Edgars Bertuks

ALL IN all, I’m just

edgars — Sun, 13 May 2012 15:08:06 +0000

And here I go, carving my footsteps into green damp blanket. Catching echoes from infinite number of strides I have done and trying to imagine how next ones will feel like and where will take us. It all should sum up into greatness soon. At least I set my hopes high.
Sunset, sunrise and there it goes. First real event of my journey. EOC 2012, Dalarna, SWE. Middle, long, relay.
I am still raw, but edges of diamond have started to gain a shape and glitter.
More then ever – TRAnscendence is TANgible.

As Shepherd said – I have everything to win and nothing to lose.

The Dog days are over

edgars — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 22:08:31 +0000

The Dog days are over. The horses are coming so You better run. Run fast….

Nearly two weeks have gone since I left pretty much everything behind to start my life as – I like to call it – „full time athlete”. I went toSpainto take part in TuMe camp near Barbate and I wasn’t disappointed. What a wise choice it was (thanks to Mr. Manager). I squeezed out all I could from those 8 full days I had there and did ~21h of training including 3 competition days in very beginning of camp and few TuMe’s mad night O sessions. My first races didn’t go exactly the way I wanted to, some mistakes were there, but that’s life. Well, I did rather well on last competition day when we run middle distance, so called Beach-O of Andalucía Sun-O week. Later on camp I managed to gain (or regain) some O skills and it went OK. For first time I really enjoyed our night orienteering sessions, especially last one :D. I would like to seize an opportunity and welcome to TuMe our new club mate Levgen Fesenko alias Leffe who really showed off his skills and totally blended in a gang.

Now I am spending my days here in UK, where I came straight from Spain. Spring is here already, but for a moment it felt like arriving in winter after sunlit coasts of Barbate. Training is really ON since I follow my coach advice and try to do 3 runs daily. I also have some additional daily tasks since I have got young and restless friend. She is a bitch, 7 months old Irish setter. So I can’t really complain about being bored here.
Back to orienteering theme. I have few training competitions scheduled for weekends till I will leave to Denmark and first important race of season – Danish Spring on 23.03.-24.03. I am IN, ALL IN.

And last of all (but surely not least) I would like to say greatest thanks to my family, friends and sponsors so far, who made possible my “take off ” towards my BIG goals and life of my dreams.

Turun Metsankavijat
Eko Baltija Ltd
Inspecta Latvia JSC
Olimps Ltd
Massive Dynamic and Jouni Vidqvist

Frame: happiness
Listen: David Guetta – Just a little more Love

Empire of the Sun, Albufeira, Portugal

edgars — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:40:05 +0000

It should be an easy task to make an update here since I am away from everyday’s rush, but it’s not. Well the „problem” is that there has been only very few (4 to be exact) cloudy days since beginning of December and I have spent not cloudy ones well. Sun&tan are my witnesses.
I have spent here almost one month and I have my own 10k XC race scheduled on Monday. Result should tell whether 12 week trail training program, advised by couch Ikaheimonen, is the one to hang on to preparing for my future quests. I have been able to train a lot with some minor issues. Like, my heel is still bad from time to time (ever sinceFrance), but on the other hand I have done a lot of cross training and I feel like it’s a thing for me. Also I was really lucky with planning, since weather was perfect for training till I left Riga and came here.
Most of my time here is dedicated to running speed and endurance, leaving orienteering aside. I had few map trainings and few were enough. Who makes maps like these and WHY? Anyway lack f orienteering now will only make me more hunger and prepare for TuMe’s Malaga camp coming up at the end of February and competition weekends in UK straight after that. Great thing is that „I have got a feeling”. Feeling that most „pieces of puzzle” have found their places in big picture and I am looking forward with confidence.
Best regards to my mentor and friend Mikko Knuuti (Black Rider) and his family now including newborn Viljo.

I can smell Africa and Morocco (or vice versa). It’s close!
And remember – It’s about a journey!
Yours, Ed.

Training ON

edgars — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 06:35:23 +0000

Since WOC I have spend most of my time in Standby mode. Except those few times I woke up to run some competition. But since last Saturday and coming to Finland training is on my schedule again. We started with nice relay training with other Black boys near Helsinki. Manager had done job right and it really “smelled” like it used to when I came to Finland for a very first time (good shit). Then it was time to visit home town and we (Me, Kristine and Mr. Darling of curse) drove towards Turku. We had a very warm welcome from Mikko alias Mr. Black Rider who took care of us for next two days. A lot of future discussion, performance analysis and planning took place (wine was fine as well). As a result we came up with the BIG goal and vision of HOW. It was time for training again. It was short but very demanding course which I run three times with different task every time. It proved what I already was aware of, but was unable to accept. It’s all about control not speed. Next step is to learn and fix this issue.
On Monday it was time to move on again and we (now there was Me and Kristine only) headed North to Yläne and TUME’s club house. It was a bit of a wild adventure and ANIMAL life for two city people like we are, but we enjoyed every moment of those five days we had there. Superb terrain, maps and courses made time to fly by and now it all seems like one long training. Black Rider had right opinion about it – Super Shit. Pure statistics are 160 controls and about 8h of demanding orienteering, but there is still a lot of material to work with. So we will be back.
Now there is time for some TEEN SPIRIT, sorry, TEAM SPIRIT and Halikko relay which starts in few hours from now. Last leg. A game is on again.

