Night orienteering training

Plan

Plan was practice night orienteering with my team mate Reino. Unfortunately he couldn't participate training since he was going to run half-marathon on next weekend. Of course I said that it was fine and I can go and practice it by myself.

Reality

Yesterday evening at 21:30 darkness begun. I had big difficulties to convince me that this is a good idea. About 21:30 I was on my bike on my way to Pirkkola where this weeks Iltarastit(weekly orienteering) was. At the time of arrival time was about 22:10 and it was time to change shoes.

Bike was hidden in the woods, my headlamp light system was on my head and hardcore was pumping in my earplugs. I was ready.

From the begining of the run it was clear to me that this was wrong place to practice this since all sand roads were well lit. Real darkness came only when entering deep woods.

I found all CP's but some of those caused bit trouble. I decreased my peace to be more accurate but it didn't help much. Length of the route was 6km but I think I ran few extra km's.

After finish line I changed again my bike gear on and drove home. Total time of practice was 3h 15min with avg hr 157.

Conclusion

I should practice orienteering much more often. I should run more and longer. Weather was nice and bit like in Kontula Underground. Hopefully next week I'll have possibility to do this again with added bike orienteering section.

After 4h 30min of sleep I woke up. This workday is going to be fun..

Kangasala 24h

Training

I participated my first cycling competition. It was 24 hour mountain bike race at Kangasala, Finland. I made one training which was 136km long. Approximately 1/3 was good asphalt road. 1/3 was sand road with lots of ups and downs. And the hardest part was of course 1/3 and it was narrow trail with roots and rocks. This took about 10 hours to finish.

Raceday (pre-race)

I got my bike from maintenance just before I drove to Kangasala. At arrival I noticed that I had underestimated my hardware and other equipment needs since all other team had maintenance tents and "support crew". Some had even a sofas.

After an hour I had my bike numbered and all of my equipment at my service area.

Race

Light rain fell from the sky when race started. My spirits were high but I was feeling doubtful. Track was about 8km long and during the first lap I realized that I hadn't trained this at all. Most difficult thing for me was the rocks and roots. Other competitors drove over those difficult sections twice as fast as I did. And when I tried to keep up with their pace my palms and wrists were not satisfied. After second lap i needed to put sport-tape to my hands to be able to continue driving.

Eventually night came and I attached my bike lamp and continued driving. After 3 hourds of pitch black my battery died and I didn't have charger, extra battery or extra lamps with me so I went into my car to get some sleep. After about 3 hours of sleep I woke up. My ass was in fire and walking was horrible.

I taped my ass and continued race. First lap after sleep was painful but after that I felt surprisingly good. On midday I didn't feel anything in my left toes.

At the finish line I had 21 laps and 30min race time left. Organizers talked to go ahead and drive one more even there wasn't enough time (my best lap was about 35min). When I came back from the extra lap the race was finished.

Race day (post race)

Result you can see from organizers web site. I had only one goal and that was to get at least 20 laps and i did it, so I was satisfied. Of course if I speculate.. With more lamps and batteries, support person and pump to my fork I would have drive 5-10 more laps. But that would be next year then.

I got extra chain from as prize my extra lap. Thanks :)

After I took a shover I drove back to Helsinki. I needed to make one caffeine stop since keeping awake was quite hard.

After race

Race was demanding, fun and teaching for me. Next year I will do better. Thanks for the organizers for excellent competition

kangasala24h.fi