Training Log Archive: Lizzie

Alpe Adria Middle.

Crazy technical, reminded me of WOC France. Clean run until #12-13 where I made a 45 degree error and a classic parrallel mistake. Biggest mistake in a while! Still enough to take the win though, which was nice.

Alpe Adria Relay, 1st leg.

Clean run, bar circling an additional unmapped hill at #8, and routechoice to #15.

http://ogang.org/doma/show_map.php?user=lizziei&ma...

Alpe Adria sprint. Clean, steady.

http://obasen.orientering.se/winsplits/online/en/d...

http://ogang.org/doma/show_map.php?user=lizziei&ma...

Event: Alpe Adria Orienteering Cup
 

Sprint training in Treviso. Awesome map, wicked alleys and streets, great fun :)

http://ogang.org/doma/show_map.php?user=lizziei&ma...

got lost on the off-map warmdown...

Tried to do intervals in venice, but body was too tired. And the tourists were too many. And it rained...so there were eye stabby umbrellas to avoid. Pass!

Sprint training in Venice. Can tick that one off my bucket list!

Race pace middle on Platabek. possibly the most enjoyable yet, much more runnable than the other maps (less rock hopping). More complex contour detail and less rock detail. A couple of small blips, where I lost confidence. Once when I found Toph and Greta standing unsure, and once when I misinterpreted fresh unmapped felling as being the mapped clear path. The first I'll have to work on, the second shouldn't be an issue in WOC (I hope!)

Hike/jog when allowed up Monte Cornetto (Folgaria). Stunning views and cliffs up the top!

A very stop/start jog along the ridgeline at the top. Stopping to gape at views and take lots of photos. Got a rousing cheer from a big group of hikers - unfortunately this was just before we turned around! So got a second rousing cheer on the way back too!

Toph also almost stepped on a snake :s

5 control intervals on Kubelek. Felt much better going at race pace! feels like I'm starting to click in to how to simplify the areas and which features to are the best/easiest to spot for AP etc.

Had a picnic, then headed out for a 2nd session with Jas. Short course, ran as 2 x 12-15min intervals. Awesome area, especially loved the 2nd half which was a downhill course. Still accurate despite the overspeed, which was nice.

Maps up on my DOMA soon...

Back in Asiago for preWOC training, middle specific.
Some quality training in the rock and WWI remain dominated terrain. Love this area!

Turcio middle course concentrating on process and terrain relevant techniques.

Tallinn city race. A middle distance course but on a sprint map.
Great fun, lots of very hard to read uncrossable fences, and a few little passes that were extremely hard to spot! After Monday I made sure I went out at an easier pace that I hoped I could keep up the whole way without issues. Think that was a good move, both in that I survived physically, but also that I had more time to pick the routes out!
Still ended up misreading #3, as I couldn't see the underpass on the map, I assumed the control must be on the other side of the fence, so planned my route accordingly. Luckily I checked my description half way through the leg, just before the vital decision point! Ended up running 3 sides of the block rather than1 though.
Kept going steadily, most of the route choices were 50:50, or there was only 1 way (you just had to see it!). Caught Laura around ~20, but then had a brain fart coming out of the pivot, trying to cut a sneaky corner, I instead got my exit direction wrong and ended up running 3 sides of a block again.

So not the cleanest, probably 2.5mins of mistakes all up, but good fun! Nothing on the complexity of Imatra World Cups, but was definitely a brain work out.

Oh and I won that pair of shoes that I don't need :) Too big though, so gave them to Laura to exchange. Will see if she gets them in my size or her size, not too fussed either way!

A complete rest day. Tallinn turned on some crap weather to make me feel even better about it too! Stayed at the hostel and watched movies, read my book, and slept. Absolute bliss :)
Crawled out in the evening for dumplings followed by pancake and icecream. Can't get much of a better day!

Tallinn O Week sprint.

