O Freaks

Wild Sau Dirt Run

2011-10-24T21:41:00.004+02:00

Warti and me had the idea to run this crazy race sometime.
It is a cross running race with an obstacle parcour in between.
The cross running part was like an orienteering race with a lot of steep downhills, uphills through small "Wienerwald" valleys and flatter parts on forest roads. Then after 7km you have to make your way through the obstacle course. The highlight for the spectators is the definitely the crossing of two mud and water depressions and a "curtain" of electric current ;) After that another 3km running and 2nd time obstacle course to finish the race.
This year we tried to get a starting slot. We entered in May and were put to a waiting list because the limit of 700 runners was already reached. After some weeks we got the notification that we are allowed to start. See below the race map

Then in October the organisers announced that they had opened up another few hundred slots for the race.
So finally nearly 1500 competitors were entered.
From old videos and newspapers we knew a little bit what it will be.
On Saturday the day was there. I drove to Klammhöhe were the race should be. First problems occured when a long traffic jam started some meters before the parking slot. After some minutes I got a place on the meadow for the car. As I was already very late for registration I hoped to make it in time to register myself. The next surprise came some meters later where there was a long, very long queue in front of the registration. Luckily I found a side registration point were I could get the registration in 5 minutes, while the others were just queuing some more hours.
Warti and me decided to make a short tour to visit all obstacles. All seemed quite manageable even for me ;)
At 12 the start was planned and the organisers told us to start in small "waves" with the stronger runners in front. We got a position in the first waves and started very fast. In the first small uphill part Warti already got the lead and I was also just some seconds behind him. The pace was really high and I started to worry. Suddenly Warti stopped and asked where to run. Most of the other runners also didn't know where to go. I followed a runner and signs uphill again until some people shouted to us to return to the start area. I stopped and returned down. At that time Warti was already down near the starting area and started with the first obstacle because no one really knew where to go.....
When I reached the start again I hear people screaming to run in another direction. There I saw that a lot of runners of slower waves were already in front of me.
I was very angry but tried to push hard the next uphill part. Then the first steep downhill started. From there to the lowest point I overtook all runners in front of me and got the lead.
There started the first small valley uphill. It was very sttep and demanding so I had to walk. I turned my head when I was on top and saw that there were just 3 to 4 people about 30 seconds behind me (including Warti). So I pushed really hard the next downhill and uphill parts. After the last steep uphill only Warti was about 1 minute behind me and noone else.
Back at the starting area the obstacle course began and I took it very easy to be safe. It was a nice feeling to enter the obstacle course first and run alone through it.

The last running part was again with 2 valleys uphill and twice downhill. I managed to hold a good pace and entered the obstacle course the 2nd time. This time a lot of people populated the course which made it quite hard. Anyway I manged to finish first about 2,5 minutes before Warti. So it was a strong physical race after a lot of problems this autumn.

My time was also very good compared to other years. Of course they changed the course a little bit and removed the 3rd obstacle part but Warti and me even lost 4,5 to 5 minutes in the beginning due to the misleading.
I think most runners had problems because they all had no orienteering shoes which were perfect for this race.
From an organisational point of view the organisers were not able to handle these amounts of people. The course was also sometimes very poorly marked and when I reached the finish line I even had to ask if I am now finished because it was not recognized that I am the first in the finish....

Homepage of the organizers with results: http://www.wild-sau.at/

Season Summary (part 2)

2011-10-24T15:47:00.003+02:00

So then the 2 part of the year started with a training camp in France for WOC in the first week of July. Our army team trained there quite a lot to get a first impression of those very demanding terrains. I concluded the camp with the impression that I am not enough prepared and hoped to make one step further at the last training camp with the WOC team.
Then one of my main goals for the season was held in Brazil. The Military World Games in Rio de Janeiro. It was a wonderful time in Brazil and we had some very good results. Of course Kerschis 2 medals were the best of all, but we even missed a team medal just by some small seconds. This was very unexpected. More details about that in Wartis last post from August...
After coming back to Austria we had some easy days before leaving for the last training camp in France. There the WOC Team trained specific for each discipline. Earlier it had been decided that I should run Long Distance. First I was not so happy with it but after some trainings I felt ready for the hard Long Qualifier. My clear goal was to qualify and if I succeeded in that I would set my new target.
Unfortunately my run at WOC was destroyed by a control which I had already seen and then looked for some 4 minutes for it (I didn't realize it was my control...). It was a great shit to miss the final then just very close.
So I thougth about what to do at the WOC Week. The plan to run some public event races was destroyed by the organizers, who didn't let WOC competitors start for free except at the personal final days. A very unfriendly decicision!
Finally I unexpectedly got the chance to run the first leg at the Relay.
I refocused and tried to do my best for my strong teammates Kerschi and Robert.
Even though I missed some running power that day I had a good race except the 8th control, where I lost quite a lot.
After a good race of Kerschi and a not so good one of Robert we finished 14th which was ok, but below higher expectations.
After WOC were just few days to recover.
In the end of August it was again training camp time. We drove to Switzerland and trained in Flims and araound Beinwil/See. This was a good training camp for me and I had some really nice trainings.
Just in the end I missed some energy and felt a strange pain in my throat.
I tried to recover with very low training after the camp to be ready for Austrian Longdistance Champs 2 weeks later. But somehow I didn't succeed in that. My status became worse and worse and I felt tired all the time.
I focused my last energy and ran the Austrian Long Champs, but had absolutely no chance for any medal due to some mistakes and also my poor running power.
Already the next day I was diagnosed with bronchitis but without any fever. This forced me to stop training for one week.
Then I started again but after the Austrian Ranking competitions in Freistadt in the beginning of October I had to stop again because this time a sinusitis caught me.
At the Ultralongdistance race there I nearly collapsed and had to give up my race.
So the next week was again without training.
Finally I could train 4 days before the Austrian Night Champs and regain some power.
It turned out to be not enough power and again I nearly collapsed at the very long night race and after also doing some really big mistakes (altogether about 17 minutes!) I became only 8th.
Next day was the last Austriacup race and I had quite a good race with just small mistakes.
This gave me finally the feeling that I am still able to perform well after a lot of up and more down this season.
To sum it up my season was far from what I had planned. I missed nearly all my goals, especially at the Austrian Champs and often missed the joy of training and competing.
Now the season is over and Warti and me decided to participate in a more fun race called Wildsau Dirt Run.......

Season Summary (part 1)

2011-10-24T12:27:00.004+02:00

After a long time silence here, I want to give an update about my orienteering season 2011.

In winter I tried to improve my running capacities with training high volume combined with some faster trainings. It was a real change after years.
Although I was really tired and slow sometimes I realized that this training should bring me one step further on the long road to success.
The first real measurement was planned to be our annual training camp in February.
This year we were in Portugal, mostly in Mira.
Unfortunately I got at night before the flight to Portugal. So my journey was really uncomfortable.
Finally I even got fever and had stay in bed some days.
In the end was able to do some 5 O trainings on the last days in Portugal.
After Portugal it was again a quiet time of training until the next milestone, which was the Austrian Crossrunning Championship.
There we (Kerschi, Markus and me) had to defend our 2nd place in the team competition from last year. This time we event thought about winning the title.
I had a very good race and could hold a steady pace throughout the race. Also Kerschi and Markus performed very well and we missed the team title just with a very small gap.
It gave me a lot of motivation to see myself performing really good in this running race.
Then Easter came closer. Easter means in the Austrian National Team a track running test and the annual Easter training camp.
I had a good preparation period again with high volume and some key speed units.
When the day of our track test showed up on the horizon I thought that maybe I am not stronger than the year before were I set my 5000m best time to 16:04.
Anyway I tried to run according to plan for a time below 16:00. In the end it was 15:57. Quite ok but no real progress compared to my progression the last years.
Right on the next day we drove to Hungary to start the Easter training camp together with all National Squads.
Right after 2 trainings I found out that I had no power left in my muscles and had to run some training sessions very slow. It turned out that our fast food like dinner and lunch was not very suitable for me.
It cost me a lot of energy and after just 4 days training camp I was totally empty.
On Thursdy before the Easter weekend I flew to Sweden to join my club GMOK for Stigtomtakavlen relay and Elitserien races right afterwards.
At Stigtomtakavlen I had an ok race but still missed some running power.
The Elitserien races became really hard for me and I started to worry a lot about my physical condition. Then we moved to the area of 10mila and trained the rest of the week until 10mila on the official training maps.
It was a nice training week although I still had huge problems with my energy levels.
At 10mila my run was luckily really good except for a tripple mistake at one control which destroyed my performance.
After Sweden it was time to recover and prepare for the Austrian WOC Qualification races. I started to regain a better feeling.
Austrian Sprint Champs in Ried were the first test. It surprised me a lot that I had a good physical capacity compared to other Austrian runners. Just a huge mistake in the beginning were I got confused by some not mapped forbidden areas let me drop out of the medal positions and left me as 6th.
Now i got real big pressure to show a good performance at the 2 last Qualification races in Schneegattern at the beginning of June.
First was the Austrian Middle Champs. I became 4th after a technically bad middle part of the race. Next day was planned a long distance Austrian style (winning time between 60 and 70 minutes). Right from the first controls I realized that I had a very high pace and good focus. So I did just very small mistakes and became again 4th but this time even 2nd of the Qualification.
So the miracle happened and I got qualified for WOC.
The following week I flew to Finnland and then to Sweden by car to run the Nordic O Tour races there.
In Finnland I had a good race except again one bigger mistake but was far from qualification for the final. Jukola in between was an ok race with some problems in the last part because of extreme tiredness. In Sweden I ran a very good sprint and was very satisfied although I was again out of any final.

The difference in orienteering terrains is as big as the geographical distance

2011-08-07T21:57:00.001+02:00

I'm talking about Brazil and France. As you all know these countries are far away from each other and differ a lot in their orienteering terrain. OK, get it step by step:

16. - 26. July: Rio and it's surroundings were the arena of the 5th Military World Games. Around 7.000 athletes from 120 different countries competed in 26 sports. With the slogan "Friendship through sport" the games have also been called "The Peace Games". All athletes lived in three different "villages", like the ones at the Olympic Games. We orienteerers had our two individual races a bit outside of Rio. It was only ~ 80k in distance, but it took us around 3 hours by bus.

