Vaajakosken Terä made last minute settings to 10mila teams and will run on following order:
Team1:
1. Antti Anttonen
2. Jouni Kahelin
3. Timo Joensuu
4. Jani Lakanen
5. Lasse Kautto
6. Aapo Summanen
7. Juha Sorvisto
8. Pasi Ikonen
9. Jonne Lakanen
10. Anders Nordberg
Team2:
1. Toni Saari
2. Petteri Huikko
3. Antti Turpeinen
4. Heikki Kettunen
5. Jarmo Puttonen
6. Juha-Matti Huhtanen
7. Matti Kärkkäinen
8. Timo Sivill
9. Urpo Kallunki
10 Kimmo Kaario
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
The Second Strongest Man by jaMMu
StrongmanRun is the mother of extreme runs. It was held for the 5th time this year and first time in bigger arena, Nürburgringen F1-arena. The event has grown to a huge happening. In the last year's arena 7000 people were maximum amount to have a safe race. This year 10940 "grazy" men and women were participating and much more would have liked to be among us. This was the amount of people organisers dared to take in.
For most of the competitors StrongmanRun is a survivol race. You just want to be strong enough to get through the whole course. This year the challenge was two times a 10km loop including 14 special obstacles made for the race.
A year ago I heard from Tero Föhr (top orienteer) about StrongmanRun. I also heard that Daniel Hubmann (world champion in orienteering) had won the similar race in Switzerland and that in the end of May 2010 is the first ExtremeRun in Finland, in Hakunila/Vantaa. I checked the race in the internet and decided to participate instead of running SM-sprint in orienteering. I wanted to have a new experience and I got a huge one. I also won the race and heard the possibility to travel to StrongmanRun in Germany.
Two months ago I heard of the trip to Germany and decided to be among the Finnish team. We were 13 people traveling together from Helsinki to Frankfurt and there by the ride of organisers to Nürburg. Everything was VIP by Fisherman's friend, the company that owns StrongmanRun.
It was nice to travel with people that are not athletes or at least orienteering athletes, but want to challenge them physically and mentally anyway. For me the competition was more important than the others and I prepared myself as good as an important orienteering race. The only question was that nobody actually knew anything about the new course of StrongmanRun. When travelling to Nürburgring I knew that there's about 10km course with 14 obstacles (drawn in the internet), which we have to get through twice. Last year the winning time was 1h 41min, so I knew to wait for a challenge like in long distance orienteering.
I was ready for the challenge and felt that I could fight for top positions, despite of I didn't know how good the men are there. After last year's ExtremeRun I knew that this kind of race is suitable for me or I'm quite good in this kind of new species of running sports. I believe that many orienteering athletes are very good in this kind of running competition. I recommend to try after my ExtremeRun and StrongmanRun experience. You'll love it!
Before the race I was thinking of how to handle the start. The solution came in the evening before the race: I was taken to an elite group of 50 men and women, that were allowed to start in front of the others.
After that I had a relaxed sleep. In the morning I checked the course that I could run or walk to. It took 50min. and I felt very good. The obstacles looked much easier than I had expected, but also very narrow places for almost 11000 runners and walkers. I thought, there will surely be lots of trafic jams in some of the obstacles in second loop.
The day was nice, course was wonderful and landscape very beautiful. Nürburgring is located quite high on top of a hill area and for me it was a suprise that F1-track included something like 50m of altitude difference. The course of Strongman had twice of that, approx. 100m altitude difference.
There is some rush, when 10940 people are getting ready for a masstart and atleast twice as much are getting ready for cheering them. I did my warming up routines and checked the start area. Over 30min before the start there were thousands of people waiting behind the gate to get started. Huh huh, I was glad that I could warm-up more.
The atmosphere was quite like in Jukola-relay, but you can imagine what the feeling is like, when seven times more people start together compared to Jukola-start of 1500 men. It was quite cool weather, approx. +12C and sun was shining only now and then. I tried keep my jacket as long as possible, but eight minutes to start I put it off. At the same time gate opened and people came through to elite area. I had a little hurry, but was able to push myself into third row or something. Almost made a big mistake there, but I was ready to start. For seven minutes I only could stand still before the start, but so close to each other it was warm enough.
The pictures I use in the text are from the pages of StrongmanRun, Runner'sWorld Online and Nacht Agenten. Thank you for sharing the fotos.
"It's the final countdown" - piece of music gave us the rhytm to start 20kms hardcore running experience.
The first km was downhill on F1 track asphalt and the speed was surely fast enough. I checked my Garmin after 700m and saw the speed 2:56/km. Fast enough for sure. Start went ok for me and quite soon I took the third place. The first km was just running on asphalt, only a little uphill and time for km was 3:01 - heheh...we'll see was it too fast and furious.
