Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

Måsen staffet. First real race of the season, or at least the first race that felt official, and my first time wearing a club top. I got placed on the 4th (anchor) leg of the 3rd team, and I was feeling a bit nervous because I was by far the worst orienteer on the team. It felt great to be given a chance to run with Anders H, Liutas, and Jorgen but I also thought that maybe Pontus ought to have been given the spot instead.

I love relays! It was fun to cheer and watch everyone in the club race so well, especially Sam, sending out Linné 3 in 4th place as our first women's team.

When it was nearing time for me to go out, I was warming up with Andrew Quinn, and we figured that we would start close to each other and there was a certain amount of trash talking :)

I did get tagged off just a minute or so after Andrew, and I found a good flow right away. I cruised though the first few controls effortlessly, and as I was coming into 3, I saw Andrew leaving, and was able to fully reel him in by the 5th. I guess I got too excited and I made a small error in the circle on the next leg (and pulled Andrew with me) and then we had different forkings after that but I managed to mess mine up with a bad bearing from my attackpoint, where I lost another minute. I didn't see Andrew again, and raced the rest of the course pretty well. Two more small bobbles, but nothing too soul crushing. There was a guy from another club just ahead as I raced for the last control, and that was a nice incentive to pass him and push all out on the way into the finish. Andrew raced cleanly at the end, and they ended up 31st and we ended up 32, about 50 seconds back.

A nice start to the season!

Winsplits

Today there was a charity exercise event called the Spin for Hope, raising money and awareness for treating childhood cancers. I was invited to join a team by one of the orienteers in my club, Ola, and it seemed like a fun thing to do. It was run as a 12hr spinning marathon with teams just renting out one bike at a time, and I was given the 8am to 9am spot.

I am not a spinning expert, having only been one other time, but there wasn't really anything special or scary about this spinning marathon. Just show up and follow the leader :) It was incredibly hot in the small room with 50 other cyclists, so I was sweating up a storm. Also, the leader was a big fan of classical music, so all the exercise was set to opera arias, and symphonies and some other very recognizable bits of music, sometimes with a bit of an electronic techno beat underneath. In other words, very surreal :)

The session was a bit short of the full hour and afterward I passed off a thoroughly dried off bike to the next on the team and went about my day. Very good start to a Saturday.

Garmin out of battery for this session. Met up with some of my friends from work at our club's local training event. 20kr for a map, with 4 courses to choose from. Two of my labmates did the easiest course but skipped controls that were too hard to find, but they both had a great time. Another labmate with more experience did an advanced course and ran pretty well.

I was feeling great, so I took a long map and set out at speed. The first few flags had a great flow, and I guess I got a bit complacent, and I made a pretty big error on number 7, I think getting onto a parallel ridge and losing contact with the map. I relocated well, if somewhat miraculously, by recognizing the shape of a small hill top, but it was still a 4 minute goof. The next couple were okay again until number 12, where I again made a parallel error and didn't notice it because I crossed the trail in the marsh. Big error and tough to relocate afterward.

Those were the two big errors, but even with those mistakes I felt otherwise very strong and secure with my navigation.

Perfect weather, and followed up with buying a waffle iron and having waffles all afternoon with friends from work. Excited to hear that Sam raced well in Nyköping.

Winsplits

Tough innebandy session, with only 7 showing up today. I was on the team with only 3, and I was the weakest player apart from really liking to run, so our team lost by quite a lot, but I did enjoy all the running back and forth chasing the ball. Mats and Tim tried to teach me some more basic innebandy skills that all the Swedes pick up from their youth that I still don't have, like how to place my body between the ball and the opposing player, to take control of the whole area.

Short track workout again, this time because of a lab party, but managed to squeeze in a short warmup and then 10 x 400 before heading back up the hill. Still a bit rusty and the speed isn't there yet, but starting to feel a bit stronger.

Thought about running the CSU workout instead of this one, as I still get the plans from Terry, but I wanted a second crack at this after yesterday's poorer showing and also I want to work up to bigger numbers of 400s soon.

Running down to the track. Not a lot of time to run today.

Only a really short time for a workout tonight, as I was headed out to dinner at a Nation, a student tradition in Uppsala that I have managed to miss up until now. I am now a member of Smålands Nation though, so that's something, and the crew that organized the masquerade party was celebrating our success.

Anyway, the workout was planned to be longer, but I did 5 x 400 on a 2 minute cycle. It felt tough and I felt out of shape and out of practice, but I guess that is to be expected with very little warm up and no speed work thus far.

Tisdagsbana F. Feeling low energy at the beginning, but determined to run well and finish the whole course. From the lead it was Johan that was leading the pace, and Inga and I were hanging back a bit but staying in contact with him.

The faster guys picked up speed soon though, and soon we were running in the midst of the lead group, a lot of splashing through marshes and fighting through logging slash. Then after a bit the leaders pulled away and it was Inga and me remaining.

She once again encouraged me to push hard and keep up (I often am slower when trying to read the map) and we finished the course together, only getting off the line a couple of times, though once very badly.

Really glad to have finished the whole course, and great to have such excellent company.

Rockgympa. I was so hungry and tired before this session, but not enough time to grab a bowl of cereal before training. As usual, the training itself was revitalizing, and I felt much better during and after rockgympa. Next week we will do half of the strength outside, should be a fun change.

A few rounds of Innebandy after strength. I choose teams for the first matches and I decided to group Boris, Lina, Sam, Ryan and myself all onto the same team for fun :) It was great fun!

Sam had already made dinner for when we got home afterward. Thai salad with peanut dressing.