearby, but the pool itself was quiet. No lanes marked and got a few turns wrong, but otherwise good to be in the water, even though it felt as if I was flailing around a bit.

It was quite a long day on the road - Skelleftea-Lulea-Gallivare-Kiruna-Narvik, through mostly pleasant forest country until Kiruna, then increasingly mountainous and scenic on approaching the Norwegian border (my standard procedure on this stretch was to make a photo stop whenever I looked like getting stuck behind a slow-moving caravan). The Gallivare-Kiruna region is mining country, in the sense of digging stuff out of the ground in vast quantities. (Elsewhere in northern Sweden the mining that's happening is of vast quantities of data - the combination of a cold climate, cheap, mostly renewable electricity, and good communications makes it a good place for data centres; I think Facebook have set up somewhere around here).

Had to dodge reindeer a couple of times coming out of Kiruna - they have only slightly more road sense than kangaroos.

Achilles, which has been fine most of the trip, was a bit touchy today, especially after long stints in the car.

Last day of O-ringen on the eastern outskirts of town - not as hilly a day as the other days, and with a few more tracks, but still plenty of detail.

Being outside the chasing start cutoff we were off at 15-second intervals. I was passed just after the start triangle - which didn't faze me as I expected that I'd be amongst people who were faster runners but worse navigators - but the first leg was enough to demonstrate to me that just getting around today would be a challenge; felt weak, and although the back wasn't painful it felt as if it could go at any moment. I immediately settled into survival mode, dropped 30 seconds or so on each of the first two, but from there my navigation settled down even if my running didn't. Couldn't do justice to the amount of track running on the long 8, but did see a few of those who started around me there, tangible evidence that my run wasn't as bad as it felt. Couldn't hang onto that bunch on 11, the last long leg, and dropped 30 seconds on that control too, but I'll settle for managing to salvage a result on a day when it wasn't going well - after all, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger (or at least that's what I said post-run to Tara, who survived a very tough week of her own - although the top sticking-it-out points go to Aislinn, who was out for over 2 hours on both of the last two days).

Dropped a couple of places to end up 61st. I was a little closer to the leaders than on the first two days but placed worse, probably because there was less potential for others to blow out.

Headed up north after the day's run was over (being discouraged from hanging around the arena too long because the caterers had run out of a lot of stuff), with the target being the Lofotens. That's still a couple of days away, but for now I've ended up in Skelleftea, on a very pleasant evening and staying in a more pleasant place than the concrete sweatbox which has been my home for the last six days. Didn't see any evidence of the Big Moose.

I think a day off running tomorrow will definitely be in order.

C • Nice 3

No, I couldn't put five days (more or less) together in this terrain - today was the day of the blowout. Two major errors - a classic parallel error at 4 where I ended up one level too high (at the time I thought it was 5 minutes, but the splits suggest that it was more like 7-8), then didn't climb soon enough on 6 (and compunded it by getting stuck trying to get around a cliff) and dropped another 4-5. Was better at pinpointing other controls in the circle today - and had one moment, on nailing the difficult downslope 8, of seeing a somewhat befuddled Mats Troeng, whose control this clearly was not - but with two misses as big as that it hardly matters. Perhaps not surprisingly, after the mistakes, I started to notice that I was tired, but didn't finish off too badly.

Out of the top half of the field now, as I expected (I think I'm 7 minutes and 4 places outside, which will be difficult to make up with the 15-second start intervals tomorrow).

C • Top half 4

A couple of mistakes turned today from what would have been a good run (I would have been happy with sub-45) into a so-so one, but continued to avoid disaster. Dropping about 1.5 minutes on 4, a careless miss on a short leg, and 2-2.5 on 10, a leg across a slope with lots of scattered rock and no big features which I recognised as highly dangerous but still couldn't execute at low speed (and had to climb back up to the control, always a depressing thing) - would have been better to climb initially and go in from above. Pretty clean on the rest, though, and running better than I have on the last two days (the substantial net downhill helped). Very nice up on the tops with good visibility and lots of bare rock, although having thought I'd got on top of the mapping in the last two days the interpretations today seemed a bit different.

Very late start and rather warm and humid (27), but that didn't cause me as much bother as I thought it might - certainly made sure I was well hydrated before the start. I was very impressed by the presence of a water trailer at the mountaintop start and was wondering if it had been brought in by helicopter (knowing past O-ringen logistical feats this wouldn't surprise me), but it turned out there was a nearby logging track on the other side of the hill.