First race - first upset! Kerschi won the silver medal in middle distance!! Damn, that's awesome, first orienteering medal in men's category ever for Austrian Army! I had a terrible race and finished far behing on 56th place.

Next day should be even more fantastic. In longdistance there was only one God today: Gernot Kerschbaumer! My crazy teammate did an amazing race and claimed the top step of the podium. Due to an outstanding performance he really deserved the gold medal. For me this race was better with 29th position.

In the team competition we missed the third spot by pathetic 24 seconds... Maybe it's Kerschi's fault making a 2min-mistake in the last loop ;) Anyway, 4th place is the best one we had in recent years and shows a good and increasing team performance.

Well, last part is the relay. I was running first leg in second team. I did my best run in this week and changed over to Markus in 5th spot. Unfortunately, he and also first-team-runner Wolfi did a lot of mistakes and lost valuable seconds.
Place 7 for Team 1 and place 13 for Team 2. Still quite ok.

Now some scene change: Bienvenue en France! Last week we our last training camp with the world champs team. It was used to get fine tuning and a last positive impression for WOC. The trainings were held a bit flexible, so everybody could focus and prepare for the relevant distances. This included amongst others different map scales, a sprint for the sprinters and the possibility for additional trainings.
Most of the trainings felt good, although I have problems here and there - and sometimes those "problems" turned out to be quite big.
Nevertheless I enjoyed our trainingdays in the hard french forests and I'm looking forward to the World Championships!! :)

Here and there and this and that

2011-07-21T17:14:00.000+02:00

It's been a long time since I have written my last post. I have been really busy with studies, but honestly spoken also lazy. Furthermore, we had a crash with the map-server, so most of the maps were gone respectively all information was lost and only the map was there. I had really not the nerves to write everything again. So I try give a real short overview over the past four months and then continue with the current stuff.

A lot happened in the first part of the season, especially with a lot of competitions and training camps, both with national team and organised by me. In the middle of April we had a 5-days training camp in Gánt/Hungary with the national team. The day before we did our obligatory 5.000 meter test run on the track and the O-400 test, same like the swiss do. With a personal best time of 15:57 min. and the best time in O-400 I was very happy!

Right after Hungary me and four friends flew to Sweden, took part in two Elitserien races, had one week of preparation for 10Mila and finally running 10Mila for our clubs. I fought once again on the last leg and due to a solid run I was able to catch 13 positions and leading my team to place number 59.

Two weeks later we moved to Asiago/Italy and had a nice national team training camp to get first impressions of WOC 2014.

The weekend after I organised a training camp in and around my home village Henndorf, putting a focus on sprint orienteering. Our highlight was the first Henndorfer Biathlon-OL :D

Again 7 days later our first Austrian championships came on the schedule, namely sprint and team. With two bronze medals I was more happy and satisfied as there were a lot of runners with the chance of winning a medal.

Only some days later me and two other students from the Faculty of Applied Sciences in Wr. Neustadt run the Vienna Academic Championships. With individual silver and team gold this competition was successful, too.
Directly after that race we drove to Tyrol for another – steep and sometimes tricky – training camp.

The two stages of Chicken Challenge this year were also our qualification races number 2 and 3 for WOC. Place 6 in the middle distance and 4th lace in the long course (and 4th in sprint) let me hope for a nomination. Luckily, I made it! :) I will run sprint and middle in WOC in France.

On the same day we started our journey to Finland for NORT and Jukola. And at the first stage of NORT it happened – I tored my upper left calf muscle. I could neither walk for 5 days nor run for around 11 days. After that I could carefully start with training again...

Currently, I'm in Rio de Janeiro at the 5th Military World Games. It's just amazing :) More of that a bit later.

CESOM 2011 - I like!

2011-03-29T10:42:00.005+02:00

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!

2011-03-22T10:45:00.002+01:00

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

2011-03-15T20:26:00.004+01:00

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

2011-03-11T14:41:00.002+01:00

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.

Awesome TC in Portugal

2011-02-19T23:35:00.008+01:00

Summer, sun, a beer and a lot of orienteering! hehe, except the beer everything is true - and even this is partly true ;)

February 2nd me and twelve others flew to Portugal for a great week of orienteering. First 3 days we stayed in small appartements in Quiaios, a bit north of Figueira da Foz (POM 2010). Then we went upcountry to Gouveia for two competitions. First one was one of the most technical ones I have ever run! Second day of Meetin Orientacion de Gouveia was a middle-sprint-combination, which is always fun to run. As the terrain was more similar to home, we achieved better results. Nevertheless, Thierry won all two days, winning each with a clear margin.

After this short intermezzo in the heartland of Portugal we moved back to the cost, more precisely to Mira. It was my first time in Mira and I immediately like the appartements :) comfortable, big enough and internet access!! haha, you don't know how important that is...

On Wednesday 9th most of the others left, only Heli alias Honeybear, Markus and me stayed longer; for one more week. Franky the ghoast train guard joined us for this week. The second week was even more fun than the first one. I have laughed a lot and really enjoyed it. Anyway, on Friday we drove to Lisbon, but for one night only. Lisbon is a nice city next to the sea. And it's steep! Really steep!
Next day we continued our trip direction north to Coruche, where Hugo Borda d'Agua (Ori-Alentejo) organised a contour training extra for us. In the afternoon we ran a middle-distance in Lamarosa. Hugo joined us for both trainings. Next day we took the chance to run a longdistance-massstart-competition near Almeirim; Austrian triple win ;)
Last three days we spent again in Quiaios - yes, in the same appartement.

This two weeks was just great!! All this trainings which included sprint, long, contour, control-picking, night-o, middle, workshop and the competitions were perfectly organised and high quality. I trained in different types of terrain and had a huge technical input early in the season. But in the end I started to getting tired in the brain, so two weeks with non-stop orienteering is maximum for me... In total I "collected" 569 controls, most of them without any problem.

As usual, maps with my routes can be found here. Soon I will get my Garmin Forerunner 305 :) Then I don't have to draw my routes by hand anymore.

And some funny pics from Portugal (only handy-cam quality):

Furthermore we made a funny video: Franky the ghost train guard :D
Have you ever tried natural yoghurt with honey?? ;)

2011 can come :)

2011-01-13T21:10:00.007+01:00

Hej guys!

First of all, I would like to wish all our readers a happy and successful new orienteering season 2011!
After some time without posting we try to write regularly this season and report from our orienteering experiences.

Some friends and me was in the Puglia-region in Southitaly for a nice training camp in the christmas holidays, from 27.12.2010 - 4.1.2011. Due to some work with my studies I had no chance to write about that earlier.
This week was full of amazing sprint trainings in old italian villages with narrow alleys, small and steep stairs and a lot of routechoices. Sometimes it was simply not possible to run full speed because the technical part was too demanding. Of course we made some forest trainings as well.
Tobias Killmann, Wolfgang Kampel, Lukas Scharnagl, Helmut Gremmel and Manuel Gaßner joined for this nice eight days. We stayed in a beautiful appartement between Peschici and Vieste, next to Foresta Umbra.

All maps with my routes can be found here in my new map archive (thanks to Markus).

Cross Country Champs

2010-03-16T22:48:00.000+01:00

After our last post again some time passed. We had our training camp in Portugal with the national team, where all of us participated. There we had some good and technically challenging trainings. I think it helped us a lot to get back some routines.
After all the trainings in Portugal we came back to cold Austria. On sunday it was time for the Austrian Cross Running Champs in Vienna. Our goal was to run the long distance and win a medal with the team.
Warti had a bad day and was far behind. Markus and Kerschi, both ran a very strong race and achieved the individual placings 4 and 5. So it was my task to do my best to fix our medal. Unfortunately from km 6 to the finish I had some problems with my stomach, maybe due to a virus that had caught me the week before.
Finally just 5 seconds or two placings would have been enough for me to finish in place 17 and get us the gold medal. That is truly not the best feeling. Although also the silver medal is quite nice and next year we will be back stronger.....
Results
While we ran the Cross Champs Tobi ran at Lipica Open and was not very satisfied with his races full of mistakes.
His story later here....

Again?

2010-01-20T11:37:00.001+01:00

You may have recognised that we have been training in St. Jakob for one and a half week now again. Last week was really nice and I achieved 20 hours of training. Around 70% of that time were X-Country skiing, but strength, indoor cycling and hill training were included as well.

After two years I tried skating on Sunday once again. Sandro came from Graz and we trained together. This 90 min. were a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it!

But maybe last week was a bit too much :S After lunch on Sunday I felt some slight pain in my left foot for the first time. It wasn't a bad one, but still unwell. I rested monday afternoon and did a hill training tuesday a.m. and cross-country skiing in the afternoon. After 85 min. I quited, because I felt the strange pain. Today I tried to skate again and it worked well until 1 hour, which meant I ended the training after 75 min. I'm afraid now that it can be or develop to something serious like I had 1,5 years ago. I couldn't train there for 4 months...

In the afternoon is recovery time and I hope it will be better tomorrow.

short review

2010-01-13T22:37:00.007+01:00

Since the last post, some time passed by. I was almost two weeks at home over Christmas and New Year's Eve and had some nice trainings with "my gang" (Richi, Markus, Wieszwerg, Woif, Schani and Mani G.) ;) My main activities during the holidays were sleeping, training, meeting relatives, eating and playing Nintendo Wii with neighbours and friends :D

As you have read in the previous post we had two big X-country skiing weeks in december. That was the reason why I took it a bit easier before Christmas, because the days right after we did our second SSS (special speed session). As there was no snow (let's better say "to less snow for X-country skiing or frozen ski runs") in the surroundings of Henndorf, I ran all intervals. A middle distance course which I ran with Elisa's friend Johan, another O-training with two loops (1 uphill, 1 downhill) and the New Year's Eve run in our neighbour city were included.

