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12 ways to change up your training over winter
Winter is a good time to focus on strength training. Photo by Sergio Pedemonte on Unsplash
Now that winter has landed, it’s time to pause, reflect and adapt. With recognition and acceptance of the shorter and colder days, we can adapt and turn winter into an opportunity.
Now is a good time to pause, to take stock of where you are at, and how your body is doing. Do you have any injuries or niggles that need attending to? How are you feeling mentally? Inspired, flat or tired?
It’s also good to now reflect on how the season went, what went well, what could have been better, and how you’d like to do things differently next season. If you have a coach, sit down with him or her and review your efforts this year and discuss how to plan for next year. You could also sit down and analyze the training data captured by your Suunto watch and see what insights you can find.
Pausing and reflecting like this will suggest how you might like to adapt over winter. Ask yourself what would serve you – body and mind – the best in the coming months?
But before you begin, we are going to jump the gun and give you a few suggestions on how to make this your best winter ever.
Try swimming regularly to maintain your condition. Photo by Goh Rhy Yan on Unsplash
Make winter goals
Making goals gives us direction and purpose. There’s no reason to drop making them over winter. After you have paused, reflected and adapted, create new goals for your winter. Write them down, tell your friends and family, and set to work fulfilling them.
Go to physiotherapy
If you suffered an injury, or have a niggle that comes and goes, now is the time to take care of it. Book a block of appointments at a sport physiotherapist, and get to the bottom of it. Make whatever your physio advises your main mission in the coming months. If he or she gives you exercises to do each day, do them!
Work on technique
Reducing your training volume means you have more time to exclusively focus on the finer points of your sport. If you’re a runner, dedicate the winter to improving your running efficiency and technique. You could do regular 20 minute treadmill runs, for example, and focus on form.
Resolve any niggles or injuries by seeing a physiotherapist. Photo by Jesper Aggergaard on Unsplash
Get massage
Your body has been your trusty work horse all year. Reward it by getting massaged. There are all sorts of massage styles; Shiatsu, Lomi Lomi, sports massage, Thai, Swedish etc. Why not try a few? We suggest getting at least three massages over the off season. Your body will thank you for it.
Build strength
Winter is a great time to focus on strength training. Join the gym, buy yourself some weights, or sign up for an online fitness course on core power. You don’t need to go hard. Just do a little each week over the off season and it will pay dividends come spring.
Try something new
Learning new forms of movement is good for the body and mind. You develop new skills and capacities you didn’t know you had. It also gives your body a break from your usual movement patterns, while keeping it in shape. Sign up for a boxing course, for example, learn cross country skiing, join a social team sport or go indoor regularly.
Climbing is great for coordination and mental focus. Photo by Jonathan J. Castellon on Unsplash
Escape to training camp
If slowing down and pivoting to other things isn't how you roll, then why not head to warmer climes where you can keep training like a beast? There are some great places around the world that offer training camps and warmer weather.
Focus on eating well
When the off season arrives, it’s often the case our nutrition plan goes out the window. Especially with Christmas and New Year, it’s easy to eat too much of the wrong stuff and gain weight that you have to shed later. While it’s good to allow yourself to enjoy, try focusing on eating well this winter. You could focus on eating seasonally, try being a weekday vegetarian, or learn how to cook a particular style of cuisine.
Swim and sauna
Swimming regularly is incredibly good for the body. It tones the muscles, improves strength, and is a good cardio workout while causing no impact on the joints. Try swimming two or three times a week this winter. If you’re not a strong swimmer, consider getting a couple of swimming lessons and developing your technique. Once you’ve done your laps, hit the sauna and sweat it out.
There are many styles of yoga. Restorative is good for deep relaxation. Photo by Mark Zamora on Unsplash
Practice restorative yoga
One of the best ways to give the body and mind the deep release they need is by doing restorative yoga. This style of yoga is all about slowing down and holding easy poses for longer than usual and with the support of comfortable props. This approach invites deep muscular release and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, bringing us back to homeostasis, or a state of relaxation. Try to attend six restorative classes this off season. Yoga helps Emelie Forsberg find the flow.
