Brain damage

  Fuck me, what a disastrous weekend.
  Last weekend I was on the national 10 000m championships. My hope was to deal fine with the 25 laps around the track and get a time that would raise little bit my ego..but it all ended up when I stepped out of the track just after I passed the 6th km. Maybe I was just dizzy of so many laps and I made confusion between 15 and 25 or if I want to get closer to the truth I'd say I just don't have the wheels that I need to run it. I really tried to enter carefully and don't waste too much energy in the begin, and the plan was just going fine when I got 3'14 without getting harmed, but my head was just fighting against me and telling me to stop and go home, I could handle 6k with that little voice inside me but then it was just too difficult to stand. My week before that was just awful as I suffered headache, maybe caused by stress and not enough sleep, every single day and when I got to the day I wasn't on the mood to suffer.
 
   Well what can I say? It wasn't just the result I wanted and my ego, again, suffers a cut. The fact is that we all have sometimes our down times and the capacity to raise up is requested all the time. For now I'm dealing again with some easy and quality training, I just don't see myself under any pressure again...for long time this season I was under many possibilities and dreams of great things, but I guess there is the day when you just wake up to reality right?
   


Orienteers,
LS

NC - Long and Sprint

   During last weekend took place the Portuguese national championships of long distance and Sprint. The map and the terrain used for the long race were already known as we were there in February, WRE race after Portugal O'meeting.
    I participated in the elite category, to help my club to get the national titles on those distances. Of course due to my age and a long distance of 16,5 km I would not be able to have that good performances, but anyway, I just focused on going with the pace I could handle and the most important: no mistake. I went out fine, maybe I was not that fluent on my orienteering skills because I didn't touch a map for long time before this race, but I tried to get all controls without lose much time. The plan went fine and my speed were controlled, the 6th leg was tricky so I tried to catch a good reference (you can check on my gps file), I ended up to see other runner and I went after him, making me lost almost 2 minutes.
   That was ok, 2 minutes is not big deal in a long distance, I just had to do the remaining course in good speed and without more loses. Next control we had to cross a pipe over a water line, it was the only way, from the 6th control I realized that there were a small shortcut through the dense green and I tried to got it, but I failed and I went all around to catch the path, that meant another mistake and 1:30 minutes for the first split. I got the control fine, now I could finally start to doing orienteering again without any more tricks but in the 8th control I did my biggest mistake (5 minutes) and that was ridiculous because it was obviously lack of map navigation. I ended up caught by the runner behind and I went with him until the end, finished in 8th place with a time of 1:39:03.

 
Some quick thoughts:
 # Orienteering isn't a sport that you get there with lack of map training and you navigate like a pro still.
 # Don't step up too soon, a long distance is a big deal for young runners. It was not too difficult but still the heat made me dehydrate a lot and in the end I was almost faint.
 #Attention to you "moderate speed" in the begin, is not stupid to start slow and then end up fast. I went out in a quite honest pace and I was navigate over my own skills. When the first mistake came I couldn't reenter on the map again.

   On the sprint race I was too tired to run fast. I went out good but soon I lost my power and my speed went down. Almost in the end I had a giant mistakes of 2 minutes and my race was over from there, sprint will never be my distance no matter what.  

   I just want to finish this post with some short commentary about 10mila. I was kind of sad/disappoint that I could not be there this year, it is always an amazing show of orienteering and not be there is heartbreaking. I give a praise of the junior runners who compete there and can get up to the top level, they made me see that there is no dreams for who doesn't give a honest effort to get that level. Jwoc will be tough and I already let my child dreams about that..

Orienteers,
LS

Get faster and faster

  Time is running faster than me. May finally is coming and this will be the last month of my first year of university. It was good experience to come there and face new challenges, I've not been the best student but I've done (almost) my best and I think I can get everything done.
 
   Running also had its changes on me. I started my quality work about 3 weeks ago and now I will keep it until the big competition comes, after several months of hard work now it is time to release myself of heavy training and get faster, and the most important of all: get motivated and confident. I never gave much importance in the previous years for this fact and I thought that in this time of season was still to put heavy training on my wheels, but the result of that was always the same...I got into the competitions tired and I hadn't anything good from it.
   I will also trying to race more often this month. First race will be the national championships of long distance and sprint, I will face the elite long distance of 16,7km which I hope to handle fine. The weekend after that will be also room for a 10 000m race on the track, I really don't know what to expect but I think I can go anywhere from 31 to 33 range according to my trains. It will be tough to handle it but I think I'm prepared enough.
   I've embraced new group of training about one week ago. Sometimes the perfect way is not the best one and even I was having good success with my coach, the worst ended up to come: my motivation came down because I was training by myself. It is normal in a long distance relation coaching, I trust in my coach more than anything but sometimes is just too hard to handle some factors, so now I found a coach near to me and good group to train with. Of course they are athletic guys and I'm orienteering but for me is great motivation to keep with guys that can run 14'30 to 5000 or a 30 minutes to 10k. I'm sure the results of this change will appear soon, it appeared in the last trains I did on the track with them.

