Training Log Archive: ndobbs

Training on Nacka, on my own.

Washed dishes today. Finally got out the door and drove to Bagarmossen. Made two mistakes. There were flags at my first two controls, orienteers are so unoriginal.

Could have gone for a jog today but didn't. conference in the morning, boat trip in the afternoon, then cooking dinner for five... and eating :)

nothing like stewed rhubarb and whipped cream

C • Sounds good. 1

Past serious sickness, now at the serious tiredness stage. Got out of bed around lunchtime, felt reasonably good until I started walking in town, then exhausted. After I saw Boris to his bus I lay down on a bench for half an hour. Recovered sufficiently to show a lost Asian-American to her train to Kiruna, from where she was going to launch some balloons that were going to go to Canada measuring some particles on the way...

Then wended my weary way to the conference dinner (after only attending two talks in two days...) where I had a lovely meal and listened to lots of stories about my supervisor, since it was his sixtieth we were celebrating. Nice evening, good company and good food. Pity I wasn't drinking the wine.

definitely got sore throat today.
Missing: Jukola test today, Stockholm City Cup tomorrow, will I be ready for Jukola test 2 on Saturday?

How could I not have got it? Proper rest day on Wednesday with lots and lots of sleep? Not running on Sunday (at this stage it mayy have been too late). This work/run/sleep balance thing is a b**ch to get right.

C • Get well soon! 3

probably won't be running tomorrow... unless I can kill off the throat before it gets bad...

Back from my long, long weekend. Run-down. Just caught up on the main news story for the last few days:

A litany of horror.

Tour de Medelpad
Day 4

Retrospectively, I should perhaps not have run this. Verging on sore-throat territory.

Tried to run this reasonably well, despite being tired from the previous days' exertions. Obasen is swamped with requests today, so no winslipts, no runoway... yet...

1 - veered a bit right from the start, losing maybe 20s, then the control was up near the top of a fairly vague slope. Got to within 50m before I started hesitating, maybe another 10-20s lost.

2- good
3- rockier than it looked on the map. Swung a bit right to keep moving, then ended up having to cross a chasm, didn't want to jump because the grip on the other side wasn't assured and it was steep, so rather than retreat and go around, down and up, I made use of a fallen tree... survived... hesitant into the control - 10s

4-started way left... go back more or less on line, but then made my first proper mistake, bad visualisation, expected the reentrant to be higher and tighter, stupid. 1 minute total?

5 bad bad bad 1-2mins

6 good
7 ok
8 good
9 not good enough, downhill on a bland slope, hit a small hill (en route), right idea, but slow deciding I was where I was. 30s
10 sub-optimal route. too much green. nearly made a big mistake coming in.
11 good - apparently 3rd fastest split.
12 good, 5-10s choosing route
13 this was just stupid. I thought it was on the near side of a small col... but the col wasn't mapped, both contour and form-line were going the same direction... aggh 1min
14 guh

A good weekend of orienteering, good maps, terrain and courses. Should stand me in good stead, once I recover.

Discovered rather late that it was almost 3km to the start!

Tour de Medelpad
Day 3
H21E

Exhausted after the day before, remembered that I had forgotten my camelbak in Sthlm :)

It was won in 92:34 by E Rost. I didn't make too many balls of this, only a few mistakes of around a minute... route to 9 was v dodgy, possibly over a minute lost there, although it made the control easy.

Nearly dead before the second drinks control.

zzzzz





garmin distance 15km

Tour de Medelpad
Day 2
H21E

won in 80.30 by brolund ahead of petersen and rost.

Long, tough race. The second half was through a rock field, all I could do to keep moving. Gave myself a dead leg too, rolling sideways over a mossy rock.

No big, big mistakes, I think.



Garmin distance 14.35km

Tour de Medelpad
Day 1
H21E

Won in 34:31.

I still can' t run a fast clean middle with normal-high AHR (180s).
Made a balls of 1, not good to 2, but it was perhaps tough to do well... then ok for a while... mistake at 11 (route made the control tough, but no excuse for the mistake, stupid, 1 minute), bad to the last control too, would have been faster to flake it down to the path...

5 minutes lost? plus not pushing hard enough...

was going to do a bit of exercise bike today followed by stretching, but v tired. long long weekend ahead!

C • Long Weekend?? 5

3030 to Sack from Andrew's, then warm up to start.

Momentbana by Oskar, a la thierry

Forest Interval: .96km, 4:36
Corridor O: 1.2km, 13:57, this was tough, half-lost for some of it, not sure whether I left the corridor at one point... but it was fun!
Orienteering, 72m 45s
Forest Interval: 983m, 6:10, irection was hard to follow
Orienteering, contour orienteering, window o: 3.3km, 23:07 - this I did well... also lots of fun :)
Interval: 1.05km, 7:56, this was more line-o than running interval
Control Picking, 1.7km, 14:26, made one mistake on this one...

Really, really, really fun and good training session. Also felt much more comfortable reading a map...

