micke-midlife on February 20th, 2009

20022009_speciesMet this orienteering runner today in the Esport Areena. He wasn’t quite in his natural habitat but overtook me in such a pace that I had to ask him what he was up to. 6 x 1000m he replied. Well, ok, no surprise, that he swooshed by as I was doing my odd basic 20k run and chose the indoor arena over the snowy and icy walk ways outside (yes, one could claim, that I’m not one of the toughest). He said he’d have two more runs left, both in about 3:20min. That spurred my interest in a small challenge.

Orienteering runners are different from long distance road/track runners in that way, that they’re much stronger, they have more muscles. They need the ability to accelerate, suddenly slow down and  quickly change direction all on uneven terrain. Road and track runners develop co-ordination and a rythm that brings efficiency in maintaining a high constant pace over a given distance.

We agreed that I’d join in on the last two runs. Running together is just so much more fun. And I’ve needed something spicing up my basic run anyway. He started out really fast, the first 400m in 1:15min which would lead to a sub-3:10min. I took the lead on the second lap. This way we maintained a good pace and came in at 3:12min on the 1000m. Really decent! The second one was equally fast, only that he even increased the speed in the beginning, the first 200m in 33sec, a 2:45min pace. Crazy guy.

Today’s training: basic run 20.2km, 4:40min/km pace with 2×1000m in 3:12min

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