Training Log Archive: W

Thanks to some warm weather and a rain/snow mix, the skiing is really, really slow. That kind of slow where, if you hit a slow[er] patch, you're likely to just fall forward on your face because you've gone from kind of moving to basically not moving. I didn't, but there were some close calls. Kind of hard work.

Alas, the snow does soon get slower. If that were even possible. Its like the 1996 World Junior Championships out here! (or was it 1997? In Canmore. Shorts & T-shirt).

Then, afterwards, I headed out to go for a more concerted run around the mustalampi. I don't understand how, no matter what route I take, even if it meanders in some extra directions, I still end up taking around the same time and running the same distance. Very twilight zone-y.

This I'm classifying as two separate ones. This was going out again to just double check all of the places the controls were going to be, in order. Very stop and start as I looked for trails in the snow that were on the map but not there in real life. I then ran back to my place do fiddle with OCAD and change the map around.

I had the time and wherewithal to get out in the morning and quickly check some of the areas around Keltinmaki for the training I'm organizing this weekend. It could be kind of fun were it not for the hip deep snow. You pretty much have to just run along the trail, jump off the trail, and then jump back on, because its too slow otherwise. Its like being in Edmonton all over again!

Track tiistai, with some very fast running. I probably won't do a workout with this high intensity again for a while. It was fun to do, but probably not what I should be doing right now. We did 2000m, 1000, 800, 600, 400, 200 at 2 secs/km faster each time, starting at 40 secs/200 and going down to 30 secs/200. It wasn't crazy difficult, but more than anything I noticed the fatigue several days layer during my tempo run.

Ran around half the Jyvasjarvi. Winter is still rapidly deteriorating, at a painfully slow pace, which is almost more painful. If its going to end, just end, this whole "cloudy and +1" is not cool. Or warm. Just cold, and kind of sad.

So, my intent was to run around the Jyvasjarvi in a nice real easy long run. I figured that if I just did the same route that takes 1:25 running tempo, then maybe I'd do something like 1:50 if I went easy. Turns out that totally wasn't the case, and my easy run was oddly fast today without realizing it. I even did an extra very slow trail bit, and it was still pretty fast. And it wasn't a fast day either, a bunch of wet new snow made it pretty darn soft and mushy.

No matter, must mean I'm getting fitter. And that's real promising!

Also, bad news, I'm totally back into electro swing, or, whatever this is. And its ilk.

C • awesome video 3

More AV-training around Maki-matti. This is the second time that we've done some urban training and the whole world has been an ice rink. I wasn't very focused at the best of time, and, although I was definitely distracted by other irrelevant garbage to deal with, I think I was also quite pre-occupied with not smashing my face on the ground. Yeah, I was wearing my icebugs, but ice skates would have been just as well. It was nuts.

A couple of those classic longer Finnish sprint legs, though, with uncrossable fences galore. Annoyed I missed the best route, but again, I imagine I might have been doing more planning if I weren't watching where my feet go.

Next time, I'll wear my orienteering helmet.

Evening skate ski with Samppa. The weather being what it is, the snow is rapidly deteriorating, and is really soft. There was a distinct possibility I was going to break my pole because you'd push down and sink through. I've had one pole break like that once, so I was nervous it was going to happen again. Thus, it ended up being a pretty slow ski, but not necessarily unproductive. Still a session.

This has been a weak week for training so far. And it wasn't helped by having 5 hours before going to see a hockey game for training, but instead being glued to the TV feed of World Ski Championships that was an incredible, incredible set of races.

But, as in many events like this, what annoys me the most is that the last 30 meters were clearly reserved for VIP stands, and they were, for the most part, pretty empty. I remember at the 2001 World Track & Field Championships (when I was on the infield for the 100m final, BTW!), where there was an entire section of bleachers for VIP and basically none of them showed up. There are so many people desperately wanting tickets and they're constantly reserved for people who don't care and don't show up. I just imagine having rabid fans on that sprint course right up to the line, that would have been even more incredible. Always a shame.

But, still, awesome races.

I watched the replay a couple more times, and I swear that if Alex had just picked one more track to his left, he would have won that race. I really wonder what he was thinking just at that moment.

A tiny trail run around the mustalampi. The warm weather is again making it quite icy and this trail can be pretty slow in places while I'm trying not to smash my face. Someone was out with their dog so for a brief moment I'm running down the trail and all I see is glowing eyes. Its always just a tad unnerving....not so much because it might be a werewolf, but because it might be an Edmonton off-leash dog.

Ran over to the Hipposhalli for Track Tiistai.

Unfortunately, people were playing jalkapallo, so there was no track, and thus, no track tiistai. I went for a little extra run taking the roundabout route home, but I was carrying all of my stuff, and wildly overdressed. That didn't go so well. I felt really stupid because every other time I've taken my student card, just in case, and I could have then just gone to the student gym and done some intensity on the treadmill. But this week, I thought, "well, I've never needed it before", and so I didn't take it. How dumb is that.

