Running along a historic canal line

The old good BCN Main Line (Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line) from Wolverhampton to Birmingham originates from 18th century and the time of industrial revolution when a water route from Birmingham to coalfields of Black Country was needed and constructed. Some hundreds of years later local runners came up with a brilliant idea to utilize this beautiful water route for another purpose: an off road half marathon from Black Country to Birmingham.

The race started from the British Waterways Boat Yard in Wolverhampton and followed the canal side all the way to Brindley Place in Birmingham city centre. After some typical English summer weeks of heavy rain and flood alerts the route was thoroughly soaked and muddy, adding some extra challenge to it.

I started in a small group of elite women and after a while three of us had a clear gap to the others. We started quite hard and my hamstrings felt tight from the strength training the day before. I wished I hadn't done that. Moist bricks were worst and I kept on slipping on them. Fortunately most of it went on small grassy footpaths that were a hundred times better than slimy bricks. After 6k there was a 360 yards long dark tunnel that provided some extra excitement to the race. It was described as an entertaining feature enjoyed by some, hated by others but remembered by all. And that's what it was: a truly memorable moment. Because of its curved shape and slippy, uneven surface I was afraid of hitting my head to the ceiling and forced to drop my pace. I was lucky and didn't hit my head or fall into canal but I was anyway extremely delighted to see light at the end of the tunnel.

Run continued and brought some more rain, some loose dogs, locks and a number of bridges. I got tired, dropped behind my contenders, cheered up again and passed one of the girls in front, got caught by some male runners who'd started in a wave behind us, passed some elite men who'd started before us, got close to the leading girl but was totally finished a few kilometers too early and lost sight to her again. I struggled the last kilometers to reach the finish line but got there finally tired, soaked, muddy and sticky (covered with sports drink). Tough run but I was happy to have it done and to finish as 2nd woman. Just a thought of another 13-miler with 1500m climb after the finish line felt frightening. Having second thoughts? No, not really (=yes, every day), just happy to have a few more months to get the work done.

Results

Towards Switzerland!

I just spent some great days training and racing in Jura Mountains on the French-Swiss border. I went there for two reasons: to run WOC selection races and to do some proper hill training for my next big challenge: Jungfrau marathon and World Champs in long distance mountain running. Oh yes I'm going take part to this panoramic mountain marathon that they announce to be "die schönste Maratonstrecke der Welt". This year it will also be hosting the World Champs in long distance mountain running, which makes it all even more exciting. I'm proud to represent Finland there and I'm really excited (and scared) about it!

But back to the selection races. I didn't run World Cup at St Gallen but I was really happy to get a chance to run the WOC selection races. I didn't care if my chances to make it to the team were slim, I just wanted to go there and give it a try. After all, WOC in Lausanne was my main goal of the season and this was the nearest you could get it (literally) if not selected to the team. I just wanted to see how it goes and get the project finished.

Middle distance race was held in Bois de la Pile just south of the terrain of WOC middle distance final. It was a selection race for the Finnish and Swiss teams but a number of other teams took also part, making it an impressive international event that gathered together most of the world's best orienteers. The area was small and seemingly easy on the old map but the actual terrain and the courses were challenging. I had a good start (second overall on the control 6), made then some small mistakes and got a bit tired but managed to hold it together and was happy to finish as 3rd Finn and 10th overall. Results

Long distance in Grand Jorat on the other contrary didn't go too well. It was supposed to be my better distance but I just had a really bad day physically and lost time little here and there, especially on some nearly impassable vegetation zones. A few ditch ends in the nettles I searched for minutes and I might have lost time on some route choices too. I haven't had a chance to analyze them yet, so I don't know for sure my time loss on them. I tried to go around as much as possible but not always in right places. Garmin showed that I ran over 3km extra. That sounds like a lot. I was 5th Finn and 21st overall. I was hoping for better, but it just didn't work out. Even with a clean run I would have been minutes behind Simone, so there's not much room for speculation. I just wasn't fit enough. After all, I came to these pre-games as an outsider and was happy to make it at least once among the top3 Finns. I would have needed a clear victory to make it to the team and with the day's form I hadn't been able to do it. Results

So I didn't make it to the WOC but I'm still happy that I made the trip. I got back some of my lost self-confidence, I could enjoy my morning coffee in stunning scenery, I got some hill training for free and I got used to the thin mountain air. In other words just great on-site preparation for the Jungfrau. A few easy days and it's time to start some serious training towards another champs!