C • em... 1

Närkedubbeln
Long Distance
Hyttebacken (contains Getingedalen)

Won in 1:34.
Winsplits at 20-20 sensitivity picks up on mmistakes at 9, 15 and 23, definitely my worst legs. 9 was annoying because I did it almost perfectly but didn't see the control, then faffed about for a bit. 15 was annoying because it was unnecessary, I just got distracted by the japanese guy I was overtaking. 23 was amusing, had been overtaken by a nykopings lad running strongly, so i switched off and decided to follow him to the last control, it was completely straightforward, but he went thirty degrees off. I heard a branch crack ahead and then a f******ck and thought he hurt himself, but when I got to where he had been and realised the mistake, I laughed :)

At 15-15, winsplits also picks up 19, where I zigzagged badly and also lost twenty seconds coming into the control. At 10-10, the only extra one is 11, where I didn't go off-line, but wasn't moving at all in the really really rough white forest. It would have been much faster and easier to do a triangular marsh route.

I also could have done better on controls 1, 3, 5, 7, 10 (lost a minute coming into the circle - 27 minutes for the leg!), 17, 20, 21... ouch.

Wonderfully tough terrain, low visibility.
Mapping norms: white = a foot of blueberry, heather and rocks; green = nice underfoot but maybe some trees in the way; blue = fast and runnable, but you might get your feet wet :)

out in the woods anything could be a troll

ut i skogen allt kan vara troll
här i min backe jag håller koll
står som alltid jag gjort
här i Trolldalens port
Uvens öga är mitt protokoll

Bubo bubo was nearby

C • Bubo bubo was nearby... 1

Närkedubbeln
Middle Distance, Getingedalen

48:23, won in 33:58, so I didn't exactly cover myself in glory. HR shows I wasn't running hard enough, but I couldn't in that terrain. Need to learn to read a map better - mistakes (some small) at 3, 4, 6, 7, 14 (14 was big, almost two minutes) and running too hesitantly on 2, 11, 12.

It was lovely terrain and mapped better than usual. Andrew ran a stormer, 36 something.

Blankhult Syd

evening training with Andrew. There was a stock of maps from 1992 in the cabin mapped in the old style, less contour detail and no forest vegetation mapped (apart from a couple of veg changes, but no green). So it was very similar to running on a contour-only map.

It was lots of fun, the first control was tough because it was there was a big manky area in between the start and it, but after the second control it was all pretty straight-forward. Had to stop on the way to the 5th to let a big moose mama and a wee moose calf wander out of my way. I had a really good view of them, not too far and really open forest with no vegetation in the way, 'twas beautiful.

One of the most fun sessions this year.

on the second yellow loop I spotted a deer a little bit ahead. Then I heard a mighty bark, so I slowed down, thinking either the deer was a strange-looking dog or the deer was for it and I shouldn't get involved. As I approached, the wee deer gave another bark or two and trotted away. I chased it for a bit.

Felt good.

5 before, 31 after, jogging from haga to stadion

Stockholm City Cup
Haga Norra

Still haven't recovered from Monday night's exertions. Only arriving back to the flat just before midnight yesterday didn't help matters much. Got over eight hours of sleep anyway, but that wasn't enough. I left my orienteering clothes at home, despite bringing shoes, si card and all, so I had to come home after work, get changed and go directly to Haga Norra instead of running there. Changed my start time cos I was an hour late.

Didn't run well, unsurprisingly. Some bad routes, got lost at the third control, didn't spike a few others.

Winner ran just over fifteen, impressive! It was hilly, especially if you chose my routes :)

Tired when I went to college today. The seminar was excellent, by an american who is famous for moving to sweden to play table tennis.

The colloquium talk, also v interesting, was by Harry Kesten, who wouldn't have produced reams of probability theory if the nasties had had their wicked way.

A one in ten year occasion to drink:

Pouilly-Fumé 2006 (Serge Dagueneau et ses Filles)

Rasteau "Les Blovacs" 2003
(Dom. Santa Duc)

Montbazillac 2005
(Ch. de Fagé)

Dows LBV 2003

President's daughter was sitting opposite me. She's gonna be the spit of her mum!

Ended up in Lily's after!

C • Damn! 4

First time up the Sugarloaf!

Went up with Jenny, a one-time mathematician who has seen the light.
It was lovely.

A few more photos.
The noise from the N11 was unreal on the east side of the summit, on the west side, only a couple of metres away, it was inaudible. I think walking in the hills is good leg strength training. Pity there aren't any in sthlm.

C • You're kidding? 1

2 hours of raking and picking up stones

down to Woodstown for an easy jog to remind me what running is... stayed on the soft sand as much as possible cos it's tougher running :)

went in to bank of ireland.
I put some money in an investment fund a couple of years ago, just before the peak. Asked how it was doing, down 30%. Great. "Oliver" from BofI then wrote down when it started, the current year and said "oh, you're in a good position". I asked him to explain. He said I had time to make a reasonable return over five years. I asked what a reasonable return was: 4% apparently. So he wrote down 20% on his piece of paper... I said compound... he assented. So I asked did he really expect the fund to grow almost 100% in the next two years. He did a politician, you're in a good position, that's my opinion, not that of bank of ireland, my personal opinion, you're in a good position. I asked him if he wanted to revise his opinion, given the facts, he said no, that was his personal opinion. I summarised his arguments, told him it was scandalous, that I knew more maths than he did and that I'd eat him for breakfast if he spouted any more of that. He offered to get the manager.

