Training Log Archive: slauenstein

Warm up for the Swiss relay champs, I ran the first leg....

Cool down chatting with my 3rd leg runner, getting her ready :-)

1st leg of the Swiss Relay Champs

The mass start is an art that I have not yet perfected... Started off controlling everything, trying to end up at *my* first control... but I didn't manage again ;-) This time the time loss to run over to my control was not big, so no big deal. But I didn't have any runners around me anymore. Not that surprizing in the forest, since its so rough, with low visiablity and technically difficult. So, I just made my way from control to control and had a really good technical run. No mistakes to speak of. I thought I was behind the leading pack (if there is one) but I couldn't risk anything and had to stay concentrated and in contact with the map. I was with a French girl for some of the controls, seeing her on and off, but never really running with her.

Came through the spectator control and my club mates were cheering for me, which was nice, but I didn't know how I was going. They would cheer just the same if I was ahead or behind. Did the last loop without any problems and came into the finish very satisfied!

Turns out I came in 6th, only 3 minute behind Rahel Friedrich (who was only 30 seconds slower than Simone yesterday). Wow! Super happy with that result and time.

Nice to have such a good experience in these woods. I guess, 2011 WOC is going to be similar and it motivates me to have technically difficult WOC's the next few years (2012 middle distance will also be similar).

Here is Simone's map again: http://www.simoneniggli.ch/download/9/archive_max/...

She was on the 3rd leg, a little longer than my course. It was basically the same course (some different forking), but we went from 5 directly to 9. Fun, fun stuff!

We ended up 6th overall at the Swiss Relay champs, which is really good for us, considering all the Swiss team members were there, and we had no Swiss team member on our team. Actually, our 2nd runner doesn't always run elite anymore (although she was once on the Swiss junior team a few years ago). Hurray for our 6th spot.

Actually, we were the first team without National team members... kind of like being the 1st, 2nd team of a club at Tiomila or Jukola, right?

C • Good for you! Great to have... 4

Warm-up and cool down for a national A meet in Lamoura, FR. This terrain is super duper technical and very rough, but lots of fun too!

National A meet and WRE

Technically tough terrain and actually the type of stuff that I can do well in, but today I didn't quite get that out of me what would be possible. I found a very safe and easy route to number 1, which is maybe why I made a mistake to number 2, since I hadn't gotten used to the mapping style yet. Lost 4 minutes to 2. Ooops. But I didn't let it bother me too much, since I knew this was the type of terrain that everyone could make big mistakes. After that it went well, and even on the way to 5, a long leg, I knew exactly what I was doing. I somehow lost my direction on the hill top and came into a depression which had a control in it. I wanted to location the position on my map and did so unsuccessfully, making me go off in the wrong direction. Should have ignored the control and kept going on my compass. Lost 3 minutes there too.

After that things went well, but I wasn't moving really fast. Felt my stomach from yesterday too. At control number 11, Caroline Cejka caught me. The next leg was a long one and I thought I would try to keep up, which I did successfully and we ran the rest of the course together (which is apparent in my splits :-)). Overall an ok, but not awesome race in terrain that posed a challenge to everyone.

Here is Simone Niggli's map: http://www.simoneniggli.ch/download/9/archive_max/...

Thought it would be cool to show the terrain, but I don't have time to scan my map in. Thanks Sime!

Marc passed along his stomach cramps for yesterday to me and I woke up at 5am in pain and nauseous. Spend several hours feels very crappy and the whole day I felt weak. This was not a planned rest day, but what can you do.

Interesting, we found out that some other people have had stomach cramps that were in Bulgaria. Maybe we all got something at the banquet?

C • Banquets... 3

Running up to La Tourne from my house, then took the bus home again. I am very proud to have run every step up and it got really steep once in a while, plus the end part is 35 minutes straight of steep uphill running. Good Trondheim and Jungfrau training.

C • Jungfrau 4

Biking up to the start of our O training with the kids in the club.

Various amounts of running around with some of the kids. I'm always impressed with how well some of them can read the map.

C • and how old are these kids? 3

After getting home from the O training.

Finally did a real good core strength session. It was about time.

This is basically going to be a recover week, since I have two races this weekend and my right knee is very sore from a week of racing. First time in the water this year. Might have to do this more often in the coming weeks...

Tuesday evening O training. Just jogged around the course I set for this training. Knee hurt in the beginning, but got better by the end.

I was going to run the World cup race before Jukola, which is part of the Nordic Orienteering Tour, but there is no reduced fee for runners only running 1 of the 3 events. So, they would like 160 Euros from me. I am going to Finland for Jukola anyway, and I would have gone regardless of the World cup, but I find it such a shame that there is no way to accommodate runners not running all the events.

The NORT starts in Helsinki before Jukola, the Tuesday afterwards the next race is in Stockholm, Sweden, and the Saturday after that it is in Oslo. Do you know how much it costs to fly from Helsinki, to Stockholm, and then to Oslo? I mean honestly, who can afford the Nordic O Tour anyway, except for Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and Finland. Doesn't sound like a world cup.

