Lipica Open 2009

While Tobi and Wolfi were running the ÖM Cross in Leoben I took part in Lipica Open 2009. This year the 2-days-event were held on two different maps: "Dutovlje" on Saturday and "Veliki Dol" on Sunday. 840 runners from 19 countries have entered in the competition. We (= 6 other runners from Salzburg and me) left Salzburg very early at 5:45 a.m. and drove down to Lipica. Sunshine and temperatures around 13° degree centigrade welcomed us in Slovenia. As there was no rain the days before the event, the finish-area and the parking space were mud-free, which was likable for both runners and organisers. I ran M21E both on Saturday and Sunday. In this class 73 competitors from 11 countries fought for the overall-victory in Lipica Open 2009. Amongst them, well known names like Petr Losman, Marc Lauenstein, David Schneider, Csaba Gösswein (3rd), Klaus Schgaguler, Lenkei Zsolt (2nd), Audun Weltzien and Daniel Hubmann, who finally made it with a vast winning margin by 11 min.! (Especially Daniel's performance on the 2nd day was incredible: He clearly won the race by 7 min.!!!)



Saturday:
I had an early starttime and started my race at 11:09 a.m. First controls were really o.k. and I had no problems to get into the map and plan my next routes. Then my first mistake appeared: The 6th control was placed in a small depression with a rock face on a hillside. Honestly, I had no attackpoint from the path down the hill and so it happened that I passed the flag some high meters below the depression. A strange circumstance was that I saw the rock face, but I thought it can't be mine (or better I thought this "something" in the landscape isn't shown as a rock face on the map) :( I lost more time there than I thought (1 min. loss of time!).
Second and last mistake occured shortly before the 9th control: Due to not reading the map carefully enough and not checking the compass, I misinterpreted the map, lost direction and didn't recognise it until I saw the big road east of the control. Now it was no problem to attack the control again (2 min. loss of time). After this mistake I was caught by Aleksi Leskinen from Lynx/FIN. I was not able to keep his pace and so I lost 40 more seconds into the finish. 13th place for me today, 6:20 min. behind Dani Hubmann.


map Saturday M21E
map without course here

Sunday:
Although I had very tired legs yesterday, I had a nice warm up and my legs felt fresh again :)
First couple of controls went o.k., until the 7th one: I wanted to avoid running through a small green area with rocks and therefore I lost direction. I thought I'm running right under the line, but in fact I was far to the left (I lost ~ 1:45 min. there!!). A bit angry I tried to keep up the speed (which worked just in a few parts ;) and focus more on the map. Slightly before the 14th control I was caught by Petr Losman. Having Petr just behind me I was leading the whole way to the 15th control, but just before entering the control site, I misinterpreted the map again: I thought the control has to be north-west of a hill, because I didn't see the small brown line, which shows a depression (In the finish I talked with Petr and he mentioned, he was thinking the same. We lost around 45 sec. there). I continued with making mistakes and lost 30 sec. at the 16th control (it was a bit the same as the day before at the 6th control: I saw the object but not the flag and therefore I was unsure and not self-confident enough...).
Petr was gone now, but I pushed hard and I always saw him running ~ 100 meters in front of me. At the 21st he lost a bit the direction and I could close the gap. 15th place for me in the 2nd stage of Lipica Open 2009, 13:20 min. behind an amazingly running Dani Hubmann!


map Sunday M21E
map without course here

All in all I'm satisfied with my performance (running as well as technique) in Slovenia. It's time to start the fast trainig now and I hope to increase my speed based on this.

Detailed results here
Main page here