Injury, a lovely organization, a seminar that changed my mindset, a fun run, a race that made me down, up and all the way down again..

Day 170

Ok. It's probably time to write a bit about what happened, before i start to forgot about all of them.. :)

Let's start with the upsetting part; while everything was going in the way i planned (for a week or so.. :/) a little too much ambition brought me in the middle of the road. I had done a 15k and and an interval training, then some strength exercises, and my groin muscle decided that enough is enough. Which resulted in an groin strain (1st degree, nothing too serious but enough to back me of from training for almost 1.5 week). I was pushed to not to race in Salomon X Runs. Which means I watched the race from the sidelines.. :( The decision was for me to not to race in Ist5days also. (Which is like 4-5 days ahead) But of course I wasn't that much resistant. I've walked for 3 days, run-walk for WRE, and jogged on a super sprint. :) It was fine, other then the mess that my decision caused between me and my trainer. He wasn't really happy with my decision to go out on the course. But we figured it out.

More about Ist5days.. :)

It was our 10th year. So everything was pretty charming. Organization was almost flawless. When everything work out the way you planned, it's kind of fun to organize a race. :)
As of race; all the courses was quite fun for me. Since I wasn't fully able to run, I'm not really in the position to talk about success or failure, but I know that at least being able to see the courses before the season actually starts, was the right think to do, apart of the risk of having a bigger injury. :/
Also thanks to Emine Sezgünsay, the race was even more an educational experience for me. Especially in terms of mental.

After a race like Ist5days, any runner would feel like working harder then ever. :) But I wasn't allowed to, because of the longer recovery time with my groin strain. :( So I did a pretty easy week, almost without any hard training. But the thing that makes this week amazing is the seminar.

During Ist5days, Elif Abla told me that, they're looking for a narrator for the seminar of Eve Jurenikova. I'm not sure if anyone knows that but I'm a really big follower of her. I was always amazed with her capability of being so involved in everything and being also successful. So at the end, it was an opportunity for me that I wouldn't miss in life.

On Saturday morning, we went to the Ankara county race as a team. It wasn't a particularly good one for me, but it wasn't that bad either. But I had other concerns. :) After the race, we left the arena and go to the place, where the seminer would be held. After that moment everything was like a dream for me. 4-5 hours of seminar with full of information with Eve Jurenikova, a dinner with Eva, Emine Abla and Alen Abi, and some fun afterwards. :) (I won't share the part where we got lost, with a google map in our hands.. :) )

There was 2 week time until the race. I was fully recovered from the injury, and pretty eager to train after the seminar. :) Now when I look back, I can clearly see that I could have train harder that week. But the point that, I was afraid to get injured again. So maybe it was the right thing to do. In the weekend, I went to Istanbul for Istanbul Marathon. But I didn't do the marathon of course, just a 10k. :) We ran all the race with Barış Abi. It was quite fun actually. Next year, we may do the 15k together. :)

Then an easy last week prior to the race. No hard training. Just recovery.

1st race of the year. I was a bit nervous for all the week. Every thing that came into my mind was about me making failures. And not to anyone's surprise, it turned out that way, the first day. I did a mistake almost every control point. I was distracted the whole time. You can see my route above.

1. Day

Second day, I've started the course with only thinking to do my best, but no expectations what so ever. It turned out pretty well until the 13th control. I was fluent most of the time. Running well, getting the control points without any mistakes. But at the 12th control point, I distracted a bit, choose the wrong way up the hill, saw a open area, didn't checked out because of too much unnecessary self confidence, and there was the mistake. About 10 minutes. I'm not sure if anyone can understand the frustration that surrounded me at that moment. You can see that map above also.

2. Day

Lucky for me that, I have lovely teammates. :) Nobody bothered me about the mistake after the race. Now, I'm fully recovered from the race as physical, but not mentally yet. I'm still making the same mistake in my dreams every night. But I'm eager to train more, both physically and in terms of orienteering. I've been training pretty well for now, hoping to go on like that. :)

I will write down how many days left until WOC 2016 at the end of the post starting from this one. :) I don't know why, but thinking that gives me some kind of passion to work harder. 

995 Days Left

Zombies, Run!

If you haven't tried "Zombies, Run!" by 'Six to Start' yet, and if you're a runner who loves action, it's a must try. Because even I loved it as a runner, who does not love action. :) Here you can find the web page of the game. And you can download it via Google Play or App Store.

Now few tips for the game (also Spoiler Alert!);

1. Safety first; try to avoid areas with traffic. Since you will have music and speech on your ears, it may be dangerous. Also you may need to speed up at some points of the game.
2. Don't be afraid. :) It's not easy. From the moment it began, I've started to check my back. And I was actually freaking out when a child appeared in front of me. :) 
3. If you're not used to run with a phone, like me, choose a short that won't fall off. You may end up without a short after a burst of Zombie Attack!
4. Don't be too sad because you got caught by a Zombie! It's not real, come on. :)
5. Choose an easy run, not a quality or interval training. Because you may end up running in a wrong pace or sprinting during the rests. :/
6. If you've made the mistake of choosing a quality training, a must-done-properly-long-run in my case, do not let your trainers or teammates find out. ;)
7. Have fun!! 