At the New Year's Eve run not less than 23 people started for our club, which brought us the second place in the team ranking and therefore a big food box with cheese, ham, pickles, an extra-large salt stick and a 10 l beer barrel :) The course was 5,8 km with I guess some 20 Hm. I finished 7th overall in 19:46 min. and thus 3rd in M20. (I won a bottle of sparkling wine ;)

In the evening our old Richi "canonball" Gathercole celebrated his 40th birthday. He organised a nice party with a delicious meal and beverages. It was a lot of fun and after eating we handed over our gift: the "Fatkiller" :D It's a mixture between a training plan and an Advent calendar. The goal is to bring Richi to train 3 times a week. If he achieves that, he will get a small reward like a chocolate, a beer or some sweets. If he trained just two times, he would get a light penalty (ironing the clothes, 1 day no TV) and doing only 1 training means a hard penalty, e.g. 1 week no alcohol, cleaning the whole flat... We all hope he will pervade the trainings and join us at the 1st AC!

Ok, well, those were my highlights in the last time :D

Currently we are again in St. Jakob im Walde to complete another two endurance weeks. More about that coming soon :)

Endurance go, go, go

2009-12-21T21:03:00.006+01:00

Like every december, we put our focus on endurance in the last two weeks. In our traditional St.-Jakob-weeks we are much x-country skiing, doing hill intervals and also some O-trainings if it is possible concerning the snow. Two weeks ago I trained 17h and last week even 21:20h, which is a personal record I think.
Yesterday I celebrated my 21th birthday, so I made myself a nice present with 21 hours of training on my 21th day of birth. This week will be a semi-easy one before starting our special speed training on 30th december.

Christmas-O on Wednesday

Week 51/2009

A special thanks to our readers and Merry Christmas to Everyone! :)

Planning weekend for 2010

2009-12-16T15:43:00.004+01:00

One week ago we had our planning weekend for the next season in St. Jakob im Walde. The two new coaches enforcing our trainer team - the Swiss Rolf Gemperle as a new nationaltrainer and the second junior trainer Libor Zrídkavésely from the Czech Republic - were also there to introduce theirselves, talk with us, speak about their intentions and of course train together with us. The highlights in orienteering 2010 will be WOC in Trondheim, WUOC in Borlänge and EOC in Primorsko. Things as Jukola, 10Mila, Worldcups and National Championships are on the schedule as well.

Austrian Night Champs and Austria Cup Final

2009-11-10T11:06:00.005+01:00

After Wartis preview it was expected to be a hard fight for the medals.
Finally the terrain in St Johann in Tyrol proved to be very hard physically and it was somehow difficult to cope with the map at night.
So many mistakes happened within the whole starting field.
Best was (as usual) Kerschi with a good margin to Bindi, who nearly caught me at the 10th control but then lost some time there. Warti had a stable race with few mistakes and got 3rd, whilst I had to stay out of the podium as 4th not so much behind Warti. My race was full of mistakes and missinterpretations of the map. The terrain was also not my favourite one with high undergrowth nearly everywhere and lots of green areas.

The next day was expected to be a thrilling race between me an Warti. The main reason was Kerschis departure and journey home already at night. This led to the situation that both of us had the chance to win the Austria Cup overall ranking this year.
Course data seemed to be a nice middle distance with not too much climbing. Reality was totally different. The Elite courses were set in a much harder and steeper terrain than the other categories. So the result was a hard and long race through thick and steep forest parts mostly mapped white or light green undergrowth.
I started first of us and tried to push very hard at first controls. Then to the 4th my first mistake was the result of too much pushing and I decided to stay calm and go on with some physical reserves. In the end I did two other mistakes and lost about 3 minutes overall. It was enough for a 3rd place 10 secs behind Markus and 51 behind Bindi who won. Warti got 4th 1:39 behind me and so I won the Austria Cup ranking with just 0,48 points in front of him.

Night-O Preview

2009-11-05T08:34:00.009+01:00

On Saturday the Austrian Night-Championships are going to be held in St. Johann/Tyrol. Terrain will be typical tyrolean style, i.e. technical demanding mostly open forest with ditches, but also areas with low runnability and marshy parts. Course length for men elite is 5,2 k in the night and 6,5 on Sunday at the last AC for this season. The starting field is easily manageable: just 10 participants in the Champs.

I'm looking forward to try and test my new Petzl Ultra-lamp, which I got some months ago from the Austrian distributor Agentur Berger in Grünau/Upper Austria, under competition conditions.

Additionally, we made a short night-training yesterday evening. Have a look at the map enclosed.

Austrian Military Championships

2009-10-07T15:56:00.005+02:00

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

2009-10-05T18:14:00.002+02:00

...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...

2009-10-04T18:57:00.004+02:00

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

2009-10-04T18:30:00.002+02:00

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

2009-10-04T17:25:00.000+02:00

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

2009-10-04T16:55:00.005+02:00

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

2009-10-04T12:27:00.006+02:00

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 :)

WOC Middle Qualification

2009-08-16T17:42:00.004+02:00

WOC started today with the Middle Qualification race. Kerschi, Bindi and me were running.
Right from my selection it was my wish to run Middle at WOC because I thought it would be my best chance to reach a Final.
Although chances seemed to be quite low I tried to have fun and be careful all the time in the forest today. Immediately after the start signal and the first meters I realised that the map was extremely well drawn. This rose my motivation a lot. Even if I didn't felt that well physically it looks like I had a good pace compared with my running skills.
To first control my plan was to run over the charcoal burning ground and then along the contour line to the control. But unfortunately I was a little bit too high on the hillside and had to go down about 20 meters. Next controls were good and it was possible to develop some kind of flow.
Then the green area started and I knew that I should have a clear concept for every control inside this area. So I took it safely and had no problems here.
Finally the last technically challenging area was between 10th and 14th control. There I did a small direction mistake to the 13th and destroyed my shirt completely to the 14th.
The last controls were just fast running in my opinion.
In finish I saw that I am 6th and there was someone 2 secs in front of me. In the end there were 3 guys 1,2 and 3 secs in front of me. Therefore I waited quite nervously in front of the board till the end and then Per Forsberg salvated me by announcing the finalists.
So I made it to the final as 15th of Heat A with a time of 29:10 just 2 minutes and 34 secs behind the winner.
Puh that was close but now I am very happy about it because reaching a Final was my dream goal for this WOC.
Next is Long Qualification tomorrow with Markus, Warti and me.

WOC Preparation Hungary

2009-08-06T11:22:00.005+02:00

As part of the WOC preparation the National Team spent 4 more days in Mikolc in order to make the last technical preparations in relevant terrain.
As expected the forests became much thicker than just some months ago, which will influence all distances. We started our training camp with a control picking exercise consisting of 50 controls. The following days consited of a WOC simulation with one middle distance training on the 2nd day, followed by 1 long distance, or two sprint trainings. The last day was devoted to the relay, where we completed 3 loops of about 1,5 kilometers together with the hungarian national team.

For my part the training camp was another step towards my top shape, as my running improved every day, with an extremly good feeling on the last day. My main focus was of course on the 2 sprint trainings which started both times really well. I securely punched the first short control, made the right route choice to the longer second control... On the first sprint, a parallel mistake costed too much time to run a good time, and at the second sprint I missed the "easiest" control with almost 1 minute... Analyising the control area after the race made Wolfis and my mistake clear, as we both entered the control area at the right place, not seeing the control flag, which was about 20 meters too much to the left. As all the others dealt with this situation without losing time, we should work on our flexibility in such situations.
I will learn of my mistakes , and after some more sprint trainings here in Austria I'm feeling very confident to show a good performance in Hungary!

O-Ringen MAPS

2009-07-30T15:20:00.012+02:00

stage 1

stage 2

stage 3

stage 4

stage 5

ORINGEN 09

2009-07-25T19:34:00.002+02:00

Oringen started for Warti and me with the mass start.
The task was to do three loops, each about 2,8-3 kms and then a final course of 9,5km. There were 6 combinations of the loops. Forking was done by combining two halfs (A to C) inside each loop with a common control in the middle.
The race started very well for me and I was always in sight of the leading pack when passing the first map exchange. Warti had some problems on his loop and fell behind some minutes.
But the troubles started on the second loop also for me. I did a bad route choice to the second control and also lost contact to the other guys. Then I was not even able to attack the control properly and lost some time there.
After this I tried to push harder to close the gap to a pack in front of me. Right after some minutes a bad feeling in my stomach made me stop. Finally even the last guy was gone. So I decided to change my plan and try to complete the race as a normal fast training.
Not even that was possible when I fought another 45 minutes and I gave up the race at the 3rd control of the last course.
Warti had a good race after his troubles in the beginning but skipped one control near the end and got disqualified.
Results 1st stage
So that was a very bad start to 5 days of Oringen for both of us.
Next day was the WRE event. My plan was to forget to do a normal race without any special plans. The preparation was really bad by eating just some toasts and a little bit of pizza after the massstart. Right from the beginning I felt really awful physically and had to push hard to keep a proper speed. To the third control I had my first mistake and a lot of little mistakes were following. I became 63rd and Warti was the best Austrian as 52nd.
Results 2nd stage
But the highlight of the day was Markus Lang who won the Hill prize.
The third day for the Elitserien runners held a Sprint in the city center of Eksjö.
I had a good race and just some seconds mistakes but the speed was horribly slow.
Warti was some seconds slower than me and became 57th and I was placed on 52nd position.
Results 3rd stage
After the rest day the middle distance was held. It became a fine race technically and I just lost alltogether about 1,5 minutes.
Warti took it not with full speed and became 69th whilst I became 53rd.
Results 4th stage
So due to our bad result at the first stage Warti and me were outside the chasingstart on the last stage. He started 15 seconds in front of me about 32 minutes after the last chasingstart runner.
We had a nice race together and I led most of the time. To the 10th and 11th control we did stupid route choices and lost some time. So we were caught by Daniel Wernersson and Jan Troeng at the 13th control. We lost contact to them to the 15th and then we fought against our tiredness till the end. Especially the last loop after the spectators section troubled us a lot and we lost some time here and there.
Finally we completed the race as 56th and 57th.
Final results
That concluded our Oringen trip and we went back home today. It was a nice experience as every Oringen and showed a lot of things to work on. But now the focus lies on WOC starting in 3 weeks.

