Training Log Archive: Sandy

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.