Training Log Archive: jtorranc

Cycling to work by way of the aquatic center. Directly home in the evening.

Flutterkicking.

Warmup/cooldown/rests.

4x1217m intervals in 4:19, 4:21, 4:25 and 4:26 in awful humidity and with legs feeling heavy despite the light training since getting back from Europe.

Cycling to work then downtown to meet Dan at an outdoor Klezmer concert then home.

Cycling to work and back.

Will catch up on logging the WOC Tour races I did and O-ringen after Delta produces my luggage and therefore maps. As it was, I feel lucky not to have been stuck in New York overnight on Sunday.

Warmup/cooldown.

Silly walks - just wanted to get legs moving in a runningish way.

Round trip commute including grocery shopping.

Event: Oringen 2008
 

Some catching up to do - three days of public races - but not tonight. Still not feeling fully recovered post-sprint, i.e. have been feeling mediocre physically all week since my qualifier on Sunday (at least I felt pretty good during that). Maybe should have skipped some WOC tour races or done shorter open courses? Possibly sick? Hopefully it not the latter and two full days and a bit of rest before the sprint on Tuesday will be restorative. Otherwise, I fear I'll be physically flat in the World Cup races at O-ringen and post mediocre (for me - no illusions about not being mediocre at best compared to the rest of the field) results even if I navigate well.

WOC Tour H21E Day 3 - middle distance in enjoyable woods. Didn't do anything too stupid other than exiting my 15th control inattentively and running some extra distance when I therefore ended up at the wrong intersection of roads and trails to start the trail running portion of the longest leg of the course. Lost lots of time to the best split on that, though it would have been a fair bit even without the stupidity - I got outrun by 52 seconds on the big climb leg to the 5th control. Think I'm a bit worn down physically so more food and sleep tonight. Although the times for me and the winner are pretty similar to mine and Oli Johnson's at Batsto, which I regarded as a pretty good race with one bad leg (maybe two minutes lost, IIRC) at the time, so maybe I'm exaggerating my perceived rundownness.

Excited about watching the other Canadians in the middle qualis (and, I expect, final or maybe even finals tomorrow).

WOC Tour H21E Day 2 - very diferent race from yesterday's. Less steep in a more coniferous forest with vague contours and rides created by forestry all over the place. Totally blew up on the seventh control and didn't take proper advantage of my first god chance to relocate, deluded by a belief that I'd only drifted a little bit to the right of my intended path. Just over 8 minutes lost there. Otherwise, I don't think I did anything too bad but I still would have been farther back than seems quite satisfactory. But tomorrow's another race and I'd better get to sleep nowish if I want it to go better.

WOC Tour H21E Day 1 - a decent race in much more enjoyable woods than the map I visited on Friday. Didn't feel like I was pushing quite as hard as i hope I would have been able to manage in an important race but some allowance for having sprinted on Sunday seems justified. Tomorrow's race will be similar, in length if not necessarily entirely in terrain and course setting style. The remaining four after that will be middles. This will be my first European multi-day competition in which I actually race all the days. Looking forward to the rest of it.

WOC Sprint Qualifier Men's Heat B - 27th, 54 seconds out of qualifying and 1:49 behind the winner of the heat. Quite easy orienteering as far as execution went and I executed all my plans as competently as I ever expect of myself but slightly harder when it came to route choice and here I muffed the first route choice for, at a guess, 10 to 15 seconds lost, and also experienced some hesitancy at the start of the leg to the fourth control over how best to leave the park (considered a left route for a second or two) and once or twice on the long leg to the fifth control through the streets. So, even my best possible race would have fallen somewhat short of qualifying but could have saved me from being beaten by Ross by 5 seconds (good for him, though). But this race was good, if not quite excellent.

Just checked the IOF WRE points for the race, which claim I had a better race in the sprint qualifying in the Ukraine (and at various other times, though not generally by very much since I don't run better than 900 points all that often). The case felt otherwise as far as lost time went but this course was undeniably easier.

WOC Sprint final spectating was awesome - more later. Must go join group grope over transport and other arrangements tomorrow.

To elaborate a bit, the event production was very good but the ominous weather, particularly the thunderstorm that mostly just missed the race terrain, added a lot of drama. Also the enclosed square - the first time a Czech runner started, the crowd noise echoing off the surrounding buildings was so loud I initially thought it was a particularly sostenuto roll of thunder.

Very easily checking out the controls and terrain/mapping in the sprint model event. Must admit the vegetation mapping in Cheskovy Sady was just about unimpeachable, barring what I perceived as some minor inconsistency when it came to how big a tree had to be to be mapped with a green circle and one patch of low vegetation that was mapped as closer to round than its actual more tear droppish shape. There were more but mostly small problems with the built up areas - not terribly high but dangerous fences mapped as crossable, a gap between an end of that same fence and a building shown where none existed, an easily passable gap between the end of a hedge and a building corner not shown on the map, and an out-of-bounds area on a sidewalk where some scaffolding was set up shown one block north of its actual location but it seems unlikely they'll have problems like that last howler on competition maps or indeed like any of those anywhere that could affect the courses.