Promises..

Day 30

Ok, let me say something, and I'll be totally honest, I've never been too good at being consistent about something. And it's the same case with my training, eating, etc. right now. And I've already broke so much promises that, even I've lost the count of them.

Since last time I've write, I've run a Mudrace (3rd place overall, not bad I suppose), RunIstanbul (22nd ​place, but my best 5k and 7k ever), and a trail race (Geyik Koşusu) (4th place overall). Those were all great experiences, fun races, and not so bad results. In each of them I did what I need to do and also gave my best. 

Then there's the team performance tests. Which looks not too good on a paper, but felt good to me while I was so out of my training schedule. I've run a 2740 by GPS, 2670 by our a little faulty track, Cooper Test, a 1:27 (which means it's the fastest I've ever been able to run) 400m, and a 5000m in 23:47, which is just a little slower then my first 5k in RunIstanbul this year.

So, by looking the results and how much fun I'm having, one may conclude that I'm crazy to be happy. If somebody would told me that just a 2-3 months ago, I would think like that too. But today, I'm in a completely different mind set. My "not bad" race and test times are not enough to make me happy, as long as I know that I'm not giving my best shot into my training. I fully lack any kind of discipline. I'm skipping trainings, to sleep; eating pretty bad for a couple of weeks, have my punishment as kgs; whining about everything, honestly everything..

Yesterday, I've decided to given an end to this, and talk to our team trainer about it. I explained every single stuff in my mind to him in a even more honest manner then this writing. He had his suggestions, which I really appreciate, but I really don't have any faith in myself for keeping them. I will try my best, but the problem is, the best that I have right now, is not useful. 

I'm hoping that things will change for me soon, I know that they won't get easier and I'm also not hoping for them to get easier, my hope is that may be they might get better. Better is better then easier, always. And I need that better soon enough that, it won't be too late to be prepared for the 1. stage of Turkey Championships 6 weeks from now.

Crazy couple of days

Day 8

As the title indicates, it's been  a crazy couple of days. I've been traveling back and forth since last Thursday. I've made a calculation and I did around 30 hours of bus trip in just 8 days. So yes, it was a little tiring, and it's not over yet. But I've started my newest training program on Monday, and since then (yeah, not too long ago, I know) I've been really committed to my training, and between all the other things and travelling, I didn't missed (hopefully) any training. - yeay me! -

Yesterday, we did a really nice (according to me) hill training with one of my friends. It was better then what I was expecting. My expectations was including me quitting the training, which I didn't. Also it was quite beneficial too, as the way it supposed to be as a training. I have a little soreness on my legs right now, but I think I will survive that. It was a good feeling to be able to complete that training, after the interval training which I finished on Tuesday, by literally begging myself, that 45 minute run; which I was forced to split it into two days because of a little cold I've got. But I'm fine right now. A few aspirin done the job just well. So no need to worry.

That friend is this guy, but I think we're all done with this "let's

kill each other by jumping on each others shoulders" thing. (This photo

is from a race which is 2 years ago.. funny old days.. :p)

I did one more crazy thing today; I copied all my Garmin Activities to Nike+ also, with the help of this. It wasn't easy to copy 400+ links from Garmin to Nike+, but I somehow did it. And after that I updated my Strava account. I'm hoping to update them more frequently, so that I don't have to do all these stuff once more.

The last thing I want to mention today is The Mudrace. I was really excited about it in a different way before yesterday. You know, all my excitation was about how fun it was last year, and nothing about the result of the race or something like that. Since I had a pretty good training yesterday, I have another thought inside me, which says, maybe (just maybe) the timing of the race would be a little better then what I'm expecting, which would be really nice of course. But whatever the result will be, I know that it's going to be a fun day. :)

This is me and Ceren from last year, at the beginning of the race..

During the race..

At the finish. :)

Yeah, it's really going to be fun, there's no other way.. :)

Grand Prix Romania, Manisa, yeni antrenmanlar, birkaç gelecek patika (çamur) ve yol yarışı..

Day 4

Romanya'da düzenlenen SEEOC 2013'ün, public yarışı Grand Prix Romanya, benim için tam anlamıyla eğlenceye ve sezon için antrenmanlara başlamadan önce biraz haritayla haşir neşir olmaya yönelik bir yarıştı. Doğruyu söylemek gerekirse de amacına ulaştı. Yarış bize çok da yansımayan birkaç aksaklık dışında güzel organize edilmişti, araziler gayet güzeldi, parkurlar güzel planlanmıştı. Kısacası benim için gayet keyifli bir yarış oldu. Bu yarışta yanımda olan sevgili takım arkadaşlarıma, beni Romanya'ya sürükledikleri için teşekkürü borç bilirim tabi ki. :)

Ben ve Doruk mükemmel (!) arabamızda sağlam bir şekilde Bükreş'den

Ramnicu Valcea'ya ulaşmaya çalışırken. :)