After a few light skis, I wanted to make sure my skiing was a bit more productive, so this one was a bit faster with a bit more effort. The snow is deteriorating a little, so this was probably the last night ski where I feel comfortable using my good skis, unless it snows more. Maybe I'd use them in the day, but, too risky at night. Maybe if I go over to Laajavuori it'll be better.

A real light ski with a friend who is not quite as good at skiing. Hard to know if I would count it as training, I was definitely moving, but, not very quickly. No matter, it was still exercise, however light. Basically a recovery workout. I have more time during the week so I should be able to make up for it with some double-downs during the week. Let's call this a rest week.

I'm trying to get Rdio to find me some Finnish music I might like. Its been a tough search.

A real cushy chilled out run around half the Jyvasjarvi in my Hokas. I'm just looking at my pace, and thinking about how this run felt. I remember about two years ago I had really resolved to pick up the pace a little on my easy runs, just subtly, but enough to make them more meaningful. My Polar has my average pace at 5:01/km, and when I think back to this run, I really don't remember anything about it. It was just another light cruise recovery run. That pleases me a lot because that its nice reminder that my average pace and fitness has drifted up slowly so that this increased pace doesn't seem like an increased pace anymore, its just... my pace.

Now its time to think about thinking about subtly increasing that pace a little. I think that as the pace gets faster its easier to go overboard with just a few secs/km, so I'm not going to be quite so aggressive as I was this last time, but if I were to just adjust to, say, 4:55, for instance, I think that would be manageable, especially in winter conditions. We'll see.

The only thing left to do? See. Oh yes, we will (to_the) see.

Because I missed yesterday's tempo torstai, I went out and did it by myself, which is TOUGH. It seems like an awful long loop when there's no one to teach you Finnish words.

I do notice, however, that I ran a bit faster than with the boys. To be fair, the snow was a bit firmer this week, but I averaged 4:01/km today, whereas the week before we averaged 4:10-ish.

So, either I'm getting fitter, or it was the conditions. Let's go with fitter!

These workouts are tough, but I think they're going to be great in the longer run and I'm really happy afterwards.

A simple easy ski to Ladun Maija in really nice firm conditions, while nerding it up with a retro gaming podcast. Yes, I do listen to podcasts sometimes now. Its been a mere, like, 4 years since I learned they were a nice thing to listen to while training. The skiy was quite easy, according to my HR, and it sure did feel like it too. I can tell that my back is still not quite right from two weeks ago, but getting better.

As in... I can generally stand up without groaning like an old man.

Its been a long week. Some really long seminars, some late nights (relatively) working on projects, some frustrating office stuff. I did the longer route at Mustalampi which, despite being longer, has appeared to now take the same amount of time as the shorter loop. Wha....? It could be because the snow has gotten quite a bit firmer. It got really warm the last few days with the sun coming out so now the world is an ice rink.

I was skeptical in the fall when there was a little bit of frost because the city proceeded to gravel the hell out of all the sidewalks. Yet, all of a sudden, that gravel seems to be poking through the sheet of ice and being very effective!

Those Finns are a clever bunch. If a tad grumpy.

Another track workout at Hipposhalli. I didn't have my GPS on so I don't know how long I actually ran. At this point of the season I didn't really have intention to go quite as fast as they seemed to be going, so I jumped in and did some of it. It was 8 x 800m getting progressively faster, but at 6 I didn't go faster, and just scaled it back for the last few. Each one had a 200m interval afterwards, which I just tried to stretch out and stay smooth but not sprint-y.

I've been using my Adidas Boost shoes for the track, and I think I officially really don't like those shoes. The cushion was supposed to be the bees knees, but honestly my feet feel significantly worse after wearing them than, say, my Pure Connects, which are light, if not lighter, than Adidas. They're basically brand new, so I'm not really sure what to do with them, though.

Today was windy.

I was going to go for a longer run.

But I failed to wear a particular piece of kit.

That is all.

Suunta Jyvaskyla's Sprintticuptalvi #3! Just some casual sprints around relatively simple areas nearby. I'm not quite in the part of my program where I'm hammering too much, so I took these pleasantly briskly and tried to do some good planning. Some really really tiny symbols made me wish I had my compass and magnifier.

Hm. That sounds like something an old person would say.

Samppa pulled me out for an evening ski at Laajavuori with Pietari. Great conditions, the snow is getting a little bit faster. I think with the right conditions, the trail down from the top of the mountain will get me my 75km/h. There is a turn that's too tight to hit that speed in the track, so it'll need to be skate and fast outside the track so I can maintain my speed around the corner and maybe accelerate a bit after that. I'm not sure. Tonight was 53 km/h. That's a long way to go.

