Friday, 22 March 2013

Barbate



I just came home from lovely Los Canos de Meca, a small seaside village and orienteering paradise in Andalusia. A few dozen Team FIN orienteers have kept a base camp there from the beginning of February (and staying until mid-April) so I thought of doing a one-week visit there too. For me it was a DIY training camp again, this time with my half-Spanish friend & club mate Ellu (well, actually she's 100% Finnish but currently living in Spain) who spoke the language, knew the places and made life thus a whole lot easier. She was wonderful company and got me introduced to Spanish culture, lifestyle and habits.

Training camp didn't go quite exactly as planned (speaking of myself) but was still pretty good and we had a good time. I had planned to do a high-intensity training block with 3 races and 3-4 threshold sessions but ended up doing only aerobic exercise the first four days due to running (or blocked) nose and head full of slime (I hadn't totally recovered from a recent flu yet).  But the last two days were really good and I could push hard again in hill-O-intervals, contour-O-intervals, hill intervals and sprint-O training. So overall it was still pretty good and I got to orienteer a lot, which was really the main purpose of travelling there.

Sprint trainings were excellent even at slightly slower pace. Super-narrow streets, stairs and passages made it anyway challenging enough. I feel that I got decent technical training despite the fact that I was physically down. And training there in such great conditions gave me a huge mental boost too. Soft sandy ground, steep climbs, contour details and good runnability made the terrain ideal for orienteering training and close proximity to all ready trainings made the place a real training paradise. I really loved it and wish I could have stayed there longer.

Also it was good to meet so many friends and team mates at the same place, take part to a tapas night by the pool, do a circuit training with my dear club mates, walk barefoot in the beach and treat your hurting legs in cooling sea after trainings. My plantar fasciitis is still troublesome but less painful than a month ago. I can already see clear progression!

Some of my favourite trainings:

Sprint Vejer de la Frontera

"Steep climbs" hill-O-intervals

Contour training

"Super-narrow streets"



Monday, 11 March 2013

Sporty weekend


This was supposed to be about a bus trip to Breda (Netherlands) and about Interland, the annual match between England, two Belgian teams, Netherlands, northwest Germany and a French team. I was excited to change my red-and-white club top of Pyrintö to a red-and-white English O-top. I felt also quite proud of it. But on Friday morning, just before I was supposed to travel, I woke up with sore throat and fever and that was it. A beginning of a different kind of weekend. But it turned out to be sportier than I had imagined. My own actions were minimal but I still got a small boost of endorphins (just by watching TV).

Every athlete knows how annoying it is to be sick. Especially when you should be hitting your peak mileage weeks of the year. If you've been training really hard before getting sick then you can afford a week of rest without getting too annoyed about it but if you've already had some problems during the past weeks or months then just a normal flu can feel like disastrous. This time getting sick hit me hard but only for a half a day or so. Then I thought that a total rest would actually do really good for my inflamed foot too and decided to moor myself tightly to the coach and take all out of a sluggish weekend.

Friday went by following among others biathlon World Cup from Sochi, cycling from Tirreno-Adriatico, cycling from Paris-Nice and ski jumping World Cup from Lahti. In between I read the latest issues of Runner's World and Cycling Active.

Saturday was even better starting already 7am with replay sendings from Friday in case I've missed something, then continued with live alpine World Cup, Nordic combined, classic sprints in cross-country skiing, biathlon World Cup, and the Inter-Counties (UK Inter-Counties Cross-Country Championships). LIVE as well on Sky Sports 3. The event I ran myself a year ago! Just a thought of seeing myself running there makes me embarrassed. Although at the same time I'm still quite proud of it. It was an honor to get to run there and the race itself was far from my comfort zone. I doubt I'll be doing anything like that ever again.

On the afternoon I felt a bit better and went to a yoga class with Sami (it was his suggestion and has never happened before so I didn't have much choices). I guess Sami thought that I wasn't up for that yet when he came up with such an unordinary suggestion. After the class I continued watching cycling.

And Sunday...well Sundays are for long runs (or occasional races) but this time it was just a marathon session in front of TV. When Sami went out for a road ride it was really hard not to go with him but for once I was determined to think forward and take it easy until feeling better. So green in envy I stayed at home. Highlights of the day were Mervi Pesu's (my idol & club mate) victorious long distance race at the Ski Orienteering World Championships in Kazakhstan and Richie Porte's stunning time trial ride in Paris-Nice that confirmed his overall victory. Enjoyed even watching Petter Northug's dominance in classic cross-country skiing from Lahti and Team Sky's another great day of riding in Tirreno-Adriatico.

Now I feel more rested than ever and ready for a training camp in Spain!

Me trying to be a yogi