From Wednesday to Saturday we will go on a training camp to Hungary for the last WOC preparations

O-Ringen TC has started

2009-07-17T20:05:00.005+02:00

Yesterday late evening we finally arrived in Eksjö after pickung up Patrizia, Kerschi and Helmut from Skavsta airport. We are staying in an awesome (really big!) house near a beautiful lake, just some minutes away from O-Ringen torget and the city center. Fantastic! It couldn't be better :)At midnight I did a short jog with the city map and today we started our a.m.-training at 12:30 :P Second session launched at 18:00 ó clock and was a fast 2,7 km one with 30 sec. chasing start.

Friday a.m. (south part) and p.m. (northern part)

Like in Italy this will be another endurance-preparation-training-period for WOC. Our competitions (Men Elitserien) will start on Sunday late afternoon with an Ultralong distance (~ 17km), followed by a long distance on Monday (~ 13km), a Sprint on Tuesday and a middle distance on Thursday (~6,5 km). Fifth stage on Friday is a long distance with chasing start. I intend to run 1st, 2nd and 5th stage full speed, maybe also sprint, we will see. Next days will be loaded with orienteering trainings, morning jogs and strength sessions.
Catch you later and have fun in the meantime :)

Finished a hard training week + interesting maps!

2009-07-14T18:09:00.008+02:00

On Sunday I finished a hard training week including a lot of orienteering, some running, strength and a mountain trip. Overall I trained 18h, 13,5 h without hiking. For me - especially in summer - this was pretty much. I really enjoyed orienteering in the steep slopes with loads of stones and rockfaces in Italy. 2nd stage of Dolomiti 5-days was held on Passo Rolle in half open and half forested terrain. 3rd and 4th race were middle-distances in San Martino di Castrozza, right beneath Passo Rolle. Last stage was in Val Canali with an interesting beginning, an easier middle-part, very tricky controls near the end and just running the last km. On that day I achieved my best result with 12th best time of the day. Finally, I finished on 23rd place overall in M21Elite. The french top runner Francois Gonon won the 5-days of Dolomites 2009, with Mattias Millinger in 2nd and Rasmus SØes in 3rd position.

Now, three relaxing days before I will start my next hard training block, lasting 10 days starting on Thursday and including the O-Ringen competitions in M 21 Elitserien.

Here are my maps from stage 2 - 5 with some short comments under every picture:

Day 2, map Passo Rolle, shortened long distance

I even started with a bad route choice to control 1: drifting too much to the right when crossing the flat depression right after the start. Then two mistakes in the control area at 5 and 6. Then the biggest mistake to 12th control: I lost height and came down to the small marsh. Nearly the same mistake to control 14: But here I climbed a little too much. Maybe a bad route choice to control 10 and a worse one to 15?

Day 3, map San Martino Sud, Middle-distance

Again I started with an awful routechoice to the first control. A very small mistake at 2nd control and some needless highmeters on the way to control 8.

Day 4, map San Martino - Centro, Middle-distance

Guess what? YES! I made a mistake to the first control. Oh, you are familiar to that. Me too :S Running on the yellow area next to the control I thought I'm passing the semi-open area more behing. I don't know why I had such fool mind. But the unbeatable highlight in this run was control 7: first I left 6th control in wrong direction and then I searched the flag for around 3,5 min. because control description said "dry ditch, north-east end", but it was situated on south-west end. Additionally, the control was too high, because making some steps I already reached the yellow area above the control point. It was more than weird there and I was really angry. I managed the tricky part in the end nearly perfectly without big time loss.

Day 5, map Val Canali - Piazmador, shortened long distance

Wuhu, no mistake to the 1st control! ;) As I mentioned before, the last stage was my best one. Although being tired, I was able to push the whole course with hardly any mistake. Small mistakes at controls 4, 8, 20 and 27. A bigger one at 18th control. Bad routechoice to 22nd, where I didn't see the small path leading to the control.

I gained a lot of experience in this week and I'm looking forward to O-Ringen! :)

Results, photos, JWOC, ...

Ciao bella Italia

2009-07-08T17:47:00.007+02:00

After a thrilling Follow-Eyoc-2009-in-Serbia-online-weekend we left sunday early morning for our military training camp in Italy. Because nobody of us is running JWOC, we are all participating in the 5 days of Dolomites 2009 in San Primiero/Trento. Except Monday (we had the same event center, but the JWOC Sprint was in Imer-Mezzano and stage 1 of the 5-days was on a map at higher altitude) the finish area was respectively will be the same: Yesterday Passo Rolle - JWOC Long, 2nd stage, Thursday and Friday San Martino di Castrozza - Middle Qualification and Final, stage 3 and 4, Saturday Val Canali - Relay and last stage of 5-days.

We are living in a small but nice appartment in Imer and thus most of us will take part in WOC we are taking the 5-days as a good preparation to try and improve different things e.g. use a power-gel, do a morning jog, warmup-routine, ... Accordingly, no one will push hard through all of the stages. Today we went hiking on a beautiful mountain where we enjoyed an amazing view :)

As scheduled two middle distances follow tomorrow and on Friday and another shortened long on Saturday.

Stage 1 - San Giovanni-Caltena

Thermenland-Open - International 3-days-Event

2009-06-30T18:24:00.009+02:00

After accomplishing the 5.000m track-limit on Thursday with 16:38 min. I was very happy and looking forward to a nice orienteering-weekend. This years TLO (ThermenLand-Open) took place in Fürstenfeld/Styria. TLO is a 3-days-orienteering event alternately organised by Austria, Slovenia or Hungary. Although 6 nations were present in M21E class, this meant just 13 competitors.

The most exciting part was the 1st stage on Friday: A night sprint consisting of two very different parts. First part was a "normal" sprint with a 1:5.000 map in the town centre of Fürstenfeld. Arriving on the main-square you had to turn around your map and completing another orienteering course in a labyrinth built up with portable steel barricades and tapes on a 1:500 map! Some trees, a fountain and some small houses made it a bit easier. I tell you that this was much fun :D

On Saturday stage 2 followed, which was 5th Austria Cup and also an Hungarian Ranking Event. Despite that fact only around 600 runners started.

3rd stage was the traditional chasing start, for the elite classes both start and finish again on the main-square. Winning the night sprint and achieving a fourth place on Saturday, I started in 3rd position and was able to keep it until the finish line. Tobi mispunched in the labyrinth (wanted to run only the sprint anyway) and Wolfi just ran the Austria Cup, where he was 3:20' faster than me ;)

Night-Sprint Part 1

Orientshow

Austria Cup, Saturday

Sunday - Chasing start

Results
Fotos

Silver medal at ÖSTM Sprint

2009-06-23T20:52:00.005+02:00

Saturday, 20th of June 2009. Feldkirch, Vorarlberg, Austria. 17:20 p.m. Nice weather. Lots of people. A young austrian first-year-elite-runner is picking up his map and running towards his silber medal in the austrian sprint championships. But let's take it from the beginning.

The weekend ago around 1.900 orienteers from Austria and Switzerland gathered together in Feldkirch to enjoy a sprint in the town on Saturday (austrian championships and 4. National OL for swiss runners) and a middle distance in Göfis on Sunday (swiss middle distance championships and 4th austria cup).

The sprint was one of the most interesting and most difficult I have ever run. Until 3 p.m. it was allowed to walk through the city and some runners took advantage of this. There was also a quarantine zone for all elite runners, but - weirdly - we were mixed up with all other runners afterwards so it didn't make any sense to separate us before. Anyway, after a long warm up I was looking forward to my run. The start was in a subway right under the main street. Much runners took the wrong exit and lost valuable seconds already before the first control. Neither did I - luckily. Then the first critical situation on the way to control Nr. 2: The hedge was drawn as passable, but you couldn't pass it. For a split second I had no clue what to do. Then I saw the entrance and continued running. To the 3rd control I made a wrong route choice. Control 7 had the wrong number. I stopped, took a look on the map and recognised my mistake. To 8th control I should have run completely to the left, not the route passing control 14. Some extra meters (I didn't see the passage fast enough) to control 11 and 13. Last part was good and I was satisfied with my speed. Finally, it was fast enough for the silber medal, only 5 seconds ahead of Wolfi.

Overall I finished 11th place, 1:13 min. behind the winner Matthias Merz (15:22). Kerschi finished 2nd (15:26) and thus defending the title of the sprint champion.

