Training Log Archive: Nixon's Plan

Distric Relay Championship, Lakeissuo. I ran first leg. There weren't that many teams on H21, but 6 classes started at the same time. So there were lots of old juniors and young vets around with similar courses. As per usual, when the (shot)gun went off everyone nailed it out of the field much faster than was needed. I just took it easy for a bit. The first leg was quite long, after about 400m there was a nice big track to run on the other side of a ditch (with compulsary crossing points). Everyone went onto the road. Everyone, that is, except for me. I took a mantastic route choice of running in the forest about 20m from the track. I ran the rest of the course at the front on my own. I think I had the long first loop, at 1 I was well alone, and I couldn't hear anyone, but at 2 some people were running infront of me in a different direction. 3 along. Then on the way to 4 I hear them coming back in again to my right. 5 was the spectator and I think another HS was close behind me, but he made a mistake to 6 and I never heard or saw anyone on H21 after that.

I had a damn good race. I only had about 4 wobbles, no real mistakes, and running felt good for the first time in a while. I'm not sure what this will mean for SM, but it would be good to run first let there. There'll be some awesome head-to-head racing there.

We (Me, Tapio & Jukka) won the relay, HS-3 were 2nd. Lynx were 3rd but didn't show to the prize giving, clearly hiding in shame after getting wasted by our 3rd team...

Warming up / down. After my warm down I have some wierd pain in one of the tendons behind my knee. This can't be good.

Bad knee. Boo.

District Long Champs, Juornaa. Pretty poor effort to be honest, my mind was wondering for a lot of the course. Started quite well, some small mises on 1, 3 & 5. Dicked up 7 big time, was too early. Was about 2m from 8 but couldn't see it. Knobbed 9 and 15. Ballsed 16. Bendered 19. Fannydanced 20. My worst run in Finland. Despite all that, there is no way I could have run Jukka's time today. What a Man (N.B. capital 'M'). It's good to have a shit run every now and then, it stops you from getting cocky in the forest. And real mistakes only really occur at race pace.

When I got back to Hinki I watched the Helsinki City Marathon for a bit. I had to walk most of the way home because the marathon crossed the tram route. I got to listen to an awesome live set by some Finnish DJ down in Kaivopuisto, some cheesy classics to help the marathoners on there way. I was at the 27.4km drinks station, and there was some damn tired looking people. Heroes, all of them.

Then when I got back to the flat I had the pleasure if looking at the WOC Sprint Qualifcation results. Then men cruised through in style. In the women's it wasn't so good. 1 did better than I expected, 1 slightly worse, and 1 just as I thought.

I look forward to tomorrow's long Q

Warming up / down. Ingenting att anmäla.

Some easy jogging along the sea-front to loosten my legs off after my wonderful massage and to get ready for the weekend. Followed by the fastest shower in the world, 500g of pytt i panna and then off to Linnanmäki theme park. It was amazing! I aint had that much fun in ages. It's probably more fun when you don't have to pay for it (you know who you are...). I'm not sure what my favourite ride was. The old school wooden one was pretty cool. I was genuinely scared of the Ramases Revenge style one (if you don't know what that is, google it. Interestingly, Chessington World of Adventures don't know how to spell Ramses, unless Egypt have copywrited the name). I got the iso plate of meatballs for dinner. I shouldn't have.

I'm literally going to do nothing today. Except have a massage. I wan't me legs to feel, and to be felt, good.

I went down the swimming stadium to do a bit of aqua-jogging and swimming. Thing was, it was sunny and 30'C, so everyone else in Helsinki had had the same idea (I love it when you use the same word twice in a row!). My legs have been feeling majorly tired and heavy due to massive amounts of terrain running and football. Aqua-jogging was a bit too hard to be recovery, so I went for a swim. Now, I'm not that fast at swimming, but I still went in the fast lane, and bugger me there were some slow arses in there. If you are going to take 1 minute a length then get in the slow lane! There should be rules about people doing any other stoke other than front-crawl. Don't do it, it's slow and it takes up a lot of room, unless you are doing back stroke, in which case you just swim into people because you can't see where you are going. I swan for a few minutes, but it was just far too busy. So I spent the rest of the afternoon/evening sitting in the sun on some granite.

C • Had had... 1

HS Firmaliiga, Letku. I decided to go without a compass today, I'm sure why, but I think it was because I just couldn't be arsed carrying anything other than the map. I have to keep my racing weight down. I wasn't racing. Far from it, I didn't realise how slow I was going. Technically I was pretty damn good, a few small wobbles, but no real mistakes. I think the fact that I didn't have a compass forced me to concentrate a lot more on not getting lost.

The orienteering was quickly followed by a dip in Kaitalampi, which was most tepid. Then we did one to the nearest McDonald's and capitalised on the cheeseburgers for 1 euro special offer. Unsuprisingly, being staffed by retards, they didn't have lots of cheeseburgers ready because of this offer, and it took ages to get them ready. Then we did one to the sportshall for the footy. HS has a team in some local league, and I was playing. I got there a bit late, but soon made my debut. I aint been than nervous before an orienteering competition in years, but just some small footy match and my legs went to jelly. Luckily, I'm not crap, so it was OK. Unluckily it was 0-0. We had loads of chances, but no Thierry Henry. Theirry Henry is amazing.

Warming up / down. A woman I didn't know knew my name, I'm famous!

OK, so it was hard work and I think it deserves to go in the training diary. I know I gave GG shit for doing that, but I raelly want a new colour on my graph.

C • That's more like it. 1

An easy jog down the track to see if my blisters were up for a bit of running. The right one was a little bit painful, but nothing an 'ard bastard like me couldn't handle. I did some nice stretching as well afterwards. Judging from the screams coming from Linnanmäki amusement park, one girl was less than amused at Raketti (the tower of death!).

Iltarastit, Halkolampi. My blisters were ok on the tack, but the terrain made my feet twist and turn in the shoes a bit more and it got a bit uncomfortable at time, I couldn't attack the terrain like I normally do, instead; lots of mincing. I was feeling pretty tired, maybe the heat, maybe the lots of cycling. I took it quite steady. Made an absolutely massive cock-up. I was full on lost for a couple of minutes. Lost! I aint been lost in ages, wobbles and misses yeah, but I literally had no idea where I was... I got even more tired after that, it's been above 30'C today.

Something occured to me on the bus home. I've never seen a broken down motorbike, ever. I've come up with three reasons for why this is the case:

1) There are hardly any motorbikes compared to cars, and it's not like you see broken down cars all over the place

2) Motorbike people tend to love their bikes, they have tattoos, long dirty hair and know how to maintain a bike so it doesn't break down. Most car people know nothing and take it to a garage to get ripped off whenever it breaks down

3) Motorbikes are made by mechanical gods and never ever break down.

Warming up / down. Had to help a woman find a control 3 meters from where she was standing on my warm down.