Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Latvia O-week day 4 - partly the southern half of the WOC middle distance area, and partly an area to the west (we didn't cross the river, which was a pity). Major issue here was the few very steep slopes - I'm not particularly good at getting up slopes which are steep enough to require use of the hands, and even worse at getting down them. (It certainly showed why those who attempted to run directly up the hill yesterday lost time by doing so). Some of the controls were quite easy; reasonably clean for the others early on, but didn't quite hit 15 (the WOC TV control) straight on, and also lost a little time on the next one. Not fast, but perhaps had a bit more than I thought I did, as the last hill was quite strong. One of my better results of the trip - clearly in the top half this time.

Did a bit of exploring in the afternoon along the back roads as far as Cesis, with its small but interesting old town. One discovery is that - like much of rural Australia, but unlike most of western and central Europe - any rural road not significant enough to have a number has a fair chance of being gravel (fortunately rental companies here aren't as anal about gravel roads as their Australian counterparts and only specify no off-road use; in any case, my car came with enough documented scrapes that it would be difficult to demonstrate that I'd created any new ones unless it actually crashed).

The medal ceremony from yesterday was in the town centre this evening. This, which has been done a few times before, is a well-intentioned idea to try to engage with the town, but almost all of those actually there were orienteers (most of them connected with countries represented on the podium). Nobody booed the Russian anthem, which may indicate that (a) we're more civilised than football fans or (b) the crowd didn't have too many locals in it.

And a bit of insight into what goes into WOC scheduling; this week is the week of both the European swimming and athletics championships, and the WOC races are scheduled so that they can fit into TV schedules in the gap between the swimming/athletics heats (morning) and finals (evening).

C • Gravel 2

A bit more exploration through the north side of Sigulda, including going out to one castle and trying unsuccessfully to find the mound for another off map-memory. Felt much the same as yesterday, with Achilles a bit iffy without giving any serious trouble; rather slow but seemed to be functioning OK. Enjoyed the cooler conditions, with even a few showers early on.

This was the prelude to an afternoon at the WOC middle - a good day's competition. It was pleasing to see some new faces at the top of the podium, and also to see a career-best result from Vanessa, and Matt getting to spend 40-odd minutes on the couch after an encouraging first appearance. (Incidentally, having just done the points, we're almost certain to regain our second spot in the women's long in 2019, and should keep our two men's places unless something goes badly wrong in the relay).

C • Garmin 1

An attempt to see if things still functioned and was pleasantly surprised to see that they did. Did essentially a lap of the north side of Sigulda, a rather spread-out town (like a lot of eastern European towns these days, much of the retail is in malls on the highway) but pleasant enough. Went out as far as the road past the TV tower; the Vilnius one is a Lithuanian national sacred site (a number of people died there in 1991 trying to stop Soviet troops from shutting it down), but I don't think Sigulda's has any such historical significance.

Spent the rest of the day in IOF meetings, mostly productive but with a few curveballs (of which more may or may not be heard). Haven't heard what Council has done with the various major event bids but I understand that there will be an announcement this week.

C • Monday musings 1

There's nothing particularly new about self-incrimination on social media, as demonstrated by the experience of the armed robber who did a stretch in the Hume Hilton after Detective Frogga spotted him bragging about his exploits on Facebook (clearly some ACT crims didn't learn from that experience), but today I found out that the way the organisers became aware of the Russian athletes breaching the JWOC sprint embargo (for which the Russian team was disqualified from that event) was that said athletes posted a picture of themselves in the embargoed area on Instagram.

Tried to get out before the Foot O Commission meeting started, but Achilles no good today. I think it's going to be a case of managing it through the rest of the trip now, and hoping that it holds together for at least the competitions.

Took an excursion to the other side of the river today for the sprint relay - certainly a reminder that we're still in eastern Europe (as was the main road-turns-randonly-to-cobblestones bit coming out of Riga later). Australia was a bit off the pace but at least we improved a place on last year (nice work by Bun on the last leg to pull in a few places). Interesting that there were almost no changes in the teams ahead of us - apart from Spain mispunching instead of Ukraine, the only things which were different were that New Zealand beat us instead of Bulgaria, and that we were one place ahead of Germany instead of one place behind. (Incidentally, my job today, as it will be for the women's relay on Thursday, is finish line judge - only one tight one today, Belarus v Ukraine for 15th).

