Austrian Military Championships

Today Warti and me ran the Military Champs in Orienteering.
Usually there are just categories using a mapscale of 1:25000 and not very detailed and old maps. But today organisers prepared a very special course for us. It was very similar to the course on the 1:25000 map but with some extra controls. The special thing for us was that the course crossed 3 different o-maps. The first one was 1:10000, then 1:7500 and finally 1:5000. So we had 3 map changes, but all maps were already handed out at the start.
We, all 5 of us from the military sports group started in between the other starters in an intervall of 3 minutes.
I had a little advantage over the others cause I had ran on all of the maps before.
So to the 9th control I caught Warti who started 3 minutes before me and then I managed to get a little gap to him and finished in 40:18.
Finally this was worth the second place just 49 secs behind Gernot "Kerschi" Kerschbaumer who won. Warti finished 4th with a time of 43:55.
It was a nice race with not really difficult controls but some routes and next year we will run again.

Some day in 1986

...a mapmaker drew the map "Hilmtor" somewhere in the Wechsel-area. And exactly on this map we made a training on last Thursday =) It was really interesting how much features didn't change, most of the paths, all water ditches, stones, cliffs and even some thickets stayed the same. Of course, the contour lines were correct, too. Reasoning (clearances became thickets, ...) and a bit of combining made it easy to orienteer. Nice training!

soon finished...

Last weekend we had another two championships: Salzburg district championships in Relay and Long distance (which was rather a shortened middle). Both were organised on a new map in Kals am Großglockner/East Tyrol. As I had some kind of a cold before, I was not sure to start, but finally I was able to compete. But I recognised that this season is getting too long now and I want to end it. Soon... Military championships on 7th of October and then I want to run the Graz half marathon on 11th. Currently, I have a problem with my feet and if it won't disappear I fear that I can't run... :S we will see, I hope all the best! :)

Anyway, I ran the relay with Markus König and - yes :) - we won. On Sunday I could collect another LM title :)

ÖSTM Relay

To compete in the relay championships on Sunday we had to skip the CISM banquet and go home directly after the CISM relay on Saturday.

As well as in the ÖSTM Long distance I wanted to have a medal here, too. 2007 we achieved a bronze medal and 2008 even the silver one. Unquestionable, the gold medal was pre-reserved by HSV Pinkafeld. But then are much teams following, which can fight for the remaining two medals. Among them, of course, ASKÖ Henndorf with Woif, Markus and me. This time it was closer then in the long distance, but still no medal for us, 4th place. I had a good run with 2 min. mistakes, but the deficit was already too big.

CISM in Võru/EST

This years Military World Championships (short form CISM) were held in Võru in south-east of Estonia. All nations were accomodated in the Kuperjanov Batallion barracks. The program was quite easy with two model events and three competitions spread over a week. Directly after the model event for middle and relay some of us climbed Estonias highest mountain, Suur Munamägi, which is amazing 318m a.s.l. :D

Beside the long bus travel from and to Talliinn Airport (4 hours per way) and the missing of the closing ceremony + banquet, my first CISM was much fun and I'm looking forward to 2011 where it should be in Rio de Janeiro/Brasil !!!! =)

ÖSTM Long distance

Some days after recovering from tough and long TCT (see the article before), the Austrian Championships in Long Distance took part in St. Lorenzen/Wechsel/Styria. I felt quite good and with a bronze medal in middle champs and a silver in sprint this year, I definitely wanted to gain another medal! Starting good, I made my first mistake when crossing Wolfi, who started 6 min. ahead of me. On the last 500m I got cramps in my calves and had to stop twice, once even in the finish sprint. In the end it was a disappointing 5th place behind the clearly leader Kerschi, 2nd Markus and Bindi and Wolfi 3rd and 4th.

TCT - TrainingCamp Trondheim

Following the slogan "Better later than not at all" I will briefly summarise our trainingcamp in Trondheim at the beginning of september together with the Swiss national team. The 8-days were fully packed with demanding trainings, competitions and the "Trondheim test". We had a big range of different trainings including route-choice trainings, snake and compass training, marsh-orienteering, as well as a sprint training and two partner trainings. On Saturday we ran the Austrian-Swiss middle distance camp-championships and on Sunday the KM relay near Trondheim.

Unfortunately, Wolfi got sick on Tuesday and so he had to skip most of the trainings. At the camp-champs Tobi twisted his ankle, but he already could run the day after again. Luckily, I was untroubled by injury and sickness.

We should be back in Trondheim at Easter time 2010 for our next training camp. Enjoy the enclosed maps :)