Dramatic Venla relay

The highlight of the summer, the Christmas of all orienteers, Jukola and Venla relays, were held this year in urban surroundings of Vantaa, near the Finnish capital city Helsinki. It gathered together over 15,000 runners and tens of thousands spectators to Hakunila sports park on beautiful mid-June weekend. The atmosphere was fantastic and the weather was just perfect. But what would it be without dramatics? Last year we were running towards a clear victory until the last meters and the second last control where a small mistake dropped us to a second place. This year we were again running solo in the lead when the worst possible news hit and broke us: we had taken a wrong map and we were disqualified. What??? Can't be true!! But it was. We all ran well and punched carefully the right controls, just a tiny little mistake in the changeover got us disqualified. Maybe we were too focused on winning, too used to number one or just can't count any further. I can't provide any rational explanation but here's my version of it anyway.

I got the honour to run the first leg and start together with 1246 other women. It was amazing to start in such a crow and the excitement was palpable. I knew it would be demanding terrain, right from the start point, and that I should get the first control right to make a good start and a good run. I also knew the number of my map at this point and checked it several times before the bang. "2-1. Correct. Yes it is. It's still the same, hasn't changed". The way to the start point was long and there was plenty of time to read the map before that. I skimmed through the whole course and made plans to the first control. I knew where I climbed up the first hill but suddenly just before the control I wasn't 100% sure which of the parallel hilltops I was running. I made maybe a half a minute mistake on the first control. Not a big one but big enough to get a bunch of runners past me. After that I ran well the rest of the course but it took some time and effort to pass the runners in front of me. Gradually I gained places and at the end of the course I got sight to Silja Tarvonen who changed 3rd. Merja Rantanen from Jämsän Retki-Veikot got a minute gap to rest of us but I was happy to come 12th, only 23 seconds behind the second. Great start and we were along in the fight!

After the finish line I ran into another runner and got a bit confused where the maps were. I tried to find the maps with small numbers and when I after some hesitation found them I just took one with number 2 on it from the end of the stand. I was in a hurry and assumed I took the map with label 2-2 but accidentally I tore the adjacent map, the map 1-2, which was Domnarvet's map. I was exhausted and didn't notice this awful mistake. I passed the unopened map to Anni who also checked the number 2 on it and ran off. She made an excellent run and came in in the lead with a clear marginal to the chasers and sent Saila away with a happy face totally unaware about what had happened. The nightmare came out after the Emit readout which revealed that Anni had run a wrong course (the forking of Domnarvet instead of ours). We both felt bad about it and tears came out when we met.

Saila went out and ran her race unaware of what had happened. It wasn't until she came into the changeover when everyone knew for fact what had happened and she got stopped after the finish line. Venla never got a chance to fight for the medals, she was forced to wait a half an hour before they let her out. Obviously we didn't get any official result either. I feel terribly sorry about what happened, not only because of what happened to us but also for Domnarvet who missed valuable time before they got their extra map. These things happen every now and then and it certainly tears you apart when it happens to you in the world's greatest orienteering event in front of thousands of spectators.

Next year it will be even harder with the numbers because we'll be punished and won't be running then with a single number...

results first leg

tracking first leg

Selection races

On the past weekend we had our World Cup and World Champs selection races near Tampere, my hometown in Finland. I thought I was better prepared than 1,5 months ago but I wasn't able to deliver a single good performance. I think I tried too hard and forgot to enjoy it. I was in relatively good shape and had good chances to make it to the team but I just wasn't able to orienteer well enough. I made 1-2 big mistakes every day that destroyed my otherwise decent runs. There were a thousand little things which might have gone differently and saved my day but the fact is however that I wasn't able to do my best on any distance. Stable series 7-7-7 wasn't good enough to make it to the team.

