Or are these new ones..? Firstly, training has been really good since the end of November (training diary). I’ve focused on “quality amount” type of training, so mainly low intensity training but not too much (training intensities). Ball games are also back in program because my back allows me to do them. And my new coach mr. Jarmo Heiskanen has even made some training programs for me. Last time I had a training plan was back in 1996...And my training diary is back online, check out some material there!

Secondly, the winter seems to be an old-fashioned one here in Finland. That means a big amount of skiing during these darkest months of winter. The first training-camp on snow-free surface will not take place until the mid-February (in Alicante).

Thirdly, it’s time to be an o-professor again! That means an increase of Polar hard- & software use will occur this year. Of course, I’ve used those special options all the time, but now it’s time to focus more on those important features of software (OwnOptimizer, Exertion –count, GPS). Then I’ll constantly add some QuickRoute analysis featuring some Excel-calculations. Maybe these actions will rise some new thoughts about training and o-performance?

Pictures:
Training diary 23.11-3.1 (DIARY)
Training intensities 23.11-3.1 (SUMMARY)
OwnOptimizer (TEST RESULTS)
OwnOptimizer (CHART)
Training figures from Jalasjärvi-training (ANALYSIS)
Last controls in Jalasjärvi (MAP)
Back to the o-professor duties? (PHOTO)
Heading higher (PHOTO)

Greetings from the sunny and warm Spain...NOT. Even if the weather is not the most optimal, the terrains and the travel companions are. Unfortunately today I couldn’t join them, because yesterday’s intensive training made me feel sick (and now it’s time to take responsibility for these media obligations. See more on Terä site).

We arrived late on Tuesday and the first training (official one, by o-travel and Per) took place in Cieza, on a hilly and soft grounded course. Legs felt heavy (maybe indicated that I’m going to be sick) but technically training was very nice. In the evening we adjusted ourselves to the coastal terrains with short night-o session. On Thursday morning I had planned a double training near Marjal: JWOC 2002 D20 short distance final course + sprint in Parque Reina Sofia. I and Juha had 17.11 and 17.18 on that 3,75km, making the o-speed pretty high (4.35min/km). The sprint was quite nice as well, even if the map is from a different terrain nowadays ;-).

Two more things: I’m testing Polar’s newest model (Polar RS800CX ....... Edition) at the moment and it’s seems to be a nice tool with a handsome outlook. During this spring my homepages will be updated completely by Pasi Lehtimäki and Oriento Solutions.

I’ll send some news from here, when I get better. Train well my fellows!

22.2 I added some maps from the trainings here. I managed to make a solid performance in the training-camp champs and won the race!

PICTURES:
Piece of Cieza route choice training (MAP)
JWOC 2002 D20 short final in 17.11 (MAP)
Part of the sprint (MAP)
D20 -short (HR)
Training-camp Champs in Guardamar norte (MAP+GPS)
The Nobel prize of night-o goes to Timo Joensuu (MAP+GPS)

Here are the updated pages of mine! Pasi Lehtimäki’s Oriento Solutions has been responsible for the technical update. Important new feature is the link to the five newest trainings on the front page, so that it will be easier to navigate to training pages from now on.

At the moment I’m having a training camp near Turku and waiting for the first training of the day (4-man relay with four participants ;-)). Yesterday we ran some intervals on track and a night-o training in Parainen. Some more sessions in snow free terrains are needed, because during this winter I didn’t have that many training-camps (one 6-days’ in Alicante and one 10-days’ trip to Denmark and Sweden only). On Saturday I’ll run the first “real” race in Silja-Rastit.

Of course I’ve participated already in the Spring Cup (13^th) and in OK Orion’s national race (1^st) but those were more like training races. The form seems to be quite ok, even if the winter has been quite difficult in many ways. An average training week during the winter is exactly 12h of physical training (average of 85km running) and I skied more than usually because of the heavy winter.

So check out the training pages for some new material! During the summer I’ll be updating the pages often.

The finnish elite season was launched during last weekend. For my surprise I managed to win the Silja-Rastit and Huippuliiga's 1st race! Racing felt very easy both technically and physically, even I had some butterflies in my stomach due to last season and psychologically hard winter. So, some positive changes have really taken place now.

