Training Log Archive: W

Another cold cold ski, but with toughed it out and did a couple laps. Toes very frozen at the end.

On the other hand, the conditions were amazing. Firm track, basically no one had been there. Wax of choice? Ex-Elite cold special , it says for -10 and colder. It also says "Kärvt före" (literally in quotes), and I'm not quite sure what that is 'meant' to mean.

But it worked so well. This is stuff is awesome, that and the blue, such a cool find down in the basement. Those Lundgren Brothers from Lycksele sure know how to make a wax. I'm going to be real sad when it gone forever.

The gym! I know! I can hardly believe it myself! Actually, when I got there I was really shocked and disappointed to learn that they had lowered gym entrance fees from 10 to 5 for the Christmas holiday! I totally would have gone several more times had I known that. $10 is a ripoff for that gym, $5 is perfectly reasonable.

Anyway, I was expecting to feel pretty weak and subsequently feel pretty sore, but that actually was not the case. Sure, I'm not lifting nearly as much as I used to, but I'm lifting more than I thought I might've.

I also anticipated being absolutely shattered for several days, but aside from the inability to lift my arms over my head for 6-8 hours, I actually felt pretty okay. Score!

In the afternoon, my sister and I went for a fairly chilly run through whitemud. My watch promptly died partway through the run and completely ate my workout. Thanks Garmin. Actually it wasn't too cold, it was almost getting close to that "just right" temperature.

At least it wasn't raining.

Another cold ski at Goldbar hampered by having to be at the shop at noon and extremely slow-moving relatives. I'm not sure how much more I would have wanted to ski anyway, though, there's something about cold, and cloud, and doing Goldbar over and over and over again that sometimes, is just incredibly tiresome. Incredibly tiresome.

A morning cold cold run with Claire. Hit the new snow on the single track trails on the river which were quite nice. It was also -21 with a wind chill of -27, which was.... less nice. Naturally, though, once you get going and keep the pace low, it was very pleasant.

And everyone else is too much of pansies to go out at all.

Adrian came back in town, so I jumped at the chance to go for a quick jog with him.

We reminisced about how we used to be in shape and that we're all old and slow now. Ah.... memories.

Met up with Maryann for a real real nice ski out at Blackfoot. Our wax work fairly well, until it clearly didn't because it started raining. The last 45 minutes was quite a bit of double poling. But, the track was fairly nice when we got out of the first section, and a generally lovely day.

Ordinarily on Christmas day we'd go out somewhere further away and get in a long ski. As I mentioned yesterday, things seem to be moving at a snails pace these days, no the best we could muster was Riverside in the rain. Which was a nice change. For.... about 20 minutes.

Gee whiz, wouldn't it be nice if the weather was warm and I didn't have to work much and I'd have lots of time to do lots of training with my sister?

Yep, that would be nice.

Instead, an hour an 5 minutes at Goldbar. This is a recurring theme over the week.

Skate sprint regional race down at Goldbar. Fastest Qualifier, rubbed out in the final by some.... highly questionable obstruction. No post-race apology either. Whether or not you think its your fault, or whether it was your fault or not, its always good form to double back and provide a handshake. Tsk tsk. The crash was probably partly a factor of the narrow trails and a very short finishing leg, I was accelerating at a much high rate than him in front of me, but the finish lanes didn't start for another 50 meters, so he pretty much directed me straight off the course with a few ski stomps. So pissed. But, whatever, still have the speed. Just need to get the balance back.


The Last Gift Day, #12! ..... what is it?



A New Attitude


No goodies, just waxing philosophical.

What are you hung up on? Simply reading Attackpoint threads is the perfect example of the many, many people who just plain ol' need a new attitude. They need an open mind, they need to be more patient, they need to be more creative, there's something about orienteering that's holding it back because so many people are just absolutely stuck on one outlook and cannot look past it.

If there's anything you can give your orienteering friend this year, its an open mind, a willingness to try new things, a brand new outlook on making their own orienteering career, and orienteering as a sport, more awesome.

Looks like the tomorrow the cold might finally eventually go away. At least briefly. Should be 6 by Wednesday! Nutty. Then it'll melt, go back to -30, and then freeze again. The whole world will be an ice rink. That'll be nice....

12 days of gifts that, if you want your orienteering friend to seem less nerdy, you should get (actually... this one is still a little nerdy, but provides the nerdiness with at least with a certain amount of presentation)

Day 11: Plastic Sheet Covers


100 for $10! Its a steal!

I notice too many people that store their old maps in a box. Then shove that box under a bookshelf somewhere for them to collect dust.