Btw, here I let the picture of the last Thursday road relay I did of 4x1500m (1450m in gps). I handled the first place of the team in the 3rd leg and I did a good split: 4'00. Which surprised me, my speed seems to get more endure and that time came with easiness. 

Orienteers,
LS

Get some guts and move!

   Amazing, is the first word that describes my reaction about this weekend race. I was back to orienteering and this time in the 2nd highest mountain in Portugal, Serra da Estrela (Star Mountains). My week was awful  due to the 2 tests I had to do, one of them in Saturday morning, and I was quite tired to go still orienteer in the weekend, but I went still, because I saw good training opportunity there on Sunday with long distance and I can say that I didn't got disappointed.
   Yesterday I got there in the afternoon, ready (or at least I thought I was) to the sprint race in Gouveia. Race starts and I realized right there that it would be difficult, "must focus and do good route choices" my goal was, but I got caught by tricky legs and it was a disaster. I was not even tired when I finished it and I got almost 2 minutes from the 1st place, there is no miracles when you take 2 minutes in a sprint and if I was already under motivated I had now good reasons to be even more. Even I was extremely awful, the race was very well planed and the courses were all a real challenge, so, congratulations for it!
  Today. I was still feeling stupid about yesterday performance and I really wanted to get motivated and go hard. It was a short long distance and I thought I could do it really fast...when I went out I looked at the map and it looked like a ugly thing was about to coming out. I was not wrong and even my mistakes wasn't serious, I gave up mentally right after the 4th leg (20% of the race) it was just too extreme, too difficult and I didn't want to sacrifice myself there. Vegetation was everywhere, find a control was a real challenge, I was so angry and frustrated that I sit down in a rock and I stopped for a moments to recover myself. It wasn't just possible, I went really slowly all way to the end and I got 1h 37 on that terrain, it was a mental and physical torture, like I never tasted before. Even my harder races are some levels down than this race. It was extreme, but still I won, how? Don't know, but I didn't deserved it.
   If I could had done it better? Yes I could, but I'm really under motivated to push hard, maybe is because I'm tired from previous hard weeks but I'm kind of worry about this. If I can't support races like this, I can't support anything, but there still a months for it. Lets hope that this is just a moment.



Orienteers,
LS

Gaining experience.

   No time to stop. After tough weeks I had the right to have a break during last week but this weekend I was already back to competition, this time in the north of Portugal. I kind like to run on the maps we have here in the north, because I always feel like I'm running in other countries, especially in middle Europe, so I was expecting to run some nice races there.

   First day was time for middle and sprint. In the middle I got out carefully, trying mainly to focus on the race. First control came with safety and after that I started to caught some runners, due to their mistakes, and I motivated myself to run fast. Almost in the end, I and the runners with me did a mistake and we punched a control that weren't ours and because of that we all got missing point...I guess it was little shame for me, because it was a really stupid mistake and  we all had some fault because we just didn't payed attention. I remember that I knew it was in other place, but I just ignored that idea and I moved on to punch the wrong control. In the end I knew I would have won by 5 minutes, which makes my mistake even more stupid. The terrain was fabulous, but the map had some cartography mistakes that made several runners did lot of mistakes. In the sprint I ran slow but still some mistakes came, sprint is still so challenging for me because I don't have that quick decisions and I'm quite undecided on my route choices, I ended up to lose lot of time for the 1st runner and so on I guess it was just one more train.

   In the long distance again I told myself to get it easy and have good route choices. Well I really heard myself as I went out really easy (maybe too easy..) and my rhythm was always too slow. I didn't had serious mistakes but I had bad route choices and I lost several minutes. I think I have problem with this distance, I guess it was because I used to went out hard and then I used to die and now I just go during all race in so slow rhythm, and in the end I didn't gave anything from me. I was afraid of the long distance on this kind of terrain because is too hilly and tough but such fear wasn't necessary, I was more than able to handle it. I felt lazy during the race and that made my orienteering become slower.

  Long distance in the queen race of orienteering and you just can call yourself top orienteer when you have top performances on long distance, I really have to work my mind on this, I know I'm physically endure enough to run fast during 12 or 13 km, but my mind is too afraid and lazy for this. This will be the next challenge: become long distance pro.



Orienteers,
LS