Touring

So I screwed up NORT but it was still a good week in many ways. I got what I wanted: international race starts, more routine, and confidence in my abilities. I wanted to run well the forest races but didn't expect much of the sprints. Ended up doing 3 decent sprint races (practically clean, only a few bad route choices) but underperformed big time in the forest. In Norway I still felt tired from a recent training camp and a few sleepless nights before the race didn't help much. Still I could have done quite well if I hadn't lost 3 minutes in total on two controls (3 and 10). When the tour came to Finland I was feeling better and had a really good start in the sprint qualification (10th after the first part) but after some hesitation and a slower route choice I lost 8 places at the end. In the final I lost over a minute on two legs (3 and 11) and didn't get many bonus seconds there. So when it came to the chase I was further down on the list than I had hoped for.

You should perhaps watch the GPS tracking of the chasing start to follow my description of the last race. Just to make it clear, I'm not very proud of it. But here we go.

I started 20th, nearly 12 minutes behind Simone, but in almost reachable distance from the top10. Maybe top15 had been more realistic but because ALL I WANT IS EVERYTHING I went all out right from the start. Maybe a bit too aggressively, but I could still read the details on the hillside on the way to control 1. Path, crag, vague re-entrant, gray hilltop, a distinct bolder, gray crag on the left side and track above it. Last look at the compass and down towards the control site behind the open rock. There it is! I check the code just before punching. 45. WTF?? I should have 31. I realize something has gone really wrong and suddenly I have absolutely no idea where I am. I know I've just been to the gray crag but can't understand what has happened after that. I try to read in but get stressed about other runners coming from all directions. I make a vague (but correct) guess about the location and continue. But it's only a guess and I'm LIVIN' ON A PRAYER that I'll find my control some 100m further. But no, I'm in such a hurry that I just slightly miss it. "Ok I wasn't where I thought I was, so where am I??" Again, without a second thought, I get an impulsive idea that I'm by the cliffs just below my control and I should follow them up (in reality I'm about 20m southeast of the control). I climb up along the steep edge but find there no control whatsoever. I'm too stressed to think logically and make another ridiculous guess that I'm by the re-entrant just 20m north of the control and go on further to south. I find a control in a re-entrant (100m north from control 2) that mimics the control site I'm searching but the code is wrong again. Another DAMNED attempt. THIS AINT A LOVE SONG but I should KEEP THE FAITH and continue. I look around and realize that I have to be on the open rocks between controls 1 and 2. So back again. "IF THAT'S WHAT IT TAKES, that's what I'll do". I check the places I've already been to, I check the big cliffs in the hillside below me, and once more I check the code of the control I've been to. 45. My race starts to taste like BITTER WINE. Suddenly it's all quiet in the forest. Others girls in the chase are long gone and I'm all-alone in empty forest feeling like an ARMY OF ONE. Finally I give myself enough time to figure it all out and pick the hiding control without a problem. It laughs at me and says NO APOLOGIES. It's taken over 9 minutes to find it and I know that I'm out of the game. So "WHAT ABOUT NOW?" I ask myself. "Should I quit or should I continue?" "WHO SAYS YOU CAN'T GO HOME?" "IT'S MY LIFE after all". "Ne-ver give up" shouts the other half of my brain, the fighter me, and tells me and my stupid ego to go on. BECAUSE WE CAN it assures me. Sometimes that's the best way to make up your mistakes. To continue and do it properly again. But sometimes if you're mentally broken it's just BAD MEDICINE. Nevertheless I decide to go on for a while and see how it goes. "HAVE A NICE DAY" the control shouts sarcastically when I ran off. Fuck you too. When I come to the butterflies the terrain turns to a real nightmare. Like I hadn't had enough already! I've lost my racing spirit long ago but seeing a few fellow runners (most of them one loop ahead) feels comforting. I catch a Swedish girl to control 13 and let myself to hang the next leg. But it clearly isn't my day and we end up making a 2 min mistake on that one. I realize it's better to continue alone in order to stay focused. A few controls later I see Emma Klingenberg, which is quite a surprise (she went out 10th). I don't pay much attention to her (she has clearly had even worse day than I) and after a while I'm alone again. When I come to the map change I see an empty stand and hear Annika Billstam coming to the finish. Oh crap. It's quite depressing and I hesitate whether to run the last loop. Our team doc gives me a bottle of sports drink and says that I've kept a good pace since the big mistake in the beginning. She persuades me to continue and so I do. I'm tired but not dead tired and I can now slow down a bit when there's no one to race against. I pick the rest of the controls without a problem but feel still somewhat embarrassed when running into finish. I hope that the speaker wouldn’t notice me but he does and surprises me by telling that I'm 21st. That's only one place down where I started. What the hell has happened to all those girls who passed me in the beginning?? It has been an awful race but at least I got SOMETHING FOR THE PAIN. Maybe I was 8-10min slower than I could have been but it was still worth running. 21st is much more than I thought I deserved.

