Training Log Archive: Sandy

Considering I slept all of an hour and a half and sat for another hour or so during the 24 hours at Jukola, I should log some of the rest of the time at Jukola as rogaine training! On my feet moving around and not sleeping - yep, just like a rogaine.

Event: Jukola 2007
 

Leg 2 of the Venla Relay. Woohoo!!! Really nailed things for the first half of the course even leading folks into controls (what a great feeling!). By the middle though I was having trouble reading the map at the speed the folks I had caught were moving and I started to get nervous so I got off the trails and navigated to a few controls on my own which was fine but slower. Then got back in with a pack and misread the map and didn't follow when I should have for my only significant error. I had to relocate and take a route that had no trail and it was much slower than the rest so I lost a whole bunch of places. But finished strong nailing the final two controls amidst many folks wandering around.

Very, very happy about my run - especially considering how nervous I was before hand. You couldn't shut me up afterwards I was so pumped. :)

Some more pre-Venla training. Met the Ahlswedes at one more of the training areas and got some more practice. Did several legs; no real problems and was actually quite pleased on a few. But then my legs died and I said that's it - I'm walking it in.

After watching the spring qualification races, we went to one of the training areas. The terrain was very different from what we saw down near Helsinki. This was mostly flat and had lots of trails and rides. It was still easy to make mistakes but I didn't have any trouble sorting things out any time I got a little off.

Second training on a map that abuts the Jukola terrain. Stayed on the hillside and didn't venture into the flat stuff. Good thing; Dasha said it was really crappy woods, lots of marshes and ditches filled with water. There's nothing like that on the Jukola map. The hillside was tricky enough, but again like in the morning, if I got off, I could figure it out relatively quickly.

There does seem to be some type of rock in the ground that has some magnetic properties. You had to really keep an eye on the compass to make sure you were on a true bearing.

Getting a little nervous about the race...

Don't want to go too fast and screw up but don't want to go too slow either...

C • Good luck! 3

Re-try of the course Jagge set for us. Went much better this time; read big features, used contour information and pace count and found everything right off. Well, sort of - was standing on the cliff above the boulder at #4 and was just about to start swearing since I was so sure I was in the right spot but given the disaster of yesterday was totally willing to believe I had somehow screwed up again and then I spied the streamer. Whew!

Of course, I was going very, very, very slow on that leg.

O training near Helsinki that Jagge set up for us. Excellent map, excellent course, excellent idea, miserable performance. Got to 1 ok, 2 was a little off but got it quickly after getting a tad too far, 3 was confusing for a while but then I sorted it out and it was fine and then I never did find 4. In hindsight, I *think* I was close but too low. I tried to relocate and couldn't. Didn't want to go all the way down to the marshy area so tried to relocate off of cliffs and just could not sort out what I was seeing. Decided to try to just get to 5 as there were some big features on the way but got even more confused. Finally gave up and headed for the marsh and eventually figured out where I was. From where I came out in the marsh I must have been close to where I thought I was but I just couldn't figure it out. From the marsh, I nailed 10, 11, 12 and 13.

Very glad we did this today and very glad we're going back in the morning to redo some of it. Perhaps I'll figure out the area around 4 and 5; or perhaps not. Not a very promising outing for Jukola although perhaps it's exactly what I needed to get mentally prepared.

C • AOWN 2

A slow jog along what appears to be a very long running trail along the coast at Espoo; a very nice added benefit to the hostel where we're staying.

A bit of yoga/stretching afterwards.