I had some serious problems prior the races but I shouldn't have let them affect my performances. However the fact that my back pain affected my running disturbed my weak self-confidence and got me too worried to do my best. I don't want to blame my back, because my speed was good enough for all races, it was my head that wasn't alert enough. I'm still very angry to myself and disappointed that I couldn’t do something that USED TO BE SO EASY. Naturally it was a lot easier when I lived in Finland and could train in similar terrain but I'm not going to blame West Midlands either for my dumbness. I'm sure I have gained a lot of great qualities by training there. Qualities that just aren't the most useful in the Finnish wilderness. Strange enough I felt more like home on the pine-covered ridge of the middle distance than in the local economic forest (typical Finnish term meaning that's it's horrible to run and contains felling here and there) of the long distance. It used to be other way around.

I expected sprint to be tricky but I had no idea there would be so many controls in forest-like milieu with poor visibility (or so many dense bushes). I ruined my chances already on the first six controls where I kept missing the flags while standing beside them. On controls 1, 3, and 4 I lost 25 secs in total and then another 24 secs on control 6. To 14th I took first a wrong route choice and then I even punched a wrong control losing 26 secs. To 17th I ran left, losing 10 secs there. Nearly 1.5 mins in total in a sprint is awfully lot. Results 

On the middle I had quite a stable run apart from control 3. I came right towards it from the re-entrant but didn't climb high enough. I had to go to the trail south of the control to read myself in but I still couldn't find it straight away. It looks simple on the map but the forest was dense and the stone was higher up on the hillside than it looks. I lost nearly 2 mins there. I also had some small difficulties with controls 7 and 8 but otherwise my run was good. Results

Long was the one I had waited the most but it didn't go too well. The flow was gone and I felt I had lost touch to this kind of terrain. I just waited to get back to the north side of the road as soon as possible. On the way to the first control I couldn't distinguish anything on the map. I managed to go up between the crags but once up on the hill it took ages (30 secs) to find the control. Then it went well up to control 5, where I lost another half a minute or more in the circle. Same again with 6. To 8 I just tried to get the speed up and forgot to check the bearing, which cost me over a minute. I kept on doing these small 10-30 secs mistakes on almost every control but managed to keep it somehow somewhat together up to control 14/17, a stupid easy knoll beside a trail but which I though to be a re-entrant in the green. I shuffled up and down the re-entrant unable to understand anything. When I finally after 2 mins search found the flag I still didn't understand it. Even on the second try I didn't find it straight a way. Still looking for a re-entrant. I just remembered that it wasn't there where I thought it was but somewhere quite near. Only after the race I was smart enough to check the descriptions. On the north side of the road I didn't have any problems but my race was more or less over by then. Results

What's next? Well that's a great question with an easy answer: Jukola. But what comes after Jukola is still a total question mark. Season seems to be more or less over now for me. Three selection races and that's it. I still have loads of unused motivation and energy for the next year so I intend to keep myself fit and maybe I'll move to Finland before the home champs to find my lost flow again. But before that I'll take a break from orienteering and start to prepare myself for a marathon. That's something I've had in mind for some years now but there's seldom been time for that. Initially I had planned to do it after the season but now I might just start training for it a couple of months earlier. So from now on this blog will be less serious and less about orienteering and more about playful preparation for my first ever marathon. And no, I'm not admitting to have any goal there. I'm just too fed up with disappointments.

Feeling happy

It's done now. Most of the basic training. June will include competing, peaking and further technical preparation. May was a good training month for me. In March I was still more focused on running and April involved slow and thorough adaptation to tougher terrains with various problems but May has been good and hopefully I'm now more ready to run faster also in terrain. I've trained my weaknesses and I've tried to do the best possible technical preparation in the prevailing circumstances. I've run two sprints, three prolonged sprints or so called urban events, six technical training sessions or events in tough, detailed terrains and two additional trainings in hilly, less detailed terrains. Most of them I've run at race pace or split them into intervals. It has worked fine and I'm quite happy with the past three weeks. 

Next I'm going to stay happy, give my tired legs a bit of rest and wait fitness to come out. My next Tour de Finland begins with SM-sprintti, continues with Tampere Games, and ends with Jukola. Looking forward to them all!

Here are a few of my recent maps and pics are from the same places. 

EOC from the other side of the screen

I feel excited. I'm not even running there myself but I'm still quite excited about it. It's like WOC in Trondheim. Championships in beautiful Scandinavian terrain represent something special for me. Something you look forward to not only because it's a championship but also because you believe that it offers you something special. EOC2012 in fairytale forests of Dalarna is something I would really love to experience. But even on this side of the screen I feel quite excited. Excited to see the challenges Eva Jurenikova offers the other runners and excited to see how my fellow runners and teammates will do there.