Tobi mispunched at control 7. I hope that won't happen again! ;)

results

Sunday was a WRE, too. Although Daniel Hubmann made a big mistake, he managed to win by 6 seconds ahead of Matthias Merz and 37 sec. ahead of Marc Lauenstein. Kerschi (overall 4th place) won the Austria Cup with Markus Lang 2nd and Wolfi (who is happy again after the sprint :D) 3rd. I got 4th and Tobi 6th. The mens elite course had two butterflies and technically interesting parts.

results

map with hubmanns route part 1 / part 2

All in all it was really worth travelling the long way to our most western province. The chance to compete against some world-class runners was really nice and showed that there is a lot of development potential in Austria (in much categories the first austrian runner was around place 5 - 12). I think we had much fun and enjoyed the friendly get-together with our swiss neighbours :)

Mikkeli Jukola

2009-06-17T17:12:00.005+02:00

After NOC all three of us traveled to Mikkeli on Thursday.
We did some trainings offered by the organisers in more and less relevant terrain for this years Jukola.
But prior to the race we had already known the characteristics of the terrain. The old map showed very untypical Finnish terrain with lots of paths and nearly no bare rocks. Also less detailed and just some tricky green areas. So it should be fast and not so difficult running with just some more difficult parts.
Me and Warti were running for OK Tyr on 4th and 7th leg while Wolfi was running 7th leg for GMOK 2. Our last years position (183) was a quite big step back and we were very motivated to show how good our team really is. With Jonas Leandersson and Henrik Brohede on the first two legs we had a almost perfect start and were in the top 25. On the next legs we lost some positions which was also partly my fault on the 4th leg. After the WC Middle distance my body seemed to perform pretty strangly as my legs felt so heavy during all the running sessions. At Jukola I tried to push hard from the beginning but soon I realzied that my legs were not ready for a good speed today. It was a strange feeling to feel totally relaxed with my heart rate and my breething while the legs just couldn't run at normal speed. Wel,l I lost about 9 positions and after some up and downs on the next legs we finished on 69th place which was good for our young team! We believe in this team and in a few years we will be ready to fight for the top places. Warti and Wolfi both running on the last leg had stable runs and finished their trip to finnland with nice impressions in the fast Jukola forest.
I have to say it was really nice to be at Jukola again as it is just amazing to see that we are obviously not the only O-Freaks... :P

WC Middle and Sprint

2009-06-14T19:57:00.005+02:00

After a relaxing rest day the middle distance was on the program. For 3 first year juniors this was definitely a very exciting experience! It was not an easy job to fulfill, as the terrain was quite technical and pretty tough to run in. 5,4,3,2,1, biiiiip my race started and I would lie if I would tell you that I was as relaxed as I would have liked to be. The first control was good but I realized that I was more focused on my running and thinking how Hubmann would cross this green area, than my orienteering. I built up my focus again and was back in my race again. The first 3 controls went really good as the GPS tracks showed after the race. To number four I lost the direction from the control and came too much to the right. This small mistake and a little swing in the control area costed me 40 seconds. To number 9 I should have climbed up the hill at the beginning which costed another 40 seconds. The rest of the race was without bigger mistakes but at the last hill my legs couldn’t run as fast as my mind wanted them to and I lost a bit too much on this last loop. I’m really happy with my race but the result was a bit disappointing. I was really not expecting any “good” result as thought I knew how fast those guys can run but having a good run and losing 11 minutes on Öberg was quite a shock! Damn it they run fast!! Wolfi finished after a good last loop 40 seconds before me and Warti was about 1 minute behind me.

Feeling really tired after the middle distance I was quite unsure how the sprint would go. Warti and me started at the same time which was a good possibility to check my speed during the race. I had a good start and after 4 controls my legs were still feeling good. On the long route-choice I decided to cross the hill and lost a bit too much there. Somehow I was always behind with my orienteering and at the end of the course I made some more really stupid mistakes. The result was really unacceptably bad and I hope I can improve my sprint skills before next weeks ÖM. Wolfi had a good run and finished 44 seconds from the cut in his heat. Warti had similar problems like me and wasn’t satisfied with his race. Well what can I say, it was a bad day but for my part it was much more a mental problem as I started this race without a clear plan or goal which was simply unprofessional for a WC race, this won’t happen again.

Now we are sitting in a nice cottage at the camping place 5km from the Jukola CC and on Saturday/Sunday we will try to fight for every position at Jukola with Warti on the last leg and me on the 4^th. Kiitos for reading!

First time in Finland + NOC Relay

2009-06-07T13:03:00.005+02:00

Finland here we come. Yesterday the austrian military team arrived in Helsinki. Afterwards we drove to Salo, where NOC is going to be held. There we met the other team members from the Austrian NOC team. It will be "dark" around 24 ó clock, so you don't really have a problem training at 7 p.m. It is my first time here in Finland and I absolutely wanted to do one training before the important competitions. I enjoyed the forest very much, especially running on the rock faces. Good visibility and just a few green areas made it even more fun. The "hills" are in general small, but they can be tricky, too. Most important for me was to get familiar with the terrain and try to interprete everything right (map-nature, nature-map). It worked out quite well and so I was looking forward to todays relay.

I ran 1st leg for Austria 2, followed by Wolfi on 2nd leg and Tobi 3rd position. The start wasn't as fast as I thought, but due to a "big" mistake (~ 40 seconds) next to control 2 I lost my pulk. I could quickly continue running my rhythm and therefore I only made a few small mistakes linked to control area (nr. 3, 10) or route choices (nr. 9, 11) with 10 - 30 seconds each. Generally, I'm satisfied with my race although there is no way to compare my time with the others. Wolfi did a semi-good job by losing much time with unnecessary mistakes in the beginning. Towards the end he could improve his technical work and had a good flow. Tobi had a stable run with really few small mistakes finishing one second ahead of me :P (37:02 min.).

Tomorrow we use the "rest day" for the middle and - who wants to - sprint distance model event. On Tuesday and Wednesday the NOC competitions continue with Middle and Sprint distance, also World Cup 1 and 2.

relay map M21E

Results

Last selection races for WOC

2009-06-02T15:27:00.012+02:00

Last weekend everyone who wanted to qualify for the Austrian WOC-team travelled the long way to Miskolc to take part in the 3rd and 4th selection races. Similar to WOC we stayed at the Uni-Hotel Miskolc, which offered us nice 4-bed appartements with internet access and cooking facilities. We arrived late at night so we postponed the start of the sprint to 11:45. Mens course was 2,7 km + 110 hm; ladies course was exactly the same, but without controls 15, 16. It was around 50/50 forest/housing estate.

With a strong first part with no mistakes and a good pace in the second half I finished on 3rd place (14:58) behind Bindi (14:30) and Kerschi (14:34). Tobi and Wolfi achieved 4th (15:43) and 5th (15:50) place.

After the race I recognised that it was one of my best sprints I have ever run! :)

In the afternoon there was the possibility to run a model event for next day's competition. I took the chance to relax my muscles and get more familiar with the terrain.

Sprint on Saturday, 30. 5. 2009

On Sunday it was time for our last selection race. It was a middle distance race (6,6 km + 295 hm) and part of the hungarian borsod-kupa. I again had an excellent run with just one and a half mistake: the bigger mistake I made at 17th control where the green area was really strange, where I lost direction and where it took me ages to run along the small river which runs next to the control. The 0,5 mistake I did when I left the 6th control: I should have run directly to the path and not stumbling around in the green-lined area. Although the Czech Michal Smola run an incredible 41' on the course, I again was very happy with my performance (especially the technical parts) and therefore with the result as well (austrian ranking):

1st Wolfi: 47:21

2nd me: 48:06

3rd Markus L: 49: ..

Map "Tekenös" with my route

On pentecost-monday we participated in the Herman-Ottó relay, too. Austria 1 (Kerschi, Wolfi, Markus), Austria 2 (me, Tobi, Thomas L.) and Austria 3 (Helmut Gremmel, Michael Stockmayer and Agoston) were fighting for good positions. Much (fast) hungarian teams, some polish and a spanish team completed the start-list. Austria 1 managed to win ahead of the strong first hungarian team with Zsolt Lenkei, Istvan Zsebehazy and Adám Kovacs and Poland 1.

According to the motto "All good things come in threes" I had a perfect (technically) run with just a small unsureness at control 3. There is still much speed missing, but it's some time left ;)

Additionally, my time was the second fastest that day among the Austrians.

map from relay

On Sunday evening the WOC-team was fixed as well.

Men:

Kerschi, Wolfi, Bindi, Markus, me, Thomas Krejci

Women:

Ursi, Anita, Thea, Karin

Summarising the weekend I only can say that I'm really happy to represent Austria at WOC and I'm very satisfied with my technical shape. I need to work a bit on my pace and then I'm looking forward to WOC! :)

TC Slovenia + WOC Qualification part 2

2009-05-24T15:33:00.005+02:00

From Thursday till Sunday the Austrian national team had a short training camp in Slovenia. We trained in the terrains of Orienteering-Online Cup 2007.
On Thursday just after our arrivel we did a training at Letus as a model event for next days longdistance race. Due to the fact that WOC longdistance is also on map scale 1:15.000 we did the model event at that scale even if the map was not originally designed for it. At first sight it looked like 1:20.000. There we did two short loops and afterwards we drove to our accomodation at the Prodnik sport center.
Then Friday arrived with first start at 11:00. Our trainer team set out the controls and then we drove to the finish to wait for our transport to the start because it was far away from the finish.
First part of the race was in a very detailed area with a lot of small dolines and some small paths. Then we had a map change and changed to the Women's course, which was our 2nd part. Again we entered the detailed area. Then finally after 5 controls we crossed a huge hill and then down to a steep valley, we had to cross, to finally reach the last part with some controls in the slope.
I had a very good start and orienteering worked well all the time and I thought I have some more energy left for the rest of the race. So after the first loop and map exchange I was in the lead. But then after leaving the detailed part and crossing the valley my energy level became much lower and I couldn't hold a useful pace uphill. From that point after about 70 minutes running I constantly lost time due to my physical inability. Also some mistakes occured when concentration also dropped a little bit. For sure it was a result to lower training the last weeks, because of physical problems.
Finally I became 3rd after 106 minutes of running about 6 minutes behind Bindi, who won the race ahead of Markus L. Warti became 5th with about 114 minutes and Tobi became 6th
After a short recovery we decided to use the opportunity to go rafting in the river, which was quite funny and also demanding for our arms...
In the evening the trainer team nominated the team for NOC in Finland.
Warti and me made it to the team. Sadly Tobi didn't make it to the team.

