Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

Fun mass start race this morning in Knivsta. After a warmup loop (intended, perhaps, to throw off our pre-race calculations about where the course went) we headed out for a 10k jaunt in the town and nearby forests.

I trailed the leaders and then got confused in the forest when the trail disappeared, but luckily my strategy in these situations is to keep running and hope something turns up. In this case, my control turned up... nice :)

Was solid to 2, but when the people in front of me ducked down to punch a control on two boulders I got nervous that it was my control. I should have just kept my line, but I went down to check anyway. I was alone after 3, until Bjorn caught up and we were running hard together on the way to 8 and he finished just behind me.

I was moving well through the middle of the course, though not so straight on to 12. Reading the urban areas was tough with the print quality (colors off maybe?).

Finished 10 minutes back on Loefaas, but quite pleased for the most part.

SynggVacation is still in effect, so we decided to do our gympa at home tonight. Sam moved furniture around in the living room, and Lisa brought over the new Rockgympa exercise list, and the three of us felt very proud of ourselves for being such dedicated athletes :)

We substituted supermans during the 80 seconds of bounding, and I switched to pushups during the crazy hip-thrust-hop thingy. Deep lunges were super burn-y and the whole routine had me coated in sweat by the end. A fine way to end the weekend.

A very tough effort on the backbanan. I joined Henrik for 2 laps, and was really grateful to have someone to chase as I got progressively more tired. Conditions were fairly icy covered in a light dusting of snow... so all in all, treacherous. I was wearing my old icebugs, and so I didn't have that many spikes left, which made the uphills and downhills a bit slower. Also there were a lot of blown down trees and branches on the course... we'll have to go back out and clean up before the Tour de Linné in mid-Feb. Henrik waited for me at the one lap mark, and kept the pace slow enough that I was in contact for most of the hour.

On the last climb I just focused on taking lots of short steps, as that seemed like the only way to make it to the top. Nauseous with the effort when I finished.

Gympa, but SynggMagnus was on vacation, and the substitute had awful music ( and I personally did not like his routine either). Lots of bad covers and french music.

The evening was salvaged by a lovely aprés-gympa crowd of Mari, Kristina, and Sam. As we were cooking, I played the music from last semester's gympa program and Mari did a few of the moves, just for old time's sake.

Running to the clubhouse.

Warming up before doing running drills. The guys that showed up at the start were Loefaas, Olle, Christopher, Lars, and myself. A few others joined a bit later. Cold and icy on the bikepaths.

8x30, 2x4min, 8x30, 2x4min, 8x30 with 30 seconds rest after the short intervals and 1 minute rest after the longer ones.

The goal was to work on running form, and I tried to focus on this, especially bringing my heel up to my butt on each stride. Sidewalks were slick enough that we slid on each step but not so bad that we were really in any danger of pulling a muscle.

Back home to join Sam for dinner. Then a super early bedtime, Sweden makes me sleepy.

Running with Lisa and Sam to the start, near Håga. My battery was charged tonight, but I discovered that the plastic headmount was cracked and broken from where I fell on it, on Tuesday. Everything swathed in duct tape.

Trying to be reasonable, and trying to listen to good advice (given by Boris months ago), so I signed up for the middle course since the training was advertised as being very difficult. I had great fun, and orienteered about as normal, so some good things and some bad.

Heading out across white empty space, even during a night-o, does not bother me so much, so I was not too perturbed by the map but I did spend a little time stopped short, still in the white space, hunting around on a hill too early. That would have been avoided if I could see the whole map. I think my compass direction was good, but my distance estimation needed more help.

Also, near the end of the course, my duct tape failed and my headlamp became truly irritating. Getting it to stay on my head required tying the straps in a funny way and that made wearing it uncomfortable and made the angle that the beam shone totally bogus.

Tisdagbanan. My first time out in my new wetsocks (thanks Santa Sam!) and my first time out in O-shoes though to be safe I wore my older shoes that were much more worn in(and the toe felt much better).

Headlamp battery was not fully charged ( I think the charger that came with it is broken, I can use Sam's though) and already near the beginning I was plunged into darkness.

I had been talking with Mandus and Lutas on the way to the start though, and they had offered to let me run with them if my light died. I wasn't the only one without a light tonight, as Niklas was also just tagging along behind Mandus.

It was a real challenge to keep up with Mandus and Niklas in the dark, and I did much more of the course than I would have, had I been on my own. I couldn't break off at any of the earlier cutoffs because I was dependent on the shared light.

It was a great terrain run for me though, and impressive to learn from Mandus as he did all the navigating with real confidence.

Rockgympa is an intense way to approach jetlag. Johan's key didn't work for the school gym, so we changed venues and set up in the clubhouse main room. This made for a very crowded session.

The new routine trimmed some of the exercises and ended up with 3 cycles that lasted 16 minutes each. Each time the group did bounding, I went to get water instead, because I felt a little claustrophobic dashing back and forth in the enclosed area.

Fun to be back in Sweden and see everyone again... probably shouldn't have taken the 2 hour nap right before, but I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.