He was a young lad, apparently did financial maths in galway. Doesn't say much for nuig if you end up as a salesman in a bank after. But he didn't appear particularly talented.

Strikes me as strange how people believe that when you lose money in investments you haven't lost the money until you sell up. It's like saying you don't lose money playing the lottery until you stop buying tickets. Expected growth from now has no dependence on when you invested money.

Didn't get much else done today. Tried finding a shop in town to buy a board game (Carcassonne, recommended!). Apparently there are no longer any shops in town where one can buy games, one has to take the car out to the Cork/Tramore road where there are two toy shops. Neither of them any real selection of board games, just Scrabble, Chess, Monopoly and maybe Risk and a couple of others which looked crap. Apparently the money is in dolls and action men. Depressing. So I ordered on amazon.de, Dad'll have the added pleasure of deciphering the rules from German :)

C • Awh maths debates, i'm usua... 6

down to woodstown and back before lunch. tyres pumped, but next to no brakes :)

from the IOC event report:

"IOC09, set in the lower reaches of the Blue Stack Mountains, was
the site of the c.4500BC battle between the Fir Bolgs and the sinister
Formorians (they went underground after their defeat to beget the Sidhe [fairy
people]). Loch Beal Sidhe marks the entrance to the Celtic underworld. Tamhan a
Fhuile is the bloody land of ponds which describes this battle. The main height
of Croagh a Meeneragh (even shaped mountain) dominates Benson's Hill which was
named after a cruel land agent."

C • Dad has informed me that... 1

gardening :)

This is a planned rest week, little or no running, maybe a little cycling if my old nike works. Cmae down to my parents' in waterford. Lovely weather, scenery etc.

Slightly less rbain-dead after sleeping on the bus.

Rest Day
Could have run a leg of the Relay Champs, but without a team and with the wild, wet and windy weather and what with me being wasted physically after the day before and my knee problem, definitely not a good idea to run.

Brain-dead all day. Wasted. Incapable of coherent thought. Wasted.

Strangely, my knee barely hurt *after* the classic. It was sore before. Running in bog for 100 minutes appears to be good for me.

IOC Classic Distance
Tawnawully, Lough Eske, Co. Donegal

Wow this was a race. The first leg was short, then a long wild leg across the open mountain to let us know it would be tough. No easy route, so close to straight, a little contouring, a visit to the 9th control to get me in good spirits and the control wasn't too hard.

We had 16 controls in 11km, and maybe 9 of those averaged a kilometre each. With wet marsh and bog and spongy uphills it was going to be tough. Jumping across the peat hags was the toughest.

I made a balls of the fourth, lost over three minutes. In general, I was really bad up until that point. Afterwards I somehow got my ass more or less in gear. Rather strangely, it was on the longer legs (10, 11, 12, 14) later in the course that I was losing the least time (on Marcus, he was flying). I enjoy bog-trotting too much. Surprisingly, I overtook Colm Rothery jogging up the marsh to the 12th. That felt good - he came third last year. On the other hand, he's 49 :)

I messed up the 12th in the circle, Colm too (my fault?), hesitant on the short leg to thirteen, sped up again to a jog to fourteen, fifteen was flat/down so running again... spectacularly lost 10 or 20 seconds on the last control... brain rot...

Marcus won in a very impressive 84 minutes. Colm Hill took 95(!). Ruairi was a minute down on me, then there was a big gap to fifth.

Routegadget

This was the most physically draining race I've run in a long time. We had a 2km walk/jog back to the car afterwards. I arrived at the car wasted. Ate a banana. Ate a banana. Ate a banana. Got changed, went to the community centre... found out my time wasn't (relatively) as bad as I had expected. Strange but good. Ate a big plate of rice and beef stroganoff. Ate a big plate of pasta and mashed potato. Started feeling like my stomach wasn't empty.

Cold for several hours, despite Colm O'Halloran's donation of an extra fleece. Missed prize-giving due to shopping-duties... didn't get to shake hands with the tánaiste :(
Attended the rest of the AGM -
Ivan Millar is the new Director of High Performance Orienteering, which is a good thing.

Lost the table quiz.
Got home 11.30... brain-dead.

C • Congrats 4

to and from start/finish. Probably 40 minutes total...

Course 1 - Splits

Event: Irish Orienteering Championships
 

IOC Middle Distance

Made a right balls of this. Tried a little mental preparation the night before and the morning of, tried to imagine myself orienteering well, finding controls with flow, running with good rhythm, nothing. Mind was blank. Nothing.
Marcus ran 35, top class. Nick S second, Darren did well to come third in 40xx. Then Andrew, Shea, me in four seconds, in that order :(

On the course, I got around, but made mistakes, bad mistakes, had little or no flow. Depressing. But it was lovely.

Knee sore. Long walk/jog back to the car park.



The Icebugs were magical!
-----
What colour is the other sock? Bog is great :)

Murvagh beach, Co. Donegal, with Andrew.

Lovely, except that my knee was well sore.