CESOM 2011 - I like!

Central European Spring Orienteering Meeting, this nice 2-days event was held on the last weekend in Borsky Mikulas, Slovakia, not far away from the Austrian border. On Saturday morning was a middle distance and in the afternoon a sprint. To complete the schedule a long distance had to be run on Sunday. Owing to the amazingly fast forrest the winning times where very fast. And in 95% the fastest routechoice was to run straight - avoiding running more than necessary. Schani, Chris and I decided to go there and start in M21E. Due to three very good and fast competitions I managed to win every race and therefore also the overall ranking. I was really happy about my victory and of course with my technical and mainly physical performance at the races. The first price was a special Slovakian gold coin with limited edition :)

Maps

Middle Distance: Very good race with a 4:04 min./km pace! I started very fast and tried to keep the speed as long as possible. The runner starting 2 min. before me missed the 1st control, so I cought him already there. We then ran almost everything together changing the lead sometimes, but at the end he couldn't follow my speed. -53 sec. to second spot.

Sprint Distance: First part was in the forest and then in the village. I lost some seconds to the 2nd control due to a worse routechoice, because I had to cross the marsh just before the forest. Then a big mistake (10-12 sec.) to 5th control. From then it was only running - as fast as you can! Pace: 3:33 min./km. Only 7 sec. in front of Heli, which he lost at the last control :D

Long Distance: Starting very fast with only some meters too many at control 2 and 10 and the "biggest" mistake from 6th to 7th where I wanted to run directly to the roadcrossing, but ended up to much to the right. And the end I felt quite tired and my hamstrings where just before cramping, but luckily I avoided getting a real cramp. Pace was 4:15 min./km which I am very satisfied with and that shows that my endurance should be good enough also for long courses.

Results

A weekend full of fun, nice courses and good atmosphere! :)

I want it stony!

Right after the Cross-Champs I went to Slovenia for a short training camp organised by the Juniorteam-Coach Libor Zridkavesely. Most of the participants were from Libors Czech Club SK Zabovresky Brno, some Juniors and Erik, Heli and me from the Elite-Team.

My goal was to have trainings in similar terrain to the one in France, which means very stony and therefore hard to run. We had a lot of trainings with SI, including a middle, a night-O, a long-distance and two sprints. Although I tried to keep a high pace during the forest sessions, it was not easy and mostly I was not able to realise it because of the stones. Some of them are really sharp and I don't want to fall down on them!! I personally find it hard to run in such terrains as I have to focus on every step. Thats due to ankle problems I have since I was a child.
But, nevertheless, all trainings where good and I had fun while running! I also used my new Garmin Forerunner 305 for the first time :) Just amazing!! I really like it. And then analysing my routes in Quickroute is just great! I even gave my watch a name ;)

As usual - maps can be found in my map-archive.

Next weekend is time for CESOM 2011 in Slovakia. I'm looking forward :)

Austrian Cross Champs

Now it is time for me to report about our race at the Austrian Cross Champs this weekend.
Like last year, our whole military team competed on Sunday in St. Pölten on the long course.
Last year Gernot Kerschbaumer, Markus Lang and me got the silver medal in the team competition. Our goal was again to achieve a medal.
This year nearly all of Austrias best athletes were running on the long course.
Therefore it was much harder work for our team to get good individual placings.
In the beginning the race started really fast due to Günther Weidlinger and Martin Pröll battling in front.
For me it was clear that also Markus, Kerschi and Helmut Gremmel were too fast to follow.
I started fast but with caution. On the first small lap I then caught Warti and we ran at least the first two laps together with me in front. After a time I realised Warti could not follow me any longer and I had already seen Helmut G. in front of me. I then stayed at my pace and could also overtake Helmut within the next laps.
This was quite unexpected. In the end he was 50 seconds and Warti 1min 26 secs behind me.
In the teams competition Markus, Kerschi and me became second like last year.
It was also a nice feeling to be a little bit less behind them than last year.
So the next big competitions for me are Stigtomtakavlen and Tiomila in April.
This means a lot of training time ahead of them to convert the speed in orienteering speed.

Results individual

1st Special-Elite Privat-TL

This year I am organising (or at least organise the organisation ;) some training weekends to guarantee constantly orienteering trainings. The first weekend was in Graz from 4.-6. March. Our training schedule varied quite a lot: Starting with a contour training Friday morning it continued with an indoor-training (strength, Pilates, sprints), followed by a night-sprint. Saturday morning we did a short track training consisting of running technique and sprints to warm up. Then we had a sprint qualification and afterwards the final with chasing start. In the afternoon orienteering intervals (4 loops) were done. On Sunday we participated in a small local competition (middle distance with Micro-O) in the morning and the last training was a contour training.

I was happy to see a lot of people using the trainings during the weekend; around 15 runners who did all of the trainings. Nevertheless, sometimes I was missing the "right spirit" and attitude among them, which resulted in for example no warmup and cooldown, no goal-setting (although I told them) and no or only a bit route discussion after the trainings/race.

Some organisational things have to be considered for next time, e.g. plan the time very carefully to have enough break between the trainings, don't forget to bring the maps to the start, don't hand out the wrong maps on the start. But we learn with mistakes so make it better next time :)

All maps can be found here. Soon I will get my new toy, a Garmin Forerunner and then I can use Quickroute as well.
The next Special-Elite Privat-TL will be around 19th - 23rd May in Salzburg.