If nothing else, your maps should be your very own photo album. When someone asks about it, you can show off that super cool map of downtown london, or that one with 100 controls. And you can show it off because they're all neatly organized in binders which are filled with these plastic sheets that keep the maps in good condition.

I have mine organized chronologically organized by year, so 2010 is a big one stuff with tons of UK, and 2013 has lots of variety with maps from Southern China, New Zealand, and Finland.

It also provides storage for all of my old WOC numbers and various knick-knacks.

This sounds alarmingly like scrap booking. Let's just mumble when we speak of day 11.

C • "Scrap booking"... 2

Well, its still cold. It was nice for day, then decided to be cold again. Its right on that cusp of being unsafe to do anything too brisk, but I decided to roll with it and at least get out for a bit of a brisk run. Felt pretty good for not having done specifically that since before the study. Love being out in the dark in Whitemud because its almost always completely deserted.

Just me and the coyotes.

Another really, really nice ski in the cold with Paul. Conditions were immaculate (well, mostly) really firm, quite fast. The snow is ridiculously aggressive right now, as was evidenced by the fact that I literally had no wax left at the end.

You know how sometimes you say you had no wax left, which is just an expression to mean your wax wasn't working? No, I literally had zero wax left on my skis. Smooth as a baby's bottom. Now that's abrasive snow. Yowza.

12 days of gifts that, if you want your orienteering friend to seem less nerdy, you should get (or, buy them the most expensive tights you can find, then cut them off at the knees, then duct tape them back together, they'll fit right in!)

Day 10: A gift certificate to a Tailor




For the love of all that is holy, stop using duct tape to fix stuff.

When I first learned that I had to sew my OC patch on to my jersey, and that people should bring needle and thread on their trip, I though "I'm going to go to a World Championships wearing something that I sewed together? AW HELL NAW".

So, I ventured out and found Carol's Tailors. And you know how much it cost me to get her to sew the patch on?

Three dollars

From then on she has done all of my repair work. Oh, you didn't know that I had a fist sized hole in my favorite jersey? That I tore an entire knee off my 3/4 tights? That's because she's a professional, and does a way better job than you.

The repairs have cost me in total probably $50. A $100 gift certificate could probably last the average orienteer for life. If nothing else, this is a gift so that you'll be less embarrassed to stand next them.

First ski back for probably quite some time. Conditions were actually, wait for it, really, really good. It appears as though they probably groomed this morning, and thanks to the cold, almost no one had come out. It was wonderful. A little cold, toes a little frozen, but really fast, Ski-Go Universal, as usual, worked perfect. I had a ball.

12 days of gifts that, if you want your orienteering friend to seem less nerdy, you should get (or, take any random activity, add an -O to the end, and you've just gifted them a new sport! Racketball-O, anyone?)

Day #9: Instability Ball


It has a lot of different names

Throw out your active ankles, folks, toss out your tape, and for the love of all that is holy, stop buying those ridiculous shoes with the ankle braces build in. You know the ones I'm talking about.

An ounce of prevention, as they say, and this is that ounce. I don't profess to have the greatest stability in the world, but I have most certainly turned my ankle in all sorts of weird direction, but had the flexibility, range of motion, and strength to over come it and keep on running without any pain.

I would chalk this up, at least in part, to the fact that after just about every workout, I head down, watch some TV, and stand on my instability ball. One footed, two footed, lunges, squats, eyes closed, leg extenstions, thera-banded, its a really good tool to strengthen every single stabilizing muscle that extends from the tips of your toes to your neck. Yes, they all contribute in some way to stability.

Its not exactly the most glamorous gift in the world, but a clever one that says "I know what you need better than you do". They may either love you or think you're implying their out of shape. Hopefully the former.

I wanted to be careful today, with soccer back in the mix for the first time in a while. I thought about skiing afterwards but wanted to get a sense of what my feet feel like afterwards. My theories of the cause of my PF has been jumping all around lately, and I'm starting to conclude that all sports I've been doing are contributors. There were even brief twinges while riding the bike. I just think that everything I do is quite hard on my feet, and I have super tight calves. There's no doubt that dropping the "low-drop" shoe concept is a good idea and I should continue with that to avoid further calf tightness, but all in all I think I'm just going to have to be an "everything in moderation" kind of trainer to keep the foot pain away.

12 days of gifts that, if you want your orienteering friend to seem less nerdy, you should get (or, to save money, just volunteer them for pleasure of sitting on a club executive! They'll never ask for another gift again.)