Stay inspired
Dark, grey and rainy days week after week can get uninspiring. Counter this by dosing up on adventure and training inspiration. Read uplifting biographical books, listen to podcasts about training and your sport, and watch films and documentaries that spark your imagination. Find local meetups or clubs for your sport and connect with others who are on the same path as you.
Hibernate
Lastly, sleeping more can help you become a better runner. So consider how you can catch some extra winks this winter. Day time power naps have been shown to be immensely beneficial.
Lead image: © Photo by Vlad Tchompalov on Unsplash
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How to find your way in the mountains
The more people in the group who can navigate confidently the safer it is. © Arc'teryx / Piotr Drozdz
Knowing how to read a map, use a compass and find a safe route through the mountains are essential outdoor skills for hikers, climbers, mountain bikers and trail runners. These skills, the basis of good wayfinding, make our adventures safer and more enjoyable.
In this series of articles, Terho Lahtinen, who works in Suunto’s Emerging Business team, will explain how to develop these essential mountain navigation skills. Terho was lead navigator in an adventure racing team that competed all over the world for eight years. He recently led a clinic on wayfinding at the Arc'teryx Alpine Academy, and helped dedicated adventurers gain greater confidence on their trips.
“The confidence that comes from knowing how to navigate in the mountains helps you to relax on their trips, making them more enjoyable,” Terho says. “Location awareness, map reading and compass orientation are also fun in of themselves.”
In this first article of the series, Terho explains where to begin to develop your wayfinding ability.
Don't be dependent
Yes, it’s true we have GPS nowadays, but digital navigation technology isn’t a replacement for these essential skills; as we explain below, mobile phones and GPS devices should play a support role only.
What happens, for example, if your smartphone runs out of batteries or falls in a river? What if the reception sucks? Or you are dependent on someone in your group to be the navigator and he or she gets it wrong? The more people who know how to navigate the safer the group.
Even if you usually follow well marked trails, knowing how to navigate with a map and compass can come in handy. A few moments of distraction while passing a fork in the path, and you could go in the wrong direction and an hour or so later find yourself wondering where the heck you are. It happens.
Location awareness is key
It all starts here. Without this ability, the other skills will be shaky. Location awareness is more than just knowing where you are. “It’s an attitude of consciously and constantly observing things around us and a sensitivity to notice the essential landmarks,” Terho explains. “It’s almost an intuitive feeling for the landscape around you.”
This honed sense of location awareness makes orientation more straight forward. Orientation is the attempt to determine one’s location by relating your position to nearby objects or landmarks. This depends on being able to relate what you see around you to what you see on a map. It takes time to develop this, but with regular practice it will come.
Start observing
To cultivate location awareness, learn to be more observant. “Start observing things around you, studying maps, correlating map information and the real world to each other, and it gets more and more interesting every day,” Terho says. “If you are using phone apps for navigation, stop using automatic guidance and just use your location on the map, choose the way yourself, and study what’s around you and how it appears on the map or a satellite image.”
The more you use topo maps, the more you’ll come to love them. © Arc'teryx / Piotr Drozdz
Practice with topographical maps
We all agree that Google Maps is possibly the next best thing to sliced bread. It is immensely helpful when running late for an appointment while navigating in an unfamiliar city, for example. But digital technology has its limitations, too. We should avoid becoming dependent on it.
Terho suggests buying a topographical map of an area you know well and start studying the map and relating what you see around you. Doing this over time will give you a sense of how maps communicate land formations.
“Paper maps never run out of batteries and they won’t break if they fall on the ground,” Terho says. “They contain much more detailed terrain information than most digital maps and are much more practical for planning and for studying larger areas and longer routes.”
Learn the contours
The number one thing to learn is correlating contour lines on the map and topographic shapes in your surrounding landscape to one other. The map should tell you what you can expect to see around you. With time and practice, you get a feeling for this.
“Contour lines describe the shape of the earth’s surface and that’s the most important information on any map for outdoor activities,” Terho says. “Studying maps at home is a great exercise for getting the feeling, comparing map and actual terrain is even better.”
