Training Log Archive: Torino

First yoga class again. Had intense 45-min vinyasa series. Felt good to stretch and have 4 new people in the class, all quite young women. Will be hard to follow.

Ride home from Alexandra's place; was in a hurry but wanted to try a trail connection that I was curious about for a long time, but got lost and the trail kept climbing up and up until I finally decided I had to get back down and on the fastest way home.

Easy hike with Urs's fitness group.

A new exploratory "adventure" ride, that is, for a while it was more hiking with a mountain bike! We had chosen a route which was shown on a mountain bike map with a detour on top of Mont Cervelet (no view) and to the "Glacière Monlési" which is an opening in the earth, a very deep pit to the ground which is actually on about 10 meters of glaciated ice and a deep cave where we could see more snow or ice piled up. We could climb steeply down along a wall and steps on a permanent cable, then descend the final 10 m on a ladder. Quite impressive to look up at the trees. The walls were either sheer cliffs or cliffs covered in beautiful moss or masses of green leaves. A very nice destination.
BUT on the way there we often had to search for the trail indicated on the map and open thousands of electric fences, gates, or climb under barbed wire fences or got through, over or under the countless fences. In between, we could ride for a while, then it was back to a fence or searching for a trail again. After we visited the glaciated pit (hole in the ground), we could again not continue on the trail we had wanted to take, so we backed up and went back to the road.
Then we split and Urs took the forest road down to the beautiful lac Taillères and on to La Brévine. I took the big road then veered off and across to where we had parked the car.
La Brévine is known to be the Siberia of Switzerland with the record cold temperature (in winter, of course), but today it read 27 degrees! which was quite unusual as we were told.

missed going out for a longish bikeride in the afternoon due to thunderstorm and pretty heavy rain. Cleaned the bike instead plus other housework that waited to be done for a long time. Then went for a run in the evening sun.
Hard to get started and the first 2 km, then I found a rhythm.

Quick run home from close to Sandra's house, was hot bc of temps and humidity, stressed and exhausted.

Tired today and legs sore, but slowly made my way up to Sandra's house to help in the garden, that is, do my weeding and clearing up a spot to put in flowers, grass and stepping stones. Just love to do that, especially as I have no garden.

Event: 2. Nationaler Langdistanz / Jugendcup
 

National O-Meet near Basel. It had not much to do with orienteering but more a cross-country or trail race in steep terrain with occasional controls right or left of the trail in the slope. Twice we had to cross steeply down (I mean steeply!!) on very short legs but then it was along the slopes again. Not my kind of "orienteering". I just lose too much time and W65 is a very competitive class. First, I was proud of my 38 min finish, but then when I saw that I came in only 12th out of 19 I was disappointed. This was not much fun.
But seeing people again was fun as I haven't orienteered much this year.

Jogging from the gondola to the start uphill and coming back up from the finish to the gondola.
Forgot my Garmin today (!), but I also had to leave by 7 am this morning!

There is also another 2 km walk plus some climb from the school to the base of the gondola and back, so more walking/jogging than the actual orienteering course!! But it was a beautiful day.

Evening workout after I kicked myself out the door: first "uphill" strength training after the Masters Mtbo Champs in Orléans. It worked so well there, why not continue?
Felt much better after I had started. Tried new routes again with different loops but ended up riding over a field, oops.

An uphill training starting at Noiraigue and going up very steeply 700 m to the Creux du Van and met Urs on Mont Soliat. I am glad I have done this trail now, it had intrigued me for a long time to try, but it will not be my favorite. There are other more scenic way to the incredible Creux du Van which has a horse-shoe-type 1 km long steep drop-off.

Hiking with Urs to check on a trip we are going to organize for his fitness group.

My usual loop, legs felt heavy. New shoes: La sportiva.

Easy ride on a very tired, but sunny Monday with a dip in the lake at a new place, in Cortaillod (oh, how many beautiful places for swimming are there on our lake??)

"easy" run on a Saturday morning in Zinal. I never think about the altitude until I go "running" and it's harder than I expected. Eventually, I adjusted a bit, went uphill towards the end to try to see a little more of this spectacular place with the 4000 m-peaks coated with fresh snow, but then I had to return and meet up with Sandra, Marc and the grandkids again.
Sunday was the famous Sierre-Zinal trail race with over 6000 ft of climb for Sandra and Marc.

Jogging from home meeting up with Sandra and going to her house.

Sore leg muscles from the run yesterday.

Quick run, the first one in a long time, after a rainy day. Was stronger and faster than expected, the bike-training must be paying off.

An easy ride with Urs back to the lake in Auvernier where we met Sandra and the kids for some fun in the water. Also did some swimming in the evening sun.
A down day, don't know why; maybe after-a-big-event "depression" and finding back into regular life and into looming fall.

