Training Log Archive: Swisscheese

Jog... felt good. I am optimistic for this weekend.

Core strength.

Head cold. Bad enough that I prefered sparing my patients... spend my day at home... blah.

C • medicine 3

Not feeling well. Sore throat. Tired.

Sore throat. Tired.

6x5min intervals with Severin Howald and Baptiste in the Jura. Mostly I orienteered quite well, but in this terrain it is really challenging to stay clean the whole time.

Corridor orienteering... had my troubles... fortunately Baptiste would catch me up when I was lost and put me back on the right track :-)

2x short distance training in the Jura with Baptiste. First went quite well, then I had to struggle with the cold temperatures and I didn't manage to orienteer well.

Core strength.

Strength workout. Focus on legs.

Morning jog to the bakery.

C • :-) :-) :-) 2

Bike tour with my dad.

Core strength. Focuse on legs.

Back home Baptiste and I joined the kids training. I shadowed Pascal... who when he used well his compass was navigate so well!

Last training of our camp.
2x relay start in Mt-Noir with the French team.
Messed up the mass start. I wasn't focused enough at the start and then searched 1.5minutes the first control. The rest went pretty well.

Intensive training in Lamoura.
Chasse Patate... a french training form where we had 8 starts in a row. The first who arrives at the finish has 1 minute recovery before the start for the next wave is given... meaning the later you arrive, the less recovery you have and if you have more than 1 minute delay you don't get any rest.
I managed to get 4 times first and Thierry won the other 4 "races".

Corridor training in Le Communal de l'Abbaye.
Perfect weather, good course and fun terrain... but tired...

We moved from le Vercors to Chapelle-des-Bois where we joined the french team for 3 days training.
Training in Mont-Noir. Not feeling too well.

Core strength before breakfast with Kybi and Baptiste... tough.

Mini 2 hour Rogaine competition. Baptiste and I made a team. From our 3rd control we saw a fabulous mountain looking out of the clouds. We thought we would have time to visit its summit in the 2 hours... well, because of our overtime and no further control we managed to get minus 70 points. Dead last, but a wonderful long jog.

C • Love it 5

O training on the Raphael Poiré Ski arena. Again, great terrain, but only ok map.

Middle distance in "Herbouilly". Great terrain, but aweful map. On the first 9 controls I searched for 15 minutes. Finally I managed to find a way to use the "map" and set the turbo.

Kick off of our first WOC 2011 training camp in the Vercors.
Physically not feeling too good. Still feeling the marathon in my legs and more probably the 6 hour drive.

Day outside testing our orienteering juniors from the regional team.
They did great... and I am glad I didn't have to do there physical tests today. Feeling ok during the day, but by 4pm I totally crashed, like seldom before.

C • physical tests 3

Warm up.
So many people everywhere and the athletes presentation 15min before the start make it difficult to have a good warm up... on the other hand, the race goes for 3hrs... no need to be super ready... just need to get rid of all the internal extra weight/potential burden.

Jungfrau-Marathon.
After 2007, this is the second time I am taking part. Again, this year the conditions are just superb, wonderful blue sky allowing amazing views over the three siblings: Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau.
The first 25km are rather flat (300m climb), you stay on the bottom of the valleys, than the actual mountain race starts. First with a short (2km, 300m) super steep “cold shower” up to Wengen, than you gradually climb into the mountain world, getting closer and closer to the impressive glacier covered mountains. At kilometer 39 you get a last kill for your legs, 350m climb over 1.5km before finishing the last 2km on a gentle downhill slope.
In total you cover the actual marathon length of 42.2km and 1830m of climb.
The participation limit is set at 4000 runners. Every race edition it is easily fully booked. On the whole 42km you have people cheering you on, and in every village (agglomeration of a few mountain chalets) you have a crowd waiting for us runners to pass and give us shivers while they shout our name. And there are certainly more bands (gugge music) than refreshments controls on the course, giving you just as much motivation to get to the top.
Well, this is not only a race, it is a big party, celebrating a crazy physical challenge through an amazing alpine region. And it was certainly with a lot of honor, but also a little pressure that I was wearing the bid number 1.