Day #8: A Garmin GPS Velcro Strap



Your average orienteer probably has a Garmin GPS watch. But, the strap that comes with it, holy criminy, it sucks. The plastic strap breaks, it never fits right, the pins come out, all manner of bad. My watch strap completely fell apart at #15 of the long at Nationals, and I spent my time running to 16 running with one hand trying to stuff the remains of my GPS down the tiny pocket on the back of my tights. That is not something you leave behind.

But the velcro strap, its comfortable, the velcro lasts forever, the band is reflective, and its a much more secure connection to the watch itself.

And its baffling, Garmin actually makes a velcro strap for most of their watches, but it doesn't come stock, and they are bloody difficult to get a hold of! I asked the Canadian distributor of Garmin, and they'd never even heard of it. You can, however get it off of amazon, or for slightly cheaper from Chain Reaction Cycles.

This is the kind of gift that would truly surprise any Garmin owner.

"You can get a velcro strap for this thing? I didn't even know that existed!"

Instant brownie points.

C • colour 3

Managed to sneak in a nice run with Nevin in the later evening. Legs felt good for a first run back in a while. Although my foot always has little twinges, I generally like to think I'm over the PF. I don't think I can ever let off the streching, tape during soccer, or the compression sleeve ever now and then, its definitely back to being under control.

12 days of gifts that, if you want your orienteering friend to seem less nerdy, you should get (or, quite frankly, chess is a way more popular and lucrative sport).

Day 7: Compression Calf Sleeves


2XU Calf Sleeves

Although the jury is still somewhat out on the efficacy of compression during competition, I still enjoy wearing calf sleeves for long distance.

Orienteering, more than straight running, requires more explosive efforts. Whether its running through a marsh, short leaps over rocks, or the most explosive of all, stabilizing your foot plant on rough terrain, your muscles do some fair huge contractions. I personally find near the end of the race, my calves are one bad step away from a monster cramp.

However, anecdotally, calf sleeves feel like they do a good job at preventing that. They keep everything nice and, well, "compress-y", and I have yet to cramp since starting to wear them about three years ago.

Some are more compressive than others, though that will often make them progressively thicker, as well. I find 2XU and Compressport find a nice balance between the two.

Honestly, this is one of those gifts that the receiver will say, "WOW, I would have never thought of this. Awesome."

WARNING - Do not continue wearing your dirty calf sleeves after the race, and for goodness sake don't walk into the grocery store with them.

C • Calf Sleeves 7

Well, the study is over. How sad. It definitely got me going. A solid 17 hours over 10 days with lots and lots of intensity, it was great. Soon he'll send me a bunch of the data and hopefully I'll be able to get some really good information to plan out my next phase of "making it up as I go along". Very excited about that.

And, although I wasn't tired, I've been nervous that I'm getting sick again, so I took a day to drink tea and take it easy. Hopefully it'll be all good tomorrow, because I want to see if I've still got some residual fitness on Wednesday! Sprint time! ITS ON!

12 days of gifts that, if you want your orienteering friend to seem less nerdy, you should get instead (or, get your friend into Ski-Orienteering. Ha ha!).

Day 6: A Trail Running Race Entry


5 Peaks, for example.

I think that one of orienteering's problem in North America is that we have too many orienteers. Too many people who only do orienteering, because other sports are just not "mentally challenging enough". These same people are usually the ones who criticize trail runners for "not wanting to think".

Go see how the other half lives (okay, 9/10s).

Not only will you learn the mental fortitude of pushing yourself past your limit without the burden of keeping all of your mental faculties in check, its a way to see how popular events work. Definitely some people around have caught on to this, but I bet you know an orienteer that hasn't.

Expand their horizons a little, its amazing how much nicer it can be over on the dark side.

Well, the last day of cycling study with another 2 x 10k TTs. Not quite as good as my one I did right after a long hard block of testing. Interesting stuff I learned from this, particularly that its possible my best performance comes at the tail end of a relatively hard training block. Like, my tapering is best when its really, really short. I'll need to come up with ways to experiment with this.

12 days of gifts that, if you want your orienteering friend to seem less nerdy, you should get instead (or, I hear someone is selling their old jersey from the '70s, its still good and is way, way cheaper).

Day 5: Base Layer


Craft Pro Zero Extreme

What should be the first thing you do after a race? Is it discuss with your competitors your route choice? Go get a cookie? Complain to the organizers about whatever you think was the fault of your mistakes?

