One Month of Training in Finland
From heaven to hell and back
Do you wanna come to stay with me in Vuokatti in July? Jyri asked me in spring and I immediately decided - YES! I stayed there for two weeks last summer and training conditions are really perfect there.
My excitement přesáhlo hranice when I found out there is still some snow left. Real cold snow in July! Love Finland!!!
First two weeks went great. Lot of hard'n'fun trainings: long trail runs, core trainings, roller skiing, rowing, slope running and wild forest orienteering. What more would you wish?
A proper challenge! That’s why I signed up for my very first ultrarun in Lapland fell. 30km NUTS Pallas trail run was something I was really awaiting for. Something that motivated me to train hard and harder.
Unfortunately, I was probably too motivated and didn’t listen my body enough. I took part at one regional orienteering race. It was a long distance and the terrain was really challenging both physicall and technically. I ranked third being pretty tired.
I rested an upcoming day. The day later I planned an easy long run. I felt really good so I speeded up for 90min to test my shape before the NUTS Pallas race. Body felt really good. But I had a very bed sleep upcoming night, feeling tired the day after. Despite that, I didn’t want to skip my trainings and did easy core and easy roller skiing. My body didn’t handle it and I woke up with sore throat next morning. Despite I put so much effort to get heathly, I didn’t make it before the ultra race. I was really dissapointed as you could read at my last article.
Being sick was really frustrating when having so amazing training environment all around. I hoped to get healthy soon enough to be able to do at least one long trail run in Vuokatti forrest. My wish came true and I enjoyed 90min of running in the rain with the hugest smile on my face!
I also put effort to make also my „less significant“ muscles stronger. Barefoot running seemed to be a perfect way. I am a little bit of princess so I ran in socks. It was funny to meet some kids. I didn’t understand what they asked their parents while watching me s vykulenýma očima.Their face was like "did this girl právě utekla z blázince"?. But nothing made me to loose the feeling of happiness. One of the best feelings of freedom I have ever experienced. Try it, your foot will definitely appreciate it!
It was two days to go back to Czech. Jyri went to Kainuu O-Week and I decided to follow. I got so much in a mood to do orineteerting so I signed up to prestigeous „open course B long“. I wanted to stay under aerobic treshold which means I shouldn’t go race speed. The terrain was very demanding. I did a good performance with only very small mistakes. But it was really hard for me not to push as much as possible from the last control point as I am used to. This time it wouldn't be smart due to the sickness. When I checked my pulse after the race I found out I did it in the race zone. Definitely not smart. I had a 100% focus on my map which lead to lost control over my speed and pulse. And I was happy wth my 2nd place in class with almost 70 runners.
Now it is time to recover fast and grab the mental and physical power for another camp in Czech! Looking forward to speak Czech again :)