Yarış sonuçlarım tabi ki o kadar parlak değil. Antrenmansız şekilde Long Distance'ı bitirebilmiş olduğum gerçeğine bile inanmak güç. Fiziksel olarak kondisyonumun düşük olması, parkurdaki rota seçimlerimde de etkili oldu tabi ki. Yine de son günkü middle distance hariç genel olarak fena olmayan bir yarış geçirdim denebilir. Yarış sonuçları vs vs için http://www.seeoc2013.fro.ro/

Romanya'dan sonra bir miktar kendime gelip, Manisa'da ilk kez düzenlenen bir yarışa gittim. İlk günü sprint, ikinci günü biraz uzunca bir middle distance şeklinde planlanmıştı. İlk günkü sprint'de yine antrenmansızlıktan kaynaklı, yürüyüşle, koşu arası bir modda sprint yarışı geçirdim. Pişmanım diyebilirim sanırım. Ama gerçekten yaşamadan bilinecek birşey değil. İnsan antrenman yapmadan koşmaya göre planlanmış bir canlı değil sanırım. Bir de bunun üstüne iki gecedir yolculuk yapıyor olmanın verdiği yorgunluk ve uykusuzluk binince, benim yaptığım şeyin yarışa benzeme ihtimali baya düşüktü zaten. 

İkinci gün yarışa çıkmadan önce daha dinlenik olduğuma inanıyordum. En azından uyumuştum. Ayrıca middle distance, sprint'e göre daha hazırlıklı olduğum bir mesafeydi. Yarış boyunca çok ciddi hatalar yapmasam da, parkurda yürümek artık hata olarak değerlendirilebilir birşey. Birkaç yerde belki daha farklı bir rotadan gidebilirdim diye düşünüyorum ancak, değiştireceğim hiçbir rota, parkurda yavaş olmamın yarattığı farkı kapatamaz. 

Bu yarışın sonuçları için bir linkim yok ne yazık ki.

Vee uzun bir aradan sonra bugün ilk defa bir koşu antrenmanına çıktım. Yeni bir antrenman programım var. Şimdilik takip edebileceğime inanıyorum. Denecek çok fazla birşey yok. Zaman gösterecek.

Asıl heyecan verici kısım ise burası; :)

23 Kasım'da Manisa'da düzenlenecek olan 1. Kademe yarışlarından önce katılmayı planladığım birkaç yarış var.

Bunlardan ilki bu haftasonu (22 Eylül) Bata Çıka Mudrace. :) Geçen sene de katılmıştım ve gerçekten bir koşu yarışı olmaktan çok öte, inanılmaz eğlenceli. Detaylı bilgi şurada; http://www.mudraceturkiye.com/

İkincisi önümüzdeki haftasonu (29 Eylül) RunIstanbul by Nike. Daha önce herhangi bir Nike yarışına katılma şansım olmamıştı. Bu sefer katılabilmeyi umuyorum. Yarın yarış kitimi almaya gidiyorum. :) Detaylı bilgi; https://runistanbul.com/

Daha sonra tabi ki (30 Ekim - 3 Kasım) İst5days. Orada tam olarak yarışmayı planlamıyorum. Asıl planladığım şey organizasyona yardımcı olmak ama İst5days ortamında ne yaparsanız yapın çok keyifli. :) Detaylı bilgi tabi ki; http://www.ist5days.com

Ve Kademe yarışından önceki son durak; olmazsa olmaz, (17 Kasım) Avrasya Maratonu.. Ama tabi ki maraton değil, bu sefer 10 km. Hem yarış tarihine yakınlığı, hem de çok sevdiğim bir abime verdiğim bir söz nedeniyle bu sefer tercihimi 10k'dan yana kullandım. Bunun linkine gerek var mı emin değilim ama yine de; http://www.istanbulmarathon.org/

One more chance maybe..

Day 0

It's never easy for me to keep a blog up to date. But I've decided to give myself a one more chance for that, beside a few things..

I'm not the best athlete the world has ever seen, and I'm not going to be one probably. But what bothers me is that, I haven't been the best athlete I can be either. And now, I want to give it a try with some other things that are pretty important in my life right now. I have few years until World Orienteering Championships 2016 and few months until World University Orienteering Championships 2014. They're not the beginning nor the ending point of anything, but they're the races I will keep in my mind for what I'm aiming for, which is becoming a better athlete than ever..

I've tried to be a better athlete for some times 'till now. There were even times that I was successful, but most of the time I've failed, and when I say failure, I really mean it. But there is just one think, that makes me to even consider to give it a one more chance and that is, that every time I've tried this, I was like the happiest human being on the world. I believe that, being happy is the biggest thing all of us are living for, so if training, racing, etc. is what makes me happy on this world, then I'm willing to give it a one more shot..

And this time, I know that I'm ready to not to let it go..

PS: This time, my blog is going to be sometimes English and sometimes Turkish, according to my mood. Since it's my blog, I don't think that it's a problem. :)
Türkçe PS: Bu sefer blogumu ruh halime göre İngilizce ya da Türkçe olarak yazacağım. Blog benim blogum olduğundan, bunun bir sorun olacağını düşünmüyorum. :)