Training Log Archive: igoup

Mathias and I ran a course in his neighborhood that Helsingborg OK raced a couple of weeks ago. It was maybe 600m to the start and the finish was only 100m away from home. A mix of "park O" type terrain and a forest for a total fo 13 controls and 3.8km. The mapper neglected to put little red rasberry symbols on the map and now my legs are all scratched and bloody. The universal veg. symbol for nettles was also neglected so I have some fun stinging. But besides that, it was a lot of fun and I felt like I'm waking up finally.

WU & CD

Malin's dad Tommy provided us with maps and courses of an area to be used for the Skana ultra-long championships later this year. I've put a box around the area we ran in. The nicest forest I've visited in the two weeks of orienteering that I have done. Not quite as much details as some of the competition days but some really beautiful open forest. We had a nice cool rain to make the O experience complete. Great day to be in the forest with friends. However, I'm still very sleepy and generally fatigued.

Malin, Mathias, Lisa and I went to Helsingor late in the afternoon, while Elias stayed with Aunt Sophie. We first toured around Kronborg Castle (Hamlet) before walking around old town with houses from the 1600's. Had dinner at a nice Tai restaurant, where I had my fourth beer of the trip.

Elias hung out with marfar (Grandpa on mom's side), while we took a trip to Ladonia. We climbed to the highest points of two of the towers. Then we went and visited Kullan Fyr, which is the wester most point of the Skjalder Viken (large bay north of Helsingborg). Watched a rain storm blow up the bay but it missed us.

We had plans to hit a map today but we are beat. Decided on a training nap instead.

We're in Helsingborg visiting Malin, Mathias, and Elias. Some serious cloths washing is going on.

ORingen Day 5

A bit of a mix of the detailed terrain of day's 1-3 and the glacial terrain of day 4. Started under sunshine and finished under lightning.

Best race of the week -- I'm am proud of this one. I told myself beforehand, "I'm going to concentrate the heck out of this course." Even though this was a chase start I was not going to worry about other runners. Wasn't perfect, but overall I did a good job.

ORingen Day 4

New forest, different terrain. Some kettle-moraine type terrain but overall, a runner's course. Got suckered into running too fast and abandoned all my good skills from yesterday. Lots of misses and corrections. Placing in class is high because I have some "wheels" but I consider this my weakest race so far.

Day 3 ORingen

"Rest day" with a short course of only 3.8km. The most technical O course I can remember doing in a while. Had my map and compass right in my face the whole time. The O gods must have been guiding me to C5 because I swear I didn't know where I was but I spiked it. Messed up C10 and C11 requiring relocating and reattacking. But otherwise, I am very happy with my effort.

Day 2 ORingen.

Nicer day weather wise. Nicer day O wise. Bungled C10 and C11 for a loss of a good 8 minutes but I'm happy to not have any huge race ruining booms. Other controls were good and I did a better job of ignoring other runners, extraneous trails, maintainin disciplined technique.

Getting internet access was a bit of a challenge and I didn't have time to log. I'm going to be pretty terse as I try to remember and catch up.

Day 1 of ORingen. A bit chilly, windy, and raining. Forest is a bit trashed in places due to forestry work after winter storms. Wet and muddy.

Ok race. Had my share of mistakes but I'm happy with the effort for my first O Ringen. Technique wasn't very disciplined -- have to do better tomorrow.

Event: O-Ringen
 

Met Lisa in Copenhagen yesterday morning. Unfortunately, her luggage was lost. Latest update is that it arrives in Linkoping tonight and will hopefully be delivered tomorrow.

We arrived at our leased apartment in the late afternoon. Eddie cooked Shrimp Creole for dinner last night for us.

Model event today. Very detailed terrain. I'm going to right the letter S all over my arm to hopefully remind myself to run "slow". I need to add a bunch of Cs as well so that I mind my "compass." Ran in to Sandra in the forest and chatted briefly. Tero ran by me multiple times; he kept wanting to stop and discuss routes but I was in a good flow and didn't want to break it.

Lisa has press priveledges (she is writing a story for "Nordic Reach") and went to the press briefing. She ask Tero a question and got her picture taken with him. Also got her picture with the Per Frosberg dude who does the Tio Mila commentary (bald guy who looks like he's been up for 24 hours even at the start of the race).

Tuesday night as weaved my home home I had an idea... which just goes to show that a beer now and then is a good idea.

Results of the first North Texas vs Zurich Sprint Championships Dual Meet

Team TX swept all three races to claim the championships.

Zurich sprint 1
Zurich sprint 2
Courses defined by the vertices. Area is the historic district of central Zurich of mostly walking streets and alleys.