The second km had more to offer than just running on asphalt: the first obstacle "Double trouble" included tires and hay bales (height of 1,6m), both three times over. Then we ran downhill on a sandstony slippery ground for 150m and then up about 30 stairs of F1 track public seats. Out off the arena gate and steep downhill. Second km still very fast 3:21 (6:22/2kms) and I felt the speed, but I couldn't help thinking that my shape is good enough and the becoming obstacles will give me some time to recover :)
The third km started with the second obstacle "Devil's playground". It was a small motocross bana with
steep ups and downs and curves, some unstable ground and mud. In the end was a very steep but short uphill. After that was a nice lawn field area uphill and downhill. The third km was 3:20 (9:42/3kms) and one guy (Florian Neuschwander), who ran very strongly left me and Knut Höhler (the winner in StrongmanRun 2009 and 2010) about ten seconds behind. I knew my speed was in the limit and other competitors were quite far behind us.
The fourth km started with the third obstacle "Cool down". There was a tarpaulin on a field and water running on top. It wasn't as slippery as I expected and I could run through it and jump over a-two-meter-wide ditch (water in it). Together with Knut we ran on lawn field to the fourth obstacle "Cliffhanger". There were narrow pipes to take yourself by your hands over a hay ditch. It was easy job, just 4 times grip by your hands. Of course, you have to able to lift your body weight. 4km 3:39.
The fifth km was nice but quite tough running on unstable field and path, but nothing special. In the end of
the km there was the fifth obstacle "Down under". Water was very cold, maybe under 10 degrees, so after that running wasn't relaxed anymore. Florian was running about 10-20 seconds ahead of me and Knut all the time. Other competitors were quite far behind. 5km 3:50 was a bit slower, because of water-walk under the logs of trees in the end of km.
The sixth km was very tough with uphill almost all the time and some sandy and rocky areas - very nice for an orienteering athlete. After the shower of cold water there was the sixth obstacle "Hang over" - a net over the large hole. The speed wasn't fast anymore. 6km 5:14! Knut was better than me on "Hang over", but after that on sandy and rocky area I started to get rid of Knut a little in the end of the km, but the distance to Florian ahead wasn't any shorter.
There was about 100m of climbing during 5-7 kms. In the end of long uphill there was the seventh obstacle "Schicksalsberg". Four bales of hay, height 1,5m. After a long uphill there were not very easy to climb over, but this surely was my obstacle. I think I cought some seconds to Florian and was something like ten seconds behind after 7km 4:06, when we were closing the F1-track and downhill 30 stairs of public area.
The eight km included the faster part, but one uphill with the eight obstacle "Kiesimancharo". There was sandstony dunes on track, soft and nice, also tough. 8km 3:44. The situation was like that we were all running alone: Florian 15s. ahead and Knut 15s. behind me.
The ninth km has two obstacles "Eilder nordwand" and "Fischernetz". For me this ninth obstacle wasn't very easy to figure out. There was some sandstony ground, but nothing special. Tenth obstacle "Fischernetz" was the hardest one with cold swimming and climbing the net and steep downhill too. I felt cold and num in my muscles after that and calves were hard already. Well, they warm again, I thought, but wasn't very sure, how the second round goes. 9km 4:26.
The tenth km (tought last) had all the final four obstacles left, but otherwise it was very easy running on flat competition area up on F1-track. The eleventh obstacle "Dirty dancing" was muddy area, but it was harder than I expected, so just a little mud up to ancles. The twelth obstacle "Stairway to heaven" was 10m high pile of hay bales. Quite tough challenge. The thirteenth obstacle "Hotwheels" was lots of tires on each other and it was hard on tired legs. Last obstacle was "Alcatraz". Approx. 20m under 70cm high cage. I didn' have to crawl, but it was a challenge to upper body. 10km 4:04.
I was a bit surprised that 10km was full and I had still almost 200m to go the finish and start area of F1-track. Florian was about 25s. ahead, so I thought that I just have to keep my second position on the other round. Even though I lost a bit my fighting spirit, I knew the second place would be very great achievement in this competition. Time for the first round was 39:27.
It wasn't easy to start the second round downhill on F1-track asphalt. Legs were cold, tired and calves were hard. Surprisingly, the start had been much easier. Time for first km on the second round was 3:24 without obstacles and mostly downhill, so running wasn't easy.
It was easy to overcome "Double trouble", but after already 1,5kms running on the second round first backs of last walkers started to show up. Already on "Devil's playground" I had to shout many times: "second round, excuse me!". People started to be worse obstacles than the real ones and I lost contact to Florian and same had to happen to Knut behind me. People were everywhere and I understood that there will lots of trouble in some obstacles. I heard later than some of the Finnish team had waited in some obstacles more than half an hour. Greetings for organisors that waiting isn't that fun!
The first obstacle that had more rush than permitted was "Cliffhanger". I looked that there was a wall of people. How can I go through. Here I said to myself: "go round, it was so quick and easy task in the first round". I ran around and checked, if it's ok. Nobody said anything and I couldn't see Florian anywhere.
