Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

The public race at the SM long finals:

A middle distance style and length course, in wet rainy weather. I woke up with a bit of a cold and I felt a little stuffy and just generally fuzzy as I went out on this course. I didn't have any trouble per se with the beginning part of the course, but I was going pretty slowly and not really anticipating features... more just reacting to them.

At control 5, Linus caught me from 3 minutes back and I used that as an incentive to push a little harder. I ran harder on the way to six but was a bit uncertain in the circle because of it. Then on the next one I decided that Linus and another runner were cutting in too early and consequently ran right past the control.

I had a nice streak of running for the next few but not always keeping on course, and it wasn't until the final 5 controls ( all quite easy) that I got a good rhythm and speed going.

Winsplits for the event here. I came in 73 out of 101.

Then cheering during the finals of the SM long. I am the loudest cheerer in Sweden, I think.

C • The loudest cheerer in Sweden 3

The Alex Edit:

SM long qualifier race. A beautiful day for running which means a kind of gross day for just standing around. There were 4 heats of men, and I was in the first heat with 43 starters. I knew that I didn't have a chance of making the final (top ten in each heat) but I wanted to have a good race to be able to compare myself with the best. I started out quite well, staying in good contact on the longish leg, and having no trouble at all finding the flag. This set the tone for the whole race.

On 10, the long leg, I waffled a bit before choosing to go more or less straight. Which worked out fine except for all the slogging through the thick green, I lost time to other runners so either I need to learn how to attack the green a bit better or I need to avoid it. I executed pretty well, up until the last descent along the spur. I got off on the parallel ridge and stopped on the wrong set of cliffs, but corrected pretty quickly.

With the end of the race in sight, I committed a cardinal sin ( at least according to Boris) and forgot to orienteer all the way to the end of the course.17 started out well, I was running behind a pack of runners heading for the field and I noticed that I had drifted a bit right of where I was planning on going, but I was pushing hard with the crew, so I didn't correct my line. Instead, I spiked the other control in the reentrant that wasn't mine, and according to Lisa ( who I was right behind at the time) I looked like an älg in the headlights, stopping short and trying to figure out my mistake. I looked around for my hilltop and spur, but didn't see them but eventually I just headed farther left because I knew that I had drifted too far right. Then I saw the spur and cliff. 18 was the last control in the field corner and that was it.

I finished 33rd in my heat and am pretty pleased all told. Tomorrow I will run the open race and then cheer on the 6 Linné runners that made it through to the finals. In my heat both Rassmus (in 4th) and Loefaas (in 9th). Also Mats, and Oskar-- and for the women -- Rasa and Inga.

C • Nice 6

I knew that we would be spending the whole day driving so I wanted to get some training in early before work. So I headed over to run backbanan and after getting a little lost I made it to the start. I wore my X-talons- which are falling apart - and set out at a hard pace but pretty conservatively too, because I wanted to have enough left to push the 2nd half. I came through the middle in 13:20 and felt great the whole way. I finally did the whole thing without getting lost!

Maybe next time I can beat Boris's fastest.

Janne's backbana in Uppsala - Splits

Running over to the clubhouse, stopping at my favorite tree to load up on apples. When you are taking apples from someone else's tree it is called pallaning ( I might be spelling that wrong) but apparently it's borderline okay if the branch hangs over the fence.

C • Palla äpplen... 1

Quite a long jog from the parking to the start triangle.

A really fun training on Hagby, starting out with Erik, Sam, and Kristina, and then promptly getting confused by the scale and vegetation and thus running well past the first control. Ah well, I turned around and got back into the swing of things, but an embarrassing way to start. On two I was on the right feature, but needed to check my descriptions in order to figure out which side of the hill the control was hung on. Overran 4, but 5-8 were quite clean. I wasn't running too fast because I was anxious about rolling over on my left ankle after the two times I rolled it on Sunday. I found Boris and Kristina at the end of the first loop, and then we set out for 9. I swung way too far right, and then got confused about where I should be expecting to find the reentrant, crossing the area too many times in the process. Boris was waiting at 10, to convince me that it was too dark to safely orienteer and so Kristina, Boris and I jogged back to the cars, stopping by control 15, which was a challenging crepuscular control.

So, I had a half-hatched plan to go run the testbanan and actually learn where it goes, but then I stayed too long at work. The work day schedule was a bit funny so the gels I poured in the morning were still waiting for me when I got back from the animal facility at 4pm... I didn't want to waste them so I loaded and ran the gels while I practiced some Swedish on Quizlet (which, incidentally, is a really neat site). So I took the photos, and then printed them out, but the printouts were oddly missing some of the lanes on my gel. I had to go, and wait for the computer to be free again to discover that the default setting on from the gel computer is to crop all the photos to fit the page better... Not so good when I have already cropped each photo.

Anyway, I got home and collected a Boris and we went out for a nice jog around the neighborhood, saw some beasts, and came home in time for an excellent dinner with friends!

And speaking of quizlet, here is one that Boris made for me. Orienteering !

C • The only one I didn't know ... 1

Quick transition between work and home, and then jogging with Sam over to the clubhouse for Tuesday intervals.

C • :D 16

Warmup with about half the group, as there were two rival sets of intervals tonight. One set was doing woods intervals and the other group was doing trail intervals. Even split in half, our group had 23 people. The warmup was followed by a few drills, which seem to be the same everywhere, some ankle exercises, some high knees, butt kicks, pawing, and then one really new one that looked and felt like a Monty Python visit to the ministry of silly walks. I'm starting to meet and know people now, and the semester just started so there are other new people too. Including an Australian that is just orienteering with the club as cross training for kite boarding.

The workout was 6 x 2 mins (1 min rest) then 6 x 1 min (1 min rest) and finally 6 x 0.5 min (0.5 min rest) and the course was just loops around the Norbyskogan trails. A nice mix of up and down and flat, and also quite a lot of little kids doing their own training. The lead pack was Jan, Rasmus, and two or three guys I don't yet know, and for the first couple of intervals I was near the end of the pack, but then most of the guys slowed way down and I was running closer to the front. We actually stopped after each interval, with maybe a little jogging in a circle, before setting out on the next one. On our fifth 30 second piece we decided to stop at the top of the hill instead of at 30 seconds, which was the right attitude I think :)

When we were all done, we turned around and ran backward looking for the ladies, and then cooled down running as one big group again. I chatted with Simon, who is visiting from Denmark, and is studying organic farming methods and how to get phosphates back into the soil in an organic way.

Back to Blodstensvägen ( I'm getting pretty good at switching the keyboard to swedish letters) jogging with Sam and Lisa. Excellent day.