If you're too young or old to understand a word of that, go and check the best rock songs over the past 30 years. It should open up ;) 

If NORT didn't fulfill my dreams, something else right afterwards did. A concert that I had been waiting for the past 15 years! So I'm very HAPPY NOW (thanks Murray for asking!).

Results, maps, tracking etc. found in the Nordic Tour webpage

Analysis of the races, route choices etc. in World of O

 

Sprint qualification, Turku (Jukka Liikari)

Training in Koli & Vuokatti

After Tiomila I travelled to Finland to take first part to two Huippuliiga events in Lohja and Tampere and after that I continued to Koli for a week and then to Vuokatti for another week to train in the WOC terrain type. It was a good journey, worth every penny, and I'm glad I did it! I trained well, mostly orienteering, and got to enjoy the Finnish summer at its best. Weather was just perfect all the time and training conditions were excellent. Drive to Koli in Pohjois-Karjala direct after a hard race felt a bit longish but Leevi and The Leavings' fantastic song Pohjois-Karjala got me into right mood :)

Training went well and there were no real setbacks this time. Well, if a bear doesn't count. In one training that I did with the Swiss Team there was a mother bear with her baby bears that almost attacked us but she changed her mind and turned away after Daniel Hubmann came and scared her. You can read more about this famous bear in Blick or in Turun Sanomat.

I was fortunate not to see the bear myself and quite happy that way. My biggest concern was just whether my o-shoes and braces, which had given signs of falling apart already after the first weekend, would hold up until the end. With some tape and good luck they held up just until the last training. After the final session (a long distance training race) I barely touched the braces, they just fell off my feet and I could see my toes pointing out through the shoes. I guess that was a sign to stop training. And so I did.

First week I stayed in a small cottage by the lake Pielinen enjoying the beauty and quietness of the surrounding nature. I orienteered mostly just once a day and ran on afternoons. One day I climbed up to Ukko-Koli to admire the views (my real attempt was to try to beat the cyclists tempo times but I failed). Swiss O-Team was training in Koli region at the same and I was glad that I could join in some of their hard trainings for middle and relay. In Vuokatti I trained with the Finnish (and French) team(s) and got to run a few more training races. Two long distance races at the end of a long training camp was quite tough but because they were the best possible long distance trainings before the champs I ran them both. First one went surprisingly easily but in the latter I was pretty tired, at least mentally. Nonetheless I was happy to get it done because it definitively gave me more than it took. All in all I'm very pleased with the whole training camp.

I also got selected to the Finnish team for Nordic Tour, a World Cup tour with races in Oslo (NOR), Stockholm (SWE), and Turku (FIN). First races are already on the coming weekend!

You can follow the races in Yle TV2. Timetable is here.  

Some of the recent TV sendings you can watch online:

Huippuliiga 3 Lohja

Huippuliiga 4 Tampere

5th in Tiomila

Tiomila in Gällöfsta in Upplands-Bro was a great event, as always. There are people who find things to moan about (such as lack of Finnish speaker?) but I think everything worked out very well and the main thing, courses and terrain, were fantastic! Even the weather couldn't have been better!