A fun start to the course, bit of a maze around the uncrossable fences of the farms in the open air museum. With all the twisting and turning I could see Fel most of the time, who started 1min ahead.
But then, on exiting the tight stuff and getting in to the open running, I could feel myself hitting the wall. By the time I was on the spectator leg I could feel th inevitable anxiety attack coming on. So the 2nd loop I had to walk/jog around, giving a few people watching the gps back home a scare! (sorry!)

Bit of a bummer, as it was a fun course, and I could have won some shoes that I don't need ;) Disappointed, but not surprised at all. It's been a tough few weeks training, and my body is telling me to back off. A good reminder with 3 weeks til WOC!

Event: Jukola 2014
 

Venla 4th leg for Halden 3rd team.

Not the best run unfortunately. Plenty of small mistakes. More later...

walk/jog on the jukola training map. Aimed for half an hour, but then found a massive hill between me and the finish, so ended up being a bit longer!

Jog around Jukola training map. Wouldn't exactly call it nice terrain...Sticks and undergrowth and fallen trees, marshes. And cliffs. far out, if I have to climb down/up another cliff!

Intervals on an undulating (but uphill overall) gravel track, with the Halden group. Not 100% with Jukola this weekend, but boy, made me realise how little interval training I've really done this year! And how tired my legs are from the last week.
2x4min, 2x3min and 2x2min, all with 2min rest.

Really awesome area, the number of small tracks we saw just on our warmup! Think I could spend many many runs just exploring this place ;)

WD

Ran the Norwegian Spring sprint course around Halden. A good length sprint, 13mins compared to 15+! Could certainly feel the difference, feeling fresh and able to push hard right to the finish, even after a tough week's training.

Was really cool and different to have kids know what I was doing, and cheering me a long, rather than the usual 'What are you doing?!' and "You're going the wrong way!!" calls that you get in NZ and Aus!

Corridor exercise from the Halden club house.

Back to Kasen and back to 1:10000, which was a nice relief! Ran a middle course. Feeling better in the terrain everyday, though still found some sneaky cliffs popping out from nowhere infront of me!
Navigation isn't the issue here, it's routechoice...
Pretty stoked to do 55mins...cos that's about the only number I can say that in Swedish! In no way did I slow down towards the end of the course simply so this would happen!

WOC2016 training. Middle type training on a 1:15000 map again. Best session yet, was much more confident and getting better at picking routes through the terrain too. Aside from orienteering, did some great faceplant and belly flop training in the undergrowth.

Terrain run back to the car, practicing picking lines.

Run on the trails at Bovallstrand. Went out intending to do intervals, but lungs, legs and stomach weren't keen. So opted out after doing 1,2,3,1,1,1 with 1min jog rests.
Did a nice 10min tempo towards the end though, and got some mint views from the top of the look out :)

Ran most of the W21E course from the Kvillebyns Klassika. Focus was on smoothness through terrain. I'm pretty good at picking clean routes through the terrain in NZ and Aus...turns out that doesn't help one jot in Scandi!!
Again, succeeded in parts, however when i did, I often got too focused on the easy paths, and lost contact with the map...hmmm.
Completely missed #1, but didn't realise at the time...it fitted on the ground! Magnus did the same, and interestingly so did Eva inthe actual race? As a result I completely ballsed #2. Brilliant start. From there it was OK, through to 8, where I could make no sense of the detail in the circle. #9 and 10 were nice, but then I lost contact to #11 and started looking for the control mid-leg! Similarly with 12, mis-interpreting how far I'd climbed up...body and brain just not in sync!
The last bit was fast, and really nice. Again, missed in the circle at #13, though as with most of the controls, a flag would have made life a whole heap easier!

(side note: had an extra #4, (S of #3 before heading to #7), while our #14 was on the building, not the marsh - trying to make the features big and easier to find as we had no tapes...failed on most controls but not this one!)


http://ogang.org/doma/show_map.php?user=lizziei&ma...