My km times were to 2km 3:29 and 3km 3:39 and 4km 4:00, so I was 20s. slower than first time, when I passed "Cliffhanger" as it should be overcome.
Before "Down under" I saw an other wall of people. Then I saw a mark "pussy lane", and the back of Florian up on hill, approx. 30s. in front of me. I ran the pussy lane, which was about 150m longer than going through "Down under". I looked where Florian is and saw him once when he was running towards "Hang over". There wasn't any bad rush after "Down under", because it was quicker to get through. After that I didn't see Florian. Km-times were somewhat different because of the pussy lane longer route. 5km 3:33 and 6km 4:59. I tried to push hard on this part uphill.
The worst rush was at "Schicksalsberg" on top of hill. Most of the women had no power to pull their bodies up on the hay bales, so people were standing on bales and took hands of next ones. It is nice for survivors, but not nice for us, who try to compete for the victory. Hopefully next time there will be a lane for (metre wide or so) those, who are on the other round passing. I checked the obstacle and understood that it's almost impossible to go through. I ran around the obstacle in forest side and checked if it's ok. I didn't see Florian.
After that it was ok in every obstacle. The rush relieved a bit and obstacles were easier to overcome. I thought that there might be trouble in "Fischernetz" and "Stairway to heaven", but both went ok, despite a little slower than for the first time due to people. "Dirty dancing" was only obstacle that was surely harder than the first time. There was mud up to my thighs (first time only up to ancles).
7km 4:39, 8km 4:00 and 9km 4:21 (I started to push as hard as I could). I wanted to be sure of my second position. Ten km 4:30. People on the first round were slowing me more than tiredness. After last obstacle "Alcatraz" on sandstony ground just 250m before finish I heard that somebody was pushing hard on my back. I thought that somebody I had passed was speeding up on me. Well, it was, but not like I expected. I looked behind and saw Florian on my back. Legs were tired and sore, but I understood that we were fighting for victory of StrongmanRun 2011. As I saw earlier, Florian was stronger than me and I lost 4s. Not much but enough. I was still very glad of my performance. My time was 1.21.31, so second round was 42.04 and I had run totally 20,7kms. It meant that on the second round I had 300m more distance than on the first round. Half of that was the pussy lane, but other meters were the people, who had been obstacles of straight running.
The competition wasn't very fair, because of the mass of people at the obstacles. So what, there wasn't any prize money or else - just glory. The most important thing was the experience. I had great time and fun. I surely love this kind of running sport. After the race I felt like after a long distance orienteering competition, but calves were a bit more beaten. Extreme runs are great excercise for orienteering athlete and it would be nice to have more competitions like this :)
And we have one very nice extreme 10kms in Jyväskylä - Let's Run: http://vaajakoskentera.com/LETSRun/index.php
The results are here
For most of the competitors StrongmanRun is a survivol race. You just want to be strong enough to get through the whole course. This year the challenge was two times a 10km loop including 14 special obstacles made for the race.
A year ago I heard from Tero Föhr (top orienteer) about StrongmanRun. I also heard that Daniel Hubmann (world champion in orienteering) had won the similar race in Switzerland and that in the end of May 2010 is the first ExtremeRun in Finland, in Hakunila/Vantaa. I checked the race in the internet and decided to participate instead of running SM-sprint in orienteering. I wanted to have a new experience and I got a huge one. I also won the race and heard the possibility to travel to StrongmanRun in Germany.
Two months ago I heard of the trip to Germany and decided to be among the Finnish team. We were 13 people traveling together from Helsinki to Frankfurt and there by the ride of organisers to Nürburg. Everything was VIP by Fisherman's friend, the company that owns StrongmanRun.
It was nice to travel with people that are not athletes or at least orienteering athletes, but want to challenge them physically and mentally anyway. For me the competition was more important than the others and I prepared myself as good as an important orienteering race. The only question was that nobody actually knew anything about the new course of StrongmanRun. When travelling to Nürburgring I knew that there's about 10km course with 14 obstacles (drawn in the internet), which we have to get through twice. Last year the winning time was 1h 41min, so I knew to wait for a challenge like in long distance orienteering.
I was ready for the challenge and felt that I could fight for top positions, despite of I didn't know how good the men are there. After last year's ExtremeRun I knew that this kind of race is suitable for me or I'm quite good in this kind of new species of running sports. I believe that many orienteering athletes are very good in this kind of running competition. I recommend to try after my ExtremeRun and StrongmanRun experience. You'll love it!
Before the race I was thinking of how to handle the start. The solution came in the evening before the race: I was taken to an elite group of 50 men and women, that were allowed to start in front of the others.
After that I had a relaxed sleep. In the morning I checked the course that I could run or walk to. It took 50min. and I felt very good. The obstacles looked much easier than I had expected, but also very narrow places for almost 11000 runners and walkers. I thought, there will surely be lots of trafic jams in some of the obstacles in second loop.
