Jukola 2016 (Lappee)

Last Tuesday I flew out to Finland for a few days of training with the TuMe boys and then Jukola where I was put on last leg for the second team. I was aware that I didn't want a repeat of 10Mila in terms of a poor performance due to tired legs, and even more so since the second team was still very competitive and could potentially break top 25. So to be safe, the trainings I did were all fairly easy and short, to try and save my legs for the relay.

On Wednesday morning, I hit some Helsinki trails for a steady run with 6 x 1min [2min] thrown in for fun. It was a very hot morning and I sweated buckets, but felt I was keeping a good rhythm on the very undulating XC ski trails. That evening, after travelling to a summer house quite close to the Jukola area, I did a short 30min course in some pretty nice terrain. However, there were too many tracks out to really feel any sense of accomplishment...

Summery view from Helsinki overnight stay

The next day there was a WRE on in the evening, the Huippuliigan. So just a short run with drills in the morning. I headed out quite safe, wanting to bag some solid controls, but soon was messing up and loosing quite a lot of time. Not only this but I punched too quickly at one control causing an MP... Happy that it was at this event and not Jukola, and there was at least some solid orienteering going on at times. Legs really didn't have much in them though which was worrying, so I took things really easy for the next two days.

On Friday we had our final club training on a Jukola relevant map. I made a complete hash of the first control but then reset and did some really smooth, focussed orienteering. Then on Saturday a few of the team headed out to the model, and after I ran a few controls comfortably, I checked out the already mud-infested arena, and then headed back for some lunch and recovery.

Nice walk on Friday evening

Unlike at 10Mila, [almost] all my preparations went really well. However, this might just have been because my race was almost at a normal time, as I was expecting to start at around 6am. In terms of nutrition - big lunch, carb dinner, porridge breakfast, light snack -2hrs, perfect. Training: last hard session 3 days before. Hydration: check. Legs in good shape: check. Sleep: well... I tried heading to bed earlier and managed to sleep for an hour between 6 and 7pm on Saturday. However, after this, although using my best efforts, I didn't get another wink before having to get up at 2am; shit. Oh well, forget about it, move on; I was told this shouldn't really effect me anyway but it was stressful nonetheless.

At 4am we headed over to the arena and at 5 I started getting ready. The team were doing well, as I found out after 'waking' up at 2am, and the pressure was mounting on me when it looked like there was a chance at breaking top 25. Our 6th leg lost some places though and it seemed doubtful; however it would be a lie for me to say that I wasn't semi-relieved... Eventually I was in the box at what felt like 6pm but was actually 6am. Did my drills as best as I could in the muddy slop which was the changeover and eventually I was tagged and heading out into the gloomy, wet terrain.

My plan, again unlike 10Mila, was to have a steady start and pick up from there, hoping in the end to have something to give on the final loop should I be caught up in a sprint. So I did just this, flowing smoothly along all the trails through the green to number 1. I was advised to really nail this control, so I made sure of this. I hesitated for a few seconds before eventually seeing it, but I really should have been more confident as I knew exactly what I was doing. Then over to number 2, 102, check, number 3... half way there when I remembered I should have punched 101. Extremely annoyed at myself but also grateful that somehow I managed to realise this before getting much further away, or even finishing. I trudged back and found my control, wasting 90s but remaining calm. I think having trouble remembering control numbers might have been the only real disadvantage from not getting any sleep...

After this though things picked up and although I was mostly alone I was orienteering pretty quickly and cleanly. Went through the southern loop really smoothly but then chose to go pretty straight to 10 which was a poor routechoice. Weaved along any trail I could find but certainly lost at least a minute from my normal time behind the winner on each control. Took my first gel at this point and was still feeling strong. On the next western loop I was caught by NTNUI and raced the guy for a bit, producing some good splits. But then he got away, way too quick for what I was feeling. Not too bothered, and soon I was heading through the arena passage as Thierry was finishing. This definitely sped me up a bit.

However, this small increase in speed was only followed by an absolute crash, which no amount of sugar could surpass. A few guys came past including GG and my navigation began to suffer with some lazy routes. However, picked up when the finish began to come into sight on my map, and it's quite a good thing that I did as the Lillomarka train was quickly catching up. Surged at the finish to keep well ahead of them, but it's only at the end when I realised they were actually there.

An absolute state by the end, felt like tearing up from fatigue and completely soaked from head to toe. Managed to squeeze out a km recovery with GG but I was soon crashing as I did for the rest of the day and the flight back home. Grim, but fairly happy with the result. Lost 5 places, but could not have really seen myself doing much better being set off so high on last leg.. Team seemed quite happy, as we finished in 34th, so that's always a plus!

Team
Splits

Positives and negatives to take from this:

+ navigationally sound (except 2) given that I was largely alone in some tricky finish terrain
+ physically good until 10km (only lost 6 mins to leader including mistake to 2)
+ preparations fairly successful

- massive crash after 10km, not too sure why I can't seem to last for longer than this (in other recent races too)
- technically lazy towards the end, missing out on climbs if possible etc...
- couldn't sleep beforehand (nerves?)
- gels don't seem to be working

I think my main worry is that my physical capabilities seem to be awful, even though I've had nearly 6 months of uninterrupted training including tough long hilly runs which should have mimicked Jukola. At the moment I'm putting this down to a few weeks of heavy training going into this; really hope there isn't another, more worrying reason.

