Spring Cup
Thursday, 3. April 2008, 21:21:16
It has almost gone a week since Spring Cup, but due to lots of work there has been no time for updates. But, never too late, so here it comes.
Last Friday I travelled to Gilleleje, the northern point of Sjælland, via Copenhagen and Hillerød, where I also met my teammates from Västerås SOK. After some tasty pizza in Hillerød we drove up to the rented summerhouse in Gilleleje. It must be a really nice place during summer, but end of March it is more or less empty. Most people you met were there for Spring Cup.
Night competitions makes me a lot of fun, but since I had worked in the morning and then travelled I had chosen not to run it this year. So I spended the evening talking, reading and then having a early date with my bed.
Saturday was the Spring Cup classic event, 9,4K with 22 controls (map will come). My legs felt good when I did the warming up from pre-start to start. But, all ready to the first control I had the feeling that I could not trust my compass, but I told myself that mostly the compass is right and my feeling wrong. The features around me were clear, but still I ran very slowly and insecure. By this I lost 40 sec all ready on the first control! The leg to nr.2 was a longer one, but unfortunately without routechoice problems. It went so nice all the way to the road, then I knew I had to go more to the left, but my compass told straight so stupid me followed it. 2,30 off. Grrrrr. Third control was very Spring Cup, a depression in a dark green area. Technically it was ok, but something was strange on that hill before the depression, so I more walked than ran. 1.18 lost. 4th control was ok, I even managed to jump over the brooks. The the fun started. 4-5 was a bit longer leg with a green area in the middle. On the way to 4., I planned the routechoice - straight on, using the small paths throught the green area and then take the control from the left side. I knew that after the 4th control some hilly terrain and then a path and the green area would come. From the 4th control away I took the direction with the compass - for the last time that weekend and ran off. The hill, the path and the green area came - and then the big blow. It was NOT the hill, path and green area that I thougth it was. It was the same features but in a completely wrong direction. Almost 180 degrees wrong. It took some time for me to realize what had gone wrong and were I was, but then I did not know if to cry or to scream. For a short moment I considered to jog home, competition was clearly not a sucess, but then I decided to use the rest as a good training. At least on the mental plane. It was pretty hard motivating my self again, since I knew the time loss was just huge ( it was about 7 minutes...), but somehow I suceeded and the rest of the course was more or less ok.
After the competition I did a good cool down, also to get rid of the negative thoughts. I also checked on my compass and decided it was time for a new one since it showed north in different directions every time I turned it. After a lunch in Gilleleje we spended the afternoon and evening with chatting, coffee and some preparations for Tiomila.
Sunday was the relay and even if it seems like Spring Cup gets a bit smaller every year it was still around 50 teams in Womens Open. For Västerås SOK Jenny Johnson was running first leg, me second and Sofi Thorsell third. Jenny sent me off in 10th place and I came back in 11th place as did Sofi. My race was okay. To the first control I lost pretty much time since I was not running straight enough, but from then on it was not too bad. On the long leg from 2-3 I ran left and lost only 45" on Signe Söes. The leg 6-7 crossed some big marshes and I had decided to run around on the right side. In the end I crossed the path in front of them. It would then have been better to go left, but I decided to follow my plan and go right. In the end that costed me 2 minutes. I was not beeing very happy about that, but at least I could run out the irritation from 7-8, we had to cross a really steep hill. Then I lost time again. The radio control before the spectators control was not very difficult, but I was very unsure where on the path I was coming out and spent some time there looking at the map. After the spectators control we had a technically more challenging little loop, but everything went fine and the speed was ok. In the end I was not unhappy with the race but not satiesfied either. Many things work well, many things take too long, so there is some work to be done over the next weeks.
This week is a more or less rest week. A couple of easy runnings with and without maps and some straight training. Next week will be much harder, including some intervalls on Monday (1500meters in a 5000m-speed, so not very hard), a 5000m-test on Wednesday and the Austrian Ultralong Champs on sunday. The Ultralong take place in Bad Fischau, on one of the WMOC-maps and they look very nice and challenging. I am really looking foreward to it! Technical facts are not too scary, some more than 12K with 450m climb. But, for sure we will have some very long legs whith challenging route choices and the mass start will probably make all of us run faster. After this competition there will be some days of rest and normal training, before we take off to the Czech Republic for a EOC/WOC selection race and a training camp. And after that... "We will rock you" and then off to Tiomila. I am just looking so forward to it!