The day was nice, course was wonderful and landscape very beautiful. Nürburgring is located quite high on top of a hill area and for me it was a suprise that F1-track included something like 50m of altitude difference. The course of Strongman had twice of that, approx. 100m altitude difference.
There is some rush, when 10940 people are getting ready for a masstart and atleast twice as much are getting ready for cheering them. I did my warming up routines and checked the start area. Over 30min before the start there were thousands of people waiting behind the gate to get started. Huh huh, I was glad that I could warm-up more.
The atmosphere was quite like in Jukola-relay, but you can imagine what the feeling is like, when seven times more people start together compared to Jukola-start of 1500 men. It was quite cool weather, approx. +12C and sun was shining only now and then. I tried keep my jacket as long as possible, but eight minutes to start I put it off. At the same time gate opened and people came through to elite area. I had a little hurry, but was able to push myself into third row or something. Almost made a big mistake there, but I was ready to start. For seven minutes I only could stand still before the start, but so close to each other it was warm enough.
The pictures I use in the text are from the pages of StrongmanRun, Runner'sWorld Online and Nacht Agenten. Thank you for sharing the fotos.
"It's the final countdown" - piece of music gave us the rhytm to start 20kms hardcore running experience.
The first km was downhill on F1 track asphalt and the speed was surely fast enough. I checked my Garmin after 700m and saw the speed 2:56/km. Fast enough for sure. Start went ok for me and quite soon I took the third place. The first km was just running on asphalt, only a little uphill and time for km was 3:01 - heheh...we'll see was it too fast and furious.
The second km had more to offer than just running on asphalt: the first obstacle "Double trouble" included tires and hay bales (height of 1,6m), both three times over. Then we ran downhill on a sandstony slippery ground for 150m and then up about 30 stairs of F1 track public seats. Out off the arena gate and steep downhill. Second km still very fast 3:21 (6:22/2kms) and I felt the speed, but I couldn't help thinking that my shape is good enough and the becoming obstacles will give me some time to recover :)
The third km started with the second obstacle "Devil's playground". It was a small motocross bana with
steep ups and downs and curves, some unstable ground and mud. In the end was a very steep but short uphill. After that was a nice lawn field area uphill and downhill. The third km was 3:20 (9:42/3kms) and one guy (Florian Neuschwander), who ran very strongly left me and Knut Höhler (the winner in StrongmanRun 2009 and 2010) about ten seconds behind. I knew my speed was in the limit and other competitors were quite far behind us.
The fourth km started with the third obstacle "Cool down". There was a tarpaulin on a field and water running on top. It wasn't as slippery as I expected and I could run through it and jump over a-two-meter-wide ditch (water in it). Together with Knut we ran on lawn field to the fourth obstacle "Cliffhanger". There were narrow pipes to take yourself by your hands over a hay ditch. It was easy job, just 4 times grip by your hands. Of course, you have to able to lift your body weight. 4km 3:39.
The fifth km was nice but quite tough running on unstable field and path, but nothing special. In the end of
the km there was the fifth obstacle "Down under". Water was very cold, maybe under 10 degrees, so after that running wasn't relaxed anymore. Florian was running about 10-20 seconds ahead of me and Knut all the time. Other competitors were quite far behind. 5km 3:50 was a bit slower, because of water-walk under the logs of trees in the end of km.
The sixth km was very tough with uphill almost all the time and some sandy and rocky areas - very nice for an orienteering athlete. After the shower of cold water there was the sixth obstacle "Hang over" - a net over the large hole. The speed wasn't fast anymore. 6km 5:14! Knut was better than me on "Hang over", but after that on sandy and rocky area I started to get rid of Knut a little in the end of the km, but the distance to Florian ahead wasn't any shorter.
The tenth km (tought last) had all the final four obstacles left, but otherwise it was very easy running on flat competition area up on F1-track. The eleventh obstacle "Dirty dancing" was muddy area, but it was harder than I expected, so just a little mud up to ancles. The twelth obstacle "Stairway to heaven" was 10m high pile of hay bales. Quite tough challenge. The thirteenth obstacle "Hotwheels" was lots of tires on each other and it was hard on tired legs. Last obstacle was "Alcatraz". Approx. 20m under 70cm high cage. I didn' have to crawl, but it was a challenge to upper body. 10km 4:04.
I was a bit surprised that 10km was full and I had still almost 200m to go the finish and start area of F1-track. Florian was about 25s. ahead, so I thought that I just have to keep my second position on the other round. Even though I lost a bit my fighting spirit, I knew the second place would be very great achievement in this competition. Time for the first round was 39:27.
It wasn't easy to start the second round downhill on F1-track asphalt. Legs were cold, tired and calves were hard. Surprisingly, the start had been much easier. Time for first km on the second round was 3:24 without obstacles and mostly downhill, so running wasn't easy.