C • Course 6

Event: WOC 2018 - Latvia
 

Handling a tricky protest was hardly the ideal preparation for this run; only got to the start a few minutes before my start time. Managed the navigation smoothly on a reasonably straightforward area, but couldn't get my running going at all. Achilles rather touchy today. Ended up about two-third of the way down, which was about what this run deserved (fastest was just over 14).

The spectator race was only a minor part of the day, of course; the WOC sprint was as lively as ever, and it as great to be there to see Tim's silver medal - and so close to going one better...The courses looked excellent technical courses for the most part, but most of the talk was about the start/finish configuration, which involved starters running up the same fairly narrow street in the opposite direction to both finishers and those doing the run-through, and the start point and last control being within a few metres of each other (which caused some confusion), all of this on the edge of an intersection which was open to traffic (I still can't believe this part). We managed to get through without serious incident - the worst I saw was Susan Loesch, finishing, colliding with a starter without major consequence - but that was more good luck than good management. (There was a near-miss, caught on video, of Daniel Hubmann leaving the start triangle almost colliding at high speed with someone coming into the last control). Pedestrian traffic was an issue, too, and I'm struggling to see how a WMOC sprint final in the old town can work (unless they run it at 7am).

C • Risk management 2

Got into Riga on the ferry about lunchtime - very scenic trip for the first three hours out of Stockholm, and then slept very well too (had a cabin to myself, somewhat to my surprise - I guess most people travel in groups so if the ferry isn't full they don't put the extras in with each other).

The hot humid afternoon was an incentive to take it easy this afternoon, as was my slightly awkward location - I'm staying across the street from the embargoed area, and although I'm not formally covered by the embargo because I don't have an official position with any team, I didn't want to freak out any organiser who spotted me (going in the opposite direction looked like it went into an unattractive industrial area). I don't think any teams are staying here, but there was some O gear hanging off a balcony anyway - belonging, I think, to the secretary-general of the Chinese federation. Went to an Indian restaurant around the corner for dinner and it turned out the waiter was in Latvian M14/16 squads back in the day...

C • China O 4

One thing I neglected to note from my Lofoten travels is that I just missed out on the Arctic Derby - Bodo against Tromso, being played for some reason in the Lofoten town of Leknes. (This fixture hasn't been played a lot in recent years as Bodo have spent most of the last decade in the second division). I presume it must have been a warm-up friendly before the resumption after the summer break, as the result doesn't appear in the official league scores.

Got as far as Soderhamn last night, where I'd previously been for the 2011 O-ringen. Going into the centre last night was an indication that the last seven years haven't been terribly kind to the place, but it was a convenient place to break the journey.

O-ringen 2011 didn't fill me with a desire to get back into its terrain - lots of small ankle-breaking rocks (the locals had evidently worked this out beforehand - apart from a couple way up north, 2011 had the lowest attendance in the last 40 years). The satellite pictures, though, did suggest there were nice tracks in the forest on the west side of the highway as long as I could find a way to get across it. There was indeed such a way, and after a very unpromising first 100 metres, I loosened up nicely and had one of my better runs of the trip, notwithstanding the extreme (for Sweden) humidity. Towards the end there were distant rumbles which steadily because less distant; I wouldn't have wanted to be out much longer.

The remainder of the day featured a few minor mishaps. What turned out to be a storm which was very productive of lightning (not so much of rain, with only a few minutes of downpour) knocked out Soderhamn's power while I was having breakfast, which led me to leave town as soon as possible rather than linger and work on a few things (plus, with the - unrealised - possibility of flash flooding on the roads, I thought it best to get an early start). Once in Stockholm, I found some of the drawbacks of Sweden's much-vaunted cashless society - the first parking meter I tried didn't accept foreign cards (and had no cash option), and neither did the station ticket machine. (On the other hand, the laundry I was going to - one of only two self-service laundries in Sweden, apparently - only accepted cash (unless you had Swish, the Swedish bank payments app) and I didn't have enough Swedish cash left, but fortunately they also accepted euros). Also had a failed attempt to get my tips in for this AFL round because the wifi I was using at the time blocked footytips.com.au as a gambling site (second attempt later succeeded).

Notwithstanding all of this, I managed to get to the port whilst only partially dissolving into a ball of sweat (Stockholm's temperature/humidity/cloudiness stats for today would all have been entirely in keeping with a day at the warm end of normal late-summer conditions in Brisbane), and am now on the boat to Riga. Had been on the boat for all of five minutes before meeting Bubo...

C • Laundromat 1