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.

Getting ready for the big day (Jouni Mähönen)

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

Sprinting in the sprint  

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

Camp Portugal 2013

February wouldn't be February without a training camp in Portugal. This time I spent ten days there with my good friends Sofia and Heini training and taking part to Portugal O Meeting in Idanha a Nova and then Meeting de Orientacao do Centro in the coast. It was a good entity with plenty of orienteering in full speed (well it's relative so I'd better say high or fairly high speed). I managed to run altogether 6 races, a few hard trainings and a couple of easy sessions with a map. I increased my weekly mileage hundredfold but my plantar fasciitis took it fairly well and protested badly only a few times (when I tried to run twice or more a day). I had good races and bad races, good days and bad days, and good legs and bad legs. But as a whole it was definitively good and I can see progression in many fronts even if I wasn't always satisfied with my orienteering.

I had two fairly good middle distance races (POM day 2 & MOC day 2) where I was 6th and 9th, two average long distance races (POM day 1 & MOC day 1) and two quite poor races (POM days 3 & 4) where I did a few bigger mistakes (over 3 min altogether) at the end of the course. Terrain of POM days 3 and 4 in Cidral was technically fun but physically challenging for me for two reasons: 1) steep ascents and 2) steep (rocky) descents. First of all I wasn't fit enough for the climbs (my brains just stopped working at the top of the hills) and secondly my left foot couldn't handle the descents. Everything in between was fine but there wasn't much of it.

Sand dunes in Quiaios and Osso-da-Baleia suited me (and my foot) much better and I just loved running there! Unfortunately I wasn't sharp enough to stay focused all the way and was driven from the red line a couple of times. But there was a lot of good in all my performances even if I wasn't fully satisfied. I was 9th on both days of MOC and 8th overall. Same as in POM. So some consistency in the results despite mistakes. 

Best of all was nonetheless the fact that I could run all the races and my plantar fasciitis didn't get much worse (a couple of sleepless nights doesn't count). I could orienteer nearly as much as I had planned and skipped only a couple of afternoon runs that Sofia & Heini did (and unfortunately all the great sprints too). Instead I used that time for core & gymnastics. So I should be able to do a few more sit-ups than I used to do and hold myself longer in a side plank. A great training camp all in all and very well organized events once again with great courses and good maps.

Highlights of the week:

-sprint in Monsanto (see Thomas Dlabajas video here)

-luxury staying in the middle of an olive plantation

-sleeping bag (had learned something from the last year!)

-pumpkin walnut chutney (a lovely welcome greeting)

-map memory training with the British squad (ages since I've done something like that!)

-pink kinesiotape (as essential as an ice bag)

-petzl (couldn't have survived without it when able to use only one electrical element at a time)

Big thanks to everyone involved helping with maps & trainings, especially Hannu, Philippe, Liz, GG and Luis! 

Links to maps & results:

Results POM

Maps POM

Results MOC 

Maps MOC

Winter of compromises

It's been a different kind of winter with a lot of alternative training and compromises. 

Ever since the middle of November I've been struggling with a foot injury that has lately transformed from weird metatarsal pain to more conventional plantar fasciitis (don't really know whether to be relieved or not). First I thought it was good that the initial pain was more or less gone and the pain had proceeded towards the heel but nonetheless situation remains pretty much the same. I've still got pain when I run and it gets even worse afterwards. But hey I just read that most people recover completely within a year  so I've got no worries! (what?!? a whole year?!?) I also found out that it is often associated with high BMI (I should really get worried!).

So I've spent much more time in saddle, gym and pool than running and gradually I'm getting a bit bored to it. I was happy to be able to run the first World Cup round in New Zealand but in reality my foot was not yet fully recovered and running there didn't help much the process. On the other hand the whole trip was amazing and gave me a huge mental boost that I really needed.

When back in England I thought I could do some proper training again by cycling but then we got lots of snow and for a week or so cycling outside was not an option. I tried running in snow, which was much better than running on hard surface, but it was not painless. When the snow was finally gone and I was excited to get back in the saddle the first thing that happened was that my bike got punctured. I know it happens quite often but at that moment it just felt a bit unfair after all misery. The day after I got the tire changed and was just getting ready for a new ride when stomach flu hit me and put me to bed. I'm not complaining, it just hasn't been any dancing on roses lately.

Anyway, it's looking slightly better now (knock knock) and I really hope I will be able to run again in a few weeks time when heading off to Portugal for a training camp. Plan was to run both POM and MOC but we'll see how it goes. Adios!