The google map was surprisingly good at showing almost all of the small alleys. There were a few missing, but not many. Complicated junctions were quite generalized and that made picking the right road challenging. Also, the map doesn't indicated that some roads were road sized, able to hold a couple of cars if need be, while others were very narrow alleys. There were also a fair bit of stairs and elevation changes.

I did sprint 1 forwards and backwards. I ran sprint 2 just once. I got up at 5:45 so that I could get down to the area and run before there were a lot of people about to get suspicious. Scared one pigeon causing it to fly into a window.

WU, jog between sprints, and run home along the river.

Couldn't resist stopping at the swimming docks along the Limmat. Jumped in wearing my running shorts and started swimming against the stiff current. It is a huge natural swimming treadmill. Swimming freestyle at a decent effort I just stayed in placed. Then I let myself drift down river a bit and climbed out. Continued running home.

Swimming area

Dan Anderson (friend from grad. school) and I played hooky and headed to Lucerne for "Dan and Tom's Excellent Adventure"

* Walked the mile or so over to the Rotsee, the world famous rowing venue. They just had world cup races there this past weekend. Wish I could have seen that. We saw a group of swiss juniors heading out for training.

* Walked back to town and toured the Chapel Bridge and Water Tower thing.

* Took the bus to the Pilatsu cable car base and went to the top, which is the sight of Europe's highest hotel at around 2100m. We took the long walk over to the peak of Tomlishorn and had lunch. We then walked a narrow path along the knife edge ridge almost making it to Austria (almost :-) ).

* Came back to the Pilutsu tourist area and took the short walk to the top of Else. Another snack.

* Went down to the mid-mountain area and did the tobagan run twice. It's the longest tobagan run I've seen and I could get going pretty fast. Flexible hamstrings allowed me to stay low and lean into the turns. The first time down took 2 min 5 sec but I had to slow at the end because I ran up on a mom and boy. If you're not going to do the tobagan run stick-full-down (no break) then you just shouldn't do it. We did it one more time and I had a good fun high speed run of 1:37.73 edging Dan out by about 10 sec.

* Back to Zurich, pizza dinner, presently writing this log entry, and am about to head back to the hotel for TdF coverage in German.

Took tram14 to Lake Zurich. Ran south along the eastern shore to just past Zurichhorn, which seems to be a place to hold events, concerts or other gatherings. Than ran home by following the river eventually hoping on the trail. I had one detour up the the university to use a WC because all the public facilities along the way were coin operated, which I was without. Lots of people were swimming off the docks near Kornhausbrucke; I find it amazing that a city river can be so clean as to allow swimming. Saw a bunch of people out rowing on the lake; they seemed to all be rowing fat boats. BTW, cold is doing better today.

Dinner note: Last night I went to the Zeughuskeller in the historic part of town. Must be well know because there were a lot of tourist there. It was a fun atmosphere and my perch and hashbrowns (swiss style = pancake) were very good. Because it was so warm and I was in a keller, I couldn't resist getting a hefeweizen -- that's two beers in one week! Actually, the hefe was quite big so I think I can count it as two. As I stumbled home I was inexplicably compelled to speak out loud in my best German the names of all of the streets that I passed.

Famous Swiss people I know: I completely forgot that Daniel was Swiss or I would have asked him for tourist tips and maybe a lead on some maps. In general I just think of Daniel as sprouting out from between some rocks in Harriman some decades back.

Then dinner. Then the evening entertainment at a math conference -- a presentation on the life and mathematics of Leonhard Euler. Saw a movie of the Euler Disk.

Easy. Still have a cold. Moving to chest. Should have a nice cough the rest of the week.

From my hotel in the Technopark area taking wegs (ways) and steigs (stairs) up to Wipkingen park. They didn't put contour lines on my laminated tourist map, which tricks one into thinking it will be a quick trip but it was a long climb up. I was rewarded with a great view of the city and the lake. I ran around the corn fields (yes corn fields in the city park -- I know not why), through the forest, around the tennisplatz, and then back to the hotel.

Petted one swiss white cat and told him/her that Lisa would like to meet him/her and says "Hi."

I give my talk today; it will be nice to have that done with and not have to lug around my laptop.

Easy along river path in Zurich. It is hot here, dang it. People were swimming in the river which looked pretty clean. Strong current -- too strong for rowing. But they're set up for kayaking. I ran by a launch point and they have a course set up. Also ran by some sort of petting zoo with pigs.

I'm officially sick. Big bummer. Canceled my morning run and will try to sleep as much as possible today. Hopefully, I can shake this quickly.

Long drive to Tampere where Joe and Charlie dropped me at the Scandic Hotel. They''ve continued on to the Fin5. We had a great lunch in Oulu at the town farmer's market: salmon right off the grill, grill vegetables, pittipanna, and other things! I love pittipanna! I paid for two full meals. That was 8 hours ago and I'm still not hungry.