More info about the race you'll find on Paimion Rasti's pages and you should also check out preceding trainings on the training-pages. You'll find out that I didn't really rest with the orienteering this week, as the race was the 7th o-session of the week. Now it's time to take it a more easily and next challenge is FinnSpring on next weekend!

Or as the phrase goes in real life: "s..t happens". On Tuesday I headed to Kuopio for a school-orienteering happening at Kettula school, and during the return trip I was about to check out one regional race's course (Suonenjoen Vasama). This time the luck wasn't on my side as I sprained my biceps femoris (posterior thigh muscle). Fortunately it revealed itself to be only a minor sprain, but I won't go for Tiomila this year. For ten days I should avoid any fast movements.

The regional race in Suonenjoki will be interesting (mapper is the famous Jussi "diesel" Silvennoinen). As the injury seems to be a minor one, I'll might have time to check out the course before the race!

...and then some more training! As Minna & co. travel to Bulgaria, I wonder about basic trainings here at my home. Or in fact, I'm designing a minefield to one of the few maps here in Vihanti. This norwegian type of terrain will mess Minna's head when she faces it! As you check that out, you'll find out that the ground is soft there and hills are long and steep - like in Norway.

My leg has been recovering steadily and training has been effective for two weeks now. But I can't do full speed training yet, as the leg feels a bit odd then. So, I'm concentrating on doing lots of training at lower intensities - a method which has been totally forgotten in nowadays orienteering training. As it is still some 2½ months to the WOC, this kind of period in this phase suites me well. Later, after Jukola, I'll hope I am ready to go with more intensive training and we'll surely launch some sadistic hill-trainings in Laajavuori with my coach Jarmo Heiskanen...

On the training-sections you'll found the latest maps and training information. And I'll be "online" for one week now! At the weekend I'll test my leg in Pohjantähti-rastit near Oulu - but this time only at training speed.

Jukolan juhla is about to start. My own preparations are ready excluding the model event, which I'll run tonight before the forest is full of tracks (=tomorrow forenoon at the latest). After a long break, I'll run a night leg and the most demanding one actually - the 3th leg.

Check out the training data on the pages. You'll find some new, nice maps there. Physically I'm starting to feel fast again and the back thigh is getting better. So, in Jukola I'll have a chance and the pleasure to concentrate in the real thing! See you there folks!

Thursday 24.6: 1.35h, 17.5km.

Training 1: Running on paths

Place: Korkeakoski, Maaninka

Duration/distance: 40min, 7km.

Average HR: 120 (PK1 100%)

”As usual, we chose an alternative route via Maaninka and Lapinlahti and checked out the rapids in Korkiakoski and had a picnic at the top of Väisälänmäki. Beautiful views.”

Training 2: Orienteering and running

Place: Hulkonniemi, Suomussalmi

Duration/distance:  40.17, 6.6km (juostu 7.8km). Vr:t 15min, 2.7km.

Average HR: 166 (VK1 79%)

”Took it quite easily, because I drove most of the time from Jyväskylä. Couple of small misses, but still fastest on every leg ;-). Results.”

Friday 25.6: 2.04h, 24km.

Training 1: Morning run

Place: Purnujärvi, Kuusamo

Duration/distance: 20min,3.5km.

Keskisyke: 120 (PK1 100%)

Training 2: O-intervals and running

Place: Vasaravaara, Kuusamo (KRP-middle distance 2010)

Duration/distance:  30.48, 6.2km (running distance 7.1km).Warm-ups 30min, 5.5km.

Average HR: 171 (VK 86%)

”Test-driving the middle distance course of Koillismaan Rastipäivät 2010. The terrain and the course were really fast and from time to time it was easy to run at 4min/km –pace. Terrain’s speciality was that it contained three different terrain types (moraine terrain, detailed rocky terrain and the basic Kuusamo-type of terrain).”

Training 3: Running and downhill-orienteering

Place: Välivaara, Kuusamo

Duration/distance: 43.30, 8km.

Average HR: 133 (VK 8%)

”In the evening we checked out Välivaara which Pertti Virtanen introduced to us. Nice views and surprisingly tricky 1.7km downhill-course. It may be that it was the most demanding orienteering challenge of the training-camp.”

