Training Log Archive: W

Arrived in UK! Another lengthy travel day and ended up in Burton-on-Trent and staying with some unreasonably generous folks, who, today, gave me a running tour of Burton. Its your pretty bog standard UK town, with not a lot in terms of parkland, but at the very least they have a long and skinny park along the river Trent which allows a slightly longer distance run. But, that's really only place so I suspect I would tire of it very, very quickly if I had to run here all the time.

Evening shake-out run after this morning's mildly brisk run. I don't know if its the shoes or just the run, but had some sparks sailing up my leg, which is not a great sign. Aerobically the run felt easy, but I suspect it was just a little too taxing on the muscles.

I didn't think it was possible, but my legs seem to be getting pre-sore in anticipation of next week's race. Kind of a weird phenomenon, but those hip flexors were not happy today with all the... not running I've been doing.

Remember my motivation troubles yesterday? Still having those problems, as well as, apparently, time management skills.

I've been feeling really discouraged lately. I'm not entirely certain why, but I just think about training and think "what's the point?" Its a bad attitude, and not one I should be feeling with all the opportunities I have in Finland, but I just can't help it.

I'm a little lost. Figuratively. And often literally.

Those intervals I was going to do yesterday? Did them today. Jogged to Hippos and did 8 x 1000m at progressively faster pace - 3:35, 3:38, 3:29, 3:25, 3:19, 3:15, 3:16, 3:12. Certainly the last three weren't easy, my heart rate hovering in the 170s for a bit, which, for me is *almost* like its about to explode. Much tougher workout to do by myself, and my feet a pretty unhappy from all that turning left. Good stuff. I feel pretty good, and the race season starts only a week from now! YIKES!

Another evening ski. The groomer actually came and did a pass on a bunch of the trails, so although the snow is a little thin, the conditions were really good! Jouni came along too so they did classic while I skated but did mostly double poling.


I'm a little sad to see that this week is US team trials and I won't be there to stomp all over those 'Muricans. But, I look forward to seeing the results and to high fiving in Scotland all the people I hope to see there.

C • TT 3

There I was, about to head out to Hipposhalli for some track intervals, and I get a WhatsApp from Samppa saying he wants to go.... skiing? Okay, what the hell. It had snowed a little bit so the conditions were icy underneath with a layer of heavy-ish fresh snow. Not rocket fast, but pretty good. The one section under the trees was pretty much finished and so a little bit of rock-ski bush whacking was required to continue. But, on the whole, in some places, still pretty good conditions. I'm pleasantly surprised. Might have to go for a couple more last minute skis before heading off to [sunny] England.

Managed to at least get out for a short run on what ended up being a fairly lazy Sunday, not my preferred situation. The road I was running on in basically a skating rink, I had hoped it maybe had melted, but.... no. Definitely not. No melting there, at least. Should have woken up earlier and gotten in a bit more distance, though. That would have been nice. I seem to not be moving very quickly [in life] anymore!

Jogged over to the university for the last winter sprint series on the campus. Just like at home, I was really lazy because I know the campus pretty well now. Tried to run fast and get my heart rate up, but it didn't really happen very well and my navigation was falling behind my speed. I wish I had a sprint camp in the middle of February to get my back in my groove. Oh well, JK is in only 2 weeks, time to snap back into it!!

Whatever "it" is.

Evening shakeout run that was, apparently, also molasses. Also, looking at the GPS from the Polar, its not flawless. I have a long straight run for about a KM before getting home, and the lines are pretty distinctly different. Not good, Polar. Tsk Tsk.

Got out and did at least some of the workout I had planned to do yesterday, today, while trying not to look at the solar eclipse. Crazy sunny out, so awful tempting to just turn and look, but it was really bright out and I'd prefer not to, you know, go blind.

I've got to think that would put a major dent in my orienteering career. Or not. /SELFBURN!

The downside to the great Tuesday workout was that my feet were pretty unhappy all of Wednesday. But, Thursday, I donned my Hokas to pillow my way around the lake. Partway along, I ran into the boys, and ended up going for a trail run instead.

I challenge anyone to go down the hill I went down, with the ice, and mud, rocks, at the speed I did, in road Hokas. I think that's the closest I've ever been to risking life and limb while running. Wow.

