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 |
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.