Saturday 26.6: 2.40h, 27km.

Training 1: O-intervals and running

Place: Petäjävaara, Kuusamo (WMOC 2007 -terrain)

Duration/distance: 48.00, 7.5km (running distance 9.3km). Warm-ups & resting periods 34min, 5.2km.

Average HR: 168 (VK 73%)

”Again some intervals with a map. This time we seeked for more bushy terrain which would be relevant for WOC. The perfect training consisted of four (10min, 5min, 11min and 22min) intervals. The rainy and a bit cold (+11C) weather didn’t bother us at all – but the bloodthirsty mosquitos did.”

Training 2: Running on tracks

Place: Purnujärvi, Kuusamo

Duration/distance: 1.18h, 12,5km.

Average HR: 120 (PK1 100%)

”One hour of useless exercise, would Jones say. But in fact, in these terrains there isn’t such an exercise that could be termed as useless. Just before we arrived to our cabin we climbed onto the top of Konttainen (407m). The scenery was of high class.”

Sunday 27.6: 3.19h, 29km.

Training 1: Morning run

Place: Purnujärvi, Kuusamo

Duration/distance: 21min, 4km.

Average HR: 119 (PK1 100%)

Training 2: Hiking and jogging on Karhunkierros

Place: Oulanka, Kuusamo

Duration/distance:  2.58h, 24km.

Average HR: 107 (PK1 100%)

”The so called ”30K easy day”. It’s still hard to understand that if you really want to rehabilitate your tired muscles, the majority of a 3-hours exercise should be done by hiking. Fortunately we didn’ t get too tired after all. In addition, it would be stupid to come to Kuusamo just to rest.”

Monday 28.6: 2.14h, 26km.

Training 1: Morning run

Place: Purnujärvi, Kuusamo

Duration/distance: 17min, 3km.

Average HR: 117 (PK1 100%)

Training 2: Orienteering (middle distance) and running

Place: Taviharju, Kuusamo (KRP 2009 –long distance’s first 15 controls)

Duration/distance: 43.20, 7.83km (running distance 8.5km). Warming-up 28min 5.5km.

Average HR: 171 (VK 93%)

”You shouldn’t exercise only by doing intervals. Especially when it’s about o-training. Taviharju terrain and map were just perfect. The marshes were even better than in Norway!”

Training 3: O-intervals and running

Place: Hakojärvi, Kuusamo

Duration/distance: 13.40,3.0km (running distance 3.5km). Warm-ups/rest periods 32min 5.5km.

Average HR: 170 (VK 95%)

”We were figuring out what to do in the evening as Minna discovered it: shorter intervals…Four courses were 665-800m in length. The surface wasn’t the easiest one, but still the average running speed was 4.00min/km. In the last heat I was running under 3.30min/km all the time and for the first time in here my lungs were burning – nice thing to happen! Heart rate, on the other hand, was still some 10 beats under normal level.”

Tuesday 29.6: 3.16h, 15km.

Training 1: Hiking on Valtavaara and circuit

Place: Ruka-Valtavaara, Kuusamo

Duration/distance: 2.08h, 15km. Circuit 30min.

Average HR: 94 (PK1 100%)

Training 2: Cycling

Place: Purnujärvi-Ruka, Kuusamo

Duration/distance: 38min.

Keskisyke: 110 (PK1 100%)

”Our car got broken as most of the gears didn’t work anymore. So it needed to be transported to Rovaniemi (some 200km from here…) and we had to reschedule our life. The good thing was that we were forced to exercise at lower intensity and this time the “rehab”-training really worked. And the short cycling session was carried out in the same spirit.”

Wednesday 30.6 (30 years old!):

Training 1: Morning run

Place: Purnujärvi, Kuusamo

Duration/distance: 30min, 5.5km.

Keskisyke: 120 (PK1 100%)

”30mins for 30 years old.”

Training 2: Birthday-orienteering by Minna

Place: Purnujärvi, Kuusamo

Duration/distance: 30min, 1.5km.

Average HR: 121 (PK1 100%)

“MTB-O, foot orienteering and rowing-orienteering! Minna planned a short training as a present for me.”

