Training Log Archive: EChild

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A few notes before I begin: The weather was chilly and overcast, so not ideal conditions but at least it wasn't pouring. As long as I was moving it was fine. There has been a lot of water from rain and snow melt, and there were at least a couple of places where the water was significant enough to form standing ponds or marshes in areas marked as not even being wet on the map. I was able to figure it out, but it definitely confused me at times.

I don't really know how to explain it. I wasn't making mistakes, but I wasn't orienteering well either. I was just going to the area and not thinking about what I was doing, probably because I was going really slowly. At number nine I stopped, took a deep breath, and tried to pick up the pace and focus on my orienteering, but I had to do it again by the time I got to eleven. After hitting sixteen the woods cleared up a bit (the woods were pretty slow, you couldn't run fast for long before having to slow down) and I was able to focus a bit more.

So it wasn't that I had a bad day, I was just using poor technique and I worked towards focus more on the important stuff.

Up. Before the training course.

The training after the course (and immediately after a foot-long sub). I definitely felt a little slow from lunch at first, but I was moving fairly well. The training was one continuous course divided into five segments: Compass course, contour course, control pick, corridor-O, full-speed/no-mistake.

The compass part went fairly well, although I got a bit off to the left of two, to the right of number four, and overshot six. As I mentioned above, the woods weren't terrific, and so I would have to go around something and try to correct for the difference later on. This made it somewhat difficult, but I managed to figure them out fairly quickly (except six, that was just bad by me).

The contour course was fairly straight-forward although my speed wasn't terrific. No significant issues.

the control pick went fairly well also, but I did overshoot one control and get off to one side or another of a couple. I was trying to make sure I maintained a decent speed because the purpose is being able to maintain a flow , but if I'm jogging then it's not much of a flow. Too viscous. Also, the trails were taken off the map for this section (and the contour course as well, but it's a contour course).

The corridor-O was a little better because it was the first time I was really forced to navigate precisely. The map had a lot of detail, but the details were mostly significant features so the navigation was fairly easy. With the corridor I was forced to pay close attention, so I think it really helped in terms of getting me in the zone. There were a couple confusing parts, one of which I still don't understand the logic behind the mapping, but I was able to do almost all of it with little issue.

The last part was the full-speed no-mistake part, and I really wanted to go full speed with no mistakes. I made quick and simple route-choices and ran them hard, and I was able to hit most of the controls without significant issue. Sometimes I was forced to slow down because of vegetation or rocks, but I pushed hard when I could. I can only think of one significant error when I got on the wrong side of a hill (parallel error), but I did have small errors on a few of the controls. I was pretty happy with myself, though, because I was able to run hard with few mistakes on this terrain if I really focused on it.

Down, back to the car.

CORE!

Saturday Long Advanced - Splits

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This was a pretty tough agility workout. Two mini-sprint set-ups, three courses on each. I spent three minutes on each course, so 18 minutes total. Then followed eight agility exercises which I spent two minutes on each. I was pressed for time and ended up being late for my next class anyway, but it was a good solid agility workout and my legs were definitely moving faster by the end. Very tired, but moving fast.

Down

Core right after tough agility: not highly recommended, but satisfying.

Running down to North Beach. Met a guy who was running a tiny bit faster than me (I was moving really fast) who was going barefoot. He was also heading to the beach, but...

Polar Plunge. I was challenged, and I did it. I ran down to the beach, my friend Liam met me there with my camera, bathing suit, and towel, and I went in. Aside form the intense cold for a few moments, I felt really good right after. Everything contracted so much I had zero toxins left in my muscles.

C • Contraction 19

I think it was 26:00 at least. Running back from the beach with Sam (the barefoot guy) and Liam biking along side. All-in-all it was actually a pretty good time, plus I got to run up a really long and big hill back to campus.

CORE! I think it's starting to get easier.

This was a fun one, the primary route-choice legs (in my opinion) being 7 and 14, but there were some shorter legs which were definitely interesting as well. On 7 I would have gone North of the big hill, and judging by the people I watched that appeared to be the fastest route. On 14 I would do what most people did and curl around the hill to the south and run down the big spur to the south of the big cliff and curl in from there, but I noticed Thierry had one of the faster times on this leg and he ran the indistinct trail going around the hill and then cut down to the more distinct one, then cut west blow the cliff line and the hills along the distinct tree boundary. I wouldn't have thought of that, but it does save a little climb and he was able to push hard.

Here's the map: http://www.tulospalvelu.fi/gps/2013wocMidM/
Here are results so you can choose who to want: http://www.woc2013.fi/woc/0/C4ED8C636E4E94E4C2257B...

C • Map study 2

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It was a decent course, but between the woods being bad and the map being from 1989, it was really hard to decide if I was in the right spot or not. On the one hand the features sort of match up, but on the other hand the entire map is simplified more than my average route choice, so it's difficult to know what's accurate and what's not. Even contours can be misleading in some areas, because form lines are rather sparse and 25 years of erosion and plant growth does make a difference.

Running from the finish of the first exercise to the start of the second.

This was a little better than the first exercise, but only a little. Same problems with the map and all, but since this was supposed to be at about tempo pace it felt kind of bad because the woods just aren't great. I know, I complain about it a lot, but there are seriously sections where the visibility is limited from dead fall alone, which certainly doesn't make running through it any easier.

Down

CORE! (30 pushups, 15 on fingertips, now takes only 30 seconds)

C • Training 2

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Intervals, but I did not do a very good job. It was rather a disaster, relative to anything I've done in the past. I used to be so good at the interval workouts, running faster times with less rest than I am now. Anyway, here's the workout:

400m (90sec rest), 800m (3min rest), 2 x 1200m (4min rest each), 800m (3 min rest), 400m
400m @ 70-72, 800m @ 2:35, 1200m @ 3:52

73, 2:36, 4:03, 4:13, 2:43, 74
I more or less dies after the first 1200, and so I tried to pace myself better on the second one. See how well that worked out, but accidentally running more slowly is probably what let me not pass out or throw up towards the end. Having a 3 minute break after the last 800 made the last 400 pretty easy to push on.

My one theory for why I used to be better is that I used to do a lot of hill intervals. It would make a bit of sense in that my legs would have developed slightly faster turnover and more power, so I'll try sprinting my hills from now on to see if it makes a difference. Better than nothing.

Also, the weather today was amazing.

C • Perhaps 6

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CORE!

A really short sprint map, but with a ton of options to choose from. The routes can be disabled with a thing at the top of the page.

http://www.evajurenikova.com/d/show_map.php?user=e...#

C • dissableing routes 4

C • Did you see the tunnel option 2

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9-control spider, hard out, easy back. It would have been nicer if there weren't thorns under the power line, every hill was about a 60 degree angle, the woods weren't super crappy, and nothing was wet... But these are the things which make you better at running in the woods, so I suppose I hit the jackpot.

C • at least there were no leaves 2

Down

CORE! (30 pushups instead of 25. Was not comfy)