Anyway - next up is a few final weeks of prep before Switzerland. I guess one final positive to take from Jukola is that it was much more difficult and longer than fairly simplified and shortened Long distance on Swiss terrain.

Glas Tulaichean and Deeside Training

Towards the end of last week, Deeside experienced a bit of a heatwave. This was certainly noticeable lining up for the start of Glas Tulaichean uphill only race, but I thought nothing of it, and if anything, it would be good practice for the summer international's upcoming heat. However, I completely crumbled before even getting to the foot of the mountain. No idea what to put this down to but it's possible that I was quite dehydrated. However, more than likely, I had simply crashed after running a grueling 4 sessions in the last 8 days leading up to the race. Anyway, it was a good experience and two valuable lessons were learnt from it - hydration can be the difference between a good and bad race on hot days, and taper up for big races. Two obvious ideas but they have really made themselves clear with me in recent competitions.

After this, I decided to make the best use of the hot weather upper Deeside was experiencing and so I headed up the valley to camp and train for 2 nights. I found a great spot for the first night between Inver and Creag Choinnich.

River was great for dips post training.

Whilst out, I ran 4 tough orienteering sessions and 1 drills session. On the first night I headed out to Inver for some SlopeO. Started in some heavy heather which made running nearly impossible at times but it soon got better. However, it then got much worse when deep heather was coupled with nearly vertical slopes. I hated every step of it, but there's no denying it was an awesome area in some great weather. I eventually finished feeling very dehydro-ed and splashed about in some pools for a bit.

The next morning, I headed up to Creag Choinnich for a corridor. It really didn't go well and I really didn't drink enough water before heading out. A bit of a failure of a session. However, things got much better from here. At lunch I went for an easy run coupled with MM drills, and although I got a pretty bad nosebleed half way through, I was feeling much better and even found a mountain stream to drink out of before running back. I packed and moved myself to Ballater, where that evening I went for a long legs slopeO session in Pannanich. This was bound to be horrible but I felt much better and the terrain was amazing! Nearly broke my leg a few times on the slope to 4 but other than that I was feeling quite good. Poor height management to 5, but otherwise pretty safe and clean technically.

After a very nice evening of reading plus a chippy and a good sleep, I headed out to Craigendarroch for a final middle-style slopeO course. I started feeling good and was orienteering clean but soon hit a wall of heather and was forced down to a walk for quite a few controls. Eventually popped out of the heather but my legs were done. Crawled round the last few and headed home just as a thunderstorm was making an end to the heatwave. A good few days' work in the bag.

I then rested for a good 30 hours before a long session on Scolty on Wednesday. Found some very technical downhill MTB paths to practice technique on and a few steep climbs to try and match that of Switzerland. After an hour 'warming up' I headed into a Scolty Summer Series course which went very smoothly, aside from the fact that I was beginning to doze off physically after 90mins. No mistakes, but there wouldn't be an excuse for any in a fairly simple area like this. It was really nice having actual kites to look for after quite a few no flag sessions recently.

The optimum of course would be a combination of kites and intricate orienteering. Luckily that will come next week with a Middle distance near the Jukola area on Thursday and the real deal on Saturday night. Looking forward to really testing myself at both races, and hopefully some constructive results will come out of it. I will be tapering a lot more than I did before Tio in the hope to lower the chance of fading as hard as I did on the relay. Then it's only 3 weeks before JWOC and I can start really sharpening up. I've already planned a few good final sessions before this, including a CC on Glen Fearder which is just about as Swiss as you can get in Scotland.

Rare Progress

It's been pretty nice relaxing at home for the past few weeks, without the need to race any essential selection races. And without the stress of uni, I've been piling all my focus into training and recovering; my only worry these days is whether there is enough food in Aberdeen to sustain my appetite.

This stress-free life has allowed my training to really boost up, with some high quality work being put in now in the attempt to begin to sharpen up for summer. I feel as if I'm becoming faster and stronger - it's beginning to show in the sense of feeling fitter during hilly runs+intervals and being less tired waking up each morning, irrespective of how heavy the training load was the day before.

However, with this satisfaction with my current level of fitness comes a worry that my orienteering capabilities aren't keeping up. Recent races have shown a real lack of essential skills, which is quite worrying. I've been trying to fix this by fitting in a fair amount of orienteering round my physical prep, with a main focus on compass work. Although I recently realised that my compass is no longer pointing to anywhere of particular use (certainly not north), things have been getting better, particularly with a really positive session yesterday.

Another area of weakness I've picked up on is that I tend to be lazy towards the end of long races. I tried to address this yesterday by putting in an O session in Sluie at the end of a long run, starting in Scolty and heading over the whole ridge to Potarch. I expected to be knackered and lazy with my O-tech by the end of this session but I felt strong on the hills, and, aside from 2 slight wobbles, I was fairly good at holding my bearings, resulting in a 5.2km Garmin measured distance for a 5km course.

Hoping to continue this good training for the next 2 weeks leading up to Jukola, with a WRE Middle in Finland the Thursday before added in for good measure. Looking forward to hopefully a better physical performance as well as a more solid technical one. In the meantime there's a few hill races to look forward to, including Glas Tulaichean uphill only this coming Saturday. Forecast looks hot and sunny just now, so hopefully a nice day out in the hills!