Lidingöloppet: My Performance Assessment
Posted by David Hroncheck in Races, Running Technique, running on 2009/09/28
Lidingöloppet 2009 medal
Two days after Lidingöloppet and my body is giving me all the signs needed to finish writing my race-day assessment of my 2:44:02, 2009 performance:
Distance Training- 8/10. Following a three month training gap, I began preparing for this event in August. I jumped right into the last nine weeks of my 20-week marathon schedule. 635km in 9 full weeks for an average of 70km/week; 10km/day. This may have been too sudden but the distance workouts all went well, including a slow-dry run on the actual course three weeks ago (30km/2:52:00). When I say slow, I kept an even 5:25/km pace and a heart rate under 140 bpm to preserve my legs, while adding endurance and mental stamina.
Adjustments for 2010: Foundation should have started at least a month earlier.
Speed/Hill Training- 3/10. I basically failed in this category. I normally allocate one day a week (Tuesdays) for speed work. This was simply not enough for the hilly demands of Lidingöloppet. But I didn’t even stick to that schedule and missed all but a few sessions which came toward the end of the nine-week plan. In hindsight, it was a bad idea to have done the last few speed sessions without having done the earlier ones; Too much late program body fatigue.
Adjustments for 2010: Not only for Lidingöloppet, I simply have to value my speed work more going forward. Specifically for Lidingöloppet, I need those speed sessions and hill-work. Also, I want to plan my daily routes to play more specific roles within my training plan.
Sleep- 4/10. Nothing I could have done to change this. My four-month-old daughter continues to bring us all the perfect joys and challenges of parenthood. We’re still doing feedings at 24, 03 and 06. Add work, home-improvements and 12-15 hours/week for running… getting proper sleep is a challenge. I manage to piece together five hours a day for sleep, which works for me mentally. Physically, the recovery demands my body requires have not been met. I know I would have performed better with eight hours sleep.
Adjustments for 2010: Obvious.
Nutrition- 7/10. I ran this race 5kg over what I planned for. Prior to the nine weeks of prep, I gained nearly 10kg during summer holidays and not working out properly. My diet over the last nine weeks has been fairly good, with a few indulgences (homemade ice cream) on the weekends. Out of respect for my lack of sleep, I should have been compensating with higher protein ratios.
Adjustments for 2010: Hmm. Don’t gain 10kg.
Race strategy- 5/10. My plan was good, it just wasn’t right for my current fitness level; Fail. A week ago I ran a routine 8km run at a 4:30/km pace while keeping my heart rate out of my upper zone and feeling like a moderate effort. I felt great and energized afterwards and thought I’d be able to keep, at least, this pace for the first 24km. Instead, zig-zag’ing, bumping and running off the trail pushed my heart rate up and my pacing down. Continued…
Race-day variables- 6/10. The event was spectacular, and so was the weather. Of the things in my control, my start group placement was pretty miserable; I was in group 4 of 9 and showed up late to the starting line. There is no “net-time” on this race, either. I wasn’t able to run interrupted until km 8, zig-zag’ing and bumping along. Soon after km 8, I fell on a steep downhill section, leaving me a bit battered and bloody. Bottom line: I need a better start group.
Adjustments for 2010: For my benefit at every large event, I need to find a good, flat and fast 10km race to nail down an excellent qualifying time. This year, Lidingöloppet start group “2″ qualifying time was 43:00/10km, 39:59 for ‘”1C”. Also, wear gloves in case of falls.
Next race: Tjur Ruset on October 17th is a 10km “tuff-man” event.
Ready for Lidingöloppet!
Posted by David Hroncheck in Races, routes on 2009/09/24
I suppose it’s a little bit funny that I’m so excited for this event after reading my “Urban or Suburban” post, but I am. The Lidingöloppet’s main race on Saturday is a 30km cross-country run on the picturesque island of Lidingö, a Northern suburb of Stockholm, Sweden. I lived here back in 2001 and I’ve missed it ever since I moved.
Lidingö has an area about 25% the size of Manhattan, but with only 30,000 inhabitants, leaving a lot of room for outdoor recreation. You’ll also find Sweden’s best sports training facility here, Bonsön, nestled on the island’s North side in the midst of Lidingö’s vast network of well-maintained trails. Many of these trails see race activity year-round; X-country skiing, running and triathlon.
I’ve been looking forward to this event for a number of reasons, mostly because I missed out on the majority of my intended races, thankfully due to the birth of my daughter now 4,5 months old and beaming with beauty. I’ve since worked out my time budget with my wife to allow 12-15 hours a week to train.
Lidingöloppet is a tough course which only gets tougher as you go. The first 20km are relatively easy, but it’s the ups and downs of the final 10km which puts strain on everyone’s threshold of pain. The killer for me comes around 25km with an uphill section that leaves you tempted to use your hands to help climb it.
No excuses for this race: I’ve done all the training I could fit in; Injury-free and feeling strong; Weight is… OK, I’m as lean as ever but all the extra hill work has added muscle all over. The added strength is much needed but I can feel that extra weight sapping efficiency from my stride on long distances.
Participants who finish the 30km race under 2:15 (4:30/km) receive a silver medal honor. Realistically, this is just out of reach for me as I predict a time closer to 2:30 (5:00/km). If the course was flat and the temperature fell to 14C, I could hit 2:07 for right now. However, Lidingöloppet will be crowded, forecasted at 20C and saturated with late leg-destroying climbs. Bottom line, I’ll be happy to remain under 5:00/km for the end tally.