It was easy to overcome "Double trouble", but after already 1,5kms running on the second round first backs of last walkers started to show up. Already on "Devil's playground" I had to shout many times: "second round, excuse me!". People started to be worse obstacles than the real ones and I lost contact to Florian and same had to happen to Knut behind me. People were everywhere and I understood that there will lots of trouble in some obstacles. I heard later than some of the Finnish team had waited in some obstacles more than half an hour. Greetings for organisors that waiting isn't that fun!
The first obstacle that had more rush than permitted was "Cliffhanger". I looked that there was a wall of people. How can I go through. Here I said to myself: "go round, it was so quick and easy task in the first round". I ran around and checked, if it's ok. Nobody said anything and I couldn't see Florian anywhere.
My km times were to 2km 3:29 and 3km 3:39 and 4km 4:00, so I was 20s. slower than first time, when I passed "Cliffhanger" as it should be overcome.
Before "Down under" I saw an other wall of people. Then I saw a mark "pussy lane", and the back of Florian up on hill, approx. 30s. in front of me. I ran the pussy lane, which was about 150m longer than going through "Down under". I looked where Florian is and saw him once when he was running towards "Hang over". There wasn't any bad rush after "Down under", because it was quicker to get through. After that I didn't see Florian. Km-times were somewhat different because of the pussy lane longer route. 5km 3:33 and 6km 4:59. I tried to push hard on this part uphill.
The worst rush was at "Schicksalsberg" on top of hill. Most of the women had no power to pull their bodies up on the hay bales, so people were standing on bales and took hands of next ones. It is nice for survivors, but not nice for us, who try to compete for the victory. Hopefully next time there will be a lane for (metre wide or so) those, who are on the other round passing. I checked the obstacle and understood that it's almost impossible to go through. I ran around the obstacle in forest side and checked if it's ok. I didn't see Florian.
After that it was ok in every obstacle. The rush relieved a bit and obstacles were easier to overcome. I thought that there might be trouble in "Fischernetz" and "Stairway to heaven", but both went ok, despite a little slower than for the first time due to people. "Dirty dancing" was only obstacle that was surely harder than the first time. There was mud up to my thighs (first time only up to ancles).
7km 4:39, 8km 4:00 and 9km 4:21 (I started to push as hard as I could). I wanted to be sure of my second position. Ten km 4:30. People on the first round were slowing me more than tiredness. After last obstacle "Alcatraz" on sandstony ground just 250m before finish I heard that somebody was pushing hard on my back. I thought that somebody I had passed was speeding up on me. Well, it was, but not like I expected. I looked behind and saw Florian on my back. Legs were tired and sore, but I understood that we were fighting for victory of StrongmanRun 2011. As I saw earlier, Florian was stronger than me and I lost 4s. Not much but enough. I was still very glad of my performance. My time was 1.21.31, so second round was 42.04 and I had run totally 20,7kms. It meant that on the second round I had 300m more distance than on the first round. Half of that was the pussy lane, but other meters were the people, who had been obstacles of straight running.
The competition wasn't very fair, because of the mass of people at the obstacles. So what, there wasn't any prize money or else - just glory. The most important thing was the experience. I had great time and fun. I surely love this kind of running sport. After the race I felt like after a long distance orienteering competition, but calves were a bit more beaten. Extreme runs are great excercise for orienteering athlete and it would be nice to have more competitions like this :)
And we have one very nice extreme 10kms in Jyväskylä - Let's Run: http://vaajakoskentera.com/LETSRun/index.php
The results are here
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Spring Cup - CHECK!
Terä's international season started with a victory in the Spring Cup! The whole team had good performances and the first REAL race in Terä by Anders Nordberg ended up on the podium.
Spring Cup hasn't been an easy relay for Finns and the only Finnish winner before us is Vehkalahden Veikot. Terä's best place in Spring Cup (3rd) also dates back to same year, 2006. Now we had decided to take the win.
The relay had a really good start with Juha Sorvisto's fine job on the first leg. Juha finished about one minute behind the leading team. Juha was very pleased with his performance, especially after not that good run in the night-relay.
The second leg was Mr. Nordberg's show. He started fast and was leading the relay pretty soon. Anders really made the other runners struggling and only two teams were able to follow decently. After the second leg, it seemed that the battle for the win will be between three teams, PAN Kristianstad, IFK Göteborg and Vaajakosken Terä.
Third leg was a short one, but sometimes big differences can be made on third as well. Pasi was leading all the time and had good control, but wasn't able to run away from the others. So, it was Jonne's job to make us win.
Jonne, Jani's little brother, has been in really good shape on every spring but this spring he is maybe stronger than ever. He showed that during the tight last leg by doing his own job while PAN Kristianstad and IFK Göteborg made the fatal mistake (and got disqualified due to that). Jonne ran very well the rest of the course and we were very happy when he reached the last control. Finally the win is ours in the Spring Cup!
We got some more excitement as Jonne's SI-card didn't have a registration from one of the controls. The control was in a sleeping mode and wasn't working properly. The organizers went to forest after the relay and checked out that Jonne had been on the control. Whew.
Now the season has started and it was a nice that we started it in this spectacular way.
