WHAT a crazy weekend!

Saturday

10:00 Sprint selection races to WOC in Folgosinho, 2.0km, (80m), 12'46. This year, due to the amount of study that I have to cope with, I'm only fighting for a place in the Sprint in this year's WOC. I won with a 1'20 advantage to the 2nd. 10th control wasn't in the right place, so I lost 20'' there.


18:00 Bitten by a snake. Transported by ambulance to Guarda hospital (30min, with horn included) and a venous line in my arm, just in case. Did some blood tests, everything was alright, not a poisonous one. Back to Gouveia at 23:00. There is more info about iberian poisonous snakes (click the first link - in portuguese) here. I freaked out when I noticed it; however, their poison isn't deathly so there isn't much to worry about... I like to know what I face so you won't see me competing again without gaiters during the hot months.

Sunday

07:00 Woke up. Long journey by public transport back to Lisbon.

15:00 Arrived at Lisbon without having had lunch.

18:30 5000m race (Lisbon's regional champs). I wasn't in the mood to compete but my coach insisted. This day wasn't an exception to the last windy days as the following graph shows (at the track there was something between 4 and 5m/s):
The best guys did 14'45 (they usually do around 14'00). I caught a group that was too slow, didn't want to leave it because of the wind, misunderstood the "last lap signal" once we were passing slower runners and did 15'25 without suffering. This was my last chance this season to go under 15'. I love the feelings that track give. I wanted more when it ended... I want more for next season.

( are you sure that it has ended?)

Warm night races...

This weekend I went to "X Legua nocturna de Odivelas", a popular 5000m race near Lisbon with a great atmosphere. You may check the WHOLE race in the following video here. There was a freaking fast start with some attacks (all the 1st 3k under 3'00/km). After the 3rd km (when the climb started) I was alone, doing a calm last 2km. Final time 15'45.


After it, there was the "end of the season" dinner in front of Carcavelos beach. The coach made a nice speech about "the true things in life that give pleasure and unite us" and the "overestimated power of money nowadays".A special note to the European mountain running championships in Turkey - results here. The portuguese team got the 3rd place and 3rd individual position. All the 4 guys were top-20 which shows a strong equal team. Orienteerers David Schneider and Ionut Zinca were 10th and 12th. Next season I'll try my best to be there, already with some experience in the pocket.

The medical course finally ended and the master thesis presented. It was about cardiovascular risk factors and exercise. The professors from the Preventive Medicine Institute liked it and there are some new projects in sight. After the final Gala, I immersed in books. Until November it'll all be about studying to the big exam.

15'17 at 5k

Nice race yesterday in Lisbon. It was too windy with none of the sprint races approved because of a 3.5m/s wind. I wanted to go below 15' and I started well with 1k 2'58; 2k 5'56; 3k 8'55. After it, I was alone and didn't even notice how much I slowed down in the last 2k. I kind of liked it and didn't suffer much in the first 3k ending in 3rd. I really have to repeat it this season and now I'm sure that it's an achievable goal. My passion for the track is growing from day to day..

National Universitary Champs.

11.740m (240m), 40controls, 75'21 - A nice mass start with 3 loops. It was a fast map with a detailed eastern area and I felt tired from "Escalada do Mendro" and a rough friday session.
Huge mistake to 19th and 24th, those kind of forbidden ones(my map had the 2 second loops by the opposite order, but it doesn't matter). Stupid option to 34th, big loss of time to 35th once my control description was covered, and too much path to 30th. With some luck, I was able to become Portuguese universitary orienteering champion with a performance that didn't satisfy me.

Escalada do Mendro

Yesterday, we were at the track without any will to do the intervals.. so we organized a 5athlete team (Sergio Silva, Marco Povoa, Paulo Franco, Manuel Horta and me) in 5min to participate in today's race. It was an interesting one with a mix of road race (2k+2k) vs. moutain race (7k). The prize money was interesting so all the moutain race and road race guys appeared in a far village 2h away from Lisbon (Vidigueira).
In this interesting duel, the moutain guys dominated the races (1º, 4º, 5º, 8º) even with some 1h03-half-marathon guys from road races. I considered it impressive, knowing that they have opposite methods of training. You may find the first page of results:
About my performance, I was just too slow in the flat parts - probably related to my breathing difficulties in the last days due to my chronic asthma. However I behave well in the "moutain part" and caught many guys from athletics that passed me when the course turned flat again. To end in glory, the last 2k were really painful once, for the first time in my life, I've experienced this entity that affects, at least once, 40% of athletes: "the evil runner's trots".

Our last-minute team (Mendro Team) was 2nd overall and it ended being a well-spent morning.

Portuguese Middle and Sprint champs.

Middle, 30c, 5.4k (230m) - I was portuguese middle distance champion with a regular race. I gave priority to navigation rather than running with slow first controls, giving no chance to luck. 13th- hesitation, 15th- misunderstood the high as low, 16th- big deviation, 20th- ~1'30 stuck in the greens (V1) once I was too careless in the approach of the white tunnel, 22nd- ran too far and I was once careless in the approach to the 25th.
Sprint, 16c, 2.4k (35m) - Easy map where the best part (the fort) wasn't availed. In a sprint the "slow start" approach doesn't work that well. Bad option to the 2nd and the worst possible option to the 9th without correct anticipation. I had a lack of attitude in the final flat part and settled in an average pace. In the end I was 2nd, ex-aequo with Diogo Miguel and 6'' from the winner. It was a tight race with the first 7 athletes in a 23'' gap.
Beside the nice events, it was an enjoyable weekend in the portuguese surf capital with nice weather and friends.