No classes perjantaina means I have the chance to go out and double down. Between the race last weekend and the tempo yesterday, my hip flexors took quite a long time to soften up and be happy about running. Fortunately, the eventually did and skipping through the snowy singletrack was a pleasant affair.

AND THE SUN CAME OUT!

C • . 13

Evening skate listening to podcasts. With no clouds you could actually see the stars and whatnot. Lovely. When looking at my heart rate data I kind of wish I'd gone a little bit faster to make this a real sort of workout. Still, my arms felt strong again and mun suksiat sometimes fast. A really, really nice night to be out.

Did I mention there were no clouds and you could see stars? So nice. Made everything else so feel comparatively unimportant.

Tempo Tiistai! Torstaina! Samppa came back at the last minute and we went out to do the usual loop. I might have otherwise done it by myself which I suspect would have been quite a struggle.

Some new snow meant it was a tough slog for much of the run, and we both decided to wear road shoes, which was not the grippiest choice.

Interesting to see how my heart rate drifted. We hovered around the 4:10/k mark for most of the time, and my heart rate slow started to go from about 138 about 10 minutes in to about 150 around 30 minutes in and then just hovered there.

If I remembered much from my first degree I could analyze what that means. Instead, I guess I'll just have to look it up.

The back (and bluntly, groin) fatigue has slowly crept up on me since the weekend, and not really feels like its in full force, especially my back. I tried to work it out with a classic ski tonight, and then lots of rolling and some ice, but its not quite working out so well.

I've also definitely concluded it was problems with my kick that caused my awful glide on the weekend. I can be certain of this because my glide was still bad tonight but my kick was still quite good, and I didn't put anything extra on. Maybe went heavy on the layers, and possibly a bit too much sandpaper (that's a thing? Really? well, kinda)

Well, no time to dilly dally, so got right back at it with an indoor track workout. The idea is at this point of the training season to try to get in a tempo workout and a nice fartlek workout in each week. Although I wouldn't necessarily count this as "fartlek", I hope it will suffice. Basically just something crisp and fast, and it was nice to be on a track to actually run fast. We did a 4000, 2000, and 1000, at around 3:50/k pace, then 3:30/k and then 3:10. The 1000 was a tad too fast, and probably the 2000 was too, but I think everyone felt the same way as I.

It was nice to get in these faster workouts with a group, something I haven't done in a really, really long time. Although its not quite what I have in mind for this point of the season, I'm hoping to figure out a way to do them with the boys anyway, since its a great motivator. Tally ho!

I also learned that if I want to do a workout where I run to the indoor track and then do intervals, I probably have to set my watch to be an indoor workout, and just turn the GPS off. Or, no, maybe I could just turn off automatic stopping. Hm. That could work. Never mind.

In the immortal words of my favoritist movie, "Dear god just let it be better than yesterday". And it was, at least a little. For a while. 'twas the Jyväskiepin Hiihto, a 25k skate on the same course as yesterday, just one lap instead of two.

Considering yesterday, I was surprised at how good I felt for a while. My heart felt ready to explode by about km 2, but I was one-skating a lot, and feeling pretty strong. Unfortunately I really felt my skis were still not great, I lost some time on the downhills, but I was able to ski with the lead pack of about 12 for the first 8k or so, at that point they put on a gap of probably 20 seconds, which stayed for another 3, until I lost sight of them and I was mostly by myself. I was able to keep driving until about km 17.

The snow was weird, it was snowing, and had snowed all night, but when I got to the northern part of the course, either my skis, or the snow got really, really slow. And so did I. It was around km 18 that the wheels really, really fell off. At about km 21 two guys skied right past and they had distinctly better glide than I did, but I also don't think either of them had done the 50k the day before.

The last three k, with rapidly slowing skis and my legs about to fall off were a real struggle, and I think there was another group of skiers that were closing fast in those last few kilometers. I didn't even realize one guy was sprinting his tail off to try and nip me at the line, but didn't quite make it.

So, I'm glad I did this weekend, but I think my skis really let me down. This is the first time in a long time I haven't had a professional wax setup to rely on, and a mini-team to go out and test wax with together. I had a tiny wax box that is really not tuned to wet & warm snow, an absolutely terrible iron, and using the side of a table as a wax bench. It was disastrous in the classic race, and probably not ideal in the skate, and it leaves me wondering how I might have done without those problems. Definitely in the classic, at least, I think I would have done much, much better.

But, considering I haven't really been training for skiing very passionately the last few years, I thought I felt some glimpses of ski power that I feel rarely, so that was nice. And it was a lovely, ski trail. It would be great to try it in fast and firm conditions.

I guess the only solution is to do again next year.