BTW...If you see this man, contact Finnish Police...
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Terä's training camp in Spain, 14.3.-21.3.2011
 |
| Petteri, Juha and Matti having a speculation moment. Canos de Meca lighthouse in the background. |
Like Pasi blogged last week competition season starts with Spring Cup where our best commando group is ready to rumble in relays. But over a week ago half of Terä runners flew to Spain for having seven days ultimate training camp in Malaga and Barbate areas. While we are waiting news from Denmark here is a story how the training camp went based on my point of view.
Monday, 14th of March
Terä’s trip to Southern Spain started at Tampere airport terminal where group of athletes and coaches gathered on Monday morning. Surprisingly some of runners didn’t get through the customs without problems and it was kind of hilarious to hear familiar names on speakers calling. The reasons of this were same of all cases, Chinese head lamp batteries in handbags which emerged nicely in x-ray. Luckily the customs inspectors checked our bags right away and everyone made their way in the airplane without delays.
The “eagle” landed Malaga airport on afternoon and we went to our first accommodation located in Benalmadéna. The facilities were very good for cooking and resting between training sessions. We had also couple of cars for driving ourselves to terrains so everything was ready for optimal training camp.
First training was easy 40min running along beach boulevards in the evening. Weather was a bit rainy and windy but still it was nice to run on a surface without ice or snow.
Tuesday, 15th of March
The very first orienteering training was in El Chorro natural park area designed by Jake. The idea of this “warm up”-training was to find calm and steady speed for smooth orienteering in hilly terrain. Finding a right technique wasn’t easy at all because of running on steep surface, challenging controls and tight bushes. Also previous week had been quite rainy and water of El Chorro’s lakes was very high at that time which made orienteering more difficult near lakeside areas.
Distance of this “Sminky Pinky”-training was 6km and fastest time+best percentage of success (POS) made by Juha (53min/89%). Juha’s comments about training: “easy and relaxed running, just convenient climb for the leg”.
 |
| Beautiful landscape captured from El Chorro. Photo by Touho. |
 |
| Posing after first training. Timo, Lasse, Juha, Matti, Petteri, Aapo and Upi. Photo by Touho. |
Wednesday, 16th of March
After morning jogging and breakfast we headed our cars to Barbate for two days intensive orienteering training. The accommodation was in a little village called Canos de Meca and I must say that it surely is among the best places for orienteering I’ve ever been. Despite late arriving there we had enough time to make two good o-trainings, one in daylight and one night-o.
O-training at daytime was held on the map called Duna de Meca and most of guys ran part of the AOM (Andalucia-O-Meeting 2011) long distance route (6,1km). Most of guys (Timbe and Petteri) figured out well how ”handbrake” works in this kind of fast terrain where visibility and surface hardly limits running speed. However I had big problems with approaching to controls even when I was jogging slow speed so I decided to improve my performance and focus for the night-o.
 |
| Fastest time and best POS made by Timbe (6,1km/43.53/85%). Photo by Touho. |
 |
| Duna de Meca (AOM 2011 long distance) map, controls K-13. |
The first night-o training was held on the map called La Breña and yes at last, it was time to RACE! In my opinion night orienteering in this kind of terrain is very fun and challenging at the same time. Focus needs to be 100% in map reading while speed increases in open areas. On the other hand using “handbrake” usually saves a lot and slows you down at the right moment when it’s difficult to read a map in demanding areas. Unfortunately my enthusiasm turned against me and made my focus disappear for a little moment so one huge blackout was a fact. Other guys did lots of mistakes also so winning time wasn't as good as expected.
Results of the 1st race, night-o 6km, La Breña:
1. Juha 43.44 (77%)
2. Timbe 44.48 (82%)
3. Lasse 47.42 (83%)
 |
| La Breña North, 1st night-o race 6km, controls K-22. |
Thursday, 17th of March
Sore legs needed a bit slower movement this morning so we decided to run a technical training on a map printed contours only. Terä’s younger athletes Petteri and Matti made quite smooth performances so they deserved an extra back-slapping after training.
In afternoon it was time to celebrate Timbe’s birthday by eating delicious ice cream cake and drinking instant coffee. Added to this we served up some chocolate and cookies so energy tanks were truly full for a second night-o race.
 |
| A moody sunset from Canos de Meca. Photo by Touho. |
The second night-o-race was also on La Breña’s map but terrain was even faster this time because of less bushes and flatter ground. Upi took reflector strings on the controls earlier and our cameraman Touho took very good pictures during the race. Juha really showed again who has the fastest legs but made a few fatal mistakes so a pole position went to Timbe.
 |
| Ready for the second race. Who's light is fainting? Photo by Touho. |
Results of the 2nd race, night-o 5km, La Breña:
1. Timbe 31.55 (82%)
2. Juha 32.41 (63%)
3. Petteri 33.06 (84%)
4. Aapo 33.30 (86%)
5. Lasse 34.25 (73%)
6. Matti 38.44 (66%)
 |
| La Breña South, 2nd night-o race, 5km. |
 |
| Aapo is enjoying night orienteering. Photo by Touho. |
Friday, 18th of March
A short morning jog for me but others did an aerobic o-training in Duna de Meca terrain again. They visited on a brand new area where the map is made by this year Salpa-Jukola map maker Janne Weckman.
