Training Log Archive: Frostbite

A longer walk from Frostavallen - the green route combined with the white route, maybe 12 kilometres. Some lovely bits of beech forest. 2 hours 15 minutes.

Walk - had a stroll round the lake at Frostavallen. 3.0 kilometres, 39 minutes.

o-ringen day 5. I made it into the chasing start, 63:17 down on the leader. The area was more like continental terrain, open beech forest with patches of low-visibility bushy trees and not much contour detail. I didn't have any palpitations, but my legs were knackered and I never got up much speed. I lost a bit of time trying (and failing) to save climb on the way to number 1 but was otherwise fine. I was never aware of anybody else on my course that I was racing with - most people around were running much faster than me so I was never with anybody for long. I don't know how I gained a place overall - I was 79th on the day, 13 minutes down, and went from 59th place to 58th overall, 74 minutes down.

A good week. At the start of the week I would have been happy just to complete all the days, so it was great to improve every day (well, apart from being too tired to run on day 5).

I am still recovering from the operation and there were bound to be ups and downs with palpitation troubles, but hopefully I am now improving again.

o-ringen day 4. Best day yet. The first 4 controls were in a very detailed area (lots of knolls, boulders and wiggly contours) where a lot of people lost time. I was very careful into #1 but still missed it - I thought I had identified the correct boulder but in retrospect I think this was probably a knoll about 20 metres short (boulders covered with a bit of vegetation tended to get mapped as knolls). Faffed around for a while before stumbling onto it, 1.5 minutes lost. After that I spiked everything and climbed from 77th at #1 to 37th at #4. From then on the orienteering was much easier and I lost places steadily to finish 45th, 12 minutes down.

No palpitation issues.

o-ringen day 3. Completely different area on sand dunes, mostly fast running with some open areas and some bare sand. I got palpitations on the way to #3 but I carried on pushing it anyway because I was enjoying myself. Mostly a good run but just struggling a bit with the running, and lost a bit of time at #6 where I wandered off line and had to go the long way round one of the many small OOB areas - 1 minute lost.

41st place, 8:45 down.

Palpitations stopped shortly after finishing.

o-ringen day 2. Much happier, ran more of the course and no mistakes. Palpitations started as soon as I finished but did not last long.

60th place, 18 minutes down.