Occassional thoughts about orienteering
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| okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering |
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Sunday, February 01, 2004 S is for SuddenSudden is Hans Fransson. You can check out Sudden's training at Attackpoint.I spent some time this morning looking at Sudden's training following the same approach I used when I looked at Hammer's training. I've got a set of questions I use to think about how orienteers train. Sudden's training - easiest to answer questions Training volume ? even year round or lots of up-and-down? If the volume is uneven, is it because of periodization or something else? Sudden does more volume in the winter, then less during the rest of the year. Looks like he takes some easier weeks to help recover. I think he is doing periodization, winter is the off-season. Cross training ? does the orienteer use other sports in training? Do they compete in other sports? Sudden uses a lot of different ways to train. I've seen skiing, indoor cycling, mtb, roller skiing, rowing, treadmill and roller blading. He does some ski racing and some adventure racing. I can't tell how seriously he takes those other sports. O' technique ? Does the orienteer practice technique or do they get their technique through competitions? He does some technique training. The GHO in Hamilton has a lot of technique training and local racing. I don't get the impression that Sudden is working on improving his O' technique so much as practicing enough to sharpen the skills before races. For the month of January 2004, GHO had 8 organized training sessions, a mix of running sessions and technique sessions. Injuries and illness ? Does the orienteer have problems with injuries and illness? He had an achilles injury in 2002 that affected his training. I can't tell from Attackpoint if the injury was over training/racing or if he had a sudden injury (stepping in a hole or something). Looking Sudden's post-injury training it struck me that he tried to return to running too soon (I'm speculating wildly here...I don't actually have any idea how severe the injury was or even what the nature of the injury was). Sudden has missed some training through sickness (colds, I'm guessing). Speculating again...it looks to me like the colds probably happen when a couple of factors pile up -- training and racing, plus some travel, plus something else (maybe work or family commitments?). While it looked to me like he tried to return from the achilles injury too quickly, it looks to me like he's prudent about recovering when he gets sick. Sudden's training -- possible to answer, but easy to get wrong Does the orienteer have clear, known goals? I don't know about individual goals, but the GHO club has some clear goals. So, Sudden is in an environment that is goal-directed. I'd be surprised if he didn't have some clear individual goals. But, I don't know what they are. Does the orienteer work with a coach? I can't tell. Sudden is Swedish, so he was probably brought up with the typical Swedish O' approach. Swedish clubs tend to have clear templates for their organized training. The clubs often have trainers. Often the trainers focus or organizing the weekly training sessions and training camps. They don't necessarily work one-on-one with individual runners. Some Swedish clubs have trainers who work more closely one-on-one with individual runners. But, if I had to say there was a typical model, it is that the runners need to take responsibility for their own training within the structure set out by the club. Younger orienteers learn to plan their own training. One thing that is interesting about the Swedish approach (again, some wild speculation here) is that clubs have a structure that is set and they don't adapt for their orienteers. If a top orienteer feels they need a different structure and training environment, they change clubs. The clubs don't change to meet the needs of their top orienteers. Now I've gone way off track with my analysis of Sudden's training! So, back to the issue.... I can't tell if Sudden has a coach. But, I'm sure he's got a template in mind. Most of his weeks have an interval session and a long-ish session. That's standard stuff. Does the orienteer's approach seem to be scientific and detail-oriented or more intuitive? I don't like this question. I've got to re-write it. "Scientific" isn't the right word to get at what I mean. Sudden seems fairly detail oriented. It looks like he does his training with an eye on the watch and an eye on the distance. I don't get the impression that he makes up his mind how he's going to train as he heads out the door or that he adjust his sessions very much depending on how he feels half way through. Sudden's training -- hardest to answer, probably wrong Does an "attitude" come through? Does the orienteer come across as having a positive approach? Do they whine a lot? I don't get a sense from looking at Attackpoint of Sudden's attitude. You can divide people who keep their training logs at Attackpoint in two groups based on how much detail and information (and just plain nonsense) they record on a day-to-day basis. Sudden doesn't write much, just the bare minimum. A sense of an attitude doesn't come through (unless you consider "just the bare minimum" to describe an attitude). Does the orienteer seem to be experimenting or following a template? I see a template more than experimentation. As I noted before, Sudden comes from Sweden, where templates are pretty standard. To give you an idea of a typical Swedish club training template, I looked up the plan for Sudden's Swedish club (Savedalens AIK) for the coming week: Today: Long distance O' practice from the club house. Monday: Innebandy (aka "floorball" -- something like field hockey in a gym with a wiffle ball). Tuesday: Short intervals. Thursday: Local night O' race series. Saturday: O' technique practice. What sort of background does the orienteer have? Do they make maps? Have the competed at a high level in another sport? Did they start at a young age? Have they lived in Europe? He's from Sweden. He probably started orienteering at a fairly young age. If I remember correctly, Fransson is from Vetlanda in Sweden. Vetlanda is well known among orienteers who raced a lot in the 1980s/90s because of a radio show called "Skivor fran Vetlanda" (records from Vetlanda). The show was one morning on the weekend (Sunday?) and featured old Swedish music. The music was odd and the guy who hosted the program was obsessed with old Swedish music. If you had the car radio on while driving to an O' race, you probably heard at least a few minutes of Skivor fran Vetlanda. Does anything seem striking or unusual? Nope. posted by Michael | 10:27 AM 
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