Moved up four places so am now a little more firmly settled in the top half, but making the chasing start will be a big ask - I'd need to be within 16 minutes of the lead tomorrow which is well inside what I've managed on the first two days (which are of similar length to tomorrow).

M40 wins the prize for the best front-end field (at least in the older classes); the top four were separated by six seconds today, and three of the four were Mats Troeng, Emil Wingstedt and Jani Lakanen.

O-ringen rest day today (except for the elite who had a town sprint in the evening - their day off is tomorrow) - certainly a rest day which I needed after struggling at the end yesterday. (I suspect I'm still a bit dehydrated, too, which will be something to watch over the remainder of the week).

Spent the morning out at Skuleskogen National Park with Toph and Jacqui and climbed up to the canyon and the associated mountain - mostly features similar to, but on a larger scale than, the ones we'd seen on the course on Sunday and Monday, but good to be able to take in the views and understand the country a bit better (for example, the areas of scree are old beaches, in an area that's uplifted to 280 metres above sea level after the retreat of the glaciers and is still rising at nearly a centimetre per year - more than enough to offset global sea level rise in this region). Glad to have gone early, as the car park was getting close to filling up by the time we arrived.

Day 2 of O-ringen has not been kind to me over the years. My record in it reads: 20-minute mistake (1989), 15-minute mistake (1991), 20-minute mistake (1998), competition-ending injury (2000), and jogged/walked around after a day 1 injury and still made a 6-minute mistake (2011).

(There were also two days when I didn't run day 2 in the conventional sense: 2008, where the World Cup started with a sprint on the second evening, and 2015, when I only ran the last three days, as a warm-up for WMOC).

The big positive to draw from today is that there was no comparable disaster. It certainly won't go down as one of the great runs of my career - scrappy in the circle and barely spiked a control, but nothing bigger than a minute or so - but it could have been far worse. Also hit the wall quite badly with about 15 minutes to go on a warm day (i.e. I couldn't run a two-contour hill on a track) - must have looked pretty awful when I finished judging from Tracy's reaction when she saw me, but didn't feel too bad after some water and 10-15 minutes in the shade. Will appreciate the rest day tomorrow.

The first two-thirds of the course were again in fairly steep and rocky country, but today we went across the slopes more than up and down them. Running a bit more fluently than yesterday (at least until the aforementioned later stages).

51st today, 10 places better than yesterday, and moved up to 56th (exactly halfway). Seemed to be some big blowouts today. Managed the unusual feat of placing better on the course than on any split.

A prize for enterprise goes to the kids who lived in one of the houses we walked past on the way back to the bus stop, who were selling chilled raspberry cordial for 5 kroner a cup. I suspect they'll have made several thousand kroner over the two days (assuming their raw materials supply kept up).

C • Just like home 3

O-ringen day 1. My first experience of the terrain in the Ornskoldsvik area; I'd been led to believe it was physical and it was, but I hadn't expected anything quite as extreme as 200m climb in the first 1.7km. Couldn't run significant parts of the first five controls - don't have the strength for the steep climbs (some of which were more scrambling than running) or the agility for the loose rock. Improved somewhat after that. Technically this was a decent run; there were a few controls I was unsure on (especially 8, where I saw a flag and was thinking "I hope this is mine because I don't really know where I am" - it was), but no time losses bigger than 15-30 seconds, and none of the drifting which has plagued me in Swedish terrain (perhaps because there were few flat bits and the visibility was good).

Didn't feel as if I had a lot of energy today, which may have been partly a product of spending last night in a sauna - my room overlooks a moderately busy street and a restaurant which has sometimes noisy people leaving it, so leaving the window open wasn't really an option. (The hotel I'm staying in would be a perfectly acceptable 2-3 star hotel - and the location is certainly convenient, within a few minutes' walk of both the event centre and the bus pick-up point - but I'm paying 4-star prices for it). Certainly didn't have much energy for the finish chute, and flaked out when I got home.

The new shoes (with metal studs) did their job on the rock, moistened by a bit of overnight rain, but they definitely don't look new any more. (The rain may have cleared but it was very humid). I also took a big chunk out of my pants and found a replacement hard to find - apparently there are no normal-sized people at this event because the shop at the event site had nothing between XS and XL - but tracked some down back at the event centre.

