Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

SM Ultralong. This season has just been a very wet orienteering time. This race no exception. Chilly and drizzly on and off, but actually pretty good race weather.

Not a large field and so the mass start was only about 50 people. Already on the way to the first control I was struggling to keep up physically, the woods were very "heavy" as the Swedes say, which is to say wet and spongy. I got pulled pretty far down the hillside on the first control by the guys that had the other forking, I lost a bit of time there figuring out where I was but then successfully navigated to my control. It only took about 5 minutes before I was running completely alone.

Got quite lost on the 2nd control too, misreading the swamp just before the control and not interpreting the contours well. Then settled in and checked off the next several without much incident. Came through the first loop, and headed off on the second. Made a mistake navigating to my control in spite of, or perhaps even because I had already visited the area on the first loop. Still managed to get too high.

Uneventful section as I continued on to the third loop, and head out across the map. I was seeing some more people now, some from the other classes, a few that I caught back up with in my own class, and then also occasionally the leaders that were one loop ahead of me on the butterfly already. It was coming back to the middle of the butterfly loop that I slipped coming down the rocky hillside and planted my knee directly into a stone.

It hurt quite a bit, and even though I could see my control just ahead I needed to sit down and wait out the pain a bit before I could walk the rest of the way to the flag. At this point I evaluated and realized that it hurt too much to run, and that I was not going to be able to finish in the 3.5 hour time limit. I was very disappointed but started walking out towards the road.

After several minutes of walking through the woods, I decided that it was starting to feel a bit better, and since I had been walking towards control 18 anyway, I might be able to just continue the course. I hadn't been paying much attention though, and so I needed to relocate before finally getting the flag and then on the very next control I got very lost thinking that my control was the cliff when really it was the small marsh on top.

The rest of the course I was slow but stable, taking routes that were easier on my knee and not worrying so much about how I was going overtime.

It was great to hear bubo cheering for me in the finish chute and I was even pretty content after the run because I was just very happy to not be forced to drop out of the race.

Splits Though they have been ordered based on an alternate forking to my own, so my mistakes on 2, 18, and 19, are instead shown at 7, 14, and 15.

C • My cheering... 1

Innebandy with the work people. We only had 8 turn up today, so no subs, which I thought was pretty great. Also, Anna lent me one of her nice sticks, and that made it way easier to play.

A nice time was had by all, until Anna twisted her ankle badly at the very end of the hour.

I'm going to miss next week because of Swedish middle distance champs, which is a shame, because I really like this weekly tradition.

C • i feel sorry for the goalies 1

A beautiful fall day, and a good day to go out and get some hittaut points. Sam had offered to let me join her for a lap of backbanan but I am hoping to rest up a little bit before the weekend's long distance championships.

I set out on a little tour of the new points out in Nåsten, and had a great time in the woods. The high traffic around hittaut controls leaves some new trails that make finding the points quite easy, actually.

I wore my X-talon 212's today and I think I've decided to wear them this coming weekend as well. I think the light comfortable feeling will be nice.

C • Hittaut Points? 3

An early evening training (meeting at the clubhouse at 5:15, meant coming straight from work) on the Järlåsa Syd map. Well... not a great bit of terrain actually, and certainly not a nice map. The whole area was riddled with new logging areas and the forest was generally stony as well as covered in fairly dense logging debris.

My driver had set a leaving time of 7:30pm, and the running speed was slow so I knew I would need to cut off a few controls to make it back in time. I chose to continue on til 9, then cut down to 13, but the area around those two controls was so heinously vile, that after slogging after those points I was left with just enough time to run straight back in along the road.

Still, I feel like the training was successful in one aspect that I have been working on - namely, not getting frustrated in terrain with low runnability. I have found that I often expend a lot of energy and get frenetic when trying to plow through slash or stumble over stony ground. I have been trying to let myself remain calm, and find a good flow in these instances instead. I succeeded until control 7, and I was even capable of running with David for a couple of controls which felt pretty good.

Will post the map later.

After training we went to wish Johanna a happy birthday. Mostly we helped her eat delicious cake :)

Traveled down to Stockholm to celebrate Andrew Quin's successful PhD defense. I once again spent hours trying to tie my bowtie properly, and finally just twisted it into about the right shape.

Dinner, the musical performance, and the company were all stellar. Grattis Andrew!

C • Bow ties 2

A fun interval session with the club. We ran out onto Nåsten as a group and then did 6x30 seconds of running pell mell through the woods following the fastest guys but not reading a map or caring much about the micro route choice.

Then we popped out onto the trail and ran 6x90 seconds along the trails, at one point down in the valley this caused a great deal of consternation with the herd of young cattle nearby, and they joined in on the interval.

Our last section of intervals was another 6x30 seconds, but these ones were in the rough open field area nearer to the clubhouse.

After the running, because the weather was so nice, we sat around on the lawn behind the clubhouse and did some core work, 10x45 seconds each person choosing an exercise in turn. The elbow was able to keep up with most but not all of the selections.

District Relay Championships. I ran second leg on the Linné team 5, with Mats and Pontus. I had a very good start to the race but made some mistakes in the middle of the course. Getting trapped in some slash on the 7th and geting pulled off my line and confused on the 8th. The end of the course was okay, but I was a little tired. Once again, I was beaten in the finish chute by a guy that looked much older than me.

Still, clearly my biggest mistake of the day was forgetting my vuvuzella at home, and so I was forced to be much quieter in my cheering than normal.

Winsplits

An orienteering training session in preparation for the 25-manna relay. The course was a series of o-tervals with 4 different forking options. Groups of 4 started together and then met up after each interval.

Lots of people signed up today, over 100 club members in the forest, though half were kids and their parents.

I ran in a group with David, Erik, and Olle, but in actuality, we soon started running as a giant group of like 16 runners on each of the intervals. Stadsskogen is a challenging area for this kind of training, with myriad trails and poor visibility.

I wasn't able to keep up for the first several intervals, but on the last interval, I was able to manage much better, and in fact finished first in my group of 4.

After training, there was a dinner and an elite runner meeting at the clubhouse. The season feels like it is starting again!

Wanted to get a little training in, and also wanted to join the club training because Johan had been commenting that very few people were attending the Monday workouts. Today was no exception, and there was a small group joining for the warmup, bounding, and stretching workout planned.

Sam and I joined for the warmup and most of the bounding, but left early as we had non-orienteering friends coming over for dinner and games and so we needed to make it home.

Beautiful day. Good to meet some new people in the club.

District Champs - Long distance

Winsplits

Parts of this performance were quite good. Solid navigation, apart from losing focus on my way to 6, and then with the map folded in such a way as to make things less obvious, navigating perfectly to an upside down control number 9.

Lost time on a few crucial route choices. Talking with coach Boris after the race highlighted that near the end I made two sub optimal choices, ones that I had not even considered.

Also, still need to work on the overall running fitness. I wasn't able to keep my starting speed throughout the course. Perhaps due in part to a long run yesterday, but also due to not so much practice in the soft Swedish marshes in the past months.

A long Hittaut run in the cool drizzly morning. Started out with Sam, and we headed to the far side of town to collect a few outlying points. At about one hour, she went home and I continued on, with the goal of sweeping up the last of the checkpoints on the far side of the river.

Was getting pretty tired after the 2 hour mark, not used to being out on my feet so long.

When I got home, I realized that I hadn't marked two of the checkpoints on my map, and had thus run right past them without noticing. Now I will need to go out that direction once more I guess.

Finished the run and grabbed a bowl of chocoflakes before helping our neighbors and clubmates move. Now I know how to use a ratcheting strap tightening mechanism for cinching down straps on a trailer.