Practice makes perfect
In each article of this series Terho will suggest some homework for you to do to cultivate your wayfinding skills. This first article’s homework will keep you busy!
Map study
Get a terrain map for an area you know well (where you won’t get lost). Study the map at home, spot familiar places on the map and find out how they are illustrated. Compare the map with your memory of those locations.
Terrain recognition
Remember your latest activity in the map area and identify your route on the map. Study the contours lines and look at the intervals between them. Where are the hills? How high are they? Are there any valleys, ridges, gorges, or saddles? Is the slope in a specific location steep or flat? What is the highest point on the map? The lowest? Where is the steepest slope?
Field study
Time to take the map into the field. When you’re out there, align the map with the surrounding terrain (north on the map pointing to the north in the terrain). Look around at what you see and compare it to your map. This can be visualized by imagining the map is fixed to north and you are walking around it, depending on which direction you are going to or looking at. If you are looking south, you are on the north side of the map and north on the map is pointing at you. When changing direction, you are turning, not the map. You are always holding the map in front of you and the map is pointing to north.
Now, choose a route that you’re familiar with. Follow your progress on the map, and spot every detail that’s drawn on the map and identify them in the terrain. This is a great way to learn how the map and the terrain relate to each other.
Panoramic view
Find a spot where you have a sweeping view of the landscape. Keep the map aligned, north pointing north, with the terrain. While looking in different directions, find distinctive terrain features, such as cliffs, peaks, valleys, buildings, and rivers and then locate them on the map.
Guide a buddy
Head into familiar hills with a friend. Make a route plan in advance, explain the plan to your friend including the different terrain features and other objects you are going to use for navigation waypoints. While out there, explain all the things you observe in the terrain and show where they are on the map. Then let your friend do the same.
Stay tuned for the next article in the series: how to plan your route through the mountains!
Lead image: © Arc'teryx / Piotr Drozdz
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Get ready to race with our trail marathon training plan
Nicknamed the “marathon whisperer” Denise Sauriol knows the distance inside out. She should do after running more than 112 marathons in locations across all seven continents. She is one of our Suunto multisport team coaches and has designed this plan for trail runners.
Denise began running as a child and ran her first marathon in 1994. She continued advancing as a marathoner until August 2009. She was running to Central Park to race in the New York Half Marathon, but never made it to the start line. A car struck her, breaking five of her vertebrae, and temporarily ending her running career. To give back to the sport she loves dearly, she transitioned to coaching.
“I loved coaching so much that in 2016 I left my 26-year career to become a full-time running coach,” she says. “I have a lot of practice on what to do and what not to do with training and on race day. I coach runners of all abilities, ages and race goals. I have helped my clients run their first mile, all the way to helping some of them run a 100 mile ultra.”
Click here to access Denise’s 20 week trail marathon training plan!
Ready to train? Let coach Denise guide you! Denise has created a 20 week trail marathon training plan for beginners. Available for download on Training Peaks, it’s designed for runners who are already averaging between 32 and 40 km per week and can comfortably run a 12 to 16 km long run each week. It assumes people following it have a strong endurance base.
The plan has a four week cycle: In the first three weeks the volume and long run distance increase by 10% each week. Then both decrease on the fourth week. This ensures a balance of build up and recovery time. The training volume continues increasing up until two 32 km long runs. This gives athletes plenty of time on their feet and more confidence than if they only complete one 32 km long run. “The plan also allows for a three week taper,” Denise says. “During the taper the volume drastically decreases, allowing the body and mind to rest and reset for race day.”
Denise advises athletes following her plan to make sure they do their long runs on trail, not on roads or treadmills. She says this is one of the most common mistakes she sees trail runners make. “You have to train on trails to race trails,” she says. “Trail running is a different beast than road running. You can run some of your training miles on a treadmill or on the road, but I recommend a high percentage of your weekly miles, especially the long runs are run on trail.”
The plan is available for free as part of Suunto Value Pack via TrainingPeaks, one of Suunto’s key partners, and provides easy to understand, week-by-week, session-by-session, training guidance. Your end of the bargain is doing the work.