Training 3: Orienteering (middle distance in KEV-iltarastit)

Place: Suovalampi, Kuusamo

Duration/distance: 26.45, 5.23km (running distance 6.0km).  Warm-ups 30min 5.5km.

Average HR: 179 (MK 4%, VK 95%)

“Really nice performance! The course and the map were very good too. Analysis.”

The form is getting better and better! My speed was at good level during the whole week back in Kainuu and as a result I won three of the four races. That was a slight surprise, because I haven't really tried to peak the speed yet. The basic speed is just very good at the moment. Some links for further analysis:

• Results
• GPS-tracking from all of the races
• Own analysis (1day, 2day, 3day and 4day)

Hello from Trondheim!

My World championships have also started and yesterday I did a mistakeless run in the middle distance qualification. As a result I got the 3rd fastest time in the heat C, behind David Andersson and Daniel Hubmann. After a (too) safe start I had a good speed and got the fastest times on the longest legs 3-4 and 5-6:

Today I headed back to Jervfjellet to enjoy the fell terrain once again. As we WOC runners have a possibility to run the open courses so why not?. The performance was again mistakeless:

Next time I'll be out at the starting line on Saturday in the middle final, so now I have some time to check how the others are doing in the long distance qualification (today) and in the final (on Thursday). For sure the Finns will continue these champs by doing clean runs today. During the following days the focus will slowly turn towards middle final. It will a hard battle with many strong performances. That is what the guy below is aiming at too (already on the 3rd last control in the qualification): 

Not too bad on the last race either!

It’s time to start the climax of the season. Usually I’ve been focusing in eating the steak (=Middle and relay in the Finnish Champs) and ignoring the rest. Now the whole “sandwich” is tempting me. The lower bun (=Long distance in Finnish Champs) is the primary goal in Finland and the tasty burger culminates with the upper bun (=World Cup races in France and Switzerland).

And as this sandwich needs some sauce, lets add it! It’s the French mayonnaise (=2011 WOC training map to be used already this autumn?) which really makes the sandwich taste good. Voilà!

I have nothing to complain about the results in the autumn’s Finnish Championships. Including the qualification races, I received three 1^st positions and two 2^nd  places as a result. As you view the races as performances, it looks even better. I could have done only 5 min better totally (long qualification 1min, long final 1min, middle qualification 40s, middle final 1min and the relay 1min 20s). Interestingly, I missed only 2min in the control-taking phases! That’s a good job as the total length of these five races was 42,42km with 89 controls to pick up. Short stories about the medal races:

FC-long, 1st place. Had a bit jammed body in the qualification, and I was slightly feared how I’ll do in the final. Did I orienteer too much in the preceding week? Fortunately the powder was dry in the early stages of the race and I earned some quality company for the rest of the competition. Due to eye injury, which happened already after 20mins of running, my map-reading was impaired. By descending the speed in some places I was still able to orienteer well. The only bigger mistake was done when arriving to the difficult area (9^th control), where I lost 45s. In the end the speed was high and almost got stuck in the swamp ditches permanently… I took the end quite carefully and could thereby insure my first gold on long distance by a clear margin.

FC-middle distance, 2nd place. Had some problems before the races again. Strange stomach flue had been distressing me for four days and managing in the second race of the day was unclear. Luckily the fluid balance hadn’t got affected due to sickness and the influence was mainly psychological. Already the qualificationhad went well, even when running at ”easy pace”. Though, the hear rate levels were too low in both races, as they were 10-12 beats lower than normally, which indicated that body wasn’t functioning normally. As an o-performance the finalwas rather good – challenging legs and solving them “on the spot” was the name of the game all the time. Couple of times I felt like running a hard training only (because of the jamness and the low intensity), but that may have been only a positive thing as the race was tricky by nature. In the finish I felt good and was happy that nice guy like Kim won the race!