WOC2016 training
Bit of a control picking exercise, getting used to mapping and terrain styles. Really tough exercise on a 1:15000 map and in the rain!
Was another slow and steady session, most of the time it went well, although there was a lot of time spent stopped at the feature checking I was in the right place. Which is annoying when all I want is a nice continuous training, but is necessary! Most of the time it went well, but occasionally my concentration would slip and I'd completely lose contact...

http://ogang.org/doma/show_map.php?user=lizziei&ma...

WOC2016 training

Just a terrain familiarisation run on Kasen-Slatmossen, South of the Sweden-Norway border.

A huge contrast between Italian and Swedish terrain! Tough going on the legs after a few days racing, very spongy underfoot.

http://ogang.org/doma/show_map.php?user=lizziei&ma...

Spent 5 hours walking around Venice :)

3 days of trenches long.

Took every scrap of motivation I had to get to the startline. The post travel bug has hit, so I was hesitant to push it with the long...then a heavy thunderstorm came through the arena 30mins before my start! But I told myself to harden up and hit the start.
Didn't hit the course with much purpose as I still had it half in mind to pull out half way through. So was slow and scratchy in the first loop, missing the flag inside the circle on 5 of the first 6 controls. Was a really cool area though, with plenty of negative topography (filled with snow in many cases!). Then from 7 the climb got serious, first straight up, then a long long downhill to 8, which i slightly overshot.
Riina caught me up 2mins here, which didn't surprise me in the least given my start. My competitive edge then took flight and I started pushing more consistantly. Though the downhill 7-8-9 didn't give me the chance I wanted to read ahead the long leg on 10 as I didnt want to do an ankle or miss the control.
So my route to 10 was wide, safe, but slower than straigher routes. Made the decision to keep going for the final loop after 12, as was feeling ok, and enjoying myself and the to and fro with Riina.
The final long leg was another around or straight. We stuck on the track, again, safe but probably a bit slower. The straight route does seem to be fine in this terrain, just pick a big AP and don't read too much detail until then. (and climbs just need to be tackled head on, rather than shied around).
As I lead us into #15, we were joined by Ida (10mins caught up!) and a couple of others. So there was a good little train from here to the finish, leading to a fast finish and probably bumping me up a couple of spots in the results.
8th overall, which I'm happy with. Again, safe route choices, and steady running. I could gain more places with more risks, but could also lose them. So risks can wait til I'm more in tune with the terrain ;)

gps; http://www.tulospalvelu.fi/gps/20140602itawreW/

3 days of trenches middle

Really nice to run in a top quality field, but with no pressure at all. Went out just wanting race practice in this terrain, and to pick up some decent world ranking points.
Took #1 carefully, going high on the tracks and dropping in to it. Missed the pit though, losing 20s or so. Spotted Saila Kinni behind me for the first time here (started 1.5min behind me) She went straight and fairly nailed it I think.
#2 was Ok, but was expecting a much bigger rock! Ended up 2 contours down from where I wanted to be. Similarly the knoll at 3 was tiny! My compass was well off, silly really as I just had to go to the top of the hill...
#4 was OK, I drifted into the valley a bit, by the time I punched, Saila was right with me. #5 I went a little too high, going over the ridge by the lookout tower thing, could have saved 15s or so staying lower.
From here Saila was just infront, and although we varied in our routes through terrain, we spiked most controls. Having someone to spot the flags with is definitely faster! We caught A-M Fincke at ~#13. 14 was a fast contouring leg, but the clearing at the end was obvious, so a good AP. Not sure about the GPS coming out of #14...it doesn't match up with what I thought I did! Getting through the rocks took a fair bit, but after that it was just about height maintanence.

There was a fair bit of tracking through the last few controls, which just emphasises the importance of having a good World ranking and thus start place for WOC.

REally happy with the run all up. Probably could be a bit faster with less jet lag and without the travel cold I've picked up. But then, I'd have made more mistakes if I didn't have Saila with me, so it evens out pretty well I think!
http://ogang.org/doma/show_map.php?user=lizziei&ma...