On Saturday we drove up to Velika Planina at approximately 1.400m above sea level. First each of set out one control and then we had 3 loops to train control entering techniques.
In the afternoon Goggi prepared a special training with some kind of puzzles where you had to find your way through the map pieces with different scale and reduced map pieces.
There we had a very nice view over the surrounding mountains.
The last day was Sunday when we drove to Maribor to do two sprints. First one a forest sprint with steep slopes. Second was the PWT Course of 2000, when the 3rd race was held in the city center.
That concluded our training camp in Slovenia.
Maps:
Qualification race part 1 1:15.000, part 2 1:10.000 (originally 1:15.000, but I destroyed my map)

Powered by Markus Lang:
Tiha Dolina Training Saturday morning (one loop)
Puzzle O
Sprint 1 Maribor
Sprint 2 PWT Maribor

Austrian Middle-champs

2009-05-19T11:01:00.004+02:00

Last weekends competitions were the real kick-off for the orienteering season. We enjoyed two beautiful orienteering days in Carinthia with the highlight on sunday, where we were fighting for medals on the austrian middle distance championships. Warti and me ran the "Bundesländerstaffel" on saturday as well, which was a good warm up for sunday. It was defenitly very nice to get some sun on our white skins and the temperatures of about 25-28 degrees were actually quite comfortable in the forest.
The middle distance on sunday was not only important because of the austrian championships but also for the WOC and WC qualifications. It was really nice to see Warti performing so well and achieving the 3rd place behind an incredibly fast Gernot Kerschbaumer and Klaus Schgaguler. Wolfi and me performed not that well as we made several mistakes in different parts of the race. For my part the race started really well, and I was immediately in the right flow-feeling. I lost maybe 10 seconds near control 3 because I was too much to the right and about 45 seconds on my way to the 4th, as I was climbing a bit too much and ended up in the steep part of the slope where the runnability was not that good. Some small mistakes followed until the 16 control, but they were still OK. At 16 my real problems started. I chose the wrong routechoice and followed the path on the left which forced me to take this huge climbing at the end of the route. I was really tired after that, so I lost the direction to the control and lost about 1 minute because I came too much to the right. Angry about this mistake I tried to push really hard down to 18th and suddenly I didn't unsterstand the situation on the map anymore. I was too much to the right again and it took me some time to relocate. 1,5min lost..... To number 19 I chose the wrong route again and went down to the left. To 20 I didn't see the path under the line and to number 22 I got stuck in the fence which costed again valuable seconds. Well well. I guess it was a pure mental problem that I f**** up this race on the second part, as I should have made a restart at control 16 where the terrain characteristics changed dramatically. It was a bad start for the following qualifications... But hey, everybody who knows me a bit knows, that this makes me stronger and more motivated for friday where we will run a long distance in Slovenia! :P I will start fast and finish faster with my lessons learned of this first race and I am sure Wolfi who had similar experiences will do the same.
As Warti showed this weekend, we are prepared to challenge the "old" boys in the nationalteam and I think this gives us an even brighter picture of the following 2 weeks where the WOC team will be selected.

Here are the maps and results of the weekend:
Middle
results
split-analysis

Bundesländerstaffel:
results
split-analysis

Prize-giving ceremony on Sunday

Speed and Techniques

2009-05-12T14:31:00.005+02:00

Last week we had two great O-trainings! First one was on Tuesday with a reduced map (only brown and blue) at "Sixtina", just next to Pinkafeld/Burgenland. As you can see on the map, I should be satisfied with most of the controls, but I made a huge mistake at control Nr. 42 where - I guess - the map was a bit weird. And then I had a complete black-out at Nr. 46. I really don't know how this could have happened. I was very close to quit the training. At my last to try to recognise myself it finally worked and so I continued the training - unmotivated, tired and a bit angry. I was happy reaching the finish :(

Tuesday

Second training was on Thursday at "Kampstein". Max prepared a very nice middle-course with short controls in difficult terrain and longer ones in between for us. Fast medium speed, some uncertainties and small mistakes in direction (1, 5, 6, 11), nice training :)

Thursday

On Saturday we all (except Wolfi -> sick) did something fast for our speed: Markus and Thomas competed at the Burgenland sprint championships in Pinggau, where Kerschi was the course setter. That meant nice and challenging courses :)

In the meantime I was running the 5th Schmalzkochlauf in Eugendorf/Salzburg, which was organised by my club LC ASKÖ Henndorf. It was a hard and very hot (~ 28°) 5,5 km course with around 100 Hm on asphalt and dirt roads and forest tracks. I was finishing in 3rd place overall and 2nd place in M HK. I got a delicious "food-box" and a € 50 voucher valid at all innkeepers in Eugendorf! :D

The food box makes him smile ;)

Wolfi and I will run Kerschis sprint course in some weeks as a preparation for the ÖSTM Sprint.

Results Sprint
Results Schmalzkochlauf

Story on Kerschis HP

Story on Markus' HP

At the end a fun-pic from our endurance test on the treadmill today ^^

Great Weekend in Serbia

2009-05-06T16:10:00.006+02:00

As Warti was at a training camp with his club in Lungau and Tobi training at home I decided to participate at an O-weekend in Serbia.
Markus Lang and me had been discussing a while about our options for the weekend around the 1st of May. There were several possibilities like Alpe Adria Cup in Regensburg or Tipo Cup in Hungary. But then we discovered the Memorial Cika Dusko Jovanovic some kilometers south of Belgrade in Serbia. Organisers offered a free accomodation and entry fee for runners ranked R in the current Worldranking. Additionally it was possible to win some prize money for the first 6 in the WRE Event on Saturday.
So we were covinced that it would be a nice trip although the travel was a very long one.
Finally we started at 8:00 on Friday 1st at Seebenstein and then drove via Budapest to the Hungarian-Serbian border. There we had to wait about an hour due to strict controls at the EU outer border.
When arriving in Serbia the first impression was a lot better than expected as the Austrian Touring Club told Markus the streets are in no good constitution. Also the landscape and the villages along the road were similar to Hungary or other countries in Eastern Europe.
At approximately 16:30 we arrived in Ljig the city of the evening sprint, the first event of the 3 days competition. We didn't know exactly the place were the competition will be staged so we wandered around the towncenter and then we saw some people with orienteering equipement.
Luckily we found the finnish area and were greeted by an old CISM colleague, appearing to be the main organiser.
The sprint then started at 20:30 with mass-start. It was already very dark and we were glad to have our standard night lamps with us unlike other runners having just a small LED lamp to read the map.
The order of controls was free and so it was a little tactical. Maybe a different route at the beginning would have been better concering the loads of crowds at the first controls. I really had to push the speed a little to get away from the huge pack.
Then my race went ok even though the stinging nettles at the slopes in some areas were really painful to my legs.
I became second some 50 seconds behind Ionut Zinca, who won while Markus had some troubles by almost forgetting one control.
Afterwards we drove to our accomodation up in the mountains. Markus' car had a loose contact and we got stopped by the police. They wanted us to pay a huge amount of money but luckily we could avoid this with the help of one of the organisers.
Next was the WRE on Saturday. Organisers did a very good job and provided a nice finish area with some shops, even live results at a screen and the roasting of two suckling pigs each day!
My race started fast and secure with the first 3 controls. But to the 4th and 5th I had some problems with the right interpretation of the map. To 4th I was unsure about the actual position related to the green and open areas and lost at least 30 seconds. The 5th then should be an easy control, but it became my worst of the whole race. My plan was to run along the path till the end and then to the second ditch were the control should be located. Unfortunately the path was ending much too early and I looked a few ditches before the one with the control => 1min was gone. The remaining controls then went without major problems and I finished 4th just 1 second behind the 3rd. That was a hard fact, but "even one second mistake is still not good enough"(T.G.) so I deserved the 4th place.

In the evening it was time for lunch at 17:00 and then dinner at 20:00. Afterwards again dinner cause the organisers invited the representatives of all clubs to a nice dinner with good meat of different kinds and some drinks.
But that was not the last thing that day. Right afterwards we joined the ongoing party in front of the accomodation. Nobody in Austria would even think about partying the day before a championship ( it was Serbian long distance championship next day). But here it was really funny and a lot of people joined the party.
Then finally the last day arrived with long distance starting from 11:00. The winning time was planned to be about 75 minutes on the 8.6km course with over 450m climbing. In fact I had a good races and used 69 minutes, while Ionut Zinca smashed the race with a time of 61 minutes.

I became 3rd and also overall 3rd. I received a diploma and a herbal extract for that. That day I also tried out the suckling pig, which was really delicious. So a great orienteering weekend in Serbia ended on Monday 1:00 back in Seebenstein.
There is another post at Markus Langs homepage concerning our weekend in Serbia.

Nice weekend in the mountainous Lungau

2009-05-05T22:31:00.005+02:00

Last weekend I joined my austrian club, ASKÖ Henndorf Orienteering, for a nice and tough training camp in the south-eastern district of Salzburg, called Lungau. Around 55 people from my club + 5 runners from another club in Salzburg + 10 carinthians took part in the training camp. We stayed at a beautiful small hotel in Maria Pfarr, right on an orienteering map. Additionally, I didn't just do the trainings, but organised a training and helped to set out and collect the controls. I did 6 trainings in 2,5 days, including a competition on Sunday morning. Gassi and Schani were missing due to diseases and Woif is in Norway, but anyway, it was great fun with Tobi, Mani W., Markus, Robi and Richi :D

Friday
morning: arrival, moving into our rooms, 1st training -> normal O-course with much butterflies and sometimes a piece of the map were cut out, so it became a bit more difficult to orienteer.
afternoon: "Tree-root"-O-course, on all tree roots there were small paper cards with numbers from 30 to 1. The one who's first takes the 30, the second runner 25, ...
evening: easy running with lamp in the village with a sprint-map

Saturday
morning: WISBI-OL = "How fast am I?"-courses, that was my training ;) I prepared four different courses varying the difficulty and length, with SI.
afternoon: Markus organised a training with reduced maps: black and brown for beginners and just brown for advanced ones. I ran the "long" course (3,2 km :P)

Sunday
5th Salzburg-Cup at "Fernwald". M19-, 6,5 km, 280 Hm, so it would become a longer middle distance. I planned to run around 45 min. Therefore I decided to "jog" the first 10 min. and speed up to have a hard 35'-middle-competition. The first 5 controls were no big deal and although I was running not full speed I had several best times. When I had a look at the watch and speeded up, I caught up Robi, who started 4 min. ahead of me. Maybe thus I (better we) made a huge mistake at the 6th control (I'm not quite sure if the map is 100% o.k. there, because when I put in some of the controls I missed that one again, this time coming from another direction with another attack point). The other part of the race was all in all fine, with small mistakes at the 14th and 16th (-> see map). At this race I started last and caught up all runners who started before me :P

results and split-times here

I enjoyed this 3 days really much and had a lot of fun :)
I'm looking forward to 2 nice O-trainings with the military-team!