Back again. Found some kebab to top me off. I am very tired and have a sore throat. I didn't sleep all that well this past week. I need to get some rest... starting tonight. Tomorrow I use an assortment of modes of transportation and go to Zurich.

WMOC - M40, B final. 8.6 km, 220 climb: 1:28:39. Place 65/78
(I'll fill in the blanks later).

Rough day today. I was doing decently until we switched terrain types. The last third of the map was navigating between small hills and swamps. I was navigating in the past, on my heals, defensive, and in relocation mode. The stuff isn't impossible, I just didn't slow down and adjust; sloppy technique.

I also had a 2:30 boom on 5 when I missed a trail junction and then rushed the attack -- this even after I told myself to be careful. I had fallen in a waist-deep swamp hole on the way to 4. On the way to 5 I noticed that the bags weren't sealed and that the eastern half of my map got a bit of water and dirt on it. I missed the trail as I tried to clean it up and make sure my map would survive.

So, not a great day. But it was fun. I did have a good number of well executed controls. It was really mentally challenging my brain felt tired by the end.

Celebrated the end of the whole adventure with a Lupin Kulta beer!

Now we are off to drive up to the artic circle. Hopefully, we won't hit any reindeer. The dopey beasts don't seem to have any fear of cars and just strole down the middle of the highway.

Break day. In the morning Joe and I took a bus trip to Olanka Nat. Forest. I went for a very pleasant walk along the river and by the waterfalls. Absolutely beautiful.

In the afternoon we went on a rafting trip. We had 3 short class one rapids to warm up. Then a class 2 and a 300 m class 3. Warm down with a class 0.2. Joe and I got to be up front and that was fun. Again, stunningly beautiful. Maybe this would be a good place for a summer home.

Qualification race 2: 8.1km, 275 climb in 1:09:??
Finished 30th of 60 in my heat today which puts me 36 for both days = B final.

Finally, some sun. Very nice day.

Best race ever on foriegn soil. Legs feeling tired early but I told myself others would feel it too. Brain working better today -- I was much sharper. Course was more technical today. Pretty clean until C15 when I completely lost map contact. Got it back together and finished ok. Short report but I gotta go.

Qualification race 1, 8.7km, 395 climb: 1:21:20
Mild temps but rain, drizzle, mist, rain, drizzle, mist, ....

I don't know what my placing is but I'll give the effort a B. I did a decent job of executing (or at least trying to execute) good technique. Many decent controls, no big booms. But a hand full of 1 min losses and a couple of 2 min losses. Brain wasn't focusing well towards the end and I really had to slow down to understand things; on the plus side, I recognized the situation and adjusted. In sum, nothing spectacular but I didn't crash and burn either.

Model event 1 followed by model event 2. Took it very easy. Direction control is an issue. Maps are not difficult to read. However, reading the terrain is more challenging. My general game plan is to try to ignore results, ignore speed, and most of all, ignore all the crazy old orienteers running around here. I want to have good technique and discipline; I'll feel better about my experience that way, regardless of my final placing.

Event: WMOC 2007
 

With Charlie and Joe running from our cabin in Ruka (Rukajaarvi 4). Overcast, windy, a mist, and cool. Nice! Very good to get the legs working again. Stayed on some dirt roads. Chase 5 reindeer down the road. Mid-night Sun race later this eveing -- I doubt there will be any sun.

Easy effort on the Midnight Sun race. I wanted to work on good habits and technique and not just blast hard. Still made two errors worth about 4 min total and then some smaller bobbles. My brain wasn't working as well at the end -- I'll blame it on jet-lag and the fact that we had almost 5 % climb; the course zig-zag around the ski slopes. Just kind of jogged in and was generally satisfied. Need to get a lot sharper though.

Nice morning in a fat boat. Took it easy. Good row.

Line O on trails at Tandy Hills. Worked on navigating 100m in the future. Made a parallel error when I navigated 200 m the future in my head but was only 100m in the terrain. Warm, humid, very wet, lots of mosquitoes. Still, it was better than Arbor Hills a few days ago.

Well that's it. Legs and head both feel slow. But I've done what I could. Hopefully the Finnish terrain and weather will sharpen me up.

Old Grill-O course at Flag Pole Hill + some new inserted controls. FPH is a regular part of my running route and designated hill training venue. Hence, I have the park memorized for the most part. To make the training a little more interesting, ie, up from non-interesting to semi-interesting, I printed the map in mirror image so left was right and visa versa.

There and back.

Gentle and easy. Feel decent.

Miserable low quality training at Arbor Hills.

To avoid getting zapped by lightning I went erging and zipped along to get 7520m in 30 min. Having Lisa's ipod helped.

Lifting after erging leaves one lacking.