Training Log Archive: W

My muscles woke up this morning and remembered I did that Herveton yesterday. So, the idea was to go for a light shake out jog for maybe an hour or so to make myself less sore. Unfortunately I ran into Jarkko who was going for a bike ride after his knee surgery. And he's irrepressibly nice, so he promptly gave me a tour of the ski trails around Laajavuori and my workout ended up being a bit brisker and going for 1.5 hours.

It was good, though, I learned about the general 'round the mountain' trails, and got a better sense of where I was at most points relative to the base of the hill. Saw the Vuorilampi (mountain lake) which has one of those dry ramps for the aerials guys into the lake. You can stand at the top and it looks INSANE.

Anyway, I think I'll be slightly more sore after that run, but its always great when someone forces you to do some bonus training, especially on a nice day like that.

Hervoton!

What is a Hervoton? No idea. But this day it was a really sweet ultra-long distance race down in Jamsa. It was measured at 18.15 k, with 42 controls. Basically everyone from Tera was planning on using it as a nice comfortable training, which was my plan too. Don't kill myself too much, but work on good habits and mental focus (the mental focus only appeared about 3/4 of the way through).

We ran one side of a map to control 18, and then did a 1:2500 box, followed by 32-42. Amazingly, it was all at 1:10000 too. I would have really liked it at 1:15, but this was nice too. Plenty of variety, some flat areas, some rocky areas, some hillsides. I made a dumb mistake at 5 and lost the train of Teemu, Toni, and Jani (well, I was really more like the wobbly caboose), but that was really okay because then I did a ton of independent navigation. In general the solution was "go straight", with a few exceptions. I made a dumb mistake at 13 when my mind started to wander, and I have difficultly distinguishing when its "grey rock" or "white forest" or "open", sometimes these tend to blur into similar looking areas.

Aside from that, I just happily mosey-d on my way, generally being very clean and just not moving very fast. On a few legs I had absolutely no idea where I was, but trusted my direction and I picked up things along the way. I'm really not comfortable doing that, but I just need to remember to have a final destination, and not worry too much about the stuff in the middle. (Remember? Release myself from the icy grip of "feature paranoia").

I'm really, really bummed, though, that my GPS crapped out 2/3 of the course. I think I can no longer take laps at controls, because eventually that'll cause the watch to think the battery is dead and sometimes eat my workout. I'm close to just trying to get a new GPS. The 620 is nice but apparently has terrible accuracy, or I could try the new Suunto Ambit 3 coming out right away here, but my last Suunto, the T6 was a total dud.

So, I had to guesstimate the distance since my watch stopped tracking at the end of the box at 14.4k, but with the course being 18.15 and generally going straight, I'm guesstimating about 20.5. Nice!

Interesting side note, Strava and Garmin Connect actually disagree about how far I went. Garmin says 14.33, Strava says 14.44. This isn't the first time they've put different informationm (the elevation is always wildly different), especially when my watch eats the workout. How does that happen?

Played floorball instead of running.

I told them I'd never played before, but that's not true, I've played once before.

SHHHHH DON'T TELL ANYONE.

Sometimes things go so well.

Until the don't. And then you do a 180 and get totally lost in the dark and your only way to relocate is to find the lake. Oh yeah, and you're on an island.

That's pretty much how Kurko Cup #3 went. I was actually quite pleased until 7-8, which was a long leg back along the hill-top to the hub control. Once again, I decided to branch off on my own, and immediately lost contact and all the other lights. After looking at my GPS track, it turns out I was on the right track, THEY were actually going too far right. But, then I hit was I thought was the second distinct vegetation boundary, and I tried to follow along the edge of it go around. It was actually the first one, and it extended in weird ways that caused to start sort of going back the way I came (the doing a 180) part. I had a lengthy argument with my compass, as it kept doing weird things, or possibly it was me doing the weird things. I think I had decided to bail back to the road, but bailed the wrong way, and I generally stopped paying attention to the contours as well.

Slowly but surely I ran off the map, until I hit the lake, then followed it along until I got to some place I recognized (HALLELUJAH), and then I continued on.

Humiliation and frustration tempted me to quit then, but I realized that that would be totally stupid and might as well mean I should just pack up and go back to Canada. I'm not here to quit, so I tried to brush it off, have a nice brain cry, and then continue on.

Things went fairly well after that, in fact, I was able to spot big features on the map and in the terrain, and stayed pretty well on my compass, except at the end on one control when I lost confidence in my direction and turned back too soon.

So, in all, a *little* better. Except that one bit. I know people who look at it in a binary way - either you make a mistake or you don't. Size is irrelevant. That feels nice right about now.

Oof, I had a real tough time getting going tonight. Felt a little tired, amotivated, and all around lethargic. But, have to get out anyway. I decided to explore some of the single track trails on the maki right behind my house. There's plenty of little trails, very twisty and kind of rocky. It could be a nice little area to work on my agility and speed on rough terrain. Its also fun enough that on days like this when I'm not too motivated, it still feels like a mildly productive 30 minutes. Just dancing around, some light agility and strength, and hopefully more than anything, some confidence.

In my ankles.

So, Strava obviously has some major issues with climb. I tend to use it more than Garmin Connect these days, because I hate the Garmin layout, but it seems way more accurate on climb. Strava seems to think each run I do has about 500m of climb, which.... no. Just, no. Definitely not.

Tried doing intervals around the Soidenlampi loop for the first time (lampi means pond). I had no idea how long the loop was or how long it would take, so my aim was to do it at pace brisk and then see how it goes. The loop is about 3.8k, and took me 14:08 and 14:44. So, I only did two, and I expect I'll run this trail/loop quite a lot. Its not as roll-y as SWC, but its got a bit of flowy-ness to it, and its quite smooth but still soft. I think good for running fast but not hurting my legs like I would on pavement.

Anyway, hovered around 155 bpm the entire time, occasionally I felt a little troubled, especially after the short steep climb at the far end of the loop, but still quite comfortable. I think I'll private Strava segment so I can see how long it'll take me each time.

Only problem is that over the winter it will probably become ski trails so I won't really be able to use it as a long interval tempo loop over the winter. Oh well.

Still a bit of a cough. Not cool.

Its been a while sent I've felt remarkably good while on a run. For some reason, I'm still coughing every now and then. But, tonight I felt chipper and pretty brisk while running, and the pace felt very comfortable. Couldn't get my stomach to settle entirely, but I was happy to be out, by myself, and only kind of got lost before ending up exactly where I didn't expect to be, but actually not lost. That was weird an unexpected.

Now, two weeks for some nice training until some race in Ottawa! Long distance next weekend, a track workout in there, and hopefully a bit of terrain running. Maybe get my sister to help me with some ankle stability and strength too. Yep, great idea. Point for execution? Possibly low.