Nope, you should wander straight over to your clothes, and change your shirt. Should you continue wearing around your race shirt after the race? NO! Not only do you once again look like a homeless person, you're going to get cold and sick. You need to change out of all of your race clothes. YES! You must do this.

This is why you have a nice, dry, soft, and amazingly comfortable base layer. I'm partial to the Pro Zero Extreme by craft. All of a sudden you're dry, warm, and well on your way to recovering.

This is not seen on TV, but I assure you, every racer in every winter sport does this. Walk over to their bags, put on dry base layer. This has nothing to do with looking cool, this is 100% practicality, and investing in a decent base layer is worthwhile.

It also helps that they are usually fairly snug and will totally show off your abs.

P.S. Is this the same shirt as your warm-up shirt? NO! That one is sweaty because you warmed up in it, remember?

C • 12 days of gifts 14

Vo2 Max number 3. I really hammered hard at the end of this one, I wanted to hit 70 so bad. I mean, obviously trying hard is really not going to make a difference, but I really wanted it so I put it all out there. Alas, I did not hit it, and actually went down from Monday. Though, partway through this one I decided "yeah.... I think I've had enough of Vo2Maxes for a little while. I've lost count, but I think this is probably lifetime #12 or so? 4th on the bike, if I recall rightly.

12 days of gifts that, if you want your orienteering friend to seem less nerdy, you should get instead (or, just stick with a roll of flagging tape, you never know when they might lose their SI, compass, glasses, self-respect).

Day 4: Sandisk Sansa Clip Zip



Although my esteemed colleagues have already discussed this, I would argue that orienteering is, first and foremost, a running sport. Some people like total silence to get inside their head and do some great thinking, or like to be able to hear nature in all its splendour.

I, however, have heard nature a sufficient amount of times and would rather blast some electronica at 190BPM.

The Sansa removes any orienteer's excuse of "oh, well, I find simply running to be too boring, which is why I like orienteering!" Tough, you want to be better? Be a faster runner.

This thing costs about $40, and weighs a scant 15 grams. There's really no excuse on this one.

Day ?? of the study, pretty close to the end. Just 45 minutes easy. Funny story though, my other easy day, I rode about 160 watts and my HR was in the high 110s. Today, I rode about 220 watts, and my HR was in the 100s. Am I better trained? Better rested? It was quite a remarkable change.


12 days of gifts that, if you want your orienteering friend to seem less nerdy, you should get instead (or, a mystery novel about orienteering, if you feel they don't laugh hysterically about the sport enough).

Day 3: Honey Stingers



It is really in your best interest to discourage any orienteering friends from taking a picnic along with them when they go out. But, from my experience, the average non-elite orienteer: a) feels like their brain stops functioning after an hour of acitivity so the absolutely must have some food, and b) "just can't stand the consistency of those gel things".

Good news! These things taste like candy. Jam them in your rear pocket, pull it out during a fatigue induced brain attack, and then keep on plugging away. Soft to chew, easy to digest, freaking delicious.

Leave your camelbak, fanny pack, or sack lunch at the start.

Almost to the end of the study! Today was more 10k time trials. With the other guy doing it at the same time, I didn't have full on fan action, so the sweat was rolling off my face like a river. I'm not sure I've ever seen such continuous sweat flow before. Gotta make sure to spray down the bike after this, yikes!

12 days of gifts that, if you want your orienteering friend to seem less nerdy, you should get instead (or, an I *love* orienteering bumper sticker, in case the tilly hat didn't make your love obvious enough).

Day 2: A Warm-up Shirt


Craft Performance Run T-shirt

Do you ever see anyone in any other sport wearing their race shirt as they walk from the parking lot? While they warm-up? While they're getting their pre-race bagel? If you want to transcend the 5k fun run crowd, a nice, simple, pre-race shirt is the ticket.

Its so that you don't get your race jersey all dirty and sweaty before showing up at the start line (a cardinal sin), and on cold days your race stop is still dry when you put it on right before the start.

With a warm-up shirt, you are in warm-up mode. When its finally time to race, then you put on your jersey, and OH YEAH, ITS ON NOW. You are now in the right mindset.

It doesn't have to be crazy expensive, but it should be some sort of tech shirt, and it should NOT be your old race shirt from the Beat Beethoven in 1982. Which I'm sure is totally still good and only kind of doesn't fit anymore.

C • Gifts! 5

The program today called for 45 minutes of easy cycling. So I did that. It was boring.

In the spirit of OC's 12 days of orienteering related gifts, I would like to present my own 12 days of gifts that, if you want your orienteering friend to seem less nerdy, you should get instead (or, the O+ Rubik's Cube is fine if they've already given up hope).