Anyway, a fairly slow run, but got a little tour of some trails I hadn't been on before.

Well, I wasn't going to be able to go to the track today, but Juha was in town so we decided to go out and do basically my tempo route again. Which was great! Juha is around a 31 minute 10k guy when he's not injured, so doing a tempo run with him was tough, but really good. We started at around 4:00/k, then slowly ramped it up to 3:50, then around 3:40 for the last 3k. So, did cruised 12.5k in 48, with an occasional headwind.

I often wonder if a tempo run is more productive when they are progressive like this, rather than a consistent pace. Is it better to do one where you do the whole thing at 3:55 pace, or better to start at 4:00 and slowly speed up?

Probably not better or worse, just different.

But the question is, which one is better? [sic]

Went for a nice evening ski in the spring conditions, which rapidly became pretty damn cold spring conditions. On the way out to the end, I ran into the boys, who organized a ski on the club Whatsapp group, which I continue to still not get invited too. Sure, its all in Finnish, but.... well, I can't think of a but.

I WANNA BE PART OF THE COOL KIDS!

Hmm.... well that was definitely not the long Sunday run I was hoping for. Not even close. Ate too much pizza, sat around and watched too much ski jumping (too much being defined as anything > 0 minutes watching ski jumping), so later in the evening, I finally got out to run something, and was treated to basically my very own private version of Red Bull crashed ice. In that I didn't wear my studded shoes so I kept crashing on the ice. In the dark. Nice.

Well, on short notice I decided to ran the last race of the Talvijuoksusarja (Talvi=winter, juosta=run, sarja = well, guess) 10k. It was such a nice day outside and I felt like doing something fast so 5 euros later I had a number and was going to see what happens.

I didn't really know what to expect from the course, but I knew there would be several people faster than I, and many people around my speed, so I started off very conservatively to see who would be around me and how I would feel. I also learned that the first half of the 5k loop is... kind of downhill. Not totally downhill, but slightly more down than up, this was a bit of a personal concern because I kept suspecting that this loop was going to get worse before it gets better.....

But, through 4k or so, myself an 4 other guys were running together, and I was feeling very comfortable. We were cruising at around 3:30-ish pace, and my HR was around 165, but I felt relaxed, so I decided to see how a bit of an injection of pace would feel as we started the climb back towards the finish and the lap. It felt quite good for another 4k before the tough got going again, especially with the last two real climbs before the finish (and by climb, I mean, gaining about 10 meters over probably 200 meters or so).

Nevertheless, I was pleased how I was able to pace up a little bit and start cruising at around 3:20 or slightly lower for another 3-4k after the 4k mark. I managed to reel in the guy ahead of me quite well and then tried to accelerate again to try and crush his spirit a little.

That kind of result gives me a reasonable confidence I could challenge my 3k PB again, and at least maybe go sub 9:20. Sub-9:00? Probably not just now, but I think a good few months there's a chance of that. Things is once O+ season starts hopefully I'll be doing less flat running and more off-trail stuff, which is not necessarily always conducive for the track

Anyway, good stuff. 11 seconds off my PB. That happened in the middle of a 10 miler, so I guess I could argue this is "officially" my new PB? Happy with that, for March.

Warm-up, cool-down, mainly to make some nice round numbers.

Didn't get out on Thursday for Tempo Torstaina, so shifted it to Friday morning. With the snow mostly melted off the trail, it was a little bit easier to go fast. On the other hand, with all the snow melted, its quite clear exactly how much gravel these Finns put on the paths. Like, you can't see the pavement since its covered in an inch of pebbles. The really graveled the hell out of it.

Sure, it may not be loose footing because of snow, but its now loose footing with rocks. Still, a little bit faster for the tempo part, last week, 14k in about 1 hour, today, 14k in 57 minutes. I didn't feel as tired as last week, but I suspect the conditions still had a lot to do with the faster time. I actually don't look at my watch while doing the tempo part, I just try to hit a brisk pace, however fast that is.

