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| 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”.
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| Beautiful landscape captured from El Chorro. Photo by Touho. |
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| 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.
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| Fastest time and best POS made by Timbe (6,1km/43.53/85%). Photo by Touho. |
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| 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%)
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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%)
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| La Breña South, 2nd night-o race, 5km. |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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 ;)
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| Sun burned skin and happy faces on the top of a mountain. Photo by Juha. |
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| 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
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| Juha is aiming to the sky. Photo by Touho. |
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| 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.
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| Going the distance. Photo by Touho. |
Regards from snowy Jyväskylä, Lasse. See you soon!
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