#1 - Racing Flats


The New Balance RC 1600
"Oh, I'm too slow for racing shoes ha ha!" is what you'll say. I promise you, the vast majority of people who enter a running race aiming for a time they want to be proud of hunt for lighter race day shoes, whether that time is a 2 hour or 5 hour marathon. It makes a tangible difference to pull these on for a race.

Not only that, but its more fun to run in. Feeling light and fast will make urban racing more fun. Shoes are also a fashion statement. Urban racing is the visible version of orienteering.

What's more attractive? A totally bad-ass 50 year old hammering around campus? Or a homeless person codgering around looking sweaty?

Do your part for your loved ones and get them some flashy flats.

Vo2 Max test #2.

Not a ton to say about this one. Dude before me near passed out while getting the saline after his blood was taken, before the test even started! I suspect this was just a case of losing a lot of blood, and the nurse surmised it was partly because he was just sitting there with a very low heart rate and the influx of cold saline did him in. Not quite sure how that works, but it was a tense situation there briefly.

I didn't feel great either, but hammered it out pretty well. They told me my score this time and last, which was 62 then and 67 now. Fairly pleased about that! I suspect the 67 is a supercompenation spike, but it was great to see! Hopefully I'll get the raw data after its all over and have a good idea of what really happened.

Double-down time trial day! I actually started off the first one feeling pretty concerned because my legs felt quite tired. I also thought I shifted into a tougher gear too early and then last 2.5 k were a real struggle. But, I had too much pride to shift back.

The second one felt much the same, though I was a bit more cautious and went in a higher gear. Not all the screen was blocked so I saw that my cadence was above 100, which I felt was maybe a little high. Shifted gears a bit, stayed in the 100s, but felt okay.

As it turns out, hammered a 13:30 and 13:50! 40 second PB.

At this rate, Tour de France next summer. Easy.

You'll never guess what happened today!

Actually if you've been following along you probably can.

20 x 1 minute at 100% vo2 max. Easy peasy. No problemo. Legs feel good.

Butt, on the other hand, very sore.

What day is this now? Cripes, I haven't been keeping track. But, today it was back to the 10 x 4 minutes at 80%. I was really expecting the worst, but it was a distinct improvement from the first time around. I really feel that my performance is being skewed by my legs simply getting used to the bike again. Now that I've done it for a week, my legs already feel very much in bike shape.

Then it was back to the TTs. This time around I got to do it with my own bike and pedals, so it was definitely better. Hammered out low 14s, which was slightly better than on the bike that didn't fit me.

Its a miracle, training works!

Day 4: 20 x 1 minute intervals at 100% of Vo2 Max power. So, for me, that was 440 watts. Aside from the initial burn, these ended up being pretty manageable. Just had to slug them out and get 'er done. No problem!

Day 3 of the study started off the 4-minute interval sessions. 5 x 4 minutes w/ 90 seconds rest, 2 sets, 10 minute break between. Supposed to ride at 80% of vo2Max, which for me was between 345 and 355 watts, which, holy crap, is quite the grind. I think I do the TTs at a much higher cadence, but they cover up the screen during the TTs so I don't actually know. This sure feels like more of a muscle-y effort.

Should have sandbagged the Vo2 and this would have been cake!

-----

Today I got the most depressing job rejection letter yet, which contained this gem:

"We received such a high level of applicants who already had experience from within the Sports / Outdoor footwear industry with training and merchandising skills."

I believe this translates to, "we didn't read your application".

Day 1 PM of the study. Back to the time trials. What I didn't realize is that I will actually always be doing two time trials. So I actually won't be doing 6 10k time trials, I'm doing 12. Gross. Still, dropped my time from Friday on both #1 and #2, probably thanks to now riding a bike that fits. Ass is quite sore, time to whip out the big bike shorts.

Day 1 AM of "the study" started off with lying in a box and having my legs suctioned by a giant vacuum. That was weird and a tad boring. However, afterwards, I got to do Vo2Max #1. Its on a bike so I'm really not sure I'll get even remotely close results as I did on the treadmill, but I don't know the numbers yet. I think by the end I was grinding out about 400 watts, though I'd like to think I could do a little bit more if the seat on the bike would be a little bit higher! This was also the first time I've had blood samples taken mid-test.

Blood taking girl is cute though. So its all good.

A light ski at Strathcona wilderness centre with Maryann and Marie. Strangely foggy and remarkably boring. Unfortunately, I think I have had just about enough of SWC. And that was my first time this year.