Break between the training camps

As I wrote earlier winter has been hard to me and I’ve had difficulties to adapt after spending a few years in warmer latitudes. So it was good to have a short getaway just when I started to feel the burden. The whole training camp in Portugal was a spontaneous move from me. It was more or less coincidence that I happened to be in the right place at the right time when Rasa and Annika were planning their trip and I could jump along them in the last minute. But I was very happy and grateful for that. I felt I needed to get some easy kilometers and some fast pace orienteering. Rasa and Annika were also great company to travel with. 

We arrived to Quiaios very late on Friday night and in the next morning there was a long distance race in the scheme. After all skiing and cautious running on ice it felt strange to run suddenly in snowless terrain. My training had been mostly just aerobic before the training camp and I suspected that four races in a row would be too much, so I had planned to take it gently. 

I enjoyed enormously the first day. It was fairly easy but very nice (see the map here). I noticed that I was still a bit off mode after the winter, in other words my navigation was a bit off the bearing and my running was off the pace but despite that I enjoyed it and found a better flow and rhythm in my orienteering the longer I ran. Having done one training before the race would have helped a lot but now I just needed to adapt and use the races as trainings. Second day I used fully for training purpose. Middle distance in the morning and control pick à la Thierry with 74 controls in the evening. The latter was a true concentration training. 

That control pick training certainly helped me to find back my confidence and orienteering skills so that I managed to do a fairly decent run on the WRE on the following day. My pace was still slow compared to Minna but I wasn’t too much behind the others. I made a couple of mistakes but as a whole I was quite happy with my performance. Pace will come later, I’m sure of it.

Results POM WRE

GPS tracking POM WRE

Last day in the chase I felt awful. What I didn’t realise was that I probably had a flu coming up. I had a horrible headache and felt extremely tired. Too tired to run and too tired to focus. I made a couple of stupid mistakes early on, ran the diamond in wrong order, gave up and jogged home. My motivation was gone, it wasn’t my day. After lunch I felt much better and hang along Annika to train on a contour only map. It was a good fun and it felt okay when running at easy pace. Next day I got sick.

After the races we travelled back. Initially I thought it would have been nice to stay longer but after catching a cold it was quite nice to come home to recover. I certainly prefer being sick at home than on a training camp. Not that I wanted to be sick at all, but if I have to, then I certainly prefer to do that at home. And lying on the coach at home sipping my favourite tea and watching xc ski world champs on TV isn’t that awful after all. I had anyway planned to take it easy between the training camps. Now I’m just hoping to get well before the second training camp with OK Linné. This time we are heading to Croatia and Slovenia. Again, it will be more training than racing, but we are planning to run Kvarner Bay and Lipica Open. It will be awesome!

Big thanks to everyone who helped us with various things! Always a pleasure to come to Portugal!

POM WRE - my first race in Linné shirt (Joaquim Margarido)

First start of the year - very focused! (Joaquim Margarido)

To run, or not to run, that is the question (Joaquim Margarido)

Winter survival strategies

1. Stay indoors
So back in Scandinavia and facing winter again. Oh yeah. Not an easy task after spending a few years in mild climate in England. You may have wondered why I’ve been silent for a few months but that’s just part of my winter survival strategy. Isolate yourself from the world, stay at home, and concentrate only on a couple of fundamental things like keeping yourself warm and staying alive. Forget everything else. 

2. Avoid ice
When the first signs of winter came it hit us hard. First week meant freezing temperatures and black ice everywhere. My boyfriend had just changed his road bike to a mountain bike in order to continue with cycling through the winter but had no studs in his wheels and a nice Sunday ride on icy roads ended up with a broken patella. 8 weeks later and he’s still in early phase of recovery, walking with an orthosis and crutches, allowed to bend his knee only 60 degrees. I also fell and hit my knee, in the very same week, but got only a bruise and was lucky enough to get back to training after a couple of weeks.

3. Enjoy it while you can 
So the start of the winter could have been better but after my own knee had recovered I really got a boost to my training when I realised how lucky I am being whole and able to run (working as a full time carer for a disabled certainly gives you some perspective). First weeks of January were actually really good since the conditions were excellent for orienteering. Marshes had frozen but there was barely any snow. I used that time wisely and orienteered probably more than I ever have orienteered in January. And I almost started to think that maybe winter isn’t that bad after all…

4. Go skiing
However, a few weeks later everything had changed and suddenly there was a whole lot of snow in the forest when we had a full training day with O sessions, workshop and Linné Cup stage 2 (GPS-tracking). No one complained and we ran the day as planned with a relay training in the morning and night contour corridor in the evening. It was good fun but conditions being what they were I was quite happy that there was a ski camp in Orsa Grönklitt in the scheme in the following weekend. It was a great weekend all in all with lots of xc skiing in excellent conditions. 

5. Prepare for the worst
I was over the moon after the last ski session in Grönklitt in -5C and sunshine but it was rather depressing to get back to Stockholm to ice and slush. To make things worse I had entered myself to a 10km road race on the following Saturday. We got some new slush during the week but mostly the weather was so warm and wet that I started to believe that roads could be runnable… But then it all changed once again at the last minute. Race was in the evening and it kept sleeting the whole damn day. An awful mixture of icy rain and snow. So wet and heavy that you would think it melted right away but it didn’t. Instead it got packed in deep layers of wet, icy slush that was much worse and slippier than ice or snow. Running on it was like skiing classic without wax. I had thought of running in racing flats but after jogging a bit on the route I decided to change to my heavy clumsy Icebugs. A smart choice. I guess it added some seconds to my time but at least I kept myself in one piece. Even better would have been orienteering shoes and neoprene socks. Atmosphere was great despite the horrible weather (did I mention that it rained ice all the way while we were running?) and it was a much better workout than I would have done on my own.

6. Travel south
A couple of days later something very strange or extraordinary happened. It started to snow and it didn’t stop before it looked like Orsa Grönklitt here in Sollentuna. Why to travel several hours to seek snow when you can have it on your front door? I’ve lived in Stockholm before but never ever have I seen this much snow or been able to ski here. Well now I have. I’ve enjoyed the beauty of winter and tried to make best out of it. Maybe winter is worth the pain, ice, slush, and shovelling if you get a few nice and sunny days, who knows, but I’m still quite excited to get out of here soon to warmer latitudes and to get to orienteer in snowless terrain! 

Orsa Grönklitt -19C

Orsa Grönklitt - great spot for a stop

Orsa Grönklitt - perfect conditions

Winter in Sollentuna  

Home forest

Norrviken