Birnbauer-Memorial-Run and 1. AC/ÖM Ultralong

2009-04-27T17:24:00.008+02:00

It was a busy weekend, at least for us military-sportsmen. The annual Franz-Birnbauer-Memorial-Run was held the Saturday ago in Seebenstein. All athletes from the military sports centre are supposed to run it - like some kind of PR. At 15 ó clock the main competition started: 7,5 km (5 rounds á 1,5 km) and a few highmeters (maybe 8 - 10 per round?). Most of the course was on dirt roads followed by around 100m on grassland and ~250m on asphalt towards the end. Finally, Thomas Daniel (HLSZ 11 - Modern Penthatlon) won the race in 23:50, followed by Gernot "Kerschi" Kerschbaumer (HLSZ 11 - Orienteering) in 24:00 and Rathgeb Reinhard in 24:04 min. Kerschis girlfriend Patrizia won the ladies category in a time of 29:03 min.

Start of the 7,5 k

still good looking ;)

Approximately one hour later there was a relay-fun-event, where we "had to" start, too.

3 x 400m on grassland and a dirt path. It was short, fast and fun :D If it was clever? I don't know. Every member of a top-3-team got a small package including a beer, a chopping-board, a sausage and bread.

the HLSZ teams occupieng the podium :)

More Results

Then on Sunday the national competition season was opened by the 1st Austria Cup and Austrian Championships in Ultralong-distance for M/W 21E. The finish area was right on the town square of Purkersdorf, 5 km west of Vienna. It should be one of the most exhausting ultralong distances since a long time. Most of the elite runners did not run the elite-course (due to different reasons, which I don't want to explain here): Wolfi and Bindi were running the M21 Short (they wanted to do a normal, "short" O-Training; Wolfi won the competition ahead of Bindi), Tobi started in the M21S as well (he did some kind of start-simulation and quited after half an hour running), Kerschi started in M21E but didn't run the whole thing, Markus Lang didn't even start and I afflicted myself through the M21 Long course (in preparation for the long distance qualification for the austrian world champs team), but it was more a torture than a pleasure. I was sooo tired and had to walk several times, even if it was flat!! Anyway, I won the race with a comfortable winning margin of 20 min., although I lost much time at the 9th (~ 2 min.; lost direction, run too much down, interpreted the map wrong), the 22nd (~ 1:30 min.; don't know how I could lose so much time there, maybe I was simply dead??) and the 27th (~ 2 min. again; diffuse area, tired, not concentrated, ...). -> See map below!

Thomas Lang was the happy winner, with Pierre Kaltenbacher becoming 2nd and Georg Wittberger finishing 3rd. After almost three hours of running, Thomas won by a marginal gap of just 7 seconds!

Here's the map with my route and the split-times:

Results/Splits/Splitalyzer

Tiomila

2009-04-20T14:31:00.011+02:00

The first important competition of this year is history and for us it was an exciting event like every year. It was nice to see that all of us were put into key-positions of our teams. Warti had the honor to run the first leg for OK Tyr 1, I was running the "långa natten" also for OK Tyr 1 and Wolfi was fighting for every place for Göteborg Majorna 2 on the last leg.
Warti had a very stable run and did exactly what a startrunner was supposed to do. Don't miss, hold the pace. He exchanged on a good 107th position 9 minutes after the absolute best, who were simply too fast to follow. It was very nice to see Kerschi winning the first leg with a clever route choice to the second last control!
The next runners of OK Tyr did a very good job and so I went out into the 18km course 2min behind Halden 1. I pushed really hard on the first meters and to the first control and it was really nice to see about 20 headlamps looking at me and my fellow runners from a small slope. It was Halden and many other runners looking for the first control. We didn't miss the first control and so we became a really big group of runners of about 30-40 people. The speed in the forest felt quite ok and my legs felt good but after some time Erik Axelson decided to push harder and the speed on the roads increased a lot. I was checking the map most of time and it happened some times that people asked me to which control we were going which was quite amusing :P I really enjoyed the atmosphere in this group where everybody seemed to watch out for another. Every 5 minutes somebody crashed down a stone wall with a loud scream and everybody was waiting for the green areas where the speed would decrease a bit. After about 12 kilometers following Haldens attacks on the paths and roads my legs started to feel pretty tired. More and more people couldn't hold the pace and dropped of. I turned around and didn't see any headlamp light behind me anymore. In front of me the runners just had the part of the map with the control codes in the hand and were just focused to hold the pace. At kilometer 15 we crossed a green area and I got stuck in some thorn bushes and crashed. When I got up again and tried to run as fast as I could out of the green I saw that the chain of headlamps was about 40 meters infront of me. It was going down a small hill with good runnability and I pushed really hard to close the gap, but so were the runners at the end of this group. After the next green I didn't see where they were going and I thought: "congratulations you idiot, you lost them..." I looked at the map and planed my way to the next control. There was one big route choice left and I decided to follow the power line because I didn't trust my tired brain anymore and chose the "easy" alternative. I think I lost quite a lot of time there, because the ground was pretty rough to run on. At the finish I had lost about 6-7 minutes on the big group before me which was quite disappointing because it would have given my teammates a much better chance to follow some good teams. I didn't miss a lot on my course but the lack of strenght on the last 3 kilometers was really annoying and did cost my team quite much time.
On the following legs our team had some technical problems and so we didn't pick any more positions and finished at 59th position. We were better than last year when we finished in position 70 and I hope we will manage to run in the top 50 next year.
Wolfi did a good job on the last leg and could leave a big group of runners behind him finishing at 57th place. I think we can be satisfied with our performances although the last kilometers of my course are still hurting in most parts of my body...;)
Wolfis map Tobis map
results

Nationalteam TC Hungary

2009-04-13T16:43:00.011+02:00

Right the next day after our glorious 5000m race we drove to Betliar in Slovakia to start our trainingcamp with the elite nationa lteam as every year the week before Easter.
After we arrived some of us decided to do a little footing to loosen the legs before the following days full of orienteering.
Then, on sunday we started with a partner-O on the map of last years Hungarian Championships in October. This training was mainly to get used to the terrain and the maping.

In the late afternoon we drove to a very steep sprint map not far from our accomodation to do a not very difficult but fast sprint in the forest. Such types of map are very rare in Austria although there would be enough slopes to map......
I enjoyed it very much and the result was a 3rd place behind Bindi and Kerschi

On Monday it was time for some route choice testing at Torzo, one of my favourite maps. Some did their 5th training there...
We grouped up in 2 groups and had special advice: stay flexible during the route or stick to the plan and additionally some were running right, some left and some anywhere ;)

Right after that training I recognised that my muscles were feeling pretty empty.
I tried to eat as much as possible for lunch, but there was very few served for us, so it was some kind of a crisis. So the afternoon training was not what I was looking forward to. Then at the 6th control it hit me very badly.
Full stop and then walking to 7th control and giving up the training because of black windows in front of my eyes. Concentration and motivation went away very quickly....

Next stop supermarket to get all kinds of carbohydrate stuff to recover quickly.
And then the miracle happened the next day morning.
We did a loop training together with the Swiss and the Finnish team. Even at higher pace it was much better than the day before and the power was gradually coming back in my body. I was still far too slow compared to Tobi or Warti and performed some awesome mistakes at some loops but that's OK.

What a nice training then: We ran alltogether and 1 lead the pack while the others had to learn the 2nd half of the leg to run it from memory right afterwards. This was probably the physically best training of the whole camp.

Wednesday was probably the hardest day with a 13km longdistance to start and followed by 2 sprints behind our accomodation. There I became 3rd of our team twice, although Daniel Hubmann was incredibly fast and won both sprints overall.

Finally on Thursday we did a easter egg hunt at Torzo again. The task was to collect as many controls as possible and to be first at the control. This gave you a chocolate egg. Well Bindi was best in hunting eggs and Ursi won the control picking (girls had a bonus of 6 controls and 2 minutes) which resultet in an unbeatable number of controls from Ursi.

It was a very nice training camp, although the near collapse on Monday was a little bit annoying. Maybe its not the best idea to have a 5000m testrun right before a hard training camp. We should keep that in mind for next year...

HAPPY EASTER!

2009-04-12T12:01:00.004+02:00

... to all our blog-visitors, friends, families, relatives, training partners, trainers, colleagues and all orienteers! :D

Enjoy some relaxing days and stay focused at the Easter egg hunt ;)

1.009 seconds of pain and a new Nationalteam-Equipment :)

2009-04-03T16:50:00.008+02:00

Today the HLSZ 11 O-Team ran a 5.000m track test on the Marswiese in Vienna. Bindi joined us, too. The starting signal happened at 10:30 a.m. Weather conditions were fine with sunshine, but also much wind. The time-keeping team consisting of Tobi, Mättu, Richard and Gunnel took our split-times and supported us quite well.
Unfortunately, Bindi and Erik quited the race after 3.000m.

Our times:
Kerschi: 15:52 min.
Markus: 16:03 min.
Wolfi: 16:18 min.
Warti: 16:49 min.
Thomas: 17:38 min.

Bindi: 09:50 min.
Erik: 10:21 min.

Just before the starting shot

After the exhausting 5k-test we got our new nationalteam equipment :) It consists of a new tracksuit, 2 running tops (a tight and a normal one), 1 pant, 1 tight, 2 pairs of socks and - individually - a short and a top for the sprint. All parts are made by Trimtex and as you can see on the pictures below it looks really nice and they do comfortably fit. I'm looking forward to try them in our following training camp in Slovakia from 4. - 9. April :)

the new trainer

tight with the tight shirt

O-pant with the normal shirt

Still in Sweden :)

2009-03-30T16:07:00.007+02:00

First I need to make a confession: On Friday I just did a strength training with warm up and cool down, because it was snowing heavily and therefore an O-training wouldn't have been possible! ^^ But I will catch up with it today together with Johan "Bambi" Wikström :P

Snowing heavily (it was very windy too)

Well, as I told you in my last post, we took part in "Kringelträffen" in Södertälje. I ran H21L, but just like a map-longjog at lower medium speed. The 13,2 km course was really nice with some technical parts. One big mistake at control Nr. 13. (-> I thought I am on the other path, which ends south-west of the control. Didn't recognise the green area and after recognising I thought it is the small marsh... stupid, I know...)

