How can you help the OK relay teams get ready for the upcoming US Relay Champs? The answer is you can suggest a training/practice session. Here are the details (from an email sent earlier):

To help us prepare for the US Relay Champs (April 16) I am planning a bunch of OK club trainings. Since we are spread out all over the (from Tuscon, AZ to Uppsala, Sweden) we won't actually get together to do the training. Instead, we will all do similar training on our own.

Each week, OK will have a work out of the week (WOTW). I'll post the WOTW on the web and/or email them to OKers. We can all do the training any time during the week. For those of us so inclinded, we can share our experiences via the OK discussion forum.

These weekly training sessions will go from the end of January to about March.

What I need is for each of you to develop a workout- of-the-week (WOTW) and send it to me. Keep in mind that the idea is to come up with something that a lot of us will actually do.

So, send me an email describing a WOTW. It should be in three parts:

1. A brief description of what to do.

2. A brief description of why to do it.

3. Any options or things to look out for.

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Here is an example:

1. Warm up with some easy jogging. Then, find a steep hill that you can go up and down several times. Go up at the pace you would go if it was 2/3 of the way through a regular orienteering course (that may be walking). Jog or walk down. Repeat this until you feel fairly tired but not totally worn out. Do some easy jogging and stretching. Then spend 10 minutes looking an an O' map.

2. The idea is to get in some strength training (hills) and to practice at the pace you'd go during a real O' race.

3. The idea is to go at the pace you'd go near the end of an O' race. It will probably feel too easy/slow (but any hill training will be tough after a couple of hills). Try to avoid any temptation to sprint up the hills. If you have access to an O' map, do this session as a line-O'. Draw a line that goes up and down a lot of hills.

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When you put together a WOTW, keep in mind that the idea is to have something a lot of us can and will do. It should be practical (Mark M. may like to swim around Perry Lake, but it wouldn't make a good WOTW). It should also be unlikely to lead to injury -- in other words, not too extreme.

The WOWT can be ANYTHING relevant to preparing for O' . Use some imagination -- is there a good cross- training WOTW? Something to practice O' while watching the Jayhawks on TV? An armchair WOTW?

For this to work, I need to get at least 4 or 5 WOTWs. If I get enough, I will put together a schedule and make the schedule available.

So, send me a WOTW.

Michael (meglin@juno.com)

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), December 31, 1999

Answers

So far I've got responses from three people. More would be nice.

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), January 04, 2000.

It's hard to come up with varitions on a theme of a) run and b) take some time to look at a map. I wondered about adding in other abilities, like practicing punching or running with a walkman on that is playing loudly to practice concentration and not being distracted by external stimuli, but even so, the focus remains one of running and doing some sort of mental training. Maybe something like what we used to do long ago of having bits of map to memorize, then circle on another map. But things like that mean one person setting things up for others, and at a distance at that. Anyway, I'll still thinking of things...

-- Fritz Menninger (fpmenninger@hotmail.com), January 06, 2000.

O, I forgot a compass running exercise -- go to a local park and run a set of compass bearings that should leave you back where you started. See how close you get. Could just do out and back, running equal distances each way. Or, could do other equilateral shapes like triangle (e.g. 120,240,360), square or, star (e.g. 72,214,360,144,288). Given time, one could design a number of different patterns, for example: Run 100 meters in any direction, add 90 degrees and run 100 meters, add 135 degrees and run 140 meters...

After each loop, look at a map bit.

-- Fritz Menninger (fpmenninger@hotmail.com), January 06, 2000.

I think if you want to have even a prayer of a chance at even finishing another US Relays, you will have to go somewhere where there is a Season O' Death, and train real, REAL, real, really hard!

-- Lemon Moraine (lemonmoraine@yahoo.com), January 09, 2000.