FC-relay, 2nd place. Surprisingly good feeling before the start (had slept only 4h and my stomach was still bad) and it didn’t got worse even by the fact, that the co-starters were World Champions Thierry (KR) and Matthias (RR). Physically I was in a jam again, but the speed didn’t feel bad. HR average was again only 173 and I was not even close to reach the anaerobic threshold level (185). Surely the threshold is lower at the moment as measured by beats per minute, even without the stomach flu. Thierry ran away from me at 10th control, as I missed a bit. The control flag has fallen down and I didn’t find the place straight away. I almost managed to get Thierry caught again, but then changed my plan (for good reason) and made some zigzag for half a minute. That was it then and to be honest,  I have had no chances in the end for at least with that diesel engine I was driving with. I’m happy with this performancetoo, and the other Terä-boys did a good job again. The New Vaajakosken Terä’s history (2005-2010) from the Finnish Champs relay is not too bad: 1., 1., 3., 4., 2. ja 2.

The season is nearing to it’s end and only couple of races are left to be run: Pre-Jukolaon next weekend, weekend after that World Cup and Pre-WOC 2011 in Franceand finally the World Cup –finals in Switzerland. The long race in France and the middle in Switzerland are naturally of the highest interests, as it was advertised the earlier burger-news. And I almost forgot that we are travelling to Smålandskavlen as well, after a one penalty-year due to our win in 2008!

The past season was pretty good when it comes to success and the gap to the top of the world doesn't feel that big. In the beginning of the season I got injured, but that actually made a good ground for the success in the latter phases of the season. I didn't have to fatigue myself by racing and I was able to do basic training in May (which hardly ever happens nowadays). As a result I caught a "hypercompensation" in my physical form in July. In the very last races I was, on the other hand, a bit tired and came home from the World Cup finals only with a knee injury.

The fall has been rather interesting period of growth. I'm now (really) starting to realize, that I'm not a youngster anymore, the studies are close to the end and as a sportsman, I'm now starting to take the final committed steps. The feeling of commitment is especially interesting one and I will surely need that when it comes to work with my Master thesis and the three-year project in sports, lasting till the home WOC in Vuokatti in 2013. As an aid in this final sprint in sports, I will have some new sponsors for sure.

One more interesting thing happened last weekend:  I got named as the Coach of Year by the orienteering coaches. It's a bit contradictory as I did a good season as an athlete and because the recognition based on the work I have done with Minna. I understood the choice as a reward to all people who have backed up Minna's success and that coach can be more (or something else) than just a coach. In my opinion, coach's duty is to help the athlete in building his/her OWN vision of training, competing and life. Nowadays Minna's view of sports and orienteering is on that level, that the coach just have to keep his mouth shut and admire ;-). Fortunately there are still things where she can be better and we have something to suggest to her as building blocks. We will see, what she still can do, because she thinks her pyramid is not ready yet. That's a good base for the last years!

We won't travel to Egypt learning from building pyramids, but head to Canary Islands (as we did last December).  This time we'll fly to Gran Canaria for a 10-day training-camp. As a specialty, we'll do some measurements on acute training responses at high altitude, regarding to the WOCin WOC 2011 in France. Practically it means that heart rates, heart rate variability and lactate levels will be measured at different altitudes at varying speeds. Precise study-desing is not yet confirmed, but I'll let you know from the results later. Now I wish you a nice time before Christmas and take it easy with the training - the hardest training should not been done yet!

PS. Trainings updated on training-pages (i.e. wk 48).

PS2. Next year's competition and training-camp calendar has been updated on calendar-pages.

Good morning Las Palmas!

The training-camp in Gran Canaria is over. I've now updated the pages and you can follow the past two weeks by checking out the photos below. For more information of training on Gran Canaria, please visit Active Canaria's homepage.

Monday 6.12: Visiting Tarja and Pena. My back was suffering, but otherwise the evening was enjoyable: 

7.12 Tuesday: taking it easy. Made a morning jog to get Minna's stuff from the barber and checked out the southern part of the Helsinki for the first time of my life:

8.12 Wednesday: traveling to Gran Canaria. We did a short scouting of the training surroundings. Main finding was that we don't have to kick loose dogs here.

9.12 Thursday: cruising on the dunes and making "scientific-training" in Tamadaba. In the early morning it was nice and quiet on the beach, but beware those last dask moments of the days. You might make some physical friendships there. At least if you are male.

10.12 Friday: sprinting in a small park. Minna is running too fast, and then complaints that she is slow. I'm in trouble!