An interminably long day within an interminably long week, so I guess I should consider myself lucky to get out and go for at least a bit of a run. It would seem that the weather has decided to stop being miserable (perhaps it hit its suicide quotient for one winter) and become really warm and sunny. Perhaps a little too sunny, since its probably spelling the beginning of the end for skiing, but it was really lovely out. FINALLY.

Track Tiistai Hipposhallissa. In light of having done the 8 x 1000m only 5 day ago, I didn't do the full workout Pavel had planned. He was doing 3x (1000, 600, 400) at progressively faster pace, but I just did two, because the last one was getting quite fast. Pretty crowded at the Hippos, and the weirdest part was the people who were doing some speed work on the track in the opposite direction. Their coach was there, so presumably it was intentional?

Who turns right on a track? Really.

Man, who schedules group meetings for Sunday at noon? Seriously. Lame. I probably should have gone for a workout in the morning, but things went a little too slowly and it didn't happen. Then after the meeting I ate a bit too much poor quality pizza, so this run was a not the most fun at some times. Shame to get in so little training on a Sunday. I haven't been able to get in many long runs lately, but with the snow melting and hopefully spring coming it will open on new places to run that's not on the road that I can run on for a longer time.

Snagged a lift over to Huutason for some skiing at my old NeljanVuorenHiihto stomping grounds. It was significantly faster conditions today, I basically skied the same speed as the 25k Sunday race, but I wasn't trying at all. Maybe my skis were better now, but the track was also lightning fast. We got back to the cars at 27k and I had to get to 30, just had to.

There's two older guys with Tera who don't speak very much English at all, and every time I see them there's this awkward look because they're too shy to want to speak English with me, and I'm too shy to want to speak Finnish with them, and so we just don't speak to each other at all. I'm resolved to be the person who tries first, but sure as hell this damn language ain't easy.

Wish I'd done an afternoon workout, though.

Mr Sorvisto was in town from Helsinki for the weekend, so I told him I'd meet him in Hippos for some 1000m repeats 8 times. Ran 3:34, 3:37, 3:30, 3:28, 3:23, 3:22, 3:18, and 3:16, all of which felt cruise-y and comfortable. I tried to make it seem SUPER comfortable because both Toni and Juha are coming off injuries and both claims were super gassed during/after this workout. And, well, they're really fast. So... mega ego-boost for me!

Another ski around Ladun Maija, with a bunch of legs only. I'm getting really tired of being wet all the time. Its not quite raining, not quite snowing, but everything is still getting worse. Theski conditions are still quite nice, but its not going to take very many more rain/snow days to make it much, much worse. I've had enough of fake winter. Bring on spring. Post-haste.

I wasn't a fan of the track workout planned for today (2 x 5000m), so I went off to find a hill to run up. Chose the one behind the Mustalampi (Mustalampin takana), which was a decent idea. About 90 seconds long, and took it briskly but not psychotically hard. Nice to do some hills, which is something I haven't done in a while. The season gets ever closer so this is just the start of the pace of training to ramp up a little.

Even if I can't make the volume increase, I can at increase the intensity. That's the goal, anyway. I also really enjoy napping.

C • . 4

I figure its high time to start bringing back some semblance of the "5 peaks" run I used to do. So far, I've only found 3 peaks, but with a little route tweaking I think I could have a few more peaks. The one on the Mattilaniemi campus is a good one, except about half of it is stairs. Not that I'm opposed to training hills on stairs, but Keskisuomi forests do not seem to have an abundance of stairs.

Remember my molasses ski the other day? Well, it got worse. I did an extra 3km, and it took me an extra 25 minutes. And, on average, my heart rate was higher. It was such hard work. When the snow gets all slushy and wet like that you can hear the suction on your skis. Would have been a nice day to have a special pairs of skis for me to structure the crap out of them. Alas, I do not.

My feet have been bothersome again lately, which really puts a damper on my enthusiasm to go for a longer run around the Jyvasjarvi. Its a delicate balance because whenever my feet feel better I get out running more and then they feel worse. I've yet to be able to find exactly how much running I can do and I just go back and forth. To make matters less fun, with the warm weather and rain, its like a weird pavement/snow/slush/ice mix where no particular shoe is very good. Not one of my 11 pairs. Shocking.