Last Friday I travelled to Gilleleje, the northern point of Sjælland, via Copenhagen and Hillerød, where I also met my teammates from Västerås SOK. After some tasty pizza in Hillerød we drove up to the rented summerhouse in Gilleleje. It must be a really nice place during summer, but end of March it is more or less empty. Most people you met were there for Spring Cup.
Night competitions makes me a lot of fun, but since I had worked in the morning and then travelled I had chosen not to run it this year. So I spended the evening talking, reading and then having a early date with my bed.
Saturday was the Spring Cup classic event, 9,4K with 22 controls (map will come). My legs felt good when I did the warming up from pre-start to start. But, all ready to the first control I had the feeling that I could not trust my compass, but I told myself that mostly the compass is right and my feeling wrong. The features around me were clear, but still I ran very slowly and insecure. By this I lost 40 sec all ready on the first control! The leg to nr.2 was a longer one, but unfortunately without routechoice problems. It went so nice all the way to the road, then I knew I had to go more to the left, but my compass told straight so stupid me followed it. 2,30 off. Grrrrr. Third control was very Spring Cup, a depression in a dark green area. Technically it was ok, but something was strange on that hill before the depression, so I more walked than ran. 1.18 lost. 4th control was ok, I even managed to jump over the brooks. The the fun started. 4-5 was a bit longer leg with a green area in the middle. On the way to 4., I planned the routechoice - straight on, using the small paths throught the green area and then take the control from the left side. I knew that after the 4th control some hilly terrain and then a path and the green area would come. From the 4th control away I took the direction with the compass - for the last time that weekend and ran off. The hill, the path and the green area came - and then the big blow. It was NOT the hill, path and green area that I thougth it was. It was the same features but in a completely wrong direction. Almost 180 degrees wrong. It took some time for me to realize what had gone wrong and were I was, but then I did not know if to cry or to scream. For a short moment I considered to jog home, competition was clearly not a sucess, but then I decided to use the rest as a good training. At least on the mental plane. It was pretty hard motivating my self again, since I knew the time loss was just huge ( it was about 7 minutes...), but somehow I suceeded and the rest of the course was more or less ok.
After the competition I did a good cool down, also to get rid of the negative thoughts. I also checked on my compass and decided it was time for a new one since it showed north in different directions every time I turned it. After a lunch in Gilleleje we spended the afternoon and evening with chatting, coffee and some preparations for Tiomila.
Sunday was the relay and even if it seems like Spring Cup gets a bit smaller every year it was still around 50 teams in Womens Open. For Västerås SOK Jenny Johnson was running first leg, me second and Sofi Thorsell third. Jenny sent me off in 10th place and I came back in 11th place as did Sofi. My race was okay. To the first control I lost pretty much time since I was not running straight enough, but from then on it was not too bad. On the long leg from 2-3 I ran left and lost only 45" on Signe Söes. The leg 6-7 crossed some big marshes and I had decided to run around on the right side. In the end I crossed the path in front of them. It would then have been better to go left, but I decided to follow my plan and go right. In the end that costed me 2 minutes. I was not beeing very happy about that, but at least I could run out the irritation from 7-8, we had to cross a really steep hill. Then I lost time again. The radio control before the spectators control was not very difficult, but I was very unsure where on the path I was coming out and spent some time there looking at the map. After the spectators control we had a technically more challenging little loop, but everything went fine and the speed was ok. In the end I was not unhappy with the race but not satiesfied either. Many things work well, many things take too long, so there is some work to be done over the next weeks.
This week is a more or less rest week. A couple of easy runnings with and without maps and some straight training. Next week will be much harder, including some intervalls on Monday (1500meters in a 5000m-speed, so not very hard), a 5000m-test on Wednesday and the Austrian Ultralong Champs on sunday. The Ultralong take place in Bad Fischau, on one of the WMOC-maps and they look very nice and challenging. I am really looking foreward to it! Technical facts are not too scary, some more than 12K with 450m climb. But, for sure we will have some very long legs whith challenging route choices and the mass start will probably make all of us run faster. After this competition there will be some days of rest and normal training, before we take off to the Czech Republic for a EOC/WOC selection race and a training camp. And after that... "We will rock you" and then off to Tiomila. I am just looking so forward to it!
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