In the meanwhile I've been trying to train hard myself to be better next time. So I've been orienteering in full speed and doing some strength training. I just spent an awesome weekend in Yorkshire Dales running first an urban event in Settle and Giggleswick, followed by a long distance in Klinsey North. It was a terrific weekend. Urban race served as excellent prolonged sprint training and Sunday's event in gorgeous limestone terrain offered adequately hills and details. First look on the map (see below) shocked me a bit but then I just started to run and got along well and really enjoyed it!

Blicken framåt

My season start in Finland did not fulfil my expectations at any degree but gave me more time to prepare towards WOC. First of all it took me a more than a week to adapt to the Finnish weather and terrain, and secondly, my orienteering skills there were rusty. I was nevertheless happy to make progress during my stay and at the last selection race I finished 6th, only 22 seconds behind the winner. That was already much better than my first race.  Sprint appeared to be my best discipline at the moment in Finland and the only distance I could really run. Terrains for middle and long were too tough for me to run and my going there was far from fast. Compared to others I was really slow and inefficient in all tough and marshy parts but fast on the areas with better runability.

Of course it's shame to miss the EOC but on the other hand I have now more time to prepare for the World Cup and WOC. Swiss terrain should suit me a lot better than Finnish after training in similar kind of terrain for over a year now. But I also know now that I need to practise more in Scandinavian terrain to make it to the Finnish team. While I've been training towards international events in continental terrain I have neglected training in the Finnish terrain. I'm nevertheless very happy with my staying in Finland and all technical training I got to do during my stay. Now I have much more experience and I also know better which areas I still need to work on. I'm not giving up yet because I know I've trained well and I have much more to give than I've been able to show. Here's short description of my races.

Middle distance was actually technically quite simple but I imagined it more difficult and played safe. I didn't do any bigger mistakes, only a lot of hesitation and checking things a million times before proceeding. At the end of the race I realized that I've forgotten to run. I had been too focused on the map.  

Long was kind of a nightmare to me. It was so wet that it's hard to believe. After my first dip into ice-cold water on a tiny marsh in the beginning of the leg 2-3 I thought I was just having a bad dream. But the nightmare continued and continued and I never woke up. By the time I reached the 4th control my sense of humour was gone. I was frozen, unable to move my limbs and my left glute had stopped working. I ran really badly the long legs 2-3 and 7-8 losing minutes on both of them. Then I got confused of an open area just before control 16 and lost nearly 1,5 min there. After that I ran aggressively the last few legs but unfortunately the course ended just when I started to find a good rhythm. results

tracking

My glute was in pain already before the long race and stopped working totally after the race so I had no idea whether I could run the sprint only a few days later. But I did and did actually my best run there resultwise. I had three bad legs (1, 10, 12) where I lost about 10 sec on each but otherwise my run was pretty good. Because of mistakes it didn't give me a ticket to Sweden but at least it gave me some hope. results, RouteGadget

Highlight of my Nordic O Tour was Tiomila. We had exactly the same team as last year, only in slightly mixed order. After running several times either 4th or 5th leg it was time to test the first leg. My job was to come with the main group and that's what I did. Unfortunately I'm too much of an individualist to settle to run with others, so I had to try to something else. Leg to my first control was really long and offered a tempting route choice along the road. I couldn't resist trying that even though none of the other top teams took the same route. A few girls came with me to the half way but jumped to the woods earlier whereas I continued a half kilometre longer. It was a strange feeling to run all alone so early on the course on the first leg. I felt confident but still somewhat excited about my route choice. I was hoping to be in the lead but when I approached the control I saw runners coming across from other forkings while I still had a way to go to mine. By the time I reached my control about a hundred girls had passed me. It was a hard blow but at least I had tried. Had I been alone I might have run faster but being stuck in the masses I just settled to run the same pace with people around me. There was a continuous queue of runners and it was hard to try to pass anyone. I had technically a clean run but changed 2,5 minutes behind the lead. Anni, Heidi, Saila and Venla did a superb job after me and we could celebrate an awesome 3rd place at the finish. tracking