11.12 Saturday: hiking and jogging near San Bartolome de Tirajana. Neat!

12.12 Sunday: middle distance on the mountains. Active Canaria's Allan Bogle arranged a nice training in beautiful surroundings at 1700m above sea level. After the training we visited Roque Nublo (behind me in the photo).

13.12 Monday: easy orienteering in a rocky terrain. Good exercise for the ankles ;-).

14.12 Tuesday: 2x sprints at Faro -mall and moving to Las Palmas. Now I beat Minna clearly ;-).

15.12 Wednesday: it's time to relax. Did only a 10K workout and focused on recovery.

16.12 Thursday: the time in Tamadaba improved by 4mins! Made better route choices worth of 2mins and was physically 2mins faster as well.

17.12 Friday: "a mean training day" on a training-camp. Morning jog, easy sprint training in Ingenio and an evening run.

18.12 Saturday: a long run on the coastal mountains. The training-camp is finished and was really a satisfying one! 

I had to become 30 years old to be able to complete 30h of training in one week. Most of the training in Ylläs was done by cross-country skiing (210km), but couple of night-o sessions, floorball and running (total 93km) offered some variation. Some pics from the trip:

30 hours and 7 minutes of training has been updated on training-page. "Women's amounts"compared to OMA. Happy New Year to everyone!

(c)Touho Häkkinen

A lot has happened after the last update – Minna got chosen as the Athlete of the Year, Anders chose Teräand for myself it’s now time to start my final spurt in studies, the Master thesis. As all the events have been positive ones, life has felt pretty easy. During last week I also got to know a kind person named Anders better and the weekend with Terä-boys was of course hard for the abdominal muscles because of laughing so much ;-). One interesting happening was the training presentation by Anders:

(c)Touho Häkkinen

My training has been really good (check the last picture below), and I have made lots of good quality sprint trainings. That might not be “by-the-book -training” for forest orienteerer, but I feel that even my fast muscle fibers need to be recruited more often. The subsequent adaptationsmay be beneficial for the long performances as well. I’ve also started to play games regularly again.

The situation seems to be pretty good as I got the first win of the year from Malibu- aka Vuolake- aka Peurunka-sprint event in Lievestuore. You might find the results on Terä-pages.  The absence of three tough guys (Antti A, Jani L and Jonne L) made the job easier, but the explorer Nordenskiöld (Anders N) and coach-oppressor Vormistowere pushing me to the limits. Generally the spirit in Terä is high!

Oops, I almost forgot the grandma in the snow (it's a finnish phrase actually). Here it goes:

I’ve rarely looked forward a training-camp so much I did for Team Finland’s camp in Portugal last week. I was packing my bag one week prior to the trip…The long, cold winter and good training through the winter contributed to this eagerness to do some quality training on the ranges of Evora. By the way, there is no misspelling in the title – it just reflects the pro-conditions Portuguese have to offer us (according to POM –entries some 237 Finns and 213 Swedes had made that conclusion as well).

However, the start of the training-camp wasn’t easy for me. Maybe due to a chiropractical manipulation session before the trip, I faced a painful problem in the very first o-training. All the other maneuvers done to me have been really beneficial ones, but this time something went wrong and I lost my mobility for a short period. Fortunately Kalevan Rasti had a doc and physiotherapist in the group and they observed the condition and helped me – thanks! The rest of the camp was actually a success and I was able to perform quality training. Check out the whole training week on training-page.

The competition season was opened on last day in Portugal O-meeting. My technical performance was a decent one (could have done 2mins faster) and the problem with the sacrum-region was not holding me up too much. I was fifth in the rankings and lost 1½min to Philippe. This is a good start for the season. The next three weeks I will spend at home, doing some cross-country skiing, writing my thesis and tuning in to the competition season. Have a nice end of the spring – summer is not far away anymore!

Vaajakosken Terä's weekend in Denmark was both sweet and successful. We took the victory in the Spring Cup day relay with a good team performance and got the desired cross on the Hall of Fame.

More details about the happenings you can find on Terä's international pages. The maps and HR files have been updated here on my pages as well. My own performances were really good during the weekend and I also managed to win night-sprint on Friday eve. Without compass, of course ;-).