I'm totally bummed, but I will cancel my registration. There is no way I am going to pay 160 Euros for 1 race.

C • Air miles 3

C • IOF 1

Event: US Team Official 5K time trial (the first of two trials in 2010)
 

EOC / World Cup 2010

Well, the first big races of the year are over. I have some mixed feelings about the last week. My primary feeling is that I was successful and achieved better results than what I allowed myself to expect in advance. Making both the sprint and long A-final is great and really builds my confidence for WOC. The competition at the European Champs is usually tougher than at WOC and I think I can be proud to have achieved these two results. Regardless of the result, both the sprint qual and long qual were very good races and it is good to see that I have learned how to run well in the qualification races. I was also able to see that my form is good, but that I am not quite able to recover fast enough yet. I've got time to get that extra edge before WOC.

I am disappointed with my results in the finals. This is sometime I am going to work on and get ready for by August at WOC.

This week was a very valuable experience for me. I saw once again that running at "big races" is a whole different feeling. Nerves are normal, and I cannot expect to not be nervous before a big race. Dealing with these feeling and still racing well is more difficult than I expected and certainly more difficult than what others probably think. Glad to have experienced it again, this time as practice for WOC and not only at WOC itself.

C • Missing a coach 2

Warm-up for the EOC Long A-final.

EOC Long distance A-final

Tough, tough race and unfortunately, I ended up having to give up. Big disappointment, feel like a loser, but it is what it is and I can't change it now.

Lets start in the beginning...

I was an appropriate amount of nervous before the start. I always get nervous before any big race and I have learned that this is normal and I pretty much know how to deal with it. It's not that much fun, but I'm getting used to it. I was mentally prepared for an adventure and I knew that at some point it would get tough.

I started really well in the race, actually. The first 4 controls were great and I was moving fairly quickly. I already caught the girl who started 3 minutes ahead of me at the 4th control. Too bad I kept seeing her again and again after that ;-).

The 5th control was my 1st major goof up. I went directly through some dark green, because the green on the maps were basically for nothing, everything was run-able, sometimes the green was actually quite fast. This time it was ok, but it was green enough that I didn't realize that I hadn't gotten all the way to the top of the hill and just as far as a side hill on the way up. So, I made a parallel error and ran down the wrong nose. Realized it fairly quickly, but was pretty far off my line and correcting took a few minutes.

The next control was good and after that there was a long leg. I chose a good route choice and was able to execute the beginning very well. Saw the girl (URK) who started ahead of me again here. This time, I was in a hurry to get ahead of her again and away. This caused me to make a mistake along my route going to far to the left and mixing up two yellow patches. Ugg. Another 2-3 minutes gone. Drank two cups of water here and ate my Gu. Staring to feel tired now, but not yet bad.

On my way to the butterfly, I caught the Ukrainian girl again and we had different loops, so I never saw her after that. Drank my sports drink at the center control, but felt like I was really loosing it physically. Strange, because I had enough liquids and carbs to not feel awful at this point in the race, but my body basically just shut down. Along with my body was my head. I was struggling in the butterfly, but not really making any mistakes, just very slow since I was having a hard time reading the map due to fatigue. On my way out of the butterfly, I felt relieved and knew there wasn't that much more left. Still struggling, but feeling a little bit better.

This is when I did a huge parallel error. On my way to number 19, I ran off my compass and cross a stream at the wrong branch. Went up the hill on the other side into a yellow (which was also the same on the correct hill), but realized that the yellow was way too big. Saw what I did and corrected back down. But, I corrected back at an angle and went down across a small gully instead of a big stream and thought I was back on track. So, now I am climbing a hill and I could tell that things were not adding up, and my compass was pointing the wrong direction, but I just couldn't make sense of it, since I thought I had corrected from the initial mistake. I was really bonking now and just basically walking. When I got out to this big farm fields, I realized that I was up on the next ridge where the finish is and I felt totally gutted. I didn't realize that I was still on the map, I just figured I went totally wrong and off the map... I was so horrified and drained by the mistake that I didn't even consider going back down the 100 meters of climb I did too much to my control and to keep going. My race was over.

In retrospect, I wish I would have gone back down, but at that moment, I was so gutted, so tired, so hot, and absolutely confused and drained that giving up was the only option in my head. What I am most confused about is why I was so drained and unable to have enough energy, even though I was drinking and eating along the way. Maybe I started too fast? Maybe I haven't done enough really long tough races or trainings? But I've run two long distance races already this year and I did fine physically in both...Maybe the whole week was just a little too much for me. The added stress of these races being the first "important ones of the year", the heat, the lack of good sleep (and not enough sometimes either), feeling pressure by being selected 5th for WOC, or just the fact that it's harder to do well in big events and sometimes shit happens... well that is what I am writing this off as = shit happens. I will do better next time!