My start number is 41257, in group 6 of 11 at 13:00. Lidingöloppet’s 30km race is Saturday, the 26th.
Lidingöloppet race profile image
In other news, this weekend is also the last of a two-week Stockholm Beer and Whisky festival. I’ll stick to melon post-race, my favorite recovery food.
Beta Phrase Still in Beta Phase
Posted by David Hroncheck in Applications, Digital on 2009/09/14
I’m not sure when I first began using the term “beta” with my Nokias, but I think it was Opera for S60 Symbian on my Nokia 3650. However, I really ramped things up on the beta-front when I bought my E61. Back then (2006), I was excited for the E61’s connectivity, namely WiFi. Not for the most-used app’s like web-browser and email, but for VoIP calling which I had been using for years via PC. The E61 was one of Nokia’s first handsets to get WiFi and it was rumored that VoIP calling was possible on it, so I bit.
Not so fast. What it took a bio-chem engineer with little IT knowledge to get a VoIP account set up on that E61, months before a fix via firmware update helped everybody else, was countless hours of frustration and just as many handset hard-resets. Most importantly though, my quest to find a workaround led me to a whole new world. I began to see that there were lots of new developers with budding applications and tools which were designed to unlock the potential of my handset, be it VoIP or something else; A file browser which gave me access to previously hidden folders/drives, or a GPS logger, a scientific calculator or translating dictionary. No I didn’t need an “app store”, Google was fine.
Early 2006 there were hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny apps for Symbian and Java. Many of which used the term “beta”. I soon discovered that many devs never intended to finish their “betas” due to copyright and/or compensation ambiguities/workarounds. These were the “eternally beta” selections; Basically, these are mostly stable apps with flexible developers. And a SMART developer could apply user feedback to instantly help his fan base, or his “donation” pot, grow a bit larger.
Enter Nokia Beta Labs. With a small handful of apps to begin with, including Nokia Sports Tracker and Gizmo for S60, Nokia seemed to have a brand new playground for me. Just don’t look up “beta” in any dictionary for its useful definition. No, Nokia Beta Labs is a beta project in and of itself and every application on their site comes with its own rules and stories which, too, are constantly changing. Some apps have devs extra curious to their user’s wants and needs, while other dev teams might be surprised to find out that their app is a part of Nokia Beta Labs in the first place. Regardless, I can’t figure why a dev team wouldn’t want to be all over their user feedback. Granted, as a Contributor of the Month recipient at Nokia Beta Labs myself, I have seen a heaping ton of worthless feedback. Yet amongst the noise you’ll find some fantastic ideas and realistic user participation/expectations… full of excitement.
So the term beta, as it historically applies to software applications remains as vaguely defined as ever: Use at your own risk, Use may be revoked at any time, May cause damage, May not be used in a production environment, May be eternally in beta, May not be used in your region. Beta may be a marketing tool; Spread the word, get’um hooked. Nevertheless, if it means unlocking my handset’s potential, with a chance to help mold an app or simply glimpse at what’s around the corner… If it looks like it will add functionality… Back up my phone and load it on.
If today’s beta projects ever had a shining example of what to do and how to do it, then it might be Gravity for S60 Twitter client. Near perfect execution by just one developer, Jan Ole Suhr of Mobileways.de. Conversely, perhaps the worst example of a beta-phase execution is in my beloved Nokia Sports Tracker; In 2007, it had no competitive counterpart. Now, its two developers, Ykä Huhtala and Jussi Kaasinen, besides an occassional note about server changes/status and the rare app update are going to find it difficult to stand out after their separation with Nokia. Their style of, as quoted on the Nokia Beta Labs website, “Quietly listening” to feedback will have to change.
No matter what, “beta” should imply and encourage momentum, if not velocity, in ever-growing application markets. It should be the budding developer’s calling card and handshake.
Urban or Suburban?
Posted by David Hroncheck in running on 2009/08/23
I have to ask, what is your preference, “Urban or suburban?”.
I moved out of the city in June to be near my family after the arrival of my first child. All-in-all, it was a great decision. Grandmothers, parents and sister-in-law, all here to help out with my wife’s extended leave of absence to take care of our daughter, Amelia.
Running-wise, the conditions are ideal. Especially for our local network of well-lit and perfectly maintained walking/cycling paths.
However after a couple of months in, I find myself longing for the subtly-more-exciting streets of Stockholm. Yet I feel a bit guilty; Here in Åkersberga I’m on the edge of a vast wilderness. Kilometer upon kilometer of rolling trails, fresh air and no one to see or get in the way.
The problem is, I miss the city. I miss the nightly stories I used to put together with all the sights I took in on my nightly runs. Be it a crazy panhandler, a rowdy group of party-ers, or simply the company of fellow runners, I just miss the aspects of the city which made the time fly by and the excuses to leave the earbuds out so I might hear what’s going on as I passed by.
Now, I get fresh air without automobiles. I get kilometer after kilometer of wilderness; Trees, horses and the occasional fox, deer or moose. So why does it sound like I’m complaining? I shouldn’t be. Life out here is billed as cleaner.
Stockholm Urban
Still, I long for my city runs. 24km of woods is a bore compared to the same through the heart of congestion, potential trouble and wear on the knees.
This is where I live and I’ll be happy here regardless, but I just thought I’d see if I was alone in my city running preferences.
Åkersberga Rural
Tomorrow’s run… A trip into the city for a lovely 25km jaunt around what I miss so much.