Easy riding to the start and the quarantine. It's early!

Long Distance World Masters Bike-O Champs. Very long, but flat and raced as fast as I could. Won W65 by 8 min and more. Really happy and proud. Thought it would be fast enough for 3rd in W60 to get a medal, but was 3 min behind bronze, they were also flying. Such a shame.
It seems as if my bike "strength" training the last 2 weeks had paid off a little (biking from home just straight uphill for almost an hour) because I really felt stronger and could push most of the time. I raced most the time in the 3 highest gears (well, there weren't any hills to speak off) but still a few single trails and lots of ditches and uneven roads.
Note: I did another spectacular summersault over the bike again: on a forest road, a Danish 17-year old girl sped by me, and I was also going at a pretty good speed, when she breaked all of a sudden and skidded right in my path. I crashed full force into her, somehow tumbled over her and both bikes onto the gravelly road. I was so angry and screamed at her to better watch before stopping in such a way. She was so shocked and disappeared pretty quickly down the trail she had been looking for. Some riders who had witnessed stopped right away and offered to help because it must have been quite a sight. But I appraised my damages and also the bike's, but except for some blood (again!) and a bruise that hurt for a long time, I seemed to have survived this.
Already on Tuesday, some brambles (blackberries) caught my right arm really bad and I was bleeding profusely. I knew it wasn't bad, but when finishing they called the first aid-guys immediately and made such a fuss! Once they washed it off, it was only a few deeper scratches but they put on an impressive band-aid anyway. Oh, the French!
I had another wound when I scraped a metal plate that hurt a lot more and would have needed desinfecting, but it didn't look that impressive, so it was ignored. I asked for a simple band-aid and later put it on myself ;-).

C • Congrats 2

Little "last" tour along the Loire stopping for a "caffè gourmand" and continuing along the Loire upwards on the Euro6 trail. At one turning point, we split and Urs went back the same way to pick up the car and I went directly "home" for a well-deserved shower (which I hadn't had one after the Long-O World Champs). Busy day in this beautiful city. The Loire here is so calm and magnificent, one feels very "zen" walking, biking along it or simply just sitting and looking over the quiet landscape with birds, trees, bushes, islands and what-not.

WMMBTOC Middle (long middle, but flat)
Made a huge mistake, at least 8 min on #8 as I didn't know for a moment where I was. Remembering, I think that for a moment, I was thinking other thoughts, not being concentrated and there I was, really lost even though there were meadows and trails around. Decided rather quickly that I had to get to a set point which was at the edge of the map and could not believe I actually was out there.
Had done another mistake on #4 where I was there at the bend of the forest road and went into the single trails but could not make out the flag. Was not alone, something was fishy with the map there. Lost maybe 2 min.
So, I was happy how strong I felt and how fast I could actually ride; we had some longer sections for speeding then few controls on tricky single tracks which was fun. But somehow it wasn't my day. But I also realised that I am basically faster than the others in my class (as we were always seeing each other) and I can pull it off if I have a clear head.
Still had lots of fun.

Story before the race: yesterday afternoon by around 4pm the start list was still up with my start time at 09:26. Suddenly it was gone and replaced with start lists for the elite, juniors and youth. I also got a message from a friend that my start time was posted on the board as 09:26. So I went to bed and got up early, went to the start area and quarantine by 08:30 and there were only few people there. Hmm. So I inquired and learned that around 4 am they had finally posted new start lists and pulled back our class by 1 hour. Grr. I am not a morning person and could have used that hour of sleep and preparation in better ways. So I wandered around and talked to people among others also to the 4 Danish ladies in my class, as well as the president of these organizing championships and learned that they actually tried to get two classes W60 and W65 but IOF said no. It actually turned out that one person from Switzerland is responsible for having this stupid rule of needing 10 people in a class for it to count!! Not even at WMOC they're doing that. I see absolutely no good reason for "punishing" bike-orienteering in such a way. Unfortunately or fortunately, I know this person quite well and was inclined to call right then and there, but my start time came up. So I hurried to the start and was in my thoughts still someplace else.
I know why for 40 years or more, I am always almost late for my start: because I don't want to interact and chat with people, because thoughts are often circling in my brain and this is the worst in orienteering.
Oh well, still had a good ride, enjoyed the woods and the technical aspects and after the rain in the morning the sun came out and we visited an absolute stunning castle (Chambords) in the afternoon.
BTW, came in 3rd in W65 "only" 2 1/2 min befind first and I had seen her several times out there (she had started 6 min behind me), so I got away from her over and over again.
Another BTW, when I chatted with her afterwards about our race, she also told me that all 4 Danish women in W65 will not go to a WMMTOC again as long as they have this stupid "10"-people/class rule.