Training Log Archive: Sandy

A not so clean outing at the Frankfort airport where I didn't quite figure out the Terminal 1/2 bit at first. Eventually made my way to the correct Hertz counter and met up with Peter and Gail. A nice ride to the event area and a great little house where we're staying. Had some trouble getting internet but eventually it was sorted out. (I now have a cable feeding in through the living room window.)

C • Frankfurt 1

Short loop in the heat of the day. Figured my knees already hurt so maybe this would get them to stop hurting. And hopefully it will help me sleep on the plane to Germany.

Got through the run by obsessing over things that could go wrong - twist an ankle, break a leg, have my flight delayed, have it canceled (there are thunderstorms predicted for this evening), somehow mess up meeting Gail and Peter at the airport - and before I knew it the run was over. ;)

C • safe travels 6

First random occurrence of the trip - ran into Hannah Burgess at the airport as they delayed her flight and made her change planes. I was oblivious and would have walked right by her but she was moe alert.

TNT - hike in the Wissahickon with Sandy who is still being cautious about her knee. Good to catch up. Ran the last 5 minutes. How can 5 minutes seem so hard...

Then proceeded to eat way too much...

Knees are very bad today. This makes no sense to me.

Short loop; ran the meadow, got a little past the crosswalk but then walked to the fire hydrant.

Thought about goals for WMOC. Have none for the sprint other than to enjoy it. For the long, I think top half should be doable. The A final for the Long would be good but I really have no idea if that is within reach.

Vice President's Cup Relay and DVOA Summer Meeting

Joined up with Ann and Hugh MacMullan for a rockin' team - we had 10 handicap points worth a 40 minute deduction which led us to a second place finish behind only the team of Oriana and Wyatt (who ran two legs). Angelica ran all three legs and had the fastest handicapped time (she was worth 9 points - 3 per leg) but apparently skipped a control and so mp'ed.

The orienteering was surprisingly fun. Ran the same course and had the same forking as Mary Frank and we were pretty much neck and neck the whole time.

Correction: Mary's team was scored incorrectly at the event and they ended up ahead of us as well.

C • Team 5 2

Lots and lots of walking the last several days. Saint Petersburg is an awesome city - really, really glad I came.

C • Yay! 1

Got no sleep. Stayed up and watched the men's team.

Event: Jukola 2012
 

2nd leg on the DVOA Venla team. I had a pretty clean run - lost maybe 20 seconds on the first control when I drifted a bit right. But corrected quickly when I got to the end of the bare rock and there was no cliff. The rest of the race I just went straight following the elephant tracks. The course was 5.9 km but there was probably close to 2km of marked routes to get out of the arena and to the good woods and then to get back into the arena and down the finish chute and through the map exchange.

I knew where I was at all times but there was always a track going the way I wanted to go so I just followed the tracks. Several times people would be standing around looking at their map - I kept moving the whole time.

I lost 30 some places for the team but I probably lost all of it on the run out of the arena and the run back across the field to the last little section of controls. I did manage to run the whole finish chute but it was a close call!

I was a nervous wreck before starting - I find it hard to not know when I'm going to start. But once I got moving I had a blast - the terrain and map were great.

C • Great job! 2

Got a decent night's sleep despite being woken up a couple of times and eventually got up at 8:30 local time. Had a HUGE breakfast - the typical Scandinavian breakfast buffet - at the hotel. Eventually everyone else wandered into the hotel lobby and we were off for today's training.

First we (traveling with Clem and Dasha now) stopped by the airport where I retrieved a small blanket I had left in my rental car when I returned it - yay! Next we went by the Jukola competition area and picked up our packet of bib numbers and Emit cards and so on and walked around scoping things out. The tents this year are a ways from the spectating area and the start/finish but not too bad. At least our tent is in the part of the field closest to the arena.

Then made it over to a different training area. The plan was to go out for an hour. I knew I couldn't do the whole 6km course in that time so made a shorter course from the controls that were there. Had a good outing again - slow but made my way carefully to each control without any big errors. There had a been an actual relay training race here a few evenings ago and so there were a good number of tracks in the terrain for some of my controls. There was some forking though so not all tracks went where I was going and I was doing things in a funny order anyway. That made for good practice since knowing which tracks to follow when was key the last time I was here for Jukola so probably will be again.