In afternoon we left Canos de Meca behind and drove one hour to Punta Paloma area near Tarifa. This terrain is a just stone’s throw from the Atlantic and kept inside one huge hillside and very tricky sand dunes. The training wasn’t really a race but I tried to run on my anaerobic level whole 7km leg (time 59min, mistakes +4min). At the end of the training I had few flashbacks from Yyteri terrain (near city of Pori) but here runability and sand solidity was a bit better.
 |
| Map of Punta Paloma, Tarifa. Middle distance training+my routeline, 7km. Climbing was more than it reads on a map? |
After the great training we took a refreshing swim in the ocean and on the way back Malaga we stopped to eat a juicy steak dinner in Gibraltar.
 |
| Timbe and Petteri are heading to Atlantic ocean. |
Saturday, 19th of March
After half-dozen orienteering trainings it was time to cool down our brains and tired legs by doing an old school 4h hiking trip on the nearest mountains. Couple of athletes chose other sports like golf for recovering. Rumours told me that hole-in-one wasn’t far away so maybe we see one or two Terä golfers in PGA tour in the future ;)
 |
| Sun burned skin and happy faces on the top of a mountain. Photo by Juha. |
 |
| Timo makes a perfect swing. Photo by Touho. |
Sunday, 20th of March
Last day in Spain and plan was to run again in El Chorro’s terrain. This final race included more climbing than first training here but running was much easier because the ground had dried during a sunny week so mud didn’t stick orienteering shoes at all.
Sometimes tired legs requires a long aerobic exercise like yesterday’s hiking because in this race I had the best running feeling for a long time. Again Juha was the fastest runner in the beginning no doubt but I managed to do the most accurate job in the last part of the race so pole position for me at last. Petteri showed good physical effort also and second place for him.
Results of the 3rd race, El Chorro Norte, “Sminky Pinky vol. 2”-Middle distance 6km:
1. Lasse 47.20
2. Petteri 49.40
3. Timbe 51.00 (not exact time)
4. Juha 52.00 (not exact time)
5. Aapo&Matti ~54min
 |
| Juha is aiming to the sky. Photo by Touho. |
 |
| The king of El Chorro. Photo by Touho. |
Monday, 21st of March
An early departure time from Malaga airport made us leave our accommodation in the small hours of Monday morning and it wasn’t surprise that half of Terä’s group was sleeping entire flight time. Summarizing the whole week in Spain, every athlete completed a good physical training packet and Terä’s edge is getting sharper when the competition season is just around the corner.
 |
| Going the distance. Photo by Touho. |
Regards from snowy Jyväskylä, Lasse. See you soon!
Monday, March 14, 2011
Season starts with Spring Cup 25.-27.3
Before the Spring Cup -briefing something else: Today morning half of the Terä runners started their trip to the warm Spain. The mission is to do some quality training by running and orienteering in the fine conditions of Costa del Sol. We might hear something from them on this blog soon? Our last spring's news-campaign (only in finnish) got "a bit" out of our hands...
Spring Cup 2011 - terrain
While we are waiting for the first report from the boys in south, it's time to take a short look at the Spring Cup 2011. I've been refreshing the SC -webpages quite frequently, and actually organized our trip this time. We are going to emphasize the relays (both night and day) and skip the classic race on Saturday. The races will be held this year near Roskilde, in a nice forest called Hvalsoskoven. Compared to the standard Hilleröd-terrains, it's a bit more demanding both technically and physically. Even though most of the SC's are arranged in northern Zealand, I've been running in this terrain for four times already. That's because the European Championships qualification races were run there as well. Take a closer look on the map piece below (this year's CC is located on the field):
Spring Cup 2011 - the weapons
* Juha Sorvisto has done a great training winter and problems with his old injuries have not slowed down at all. My personal opion is that when staying healthy, Juha is among the very best o-runners in Finland.
* Anders Nordberg has been training great and the results from the training-camp show that he is going strong already now. Clearly the best in middle and 2nd after Thierry in long distance.
* Pasi Ikonen has had a training winter of his life and the speed has been high through the winter. Pasi will not run in the night-relay because he is doing night-o without compass.
* Jonne Lakanen has always been in great shape in the spring. But this spring is different. He is even faster.
* Juha-Matti Huhtanen is going to be our fourth man in the night-relay. Some rumours are circulating that JM has been doing some training?