To download Denise’s 20 week training plan, login or sign up to TrainingPeaks and find the plan here.
LEARN MORE ABOUT SUUNTO VALUE PACK AND HOW TO GET THIS TRAINING PROGRAM FOR FREE
電動アドベンチャーこそ未来だと証明する
山へ向かう途中、電気自動車を充電する Greg。 © Greg Hill
記録を打ち立ててきたスキー登山家であり、Suunto アンバサダーでもある Greg Hill にとって、限界を押し広げること は特別なことではありません。2010年には1年間で 200万フィート(610,000m)を登り、2014年3月には標高差 100,000 フィートを滑走しました。そして今回、彼は化石燃料を一切使わずに 100 のピークを登り、山を愛する冒険者でありながら地球にも配慮できることを示しました。
「私は本当に環境を大切に思っていますし、言葉だけでなく行動でも示したいのです」と Greg は言います。「私たちは、自分たちが地球に与える影響にもっと意識的であるべきです。」
『Electric Greg』は今年の Banff Mountain Film Festival で初上映されました。ぜひ下の映像をご覧ください。街向けに設計された電気自動車で、Greg と仲間たちが険しいバックカントリーでその限界に挑む様子が描かれています。
Electric Greg は 12月3日 21:00 CET にオンライン公開されます。ぜひご注目ください。Greg と映画監督 Anthony Bonello によるライブチャットにも参加できます。
このプロジェクトのきっかけは何でしたか?
ずっと前から考えていたことでした。自然の中で活動する人間でありながら、そこへ行くために使っている乗り物が自然にとって良いものではない。その矛盾は、長いあいだずっと心の奥に引っかかっていました。
何が変わったのですか?
200万フィートプロジェクトを終えたとき、自分のカーボンフットプリントがとても大きかったことを痛感しました。大型トラックであちこち移動し、南米への旅もしていました。そこで 2012年4月に、その月はすべての冒険に自転車で向かい、ガソリンを一切使わないと決めました。とても楽しい1か月でした。11のピークを登り、素晴らしい旅になりました。ただ、かなり大変で、誰も一緒には来ませんでした。あまりに大変すぎて、簡単に賛同してもらえることではなかったのです。素晴らしい1か月でしたが、誰かに影響を与えることはできませんでした。
その後、2014年に雪崩で大けがをしました。何時間も、何日も、何か月もソファに座って回復しながら、自分に何ができるのか、どうすれば違いを生み出せるのかを考え続けました。そして 2016年、ついに電気自動車が市場に出始めました。技術がようやく整ったのです。私は 2016年にトラックを手放し、ヘリスキーもやめました。ようやく、トレイルヘッドまで移動し、少しでもより良い選択ができる技術が手に入ったのです。雪崩で大きな事故に遭ったことで、ようやく立ち止まり、子どもたちを見つめ、自分に何か影響力があるなら、もっと前向きな変化のために使うべきだと気づきました。
電動アドベンチャーは未来だと思いますか?
初登攀や縦走を追い求め、人間の限界に挑んできた探検者であることを誇りに思っていますが、それと同時に、このまったく新しい冒険のあり方を探る探検者でもあることが好きです。私はその可能性を押し広げていて、いつかそれが当たり前になってほしいと思っています。私は完璧ではありませんが、人間は進化する力を持っています。だからこそ、そこに知恵を使うべきです。そこには大きな感情的な報酬もあります。私たちは皆、強く立ち向かわなければなりません。
技術はとても速いペースで進化しています。バッテリーのリサイクル技術も、どんどん向上しています。これが未来です。来年3月には電動スノーモービルを手に入れる予定です。この小さな電気自動車で迎える冬は、これで3回目になりますが、さらに多くのトレイルヘッドへ向かえるのが本当に楽しみです。道路脇のトレイルヘッドだけを使う場合、アクセスできる範囲はどうしても限られます。スノーモービルがあればもっと奥まで入れますし、探検の楽しさも保てます。私の冒険の範囲はさらに広がっていくでしょう。もっと深く冒険する準備はできています。
あなたの電動シティカーについて教えてください。
航続距離はおよそ 150 km です。Jackson Hole まで運転したことがありますが、そこは 2,000 km 以上先ですし、カリフォルニアまで行ったこともあります。これまでの走行距離はもう 100,000 km 近くになります。これで旅に出ると、自然と少し笑顔になるんです。いわゆる “electric smile” と呼ばれるものですね。自分が少しでもより良い選択をし、カーボンフットプリントを減らすための方法を与えてくれました。
このプロジェクトで最も難しかったことは何ですか?
