Training Log Archive: kensr

Morning run with Ruthie. Felt good and ran fast on the flats, slowed on the hills.

Application went in today to the IOF for World Cup and World Masters Ski Orienteering Championship races at Craftsbury, VT in March 2018. Adrian Owens will be Meet Director. Get your skis waxed!

A little sooner than that, this March 11-13, 2016 we will hold the North American and US SkiO Championships at Presque Isle, ME. The elite courses at this will be World Ranking Events.

On the trail for 6 x 1/4 intervals. Good effort after the first two.
2.19 - 1.47

Stomach, thighs, wrist curls, lunges, leg lifts
Ski Erg 2 x 500 -- 2.05, 2.25

Hill intervals on ski trail. Good climb, 5 x 210m length.
2.19, 2.08, 1.52, 1.51, 1.53

Then around full upper loop.

Shakeout run after getting home. Heels sore, knee sore, but nothing hurts very much.

Travel days. Relaxed, decided to spread it out rather than hop on a long flight right after the race.

Yesterday toured the arctic museum in Rovaniemi. Interesting history of natural and political history of Lapland, including how Finland got beat up from both sides thru WW2.

Travel continued...

Sat on Heathrow tarmac for 3 hours while they fiddled with the flight control computer and finally replaced it. Boston too late for last bus north. Overnight in town, home tomorrow.

First 2 legs on Finnair went fine , but British Air has succeeded in making international coach a miserable experience. Eleven seats across, no knee space and bad food.

C • British Air 12

Day two.

Event: 13th World Rogaining Championships
 

Rogaine champs, Finland.

Map area was big: over 15 x 25 km. Decided to do the west side first, then come into the hash house for food and pick up headlamps for the east. West side was nice, flatter and more complete trail network (lots of lighted tracks for the Dec thru Feb period when the sun never actually comes up). Used those along with single tracks and bushwacking. More controls and they were closer together (2-3 kilometers apart).

Great day, beautiful terrain and low blueberry vegetation. Steady 12 min/km, except when we had wade a marsh for a couple controls. Covered 53 km and came in at 11 PM with 17 controls, still not using headlamps.

In for an hour for hot food and coffee (yay caffeine!) and getting into dry socks and polypro for the chill.

Out at midnight and straight up one of the highest hills on the course. Not huge as hills go but it adds up. Partner has been working way too hard and can't get free for training time, so bonked once we were into those eastern hills. Couple hours at a slow pace and finally the gu, Gatorade and Ibuprofen kicked in. But Sunday's results were disappointing, mostly because the terrain had bigger hills and some bushwacking was over slopes of loose rock at a slow pace. And the controls were farther apart at 4 and even 5 km between them.

We picked up a measly 10 controls over 11 hours, covering 39 km, with 3 of those hours as dark as it ever gets in the summer here.

Ended up with 1650 points for 6th in ultra vet. We were within a couple hundred points of 3rd and even 2nd, so could have done it. Hard not to think of the "what ifs".

Happy I felt strong throughout, although can't say it would be true if we were moving faster Sunday. This was certainly a test to see if the quad would fail -- no problems! -- and whether my lack of lots of running would hurt. Only fair in that, my speed was way down. Certainly the winter ski training keeps the endurance up.

As with most post mortums you talk about all the things to so next season. A few week long training epics in VA,VT or even CA were discussed. We'll see.

Right now it's nice finish the event in one piece and still be able to walk tomorrow. Well, we'll have to see about that, too.

On the official training map today. Same area with considerably more detail on the map, but still leaving a lot out at 1:40,000.

Visited a sample control with a clue of bare rock hilltop, except the hilltop was covered with moss and blueberry bushes. Oops! Will have to be extra careful tomorrow.

From hotel over to the local ski area on the xc route and then up to the top. Stayed outside the embargoed area and got a nice feel for the open terrain. Clear on the hilltops but forest below.

Also ran across more reindeer in addition to the eight right outside our hotel window. And the four different times they walked down the middle of the highway at us on the drive up. Nothing bashful about Rudolf around here.

C • night light 5

C • photos 2

Dirt road with Ruthie, then around some trails with Casey.

Off to Finland tonight for the rogaining champs.

C • Good luck! 9

Piling logs on the ski trail to make things interesting next winter.

C • Hey! 1

More trashing the North Woods. Clearing back trails and interconnects.

C • Trail clearing 2

Hiking and chopping our way thru PI forest.

More cutting; awesome network of narrow trails in the works intertwined with area ski trails.

Hiking around area with Greg, Ed and Ruthie.

Met the officials from the Northern Heritage Ski Center and worked out the details for the US Champs and North American Champs skiO next March 12-14. Very professional group of volunteers. Seemed pleased with our low key but reasonable expectations. Of course we're easier to deal with than those bringing World Cup Biathlon races to PI a month before our races -- million $ budget and tv for the European market.

Run down to the wharf and back.

Off the wharf into the water and a swim out to the near buoys.

With Greg around the trails.

Again to the wharf and back. More swimming to clean off.

On the rail trail and roads around the cottage with Greg and Ruthie. Then beach swimming.

And a trip to Hopewell Rocks to run around the ocean bed at low tide. Later a stop in Moncton to watch the tidal bore run up the river. All very impressive.

Down to the river and along the Stillwater trail.

Sightseeing tour around the Lewiston-Auburn River trail. Nice overlooks and crossings of the Androscoggin

More tree work. Discovered another 16" maple down off the side of the trail and cut it for firewood. Finished the cherry from yesterday.

Off to Maine and Moncton.

C • Moncton 2

Morning run with Ruthie.

Then a couple easy hill repeats up the logging road.
2.27, 2.16

Cut up a 16" cherry after I dragged it out of the thicket it crashed into in Monday's storm.

Cool morning run with Ruthie. Good pace for an early venture.

Local road race. Just not fast today. One good hill halfway thru and the rest was flat.