Did part of a long course on a long relevant map about an hour's drive southwest of Olomouc. Wanted to see what the woods are like before the first public race on Monday. Based on what I saw, they aren't going to be my favourite woods either but things may be a bit nicer vegetation-wise next week, I suppose. I'll certainly think twice about any route that involves traversing any kind of green en route rather than as an unavoidable part of the attack to the control.

Ran, at slightly less than race speed, most of another sprint on a map in Olomouc north of the sprint final terrain. More communist era apartment blocks plus some residential streets. Last few controls had to be omitted since the school yard containing them was locked up tight. Almost had a close encounter with a car as I came around a hedge turning south but fortunately he wasn't driving so fast and I wasn't running so fast that I couldn't stop and reverse direction after just one step onto the road.

More restful day planned for tomorrow - possibly an easy run around a sprint map a stone's throw away from the event center in the morning and the model event in the afternoon.

Event: WOC 2008
 

Sprint training in the Brno downtown with the American team. Haven't measured the distance but presumably somewhere around 3K. Not quite all out intensity (safety crossing streets and minimal required consideration for pedestrians precluded it. Also, I spent a bit of time checking out the passthrough mapping in the vicinity of the 9th control) but very nearly. Fun, particularly running through a mall including down an escalator to get to street level on that side of the block. Likely pretty good training for the final but a visit to the unembargoed parts of Prostějov is definitely in order to get the feel of them.

The new Canadian team tops have arrived. It won't be news to people who followed JWOC coverage, I guess, but they look very cool. It is, however, seemingly a very good thing that no one on the team has an excessively big head - the mesh tops have quite a small neck hole.

Another sprint training session in Prostejov this time just north of the embargoed area rerunning a course from, IIUC, the training camp held in conjunction with the Moravian Open Champs back in April. Not quite a 5 effort all the way - the last bit in thick woods by a small river didn't seem very relevant - but I'll continue not to show much appreciation for the mixed intensity feature. I did run the first two thirds to three quarters at barely sub-race intensity - it was very easy technically other than route choice on a road network and amidst Communist era apartment blocks scattered with various vegetation features but mostly open so it would have been utterly trivial at anything much below competition speed. Except for the route choice - quite a few of them looked at the time and in retrospect to be very finely balanced.

On the way back to the event center, we managed to miss a turn in Olomouc and come within about 5 meters of violating the sprint final embargo. We were getting nervous about how long signs had been saying we were heading towards the downtown and then we saw the parks on the southeast edge of the embargoed area, which threw us into near hysterical panic mode. Fortunately, it was legal to turn left and drive along the boundary to head fairly efficiently towards the event center.

Just realised I can't log my training the last two days in Prague until I figure out how to make this keyboard produce numerals (many of the keys produce four symbols and letters with diacritic marks that don't appear in a qwerty keyboard apparently get a higher priority than numerals) or obtain access to a computer on which that isn't an issue. The short version - no training but much walking tourism on Sunday. Much walking tourism and just over half an hour of form exercises and strides on Monday. Hardly any walking tourism (the one thing I tried to go to other than the nearby church where Tycho Brahe is buried was closed "for technical reasons") and a similar volume of form exercises, strides and gently uphill bounding yesterday. Patrick arrived in Prague yesterday evening and we came by train to Olomouc this morning. No other Canadians in evidence yet. No training yet today either. Will presumably get out on training maps tomorrow morning or early afternoon.

Addendum: at least I've figured out the numbers.

Warmup and cooldown.

Nothing but silly walks - bum kicks and A's - at higher speed/intensity/cadence than usual. Hadn't done anything physical other than walk with luggage and groceries all day and couldn't let that stand.

Jogging warmup.

Form exercises in Chotkovy Sady again. Silly walks alternating 100m slightly downhill strides with bounding most but not quite all of the way back to the starting point, with brief jogging rests between, more silly walks, two minutes of sprint race pace running, and yet more silly walks.

Jogging from the hostel to Chotkovy Sady, adjacent to the Royal Gardens next to Prague Castle. Then back to the old town after the session.

C • Prague 1

SIlly walks, 8x100m strides, and some more silly walks.

Warmup/cooldown/rests.

Some silly walks for additional warming up, which not having cycled home a short while before starting the workout made feel like a good idea.

4x4 approximate minutes intervals (4:04, 4:04, 4:05 and 4:06) in the same park in Mays Landing. Grassy and dead flat with large patches of shade I did my best to stay in almost exclusively. The park was small enough I could run from one end to the other in about 50 seconds so I took very meandering routes.

Feels strange only doing running training for a couple of day - not used to fresh legs.

Warmup/cooldown.

Silly walks 8x100m strides then more silly walks. In a small park next to the public library in Mays Landing, NJ - here for work.