家族は、これによって自分たちの生活がどう変わるのかを心配していました。たとえば休暇で飛行機に乗らないことなどです。私はできるだけ家族の負担が少なくなるように努めていますが、家族もこの電動チャレンジに伴う課題を受け入れる必要がありました。スポンサーの中にも、当初は懐疑的な人たちがいました。変化には大きな不安がつきまとうものです。
世界を探検し、遠く離れた場所でスキーをしたりピークに立ったりする誘いも受けてきましたし、断らざるを得なかった旅も確かにたくさんありました。できるだけ良い選択をしようとはしていますが、時には飛行機に乗ることもあります。Utah のアスリートサミットに行ったときは、現地に着いてから電気自動車を借りました。少しでもより良い選択をするための方法は、いつでもあるのです。
メイン画像: © Bruno Long
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Jill Heinerth joins diving hall of fame
As a pioneering cave diver and explorer, documentary maker and author Jill Heinerth has educated and inspired people around the world about our incredible underwater world and the human impact on it. The International Scuba Diver Hall of Fame is an annual event that recognizes people who have significantly and positively impacted the industry through education, exploration, adventure and more. Founded by the Cayman Islands Ministry of Tourism in 2000, the award ceremony will take place in September 2020 in the Caymans.
During an announcement ceremony at DEMA Show, 2019, Jill spoke of what the award means to her.
“Such an amazing honor for a young woman who started her professional diving career in the Cayman Islands a long time ago. This is really fantastic at a time in my life that is very meaningful where I am just releasing my new book Into the Planet and a new documentary, Under Thin Ice. Thank you for this incredible honor! I look forward to visiting the Cayman Islands to accept it.”
There were three more nominees announced for the 2020 induction and they are Handicapped Scuba Association Founder Jim Gatacre, DEMA Executive Director Tom Ingram, and Undersea Hunter Group Founder Avi Klapfer.
Jill was at the Suunto booth this year signing copies of her incredible memoir, Into the Planet.
Released in August, Into the Planet is a thrilling insight into places inside the Earth you may not have imagined exist, but where Jill has dived. She bravely illustrates intense political issues and presents hard evidence about the impacted ice caps and beyond.
Her autobiography explores life-or-death decision-making in critical underwater situations, the pain and difficulty involved in recovering the dead bodies of her tragically lost friends from caves that no one else in the world has the ability, training, and mindset to access due to such extreme conditions.
Speaking at a Suunto function during DEMA Show, 2019, Jill talked about her memories, which are fascinating for both divers and non divers thanks to their important messages.
Welcome to Suunto Summit!
The fifth instalment of Suunto Summit, a celebration of our community and our collective passion for sport and the outdoors, will be held in January 2020 in Ylläs, in Finnish Lapland. We will start the weekend with a visit to Suunto factory and Suunto HQ in Vantaa and then travel by an overnight train to Ylläs, north of the Arctic Circle, to experience the beauty of northern Finland.
The participants for Suunto Summit 2020 are: Alberto from Spain, Alexandre from Brazil, Alpinefex from Germany, Dorn from USA, Lotta from Finland, Maja from Sweden, Majo from Philippines, Marie from UK, Matteo from Italy, Max from USA, Philipp from Germany, Sandra from Australia, Sawna from USA, Thumb K from Korea, and Xiaohua from China. Welcome to Suunto Summit!
Thank you to all who applied! We are humbled to have such a passionate community. It was very inspiring to hear your stories and to get to know you a little bit. Happy adventures and hope to meet you another time!Excitement at the 2018 Suunto Summit. Watch the event recap here