Got back to the car and Dasha wanted to go out a second time as a group. So we designed a new course to visit controls in a different order than either of us had seen them and went out again taking it very slowly and talking a bit about what we were seeing. I was reading the map okay and while I was frequently not absolutely positive where a control was going to be it always showed up as soon as I started to say it should be around here somewhere - hopefully I'll be able to say the same tomorrow!

Had an easy trip to Helsinki: Dennis drove me to JFK in the afternoon for a 6pm flight, and the non-stop flight to Helsinki was rather pleasant. Got several hours of sleep - maybe 5? - which is pretty good considering it was an 8 hour flight with dinner and breakfast. Finnair joins the list of airlines I will want to fly with in the future.

Met Eddie at the airport - he came even earlier than agreed and he found me in the Starbucks. Chatted for a while about the different training maps which he had gotten for me and made a plan.

Got my rental car and stopped by the hotel but they weren't ready to check me in so I drove to one of the training sites. I was really thirsty on the drive and figured I better find some water - it would not be smart to get out in the Finnish woods, tired and dehydrated. So drove around some backroads hoping to find something and eventually found a small grocery store. Bought a few supplies, including stuff to drink, and made my way to the training.

A 5.9km course was laid out on the map and I visited all but two of the controls but not in order. I probably only did 4 or 4.5 km and it took close to two hours. This does not bode well for Saturday. I did pretty much walk the whole thing though and I expect I'll do at least some running in the actual event so really hoping I won't take two hours. I did know where I was almost all the time so that was good - the mapping made sense and I generally could figure out what was what, just didn't move through the woods very fast.

Anyway, feeling a bit better about the weekend despite the turtle-like pace. The last time I was in Finland I got so completely lost on the first day in the terrain that I had to just go on a compass bearing for a km or more until I hit something that I could identify for sure.

Should have put on more bug spray.

C • Eventful Day . . . 3

Early TNT - short trail loop with Sandy. Kept running the whole meadow to meadow section but walked from the crosswalk to the fire hydrant.

Yoga class; good workout. Lots of rubbery arm and leg moments.

I did not particularly enjoy this course. Things were definitely wacko in many places on the map and training on bad maps is not particularly helpful at the moment. I lost about 6 minutes on #7 when I could not see the flag buried in green even though I went by the right place several times. The long trail runs didn't help either.

C • Brown Course 4

Brown - Splits

three sets of each group doing 15, 15 and 18 reps each time

shoulder press, side raise, push ups, close in push ups
leg curls, leg lifts, calf raises
ball crunch, pilates thing with ball, plank (30s, 30s, 45s)

followed with side planks, 15s each side. definitely need to work on these.

Ate too much at a conference today so took a long hike when I got home.

TNT - ran by myself in Tyler. Jogged much of the first 40 minutes but very little of the rest since that's the stuff on the roads and in the parking lot.

Trainer session. Lots of planks which were lots easier than the pushups.

Was really brought home how much I favor my bad knee - even doing squats I probably have 80% of my weight on my left leg. I did one in the middle of a set where I tried to even out the weight and could really feel it in my knee.

TNT - hiking with Sandy who's injured, but my knees were glad for the break.

Yoga class. Legs were cramping on me; not sure what that was all about.

A really sad attempt at a sprint. I kept not wanting to wade through the green junk knowing there was tons of poison ivy everywhere. And then not really able to run much even when I was in open fields or on roads.

Trained a new epunch person who will be awesome.

C • thanks 2

Same routine as the other day - 3 sets of 9 exercises doing 15 reps of each (only 10 close in pushups).

Sprint-2 - Splits

Several hours of weeding and trimming while listening to a book on tape. Too bad strengthening my hands is not a training goal.

training session had to be canceled this week so tried to do a workout on my own:
3 sets of 15 reps of 9 different exercises (only 10 reps of the close in pushups and only managed 8 on the last set before crashing off the ball)

Trail loop - ran the whole hill home but walked a bit of the hill before the last meadow section. Decided to run one or the other for June and then try running both in July. And then perhaps even tackle running some of the hill section in the middle in August. It's a plan!

C • Nice 1

Glad I ran today - there were streamers out and I correctly surmised that they are for the Wissahickon Trail Classic which is tomorrow. I would have forgotten about it and not gone and done my annual cheering for the Ahlswedes and anyone else that happens to be running it.

C • Race 1

The Pro Cycling Tour is also tomorrow and the Manayunk wall is just a few miles from my house. I got a phone call informing me that there would be a heavy police presence and zero tolerance for public drunkeness.

C • Public drunkenness 2