WC joy & more

edgars — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 10:00:42 +0000

Nothing big has happened lately. Since WOC I have done only very few real training sessions and those were all orienteering events I occasionally used to keep myself going.
In short –
Latvian champs turned out to be NOMEDAL session for me since I couldn’t bring my skills to level of Sild brothers during middle distance and my team got DSQ in relay competition. I also felt physically weak and felt fever approaching few hours after relay. I was quite sick for more that 10 days and my first training after illness was two days before Finish champs near Mr. Suntilas place in Helsinki (btw it was good sh*t, manager).
Finnish champs were a disaster too. I was far from qualifying for middle since I made one huge 3’ mistake but it seems that even doing a clear race wasn’t enough. Start time in very beginning of group coupled with sickness and physical weakness surely wasn’t best combination for success. Relay offered real challenges and most interesting orienteering I have done in Finnish terrains. Detailed and stony areas brought up flashbacks from France and I couldn’t get my orienteering to work in way it should. Even 8km felt like eternity, but I was happy I could speed up a little towards end. I passed relay over to Jussi who didn’t do too well on last leg. Actually none of TuMe team did but it’s about to change. Soon (see you in Smaland).
I doubted whether I should go to Czech and run World Cup, but wise man convinced me that I must. I was aware about my shape (or lack of it) so I didn’t have any particular goal except to enjoy orienteering, Czech terrain and highest grade organization of event. Well 20 hours driving from Latvia wasn’t best preparation for race, but our gang was full of fun and optimism. I was very satisfied about my performance during both, middle and long distance. Middle was tough and I had to push it far over „safe orienteering” limits because I was unable to properly run any of offered climbs, but I managed to keep my actions in control, missing very little and took 23rd positions after first day. I said that middle was tough so I don’t have words to describe following cashing start of long distance. I was literally dying already at first control, but convinced myself over and over to run one more hill, to hit one more control with group, to hung on a little more. Of curse I had to let it go at the end because I became too slow and tired to cope with running speed of leaders. I made only very small mistakes and finished 27th. It was possible to reach TOP 22, but I was totally out of power towards end and last climb cost me few positions. Overall I learned a good lesson by gaining back sense of how good orienteering performance should feel like, had one more summer weekend (weather was perfect during those days) and good time with my team mates.
Now I have few more weeks for rest and activities apart from orienteering including KK, Sky, PRTy, work (NOT), ABS, Faithless, Sapphire and more. I will start it all over by 10 day training camp in Finland during end of October. My meeting with Black Rider is scheduled and there is only one way. Up.

Surreal France

edgars — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:52:49 +0000

Somehow most of my experiences during WOC remind me about works of famous surrealist Mr. Dali. Familiar and well known things, shapes and forms where twisted, bent and finally put together in unimaginable combinations. Confused by it all I was quite far from being able to focus on main task – orienteering. My performances during WOC week was far from level I expected to be. I did terrible amount of mistakes in both – long and middle distance finals. I also lacked a lot of speed, especially during last leg in relay competition. What pisses me off most is fact that I had done considerable part of my preparations in offered training maps during official camps and our own 2 weeks camp right before WOC. But that wasn’t enough. Now there has been time for thinking it all over. Main conclusion could sound like this: there might be some fundamental things missing in very base level of my O skills and it’s impossible to build stable technical performance on that kind of foundation. Cause it’s about stability and nothing else. Ironically, it has taken almost 6 years to become aware of things I knew from before. And being aware is what makes difference. I believe that good orienteering coach is one of “missing pieces” and I have started to put my puzzle together by getting one, cause I don’t have another 6 years to spent on trials.
As for closer future I have my purpose for Latvian and Finnish championships (and maybe WC in Czech) where I will try to regain back my feeling of confidence and control. Autumn used to be my favorite part of orienteering season as well as good time to consider future plans and set some certain goals.

P.S. My WOC maps together with some rough comments can be found here:
http://bertuks.com/maps/index.php?user=edgars

Sauna party

edgars — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 17:37:47 +0000

Another sweaty week is gone. HOT track workouts are done. Tanning (and training) went perfect. What’s next? Jukola. Before? Good rest should be the best.It’s about to rain now, but summer is here for sure. Heat is no longer my enemy or maybe it never even was.

Chemin de Conjux

edgars — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 20:05:34 +0000

Just like most of world top orienteering athletes (I dare to count myself in) I was in France to take part in official WOC training camp. I and LOST (Latvian Orienteering Super Team) did well in both-long distance competition and training wise.

I started my week with trip to Tallinn where I had few job related meetings, but I managed to do few good training between them as well. On Thursday I flew to Milan where I met rest of team and we were ready to hit the road (of curse I did some running there as well while waiting for plane from Riga to land and enjoyed close to +40C heat).