It was happy reunion with my club mates in Stockholm (people living in Östermalm don't probably regard Märsta as part of Stockholm but if you've lived in outskirts you've got a bit wider perspective) the day before. We did short model training, had lunch together and went to the arena to put up our club tent. It was a real trial of team spirit but we succeeded. After that we knew that the hardest task was done and it would be piece of cake for us in the forest.

I still don't feel too enthusiastic about the first leg (I hate it when it's packed and you can't do your own thing) but after a few attempts last year I had found a confidence how to do it. It was great to see so many familiar faces (Vendula, Karro, Lina, and Signe among others) around me on the start line and we were chatting friendly and making jokes just a few minutes before the start. Atmosphere was more relaxed than I can remember. Karro reminded me about taking my own map in the changeover (she had every right to make jokes about my last year's error at Venla) and I told her to run faster to get there before me. So we were smiling and having a good time but we all knew that after the bang we would be racing hard against each other.

Start of the relay (Aapo Laiho)

First glance on the map and I get dejavu from the last year. Again I'm tempted to take my own route choice to the first control and go around the first hill but I settle to go with the others this time. It's easier to see what pace to run and I might even see if someone is trying to make a move early. I know I have the whole 8km to make a move if I want to, so I chose to take an easy start. I just go along and pick my own controls. I have a longer forking on control 4 and have to bend to the hill on the left side while many others continue straight towards control 5. It appears that our forking is a minute slower than those who went straight. On the way to control 8 I try to make a route choice for the long leg from 8 to 9 and decide to go right (less climbing and pretty straight forward). It's over half a way now and time to start running. Vendula seems to have exactly the same plan and we rush towards the meadow together. The leg goes well and we are able to keep a good pace there but just when approaching the control after the knoll on the edge of the circle I spot a huge boulder ahead and run to it. The shock is huge when there's no flag but then I figure out that it has to be the smaller boulder just northwest from the actual control site. It wasn't a big mistake, a half a minute max, but big enough for the other teams to catch me and for Vendula to get a small gap to the rest of us. A bad route choice to 11 doesn't help much in attempt to catch Halden. I punch the last control three times just to be sure to get it right and lose a few places there but manage to send Anni out on the 9th place, less than half a minute behind Halden. It couldn't have gone much better.

Anni did a superb job on the second leg and came in the lead, just like we had calculated. Still, even if the scenario was exactly what we had hoped for, we were really nervous during the 3rd leg. Tytti, who ran the 3rd leg, is just a first year senior who has joined us this year and it was her FIRST EVER Tiomila and we just put her out there in the lead. Just imagining being there in her position broke my nerves and put my stomach upside-down. I have seldom been so nervous during a relay leg or so touched by seeing a teammate coming to the last control. I was all in tears (out of happiness) when Tytti calmly did her thing and brought us in 3rd, just a minute behind Lidingö. At that moment I felt we had already won the relay. Of course there was still two legs to go but with Saila and Venla we knew there were no worries. Unfortunately the 4th leg didn't go quite as well as it could have but nonetheless we fought well and finished 5th in a tight relay with 6 best teams within just 4 minutes. Domnarvet girls did solid performances throughout the relay and got a deserved victory.

GPS tracking

Results

World of O

5th best team in the world (Jarno Salmelin)

Between two apartments and two countries

It's been a busy, stressful but still wonderful month. First we've been living in a chaos in the middle of a move here in England and then before we had really settled in to our new home in Rugby I did a short trip to Finland to do some technical O-training and take part to first races there. Shortly, training there went brilliantly and I feel I'm getting fitter and faster day-by-day but unfortunately I wasn't able to deliver any good results because of numerous small mistakes. Anyway it's going forward now.

Before Finland I spent a wonderful weekend in the Lakes running the LOC double in Esthwaite and Graythwaite, undoubtedly among the best O-terrains in England. See Hollie Orr's great description about the weekend here.

