I became ill. In fact, I got the disease long time ago. But there seems to be no cure for this obsession. Even though the autumn has been really busy, for some reason I've had the time to orienteer. One fifth of the average weekly training (2h/10h) has been quality o-training. I just realized that it's already December soon, and the speed hasn't slowed down at all. Strange winters of present are pretty good for nordic runners, as now we are not so much handicapped because of the circumstances compared to Middle European runners.
The official reason for today's training in Mullivuori was to test next year's Icebug-shoes, but on the other hand I am now keen to make some speed-improving orienteering sessions. KurkoCup has been really good for that, but I have also made quite a lot own trainings since the weather is so good. Today I made Janne Salmi's favourite training - 3 x over-speed o-intervals. The speed was really high and the new shoes bit really well especially in the last interval in Mullivuori - orienteering speed was 4.40min/km (check the map & data)!
I have come to a conclusion, that when the weather is so good for orienteering, you should not stop doing o-sessions at this time of year. In theory, improvement should take place also during the early winter months (even though it might be only a fantasy, if you are not able to do orienteering because of snow). Well, that's for sure that the break from orienteering won't be too long anymore - doing 2h of quality orienteering training per week helps a lot during the oncoming cold months. And soon it's already spring ;-).
Have a nice "winter"!