With the new year, my preparation for the upcoming season finally began. It's a pretty late start and this will have a great impact on my season. I'm going to have to go through all the different necessary preparation stages, but since I'm behind on my schedule, I'll have to do it in less time. It's going to be quite a compact program, so I'll have to make the best of the time I have. As a compromise, the competitive season will start a bit later for me, so I'll have more time to prepare and build up a solid base.
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| Morning on doorstep |
Right now the status is not that bright. Considering the last few months, the aerobic capacity is actually not that bad, but there's definitely a lot to do to catch up. I won't be racing in any skiing marathons this winter, I just don't have enough base to benefit from it as a training. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite confident that I would do great in them, I just doubt it will do me any good in the long run. I simply have to focus on what's important. Skiing as a training method, on the other hand, serves great purpose. A sudden rise in training load is risky business, especially with running. That's why skiing is great way for general physical training, helping avoid excessive loads on joints and also be as a good workout.
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| Gloomier days |
In the beginning on the month, I was enjoying the great nature, weather and skiing tracks up in Evertsberg, Sweden. After military service, going out to train or even having the opportunity to work out felt unfamiliar. The famous Vasaloppet tracks and the hills nearby offered a comfy location to reacquaint with physical exercise. Dividing my training with skiing and running, I gained the good old training sensation that I missed beforehand. The camp went relatively well and I'm glad that I could adapt to the training load quickly.
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| ...and sundown, the main part of the day |
Coming back home again, me Timo and Sari had a nice Sunday long training at Nike Winter XDream 9 in Ebavere. No expectations, no stress, just a long steady exercise. Nevertheless we had the chance to win in the mixed teams category. But that was ruined in our last control, when we found out that one of our SI-cards (out of three) from EMITland had only 30 control memory and since the memory was full, we could not punch the control in any way (which, by the way, was in the wrong place anyway! - check the map). There was also no backup mechanical punching unit either, so there was nothing else we could do. We were in fact first out of the mixed teams, but explaining the organizers didn't help, we didn't get that last control. So we got one point less and were 55th/15th. It may all be politically correct, in the end our team was the fastest of mixed teams to go through all the controls whichever way looking at it. Not that it was that important in the first place. Results, map.
3 seconds of fame 2:42-2:45
Now it's time to carry on getting stronger!
