Week 23 - Toughest trainingweek - and biggest mistake - for many years

This was the last hard week of this cycle, consisting of three hard trainingweek followed by an easier week. The week also ended with a lot of great orienteering in Göteborg.

I the beginning of the week I thought it would be difficult to complete the planned training of this week, because I was tired and the legs were already sore from earlier. But I was actually feeling good in Göteborg and was also able to get some high quality orienteering sessions, both day- and night, high- and low-intensity.

Read more about each training session in the figure below.

Now it is time for some recovery, both physically and mentally. The coming week will start with some easy days with low training volume, but still with interval-sessions on Tuesday and Thursday. In the weekend I will have some longer sessions as well. I haven't planned any orienteering-sessions this week, as I want to be hungry for a lot of orienteering when we go for a two week trainingcamp to Barbate in 1½ week. 

Week 24 - 150 km running in 6 days

24 weeks until WOC doesn't sound like a long time, and last week was another week with some good basic training.

The week didn't start well though, as I woke up with pain in my stomach on Monday and wasn't feeling good. Actually it was pretty much the same feeling as the beginning of last week, which got better quickly, but I decided anyway to take a complete day of rest. It has been a lot of virusses and bacteria around in Denmark and amongst orienteers the last couple of months, and maybe I got infected during our training camp or at the sportsshow. 

However, it didn't get worse during Monday and Tuesday I started training again, but started out with strength-training instead of the planned intervals. Even though my stomach wasn't feeling normal the first days, I was able to train well, also with high-intensity. From Friday my stomach has been normal and I have trained quite much during the weekend.

The week ended up as a good week of training, 6 days with 17 hours of training, 13:20 hours (150 km) of running and with 3 quality high-intensity sessions.

On Thursday I was in Copenhagen as I was asked to participate as an expert in the TV-show "5.halvleg" on Kanal 5. They have competitions in different kinds of sports and this time it was orienteering. My part of the show was to introduce orienteering a little bit and tell a bit about myself, before some Comedians had to compete on the "orienteering"-course inside the studio. It didn't have much to do with orienteering, as they didn't have a map (!), but it was a fun experience to participate and see how these shows works. It will be broadcasted sometime in the Spring.   

Week 25 - Almost 20 hours training

The first week of the year was a good week of training even though I was still fighting some illness in the beginning of the week which affected some trainings.

From Thursday-Saturday we had a Nationalteam Camp in Silkeborg. A lot of good orienteering was done, and we also had some interesting meetings about WOC 2017.

Week 26 - and December summary

The last week of 2016 was supposed to be an easier week and it got a little easier than planned in the end due to some nausea and general uncomfortable feeling on New Years Eve and yesterday. 

I had some easy days in the beginning of the week, with no high-intensity training, combined with a visit at my parents, which pushed the "normal" trainingcycle some days. Wedensday-Saturday was more normal and I was well recovered to be able to push quite hard on the two high-intensity sessions this week. Yesterday I didn't train at all, because I wasn't feeling well, but since the next weeks will be quite tough, it might be okay to be a little more recovered. I'm feeling better today after all.

December ended up with:

- 70h37min training whereas:

   - 53h31min running (565 km)
        - 6h03min orienteering
   - 13h34min strength-training
   - 3h33min alternative training (mostly hockey)

Despite a little week of sickness (couging) in the beginning of December and some small stomach problems in the end, it has been a good month of basic training and I have been able to train (and run) a lot, which is important to make a good base for the coming months of training.

January will be a lot like December, still with focus on a high training load, but I will try to have a little more speed on the high-intensity sessions. I didn't do much orienteering in December, and this will also increase in January. We have a National Team trainingcamp on Thursday for 3 days, and then it will be a combined EC/OK Pan-trainingcamp to Göteborg in 3 weeks. Besides that, I will stay in Århus and find a good rhytm in the training, before we will go to Spain for two weeks in the beginning of Februay.