Training Log Archive: BorisGr

After sleeping in late, Andrew and I were joined by Michele Caraglio in a trip out to Lunsen for a long run. We were all quite tired and sore from the soccer and late night of the day before, so the pace wasn't especially quick, but we ran pretty well. We took turns leading, and the leader had to talk out loud which features he was looking for and what his plan was. Each "turn" consisted of leading a long leg and then three short ones. This worked very well, and we made very few mistakes the whole time. We did get very tired and a bit dehydrated on this warm day, and took a short-cut from the originally planned monstrous 18km course. A very nice training to finish off the week with.

With a rare week-end at home from racing, and DxDeluxe scheduled for Saturday evening, I invited Andrew Quin to come up from Stockholm for the week-end, hang out, and do some training. The first thing we did was join an IFK Lidingö versus OK Linne soccer match, held on one of the fields just behind my house. The game was nine a side, and I was put in to play striker. It had been ages since I'd played soccer, so I was immensely rusty. Additionally, worries about my shoulder kept me from going in for close tackles, which didn't help. The Lidingö team was very impressive, and kicked out butts 5-2. I had a couple of decent chances in the second half, and finally scored in a goalmouth scramble after a corner kick, but that was little consolation for a loss.
Playing soccer really feels like excellent cross-training - being able to change speeds quickly, change direction, be explosive all seem like useful skills for orienteering. If it didn't come with such a high injury risk, I'd definitely play a lot more.

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After a short break, Andrew and I biked over to Nåsten and ran an old course. We planned our routes for each control ahead of time, and tried to execute perfectly and compare the routes. We didn't want to run too had, but head-to-head orienteering sort of lends itself to higher speeds, so we did speed up as the training went on. I orienteered very well and had surprisingly good flow and speed, despite being tired from soccer. And: I finally saw my first Nåsten moose!! It was a female, not too big, and she looked me for a second, contemplated my appearance, and trotted away leisurely.

DxDeluxe
As usual, the DxDeluxe crew surpassed even its own high standards for quality events! A few minutes after the crowd gathered at a huge DxD banner at the clubhouse, we were greeted by a life-sized DxD donkey (as yet unnamed) - a full-body costume made by Mari, who has worked on it full-time for the last week. (Mari is the youngest Troeng sibling, and evidently also not lacking in the eccentric craziness that seems to run through the family. How Mats and Jan must be proud! :) We were then instructed to follow the donkey to the pre-start area, featuring posted start times, huge copies of previous years' maps and results and, naturally, a model event covering a ~30x30 m area with three sample controls set out.
Most of the actual event I actually spent at the real start, where I helped Björn make sure everything ran smoothly and handed out control descriptions. The start, of course, was the real deal, with a -1:00 and -0:30 call-up lines, carefully marked off by tiny taped boxes on the ground, and a 12 meter marked route to the start triangle (though it looked more like 8 meters to me.)
I started late, after most people had already run, and had a decent race, except for a 35 second mistake on an 11-second leg. Oh well. Ended up 23rd overall, almost 2 minutes back of the imrpessive winning times! After the race, there was much socializing, watching the live results appear on the monitors at the finish, and, of course, heckling of racers still out on the course. We then watched the exciting mass-start finals, cheered, congratulated the winners and moved on to the banquet/ party part of the evening. Needless to say, this year's DxDeluxe was a smashing success, and I am already looking forward to September's edition of the event.

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Jogging back home with Andrew after DxD.

Running to and from Högbergsparken.

Running the training course for tomorrow's DxDeluxe. Mats left a few maps with courses on them, as well as a piece of paper and an official DxDeluxe pen to write down your time, under a rock, specified on the website. And, of course, mini-controls were set out too, just like for a proper event. The only thing missing was the "technical model": a sample of the start and finish procedure. Maybe next year...

Umm, shoulder feels a good bit more painful this morning. Anyone know when I might need to worry?

C • DR 9

Long run with Jan from Blodstensvägen through Stenhagen, Vänge Öst, and Vänge Norr to Fiby. Mostly on roads and trails, a bit through fields. Felt really good physically (except for the shoulder.) Nice, easy pace and good conversation the whole way. Just made it there in time for technique training.

Technique training at Fiby: golf orienteering. I was nice and tired by the time I got there, making sure I had no temptation to run fast and risk hurting my shoulder again. So Zan and I walked/jogged a couple of km of the golf-O. (This is basically like memory-O, except you get a penalty point (or a stroke) for every look at the map you take.) It went ok and worked well as a simplification exercise, but I did mess up one control pretty badly. Oops.

After the golf-O, we drove over to nearby Fiskartorpsdungarna to run an ultrasprint course there from 2005. I just walked the course, so it doesn't count as training. Mats was walking around scaring people with a cow scull he found, horns and all. Reminded me of Dolly, the sheep skull I drove around England with over Easter.

A long, easy run on a gorgeous afternoon. Starting at the clubhouse with Jan, Mats, Micke, Lina Å, and Staffan, and running through Hågadalen, Vårdsätraskogen, and the Kungshamn-Morga part of Lunsen down to Turelund, where tonight's O-training was. Very pleasant run, nice to finally have some good weather again.

Already reasonably tired from the long run over to the start, I decided to switch down from the long course to the middle one and try to run it hard and clean. Well, this must have angered the Manliness Gods, who punished me for my wussiness. Fewer than five steps off the start line in my brand-new O-shoes that Zan brought from the States, I tripped over a branch on the ground, went flying, and landed hard on my shoulder, which reacted with a loud popping sound. I lay on the ground for a while in pain, while bewildered orienteers ran by, each one asking if I was ok. I tried to move my arm up and heard another "pop" - i am guessing, though i am no expert, that the shoulder was dislocated slightly on initial impact, but only slightly enough that it naturally found its way back into the socket. (Could be total BS, but seems logical...) I went back to the start, sat around for a while, then decided to head out again, with a mix of walking and easy jogging, trying not to lift my right arm. I got around the middle course, though I orienteered like crap and the terrain was not fun (lots of branches and logs on the ground - the kind of stuff that's ok to race on, but awful for going slowly.) The only consolation was going over to Rob & Allison's afterwards and watching the Champions League Final match with a few of the Linne boys.
Route Gadget: http://www.oklinne.nu/routegadget/cgi-bin/reitti.c...

C • Huh? 5

Kat dragged me out of bed for a morning jog around Stadsskogen. Felt ok once we got going.

Running to and from the start of backbanan.

Secret Russian Running Drills

The day's training called for backbana intervals, to be run as a two-man relay, but I wanted to take it a bit easier, still feeling tired from the long week-end, and just did a loop of backbana by myself. Tried not to run hard, but the effort is still there, since there is no way to take it easy on the hills. Felt ok, ended up with a decent time.

Janne's backbana in Uppsala - Splits

Day off. Legs feel like jell-O, even walking down the stairs.

C • Nice racing! 1