A short posting will be added after our lovely weekend-trip to Denmark. Let's see if we are strong enough to get the cross in the Terä Hall of Fame by winning the relay...? Winning of the Spring Cup relay is not easy. But that's what we have planned to do...
 |
Pasi, Anders and Juha are ready to rock. Jonne was building up his monster-form when this one was taken ;-). |
Before the Spring Cup -briefing something else: Today morning half of the Terä runners started their trip to the warm Spain. The mission is to do some quality training by running and orienteering in the fine conditions of Costa del Sol. We might hear something from them on this blog soon? Our last spring's news-campaign (only in finnish) got "a bit" out of our hands...
Spring Cup 2011 - terrain
While we are waiting for the first report from the boys in south, it's time to take a short look at the Spring Cup 2011. I've been refreshing the SC -webpages quite frequently, and actually organized our trip this time. We are going to emphasize the relays (both night and day) and skip the classic race on Saturday. The races will be held this year near Roskilde, in a nice forest called Hvalsoskoven. Compared to the standard Hilleröd-terrains, it's a bit more demanding both technically and physically. Even though most of the SC's are arranged in northern Zealand, I've been running in this terrain for four times already. That's because the European Championships qualification races were run there as well. Take a closer look on the map piece below (this year's CC is located on the field):
 |
Spring Cup -terrain in 2011 |
Spring Cup 2011 - the weapons
* Juha Sorvisto has done a great training winter and problems with his old injuries have not slowed down at all. My personal opion is that when staying healthy, Juha is among the very best o-runners in Finland.
* Anders Nordberg has been training great and the results from the training-camp show that he is going strong already now. Clearly the best in middle and 2nd after Thierry in long distance.
* Pasi Ikonen has had a training winter of his life and the speed has been high through the winter. Pasi will not run in the night-relay because he is doing night-o without compass.
* Jonne Lakanen has always been in great shape in the spring. But this spring is different. He is even faster.
* Juha-Matti Huhtanen is going to be our fourth man in the night-relay. Some rumours are circulating that JM has been doing some training?
A short posting will be added after our lovely weekend-trip to Denmark. Let's see if we are strong enough to get the cross in the Terä Hall of Fame by winning the relay...? Winning of the Spring Cup relay is not easy. But that's what we have planned to do...
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Winter City Life
OSL2O11 was the plan, to see the ski world championships in the winter city of Oslo. The possibility came up because of new club mate Anders Nordberg living there, and because of very sheap flights between Finland and Norway. It was maybe my 12th time in Norway, but still the very first time in the winter time. Before that I had also visited Oslo couple of times during summers and made some training in Holmenkollen area.
It was pleasure to be in OSL2O11. I was expecting something similar between big football match and AC/DC on tour. And it really was that kind of! Tons of people, a huge mesh, lot of noise, smoky foggy... Indescribable atmosphere and you couldn’t see a thing! Well, did I expect to see the race well – No. The main idea was just be in the queues and get the taste of winter city festival, and of course to train well.
And why so? Well, what can you expect to see from the race in nowadays mass starts as a spectator along the ski track? A easily followed and enjoyable race? Noup! There is just a rapid moment when the athletes are passing you by in a one unrecognizable group. And the result of the race you see in TV when you’re home. This is where we are in nowadays sports. I think, I hope, we are living in 2011 in the period of ascendancy of mass starts, and they will lose their hegemony in future. I wish it to happen as an athlete and as a spectator. Who ever wants mass starts in endurance sports like skiing and orienteering, Northug, Björgen? I don’t think they want, really.
Well they say that Oslo is the capital of winter sport. After OSL2O11, I think there is no doubt about it. After all, I found there is many things similar in winter cities Oslo and Jyväskylä – the winter city of Finland (Sorry Lahti and Rovaniemi). For example, both cities Oslo and Jkl are located in the north ends of the bays, between the nice hills and “mountains”. There is a good possibilities to do sports in both cities, and the people are keen in sports.
But what is different between those cities? Here are some notes of mine. These are minor things, but still there is some bigger things behind those:
- Metro
- Tents
- Surroundings of city
- Icehockey
Tents. This was also seen in TV:s many times. People are living in tents in Holmenkollen in the middle of snow during OSL2O11, even the people with their children. Nothing to compare to.
Surroundings of the city. There is something done different in Oslo surroundings too. Behind city’s settled area, there is “nothing”. There is just endless old forest close to the city, without loggings and buildings. But there is something too, about 2000 km of ski tracks and more and more summer outdoor tracks too. In Jyväskylä surroundings, the forest industry has done “good work”.
Icehockey. I couldn’t find any signs about ice hockey during the time OSL2O11 in Oslo. Back in Finland, they were telling in TV, what was the situation in standard incomplete ice hockey match between Kuopio and Jyväskylä. They said it straight after that Matti Heikkinen had won World Championship. I have nothing against to ice hockey. Indeed, I like to play it very much, and I’m playing ice hockey almost every week. But there is just too much of it in TV, and sometimes it seems to be almost a sport in Finland just to watch it. Anyway, I think there is more variety in sports in Jyväskylä, even it’s much smaller city.
Timo, from the city centre of Jyväskylä
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)