In Finland I stayed a week near Turku orienteering there on daily basis before taking part to the second race of Huippuliiga, the Finnish premier league in orienteering. The week went well and I felt that my skills got better and better day-by-day and I got more and more used to running in that tough terrain there (believe me it's quite different from West Midland terrain!). But it wasn't particularly easy and as you can imagine my legs were pretty tired after 6 days of training there. So I wasn't expecting any high speed or miracles on Saturday when starting on to a 11,1km course in the same terrain type. But I was actually happily surprised how good and easy it felt physically all the way. Unfortunately I cannot say the same of my orienteering.

Trainings had gone technically well and I had found confidence in my orienteering but 1:15000 race map and a very detailed area in part of the race made it a lot more challenging. I had difficulties to see details on the map, such as to which direction crags pointed and whether a control site was crag or a hill (yes I forgot to see the descriptions a few times or misread them). On most legs I made very good job until the circle but it took me some extra time to spot the flag there. Half a minute here, a minute there, 5-6 minutes altogether. That's awfully lot but I'm learning, adapting, and making progress. Bottom line I'm running again, painless and without compromises.

Results

RouteGadget

TV broadcast

Tiomila, the highlight of the spring season, coming up this weekend, stay tuned!

 

Picture Suomen Suunnistusliitto

JK2013: a new start

Jan Kjellström International Festival of Orienteering, better known as JK, is like a Christmas for British orienteers. It's the biggest orienteering event in the island and everyone wants to be part of it. It's a huge social happening comprising of three individual races and a relay. Individual races are often also selection races for summer's international events such as WOC and JWOC, so a good start field is guaranteed. It's always a well-organized event with great atmosphere and good courses. In other words I wouldn't miss it for the world. But this year I probably should have.

After months of struggle and compromises with an injury I wasn't ready for a season start and it would have been wiser to go skiing to the Alps or Northern Finland and continue with some basic training instead of competing. I wanted to be ready but I wasn't. I had zero confidence in my shape, which caused some extra stress and panic with orienteering. I didn't have confidence to stay calm and do my thing but instead tried to hurry and save the time that I would lose in fitness. It didn't work.

In sprint I got inferiority complex just by looking at my contenders in their race vests and small shorts before the race. They looked so professional and fit whereas I felt like an amateur in my long tights and t-shirt (thank God I had taken off my long sleeve shirt just before entering the start box!). I started humbly but to my surprise running felt actually okay and I managed to do quite a decent run finishing 5th, less than 10 seconds from the podium. I only got confused a few times on two subsequent legs (controls 10 & 11) where I lost some 20 seconds altogether but the rest of it went well. That's the good news. As well as the fact that my foot didn't protest after the race. That was really a brilliant piece of news!

Forest races on the other hand didn't go too well. Middle distance was quite simple and seemingly easy but I wasn't really focused and lost it several times just a few meters from the control site when not able to see the flag. It happened 4-5 times and cost me about a half a minute or more each time, so the outcome wasn't too good. In the long distance I started to run the course backwards and won't try to explain why I did that. When I finally came to correct first control I was clearly last and over three minutes behind. After such a horrible start I knew I wasn't going to get any WRE points and took it more like a good training. When dropping the pace a little it went smoother again and I could really enjoy it. The following 24 controls went much better.

In the relay I had somewhat mixed feelings before the start. I was glad to see Cat, Claire and Tess (all in top form & winners of the individual races) on the first leg with me but on the other hand I had my doubts whether I could keep up with them. But instead of even trying I messed up the first control so that they were already long gone. Another mistake a few controls later and the game was over. I felt sorry to let down my wonderful teammates Julie and Sophie who both did a great job and brought us 4th at the end. If I had done my job too we could have been on the podium. Now we need to wait another year for that..

So it really didn't go as I had hoped for but it nonetheless gave me a lot of hope because I see it like a new start. I could run painlessly all four races and it looks like I can finally start with proper training again without having to do compromises and think about my foot all the time. I've been able to maintain some form of fitness by alternative training (and occasional orienteering) but I need to do some proper running to feel fit and strong again. Then it will be easier to run better.

Maps, results, routes and splits at the JK2013 website

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"

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