My Orienteering heart

So, in this part of the year some students start to somatize what they read in the books (I know a guy that ended in the ER with a pseudo-heart attack). I started to think that I had Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the main cause of sudden death in athletes... so I did a check-up with Echocardiogram and 24h Holter. (Causes of sudden death in athletes)

Echocardiogram, which was the most important, was perfectly normal...oh yeah! no hypertrophy (LV diameter<13mm, no Septum/ventricle assymetries) and also not too dilated. I found some articles to compare with athlete values here (even with healthy orienteerers - in a study about the 1990's orienteerer's deaths in Sweden; apart from this, any orienteerer should read this article that gives a new insight on "running with covered body" - here).

When I started to read the Holter I just taught... "I'm done.." During the day, it's all normal. However, during the night:
A- My HR reaches 29bpm,
B- I have 105pauses>2sec
C- I have a Mobitz I AV block and AV dissociation
Then I started to search the medical databases and got relieved, once these are all benign variations in athletes (being present in normal athletes B-37.1% C-22.9% and 20% - table here). My coach also laughed at my worries once he had pauses of 5sec in his glorious days.

After all, it's all normal in athletes and it even has a better prognosis (I never taught that there would be so dramatic athlete variants). You may find an excellent review here and the article that concludes the following here.
In conclusion, endurance older athletes seem to have:

1. profound bradyarrhythmias, with episodes of heart rate below 40 beats/min,sinus pauses, and Wenckenback phenomena (Mobitz I);
2. a higher number of atrial or junction escaping than healthy elderly controls;
3. higher vagal activity during the night, lower adrenergic activity during the day, and higher tolerance to effort than healthy elderly controls;
4. retardation of the age-related decrease in heart rate variability, which has a positive prognostic value and may decrease the risk of life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias.

Now I may feel safer of these bullets...
...even if my heart seems a folk song at night:

Portuguese mountain running champs.

Ouch! 8.850m with 1.000 vertical meters and a total time of 52'58.
Now I understand why the track and field athletes don't even appear in these races. It's a completely different sport from athletics.. and I suffered a lot! (and paradoxically enjoyed it).

The race was in the deep Portugal, that I didn't know at all. Only some groups of houses and loong narrow roads where only passes 1 car at a time. It's a really beautiful area and a good place to have a physical training camp in the base of Serra da Estrela moutains.

About the race, I had high expectations. I wanted to qualify for the European champs (the 1st 4 would qualify) and I had the 4th guy in sight all the way.. until the last 2k where the slope bent to 25%, he went away, and I was picked and passed by the following group. In the end, I was 9th and 1'46 away from my goal... Results here.

... maybe next year if:
1. I'll be able to run downhill muuch faster
2. I'll discover a course around Lisbon with at least 600m elevation
3. I'll get stronger

Portuguese Long and Relay champs

Long distance, 15.3k (245m), 1h35m27s - What can I say? It was an easy map but I was able to loose much time in the control areas (some of them passing by before punching, like 6th and 23rd) and a stupid choice in the long leg (15-16th) once the big road was hard ground instead of unstable sand. To end in glory, I vomited to the 28th because of a smelly nearby paper factory with some disgusted witnesses. I ended in 4th place.
Relay, 6.2k (120m), 36'47 - I was the last element and when I started the competition was already decided so I took it easy. Also some unnecessary mistakes.

My quickroute graphs seem like a "tour de france" stage with so many spikes. Still in the search for the flow.

I took the last 3 days easy because of some pain in the left peroneals; in this part of the season is easy to sink in tiredness so I took some easy days.

(in the meanwhile, the portuguese doping agency allowed the basic asthma medication to everyone in terapeutic doses. Before so much evidence of no effects in non-asthmatic athletes and so much bureaucracy every year, finally a wise decision.)

(my new summer look - not so pretty but really pratical to hot weather)

National team training camp

After the mess in the portuguese o'federation, things got better and last weekend's training camp was a success.

The camp started with a 5k track test where I did 15'35. I was not sure about how I would feel. I went with the pack the first 3k to 3'10/km average and did the last 2k in 3'05 and 2'59 without too much pain.
I really want to get a 5k PB this season (last season I did around 15'25) and going under 15' is a tough achievable goal.
I'm waiting for proper 5k track races around Lisbon and now that the 30ºC's days are here it's easy to find last-minute races in the end of the working days with some under 15' guys.

Then I went to Lisbon to a "kind of" graduation ceremony.. I don't care too much with this kind of stuff but my family would literally kill me if I missed it. Anyway it was a really well-spent afternoon.

I returned to Marinha Grande forests in the same day and did a Long distance train on sunday morning. It was my 1st train with a map this season (!). I had some difficulty in understanding the terrain in some parts at 1:15000 scale with many hesitations and some mistakes. In the end I was minimally satisfied with my performance.

In the beginning of the season I made my bet on studying for the specialty exam rather than on training with a map (that costs a lot of precious time). It was a matter of priorities and it was a tough decision.

However, next season I'll be able to compensate my weak navigation with a lot of map training now that the portuguese federation has some great houses in the middle of Marinha Grande forests and we have a proper national team program.

In the meanwhile, I'll have plenty of opportunities to punish my body in the next orienteering and athletic's races... can't wait for it!