In 2007 I finished the race in 3:13. I was then coming out from a stomach flu (WOC Ukraine...) and had to throw up twice during the race. Furthermore I also had some low iron issues during the spring and my training basis was not as good as this year. For those reason I planned to be much faster this year. I thought that a sub 3hrs05min would be a "normal" performance, but I would try to aim a sub 3hrs time. OK, I was wearing the number 1, but you can't influence the others and the field was extremely strong (for example Arslan Ahmed from Turkey who is most often the strongest non- African in normal distance mountain running races, Marco De Gasperi: 5 time mountain running world champ in normal distance and a whole crowd of Kenyans who run the flat marathon faster than I can dream of). That is why I decided to only focus on my time plan and use that as my goal.
The first 10km went really well. I passed in 33:40, feeling fresh. A group of Kenians had already broken far away from the leading group of about 15 runners. I was about 15seconds behind, because I took my time to have a big refreshment (walking for several steps) at km 7. By km 11, I could catch up again with the group, but than they did a short spurt up a steepish hill. I let them go away thinking that I would try to avoid burning any unnecessary glycogen. I was then alone for the next 15km. I ran my own race; unfortunately I could tell that my calf and right quad muscle where surprisingly stiff. I reckoned, I would have to be careful not to get any troubles with them. Once we got to the hills at km 25, I was happy to realize that my muscles were actually doing better uphill. I won again some confidence and started going up in my rpm… it was also necessary, I was only 16th and a few seconds behind my time schedule to run under 3hrs. I caught the first runners who lost the contact to the leading group until I settled my pace down together with the Italian Hermann Achmüller and the British Huw Lobb into a steady state rhythm. Between km 32 and 37 we passed tons of runners who seemed to be “glued to the trail”, but I didn’t pay too much attention. Now again my legs where giving signals of alert and I had to listen carefully to them.
Getting at km 39 (Wixi), at the bottom of the steepest part of the race, I had moved up to 4th and just on the edge of making the 3hrs limit (maybe already 1min late). I knew that from this point on I would succeed in getting into the finish. So I started pushing hard, passed quickly number 3 and 2 and continued running hard, the 3hrs limit was at stake! Suddenly, bang, at km 40.5, just before the end of the hill, I noticed my calf closing and cramping up. This was the end of my attempt to beat the watch. At first, I was actually most concerned about getting into the finish at all. I have never had cramps before. It feels frightening to lose control over your muscles, so short before the finish. I stretched for 1-2 seconds and realized with relief that the muscles let go. From there on, I finished the race just jogging, still a bit scared of my dysfunctional muscles.
Finally, I crossed the line in 3hrs03min01sec, 6min18sec behind Marco De Gasperi. I am very proud of finishing 2nd in such a prestigious race. In my eyes maybe the most prestigious mountain race I know of. And because this year’s runner field was exceptionally strong, it makes it even nicer to be on the podium. But for some odd reason that I cannot understand why all our times were quite slow. I have beaten several runners who have ran that race under 3hrs in the previous years, but today they were considerably slower, even though the conditions seemed really good.
Personally, I think I am in the best shape I have ever been. I have been training now for more than a year with high motivation and without any injuries. But I can say that the 12 days before the race where not 100% optimal. On several days I noticed the first symptoms of a cold and felt constantly tired. It was actually only (fortunately) 2 days before the race that I felt normal again. My today’s performance was the best I could do on that day, but I like to think that it wasn’t the best I can do with my general shape I am in right now. I hope I will get another chance to play again with the 3hrs limit.

C • Grosser Respekt! 15

Mine-Ex run. A fund raising race taking part in Interlake one day before the Jungfrau Marathon. The raised money goes towards mine victims.

Sandra is sick and I am not feeling too well either. It has been several days that I am more tired than normal and my throat is also hurting.
Went for an easy jog. It felt good and energizing.

Soft core strength.

Morning jog.

Intervals with Christophe along the lake.
10x1min. Warming up and cooling down felt aweful. For some odd reason I am qutei tired! At least I felt alrigth during the intervals.

C • Tired? 1

Club training in Serroue. Great training. Really tough (map without trails, almost night because of heavy clouds)... sometimes it was a bit a treasure hunt because it was so dark.
I felt really tired.

Some core strength. Focuse on legs.

Warm up and cool down.

National O competition and team trial for the WC in France and Switzerland.
Forest: Scheidwald. Cool terrain!
Finished third, behind 2x Kyburz.
Good legs (on the O course and anatomically speaking). But lost the chances for a win because of too many imprecisions... happier than yesterday, today I was able to do higher speed o-ing on longer stretches of the course.

Warm up /cool down.

Swiss middle dist champs.
A bit frustrating o-ing. I was never able to have a flow over a longer period of time. Many small mistakes.

Core strength... once again... in ages.

Recovery jog.

Recovery jog. Also a fully charged day... no more time.

Killer training with Christophe: 3x17.5min just below treshold, followed by 3x3min.
Real tough, but we were quite happy at the end.

C • nice one!! 5