At about midnight, after 5h of mad, close to limit driving we and our Fiat Doblo (which is counted a station wagon only in Italy) were finally there in Conjux. Our accommodation place was perfect – 3 floor villa, with view to lake Bourget, endless hill running possibilities, cherries and many more. I took first two days easy, because my main aim was to perform well in long distance competition on Sunday. So I started with returning to Arith (was there during WC 2010). No surprises, same tough, slow and extremely demanding terrain was there for us. Next day we took part in middle distance, but I run it in moderate training mode. Also I got chance to learn from very bests – Philipe Adamski caught me and I tried to keep up with him. No success. I couldn’t look at my map at all, my whole attention was focused on stony ground. I was on my own for last part, but was quite surprised when arrived at finish less than 1′ after Philipe.

Sunday came with good weather, but competition feeling was missing. I was very lazy with my warm up and couldn’t switch myself to competition mode. Surprisingly it all changed when I started my race. I felt very strong and confident, but luck wasn’t with me and I managed to brake my compass on way to 5th control (ironically I fell while running on road). I made a mistake on 5th control and it took a while to solve it without compass. Imagine how big was my surprise when I saw Mertz near 6th control (he started 2′ before me). I met few other runners and we caught Mathiass on way to 10th. We managed to keep good speed and eliminate mistakes till 15th control and “butterfly” where I stayed alone and missed a lot on first loop, mostly because I lacked my compass. After “butterfly” there was a group of about 4 runners and I was part of it till the finish. I took 16th place with 1h52′ (Thierry won with ~1h30′ on 13,1 km course, so it gives some idea about “running” speed there) and was very satisfied with my performance. I made about 10′ mistakes which was too much, even in terrain like this. Fact that top 6 was possible, gives me a good kick for next training sessions and last preparation work for WOC.

On Monday we returned to Le Revard once again to clear things out on 1:10 000 scale and that made a great change. Weather was also nice and we took some good pictures with team and Mont Blanc.

Sunny weather was gone by Tuesday, but it didn’t stop us from taking it hard. Yeah snow that came during night to Wednesday made us to cancel our orienteering training at Le Revard, but we decided to have long run from our villa at Conjux. It turned out to be a real trial for me, Kalvis (CK), Martins and Janis. We started by going up and our plan was to run some 20 km. Eventually we started to go around mountain and hit 15 km without any clue how to get back to Conjux. We found some map and realized that we have two options – to go few km’s back and make turn or to keep going and hope that there is passage between mountains. Martins chosed first one, but CK convinced me and Janis to continue. Passage was far more further that we expected and climb to it was f*cking steep. We passed mountain hitting 21 km and saw Aix-les-Bains on opposite side of the lake, which meant that there is about 16 km to go. So we did 36 km in 2h38′ with more than 1500m climb. We survived. Barely.

Last training was most demanding one. There was still snow in forest and it took me 2h for 7km course. At least I found all the controls, which wasn’t an easy task.

My week in total was about 18h and 170km. Some recovery is a must now and Latvian championships in sprint & long distance during last weekend proves it. Martins didn’t start at all (right choice after all). I couldn’t get my legs to work and did 7th in sprint and 6th in long (shame). CK, Janis and others from camp also didn’t do too well.

As for now I have my focus set to Jukola and last leg for TuMe.

Tough schedule

edgars — Mon, 09 May 2011 19:21:00 +0000

Putting my running activities aside and concentrating my training on WOC doesn’t necessarily mean that I have more time. I have got orienteering related plans for every week till mid of July starting with exclusive Jukola training camp for me and Kalvis CK Mihailovs this weekend continued by Baltic championships, 10 day training camp in France, Latvian championships, 5000m track race, Jukola, midsummer party (hopefully in Norway), Kapa 3 days, Positivus festival (who else?) and full time job of course.Compared to previous years I have done a lot of orienteering and forest running all of which gave me a long time missing perfect run at Tiomila. TuMe did great with 9th place at finish (even leading after long night and CK-alias horse). Now there is even more eagerness for upcoming Jukola.
Black pearl floats again.

Music: Time to say goodbye by Andrea Bocelli & Sarah Brightman
Drink: Bombay blue sapphire
Smoke: none
Run: more
Love: a lot

Rise and rise again

edgars — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 13:45:08 +0000

Well, I guess I never learn from own mistakes, do I? Until now. I have been on „free” mode for three weeks already which means I am training when I really want to and my activities are based on cross training mostly. Those very few runs I have done left me with great feeling and lot of to think about. Reason for all this is my knee problems which started straight after tough January camp in Portugal and became a serious issue for more than one month. Breaking point was TuMe camp in Antalya, were I started to feel depressed and totally lost motivation to move forward.

So I decided to stop for a while and once for all promised myself to stick with truth I already knew -NEVER run in pain.

So as for now I have kept my promise and it seems to pay off.

So there is nothing I could do about it but to get up, take one more step followed by one more and one more, until steps turn into miles, and miles into success.

BTW I spent last weekend with Latvian Orienteering /Super/ Team (aka LOST) in Ventspils where I did few good, pain free trainings and it seems that forest could be a good place to start it all over, at least my knee tells so. I will check out track and streets soon, but it could turn out to be pure orienteering year for me.
See You in Spring cup.
I’ll be bLack.