Training Log Archive: BorisGr

Rest day.

Ukraine Training Camp Day 7 AM

Our last training of the camp - a course on Novoselki, another map that will be used in the Ukrainian Champs and WOC trials in a few weeks. Nice course, nice woods - more runnable and not as steep as Vyshgorod had been, with a number of good route choice legs. I ran most of this with Rob and Shep, splitting up and coming together once in a while. Very tired from the whole week's training by the end.

This was an awesome camp, and I am really thankful to the Australian team for letting me come along. I had a blast and learned a lot, both in terms of orienteering and culture. I can now use in conversation such vital expressions as "old mate", "bloody oath", "arvo", and "sanga." And I even learned how to refer to myself in the plural, as in "Give us a kiss, luv!"

Just to summarize, over the course of the week we ran on 11 maps, 5 of which will be used for Ukrainian WOC trials; covered 62.9km of courses and found 199 controls. We also consumed on the order of 200 dumplings, 80 honey cakes, 10 different varieties of potato (including "like in country"), 30 cheese blintzes (mostly Jules), and around 100 espressos. We experienced 1 Russian sauna, were hit on (mostly Rob) by 1 gay waiter and by 2 fourteen-year-old girls (mostly Shep), and were turned down by 2 hookers (again, mostly Shep.) We were chased (unsuccessfully) by 1 parking fee collector, about 10 stray dogs, and about 1 gay waiter. Between the five Australians, about 4 words in Ukrainian were learned.

C • US Team 14

Ukraine Training Camp Day 6 AM

The first few controls plus the controls I hung on Zazime.

Ukraine Training Camp Day 6 AM

Orienteering intervals on Zazime, the most enjoyable map we've run on so far. Nice, fast forest almost the entire way, a lot of contour detail, but the excellent visibility made orienteering relatively simple. For each interval, one of us would run ahead and hang 3 controls. The others would wait about 3 minutes, and then start in 30-second intervals and run those three controls. This was really good training - it's impoirtant to get an idea of the maximum speed you can actually navigate at in this terrain. It looks like middle distance at WOC will be fast and furious, with even small mistakes severely penalized, and legs going into the green areas requiring a change of tactic, with slower speeds and more carefully chosen attack-points. I am looking forward to it!!

Warming up and collecting controls afterwards.

Ukraine Training Camp Day 6 PM

A sprint race at Solomenskiy Park, another city park in the middle of Kiev. The map also includes an urban ghetto part, while the actual park had some really steep gullies and slopes, tons of trash in the woods as usual, and fewer than average stray dogs. It's being used for one of the sprint races at the Ukrainian Champs.
This was my most abysmal session this week. I started out ok, but my legs were tired from the morning, and I had no power on the hills at all. Add to that a few hesitations in the control circle, and Shep caught me by #10. After that, I dumbly watched him make a mistake, going off a trail into the control at a bad angle, and followed blindly, not trusting myself. I suppose this is exactly what happens when you try to run at a speed you can't navigate at - the first mistake of every beginner orienteer! After another mistake on 12, I staggered into the finish over 3 minutes behind Troy's winning time!

Things to work on in the next couple of months:
- strength on hills
- speed endurance (maybe more tempo runs, long intervals?)

Event: US Team Trials
 

Warming up and picking up controls

Ukraine Training Camp Day 5 AM

A mass start sprint race at Nivki, a park in the middle of Kiev. We ran together with a group of deaf orienteers who are coached by Vassili, the guy who helped organize our camp. The deaf kids blasted out of the start, and I had trouble keeping up, but luckily they started dropping pretty quickly, and by the 3rd control, the four Australians and I were in front. Troy and Jules got ahead, and I tried to stay with Rob and Shep for as long as I could. Was pretty pleased to finish about 30 seconds back of them. Jules won in 14:58. This park was a mix of city park and urban ghetto, which made for a nice change of pace. My legs felt pretty good running for the first time this week, though my hamstring flared up and stayed painful for most of the week as well.

Ukraine Training Camp Day 5 PM

Control-picking in the afternoon at Tsvetovodstvo, probably the least enjoyable map of the whole week. The few nice pieces were mixed in with areas of thick green with low visibility and no features. The sketchy mapping didn't help either, and the used hypodermic needle Jules almost stepped on in the parking lot set the mood pretty well.

Ukraine Training Camp Day 4 AM

Just one session today, since everyone was pretty tired. Ran a course on another nice middle distance area, called the Bird Factory. Pretty flat, with areas of contour detail (small hills and depressions, pits, etc) and very fast woods at times. Also, some overgrown clearings and areas of brambles in the form of raspberry bushes. Feels pretty cool to be running under 7 min/km without really pushing the pace. Times at WOC will be fast!!!

Ukraine Training Camp Day 3 AM

Julian had requested a 15km-long course on Vyshgorod, one of the maps that will be used for the Ukrainian champs later this month, but as soon as we saw the map, we knew that none of us would manage the whole 15km. The map is riddled with numerous, intricate and steep erosion gullies, the sides of which are very soft, making climbing slow and tiring. We ended up running the first two loops mostly as a group and then split up to pick up a few controls each.

Warming up, cooling down, and picking up controls for the sprint.

Ukraine Training Camp Day 3 PM

A sprint course at Babiy Yar, a park comprising a mental asylum and an area where Nazis executed thousands of Ukrainian Jews in 1941.

While we were changing next to a broken-into sepulchre, a couple of 14-year-old girls started hovering around us and chatting with us in Russian. They took a particular liking to Shep and promised to learn English by the time he is back in Kiev in August. One of them asked him to write his phone number on her butt.

Oh yeah, and we orienteered some too. I got the copy of the map that Brett had used to plan the courses, so it had tons of extra controls and crossed-out legs on it, making for a good session to focus on keeping concentrated and not losing sight of my place on the course. Didn't really make any big mistakes, just felt dead the whole way. The terrain was a mix of pretty thick woods with steep hillsides and gullies and open, fast parkland. Quite enjoyable, actually. Jules won in just under 13 minutes.

Ukraine Training Camp Day 2 AM

Jogging around the first loop of a course on one of the middle distance maps.

Ukraine Training Camp Day 2 AM

Running the second loop "hard" - I felt like I was pushing hard, but had no speed at all. Some of the other guys reported similar feelings - probably not too surprising after the weird sleep schedule forced by Tiomila.

Jogging and collecting some flags afterwards.

Ukraine Training Camp Day 2 PM

After spending the lunch break huddling and trying to keep warm around a fire our driver Vassili started in the parking lot, we went out on another nearby middle distance map and did a regular course on it. I was running well in the beginning, but made a 90-degree error going to #6, when I strarted orienting the compass by one of the rides on the map, rather than a north line. I followed this with a parallel error on #7, the two mistakes costing about 5 minutes total - my biggest mistakes of the camp, I think.