My two main targets for this event are to be in the top half of the field, and make the chasing start (90 minutes). At the moment I'm slightly outside being on track for both of these.

Headed out early with Simon, in the interests of getting back before things got too chaotic in the house (they have three children under 6). It's not the first time we've been for a run together, but the last time we did, a quarter-century ago, he was about three-quarters of the height (he was nine) and I probably wasn't much more than three-quarters of the weight.

Simon led me on a tour of Forsbacka, the first half through the town area and past some very old industrial facilities, the second half on some forest tracks - the rougher parts of which demonstrated that, despite having only just got back into running, he's still got the sure-footedness on rough ground that led me to think him a likely orienteering prospect 25 years ago. I didn't have a lot of energy, something I attribute to the early start and not having eaten, but the Achilles was better than yesterday which is a good sign for the coming week.

Headed north after that towards Ornskoldsvik, in the process seeing solid rain for the first time in a long time. Don't think much of it got where it was most needed, though. Reports of a new fire outbreak in the Ornskoldsvik area northwest of town were somewhat concerning, but would have been more concerning had I not known that in Sweden, "six miles" means 60km, not 9.6km. (I still won't be completely shocked if the organisers and/or the fire authorities pull the pin on the two most northern days, days 3 and 4). Traffic was somewhat tedious at times, and quite a bit of it was probably heading for where I was.

Arriving in the wake of a thundery shower, Ornskoldsvik was doing a good job of channelling Brisbane. The event centre was as busy as expected. There's an election in a few weeks and clearly some politicians have decided that there are enough voters here for it to be worth their while campaigning here - the Social Democrats, and Centre and Moderate parties (both mainstream conservatives), all have stands, and the first two also have people giving speeches on evenings later in the week (which I'm sure will be massively attended). The Social Democrats are also sponsoring a day, something I'm not sure I'm particularly comfortable about even though I broadly support their politics. The Sweden Democrats - who, I suspect, are as under-represented in the Swedish orienteering community as One Nation are in the Australian orienteering community - are nowhere to be seen.

Event: O-Ringen Höga Kusten
 

Salen was where my international elite career ended (my last run for Australia was in the 2008 World Cup series there, which demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that I was no longer at the required level), but I don't hold that against it. I hadn't twigged when booking that the actual settlement of Salen is well below the ski villages, and had a rather hot and uncomfortable night (ski village rooms are designed to keep heat in, not out).

Headed out early in the morning, a distinct smell of smoke in the air, for an out and back on a quiet road along the west side of the valley - only saw two cars, although there were enough tyre marks to suggest that the road also gets some nocturnal* use (what's the Swedish for "hooning"?). This should have been a nice setting for a run and I was hoping for an hour, but the Achilles was intermittently troublesome, and not really improving with time, so discretion was the better part of valour.

Some of the rest of the day was spent crossing bits of Sweden which will be familiar to many who have spent time in Sweden but were new to me (including seeing tangible evidence that Malung actually exists). I'd always planned to come this far south before heading up the coast - staying the night with a long-standing friend who's been mentioned here before - but the fires further north would have forced me to do so anyway.

(* - is it still nocturnal when it doesn't get dark?)

Stayed overnight at Cassie's place (minus Cassie and family, who are in Australia - I had to send her the sad news that a creature or creatures unknown has demolished the carrot crop on the balcony while she's been away), which meant the opportunity to demonstrate to my travelling companion why you'd get good at running on rough trails if you lived here. This was a pretty slow session for that reason, mostly on the small trails and up Kolsastoppen from the south side, before going down the ski slope. Struggled with the back on the first climb, to the point that I might not have continued without a companion, but fine thereafter.

Dropped Jenny off at the airport in the afternoon (after linking up in the morning with Cristina and Lukas), then set course for Sweden. It's fortunate that I had planned to go via Gavle to catch up with an old friend from Canberra days, because as it turned out bushfires in Sweden would have forced me to track that far south anyway. Went as far as Salen today, incorporating a detour to Hamar (short in distance, longer in time because of major roadworks approaching town) in successful search of public wi-fi to do a teleconference with. The tail end of the route to Salen was a little unfamiliar compared to 2008 because the signs pointed down a back road (which I'm guessing was still dirt in 2008), but it saved me 20km so I'm not complaining.

C • The 'snail' saw a frog! 4