Results: http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/sv/default.asp?page=classes&databaseId=11244

Map with my routes:

finish area on Saturday with the new OK Tyr flag ;)

We were staying the two nights in SNO's clubhouse at Tvetagården. Saturday evening we cooked tacos with meet, chicken, green salad, tomatoes, paprika, onions and taco sauce. Delicious! :D

On Sunday we competed in the Måsenstafetten in Oxelösund/Nyköping. I ran the first leg in the first team. 2nd leg: Henric Brohede, 3rd: Oskar Siebeck (Anders Lindberg was injured), 4th: Jens Öström, 5th: Johan Wikström. The course lengths varied from 8,0 - 8,1 km, no spectator control, but a pre-warning 2-3 min. before the finish.

My race:
In general I had a lot of problems entering the control site. I very often lost direction shortly before the flag. In addition, I made a huge mistake at the 7th control, which cost med around 5 - 5:30 min. Now in detail: Starting from the first line I had no problems to cope with the speed in the beginning. As I mentioned before I had problems to keep direction. This started with the first control. It then happened again at controls 3, 9, 11 and 15. But control 7 was definitely my "highlight": After the leaving the long marsh after half of the leg, I didn't read the map for around two hundred meters and therefore I lost direction. At the knoll behind the big marsh I passed Nr. 43 (I needed 44, which was just 50 m to the right...). I thought I need to go more far and so I continued. Then I got completely lost in the area, because the marshes, green areas and small contour details were really diffuse. I couldn't relocate myself and so I decided to run to the east and try to see one of the rock faces. When I saw one, I thought it should be the most northern one (but I wasn't!). Adjusted compass and tried to attack the control again. Because I was too deep I didn't find it... Luckily - after some time - I saw the yellow, open hill, which finally guided me to the control. Lot of time was gone, the pulk was gone, concentration was gone... Anyway, I tried to focuse as good as I can. Except some parts, it worked out quite well.

Results: http://www4.idrottonline.se/templates/Page.aspx?id=234373

Map with my route:

Surprisingly, I met Klas Schagurk (-> see results :P) alias Klaus Schgaguler and Elisa Elstner (she is working as an au-pair in Uppsala and running for OK Linné) there. I was happy to meet Elisa again, as I haven't seen her for a long time :)

the muddy finish area on Sunday :D

Now I am leaving for the O-training at "Kronoparken". Vi ses i skogen! :)

Hemma igen (home again) ;)

2009-03-26T21:59:00.005+01:00

Warti is going to Sweden - or better was going: On Tuesday early afternoon I took the Ryanair-flight from Bratislava to Skavsta. I stayed a night in Nyköping at the Railway Vandrarhem, which is just next to the Central Station. It was really nice - cheap, nice rooms and cooking facilities. In the morning I did the first training, consisting of some warming up, running exercises and a short run. At midday I went by bus and train up to Karlstad where Tobias Öström alias Tobbe picked me up from the station.

In the evening it was getting serious then: Tyr's Allans prövelöp was on the schedule. A night race (for the younger ones a day-course), which is held every year some weeks before 10Mila. As always it was a mass-start. This time it was a 1:5.000 scale, I didn't understand why - but it was a fact.

The race itself
I started fast and took a "safety-route" to the first control. Then the butterfly started and I had exactly the same loops as Henric. After the first big butterfly a smaller onw was following. It was just one loop, but here we splitted up due to having different order of the controls. Heading for the last control in the butterfly I saw a light again - yes, it was Henric! We were together again. Shortly before the map change I was able to break away a bit. I was pushing hard, but at the 1st control we were together once more. On the long leg to the 5th I lost Henric and now I thought I will make it and maybe that was the mistake, because I should have taken the path - although it's much longer. Maybe I could have avoided my mistake then... At the last control I paced up again and so I won the race! :) Henric who is around 40 years old had a really good speed the whole race. I guess he can't run faster, but with that speed and making no mistakes it was hard to beat him! And as you can see here -> http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/sv/default.asp?page=table&databaseId=11227&categoryId=4&ct=true it were just 6 seconds.

1st part of the race (with my route)

2nd part of the race (with my route)

I stayed the night at Öströms place. Today I planned a short course on the home map "Almarskogen", which I ran in the morning. In the afternoon I went to town with Tobbe and Jens (Grevilius), followed by a track training in Våxnäshallen in the evening. I did a nice semi-hard session: 6 x 1.000m in 3:30 with a break of 3:30. The others from Tyr (around 20 people!) made another interval training.

Tomorrow I will do some O-training on "Skutberget" and a strength training. In the evening we are driving to Södertälje to run Kringelträffan on Saturday and Måsenstafetten in Oxelösund/Nyköping on Sunday. More from these events on Monday.

Good night and have fun :) Hej då!

O Intervals in Katzelsdorf

2009-03-24T19:07:00.009+01:00

Today our training group did a fast o-training in Katzelsdorf. Warti was already on his way to Sweden for a training camp with his club OK Tyr, so he was not participating.
Max prepared 6 short courses for us. They were mostly downhill and varied difficulty.
The task was to run up from the finnish of a course to the starting point, turn over the map and run down the course to the finnish.
We ran it in pairs due to 2 maps (A,B) starting from each starting point. So I ran with Kerschi all 6 intervals, which was quite hard. Especially uphill it was sometimes hard to hold his pace.
It was a very nice little competition with close contact and some crossings of the courses.
I think Kerschi won 4 of the 6 starts, but my gap was never really big, so I am quite satisfied with the training.
Now finally here are the maps:

2.396 ...

2009-03-20T11:25:00.005+01:00

... km I run a year? No, should be even more :)
... times I go to toilet a year? Could be, I don't know :P
... as a result of 12.840 divided by 4 minus 814? Yes, but not in this context ^^

... is the amount of steps I need to run uphill on the Türkensturz at medium speed (A2) :D

Today we (Thomas L. and me) did a muscular endurance training consisting of running up on the Türkensturz three times; A1 - A2 - A1. After the first time, it started to become boring, so we decided to count our steps. I counted until 100, said "hundred" and Thomas then counted the one-hundreds (100 = 1, 200 = 2, ...). 23 x 100 + 96 steps later we arrived on the Türkensturz :D
Considering the length of 2,4 km and the ascent of 245 highmeters, we made with an average 1-m-step an ascent of 0,1 highmeters.

Ok, well, enough mathematics now ;)

Türkensturz in summer

Lipica Open 2009

2009-03-16T19:12:00.014+01:00

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

ÖM Cross

2009-03-15T21:26:00.009+01:00

This Sunday Wolfi and Tobi took part at the Ausrian Cross-running championships held in Leoben, Styria. After a long winter without competitions or very fast track sessions it was time to put the spike shoes on and feel the high speed again. It was a quite warm day and the course was pretty dry and fast which dissapointed us a bit because the course looked quite easy and fast for us orienteers . Some track runners complained that the course was way to steep, but I guess they have very different measures.

At 13.10 we started our race at the end of the pack and took in many places on the first hill where some already paid for the fast starting pace. We took in quite many positions at the uphill and downhill parts and closed up to a group of about 6 runners after the first lap. When overtaking other runners I didn't pay attention for one second and so Wolfi got a little gap after attacking at a small hill after the start. After the second hill his gap got a bit bigger and I was fighting to hold his pace. After a good sprint by Wolfi he finished 6th in the U23 class 17 seconds before me on 11th place. We are both satisfied with our performances, finishing 1.10 and 1.27 behind some of the best track runners in Austria.
One highlight of the race was the performance of our National Team colleague Thomas Lang who sprinted to the top at the first 700 meters. He sure got some TV time for that :P, but after 700 he pretty much hit the wall and we caught him up after 1200 meters and he finished some minutes after us.
It was a really nice experience to run this event and I think the progress in our running shape is starting to show.
Our orienteering season will kick off with Tiomila in Sweden, where we will try to performe well for our swedish clubs.

Results

On top of the world

2009-03-11T18:12:00.009+01:00

Ok, well, I'm going to start with our posting around orienteering, training and just having fun ;)

My first post has nothing to do with orienteering in special, but with great alternative endurance training: Last Sunday I was ski mountaineering with my mum, dad and grandpa. We went on top of the Zwölferhorn, which is on 1.522 m a.s.l. and situated in St. Gilgen, a bit south-east of the city of Salzburg. It was the most beautiful skiing trip I ever had, with a more than sunny weather and around 12 degree centigrade :D I went around 1:40 h uphill (~ 1.050 hm) and some 20 min. down in nice powder snow. While my parents and my grandpa took it easy I captured the peak 2 times (went the whole way up, skied down to the half and went up once more). On top of the mountain I was rewarded with an overwhelming view over the mountains!

last meters to the top and south part of the Wolfgangsee

north part of the Wolfgangsee and Mondsee in the back

typical mountain range of the Pre-Alps

beautiful powder snow as far as the eye can see

the tired summiteers ^^

Christian Wartbichler

2009-03-11T17:09:00.019+01:00

Born: 20.12.1988 Orienteering since: 2001 Lives in: Seebenstein / Henndorf Profession: Professional Sportsman Club: SC ASKÖ Henndorf Orienteering (AUT)/OK Tyr (SWE) Coach: Markus Kössler / Richard Schuh / Richard Gathercole Best Results: EYOC 2006 Classic 1st, JEC 2006 Classic 1st, Austrian Championship Titles Sponsors: ÖBH, Sportvogl, Isostar, Intersport Eybl, Gasthof Gastagwirt, Petzl

About me:
I'm a 20-year-old professional sportsman and I'm employed at the Austrian Army. Compared to my friends I started relatively late with the wonderful sport of orienteering. It took me a lot of time and overcoming to try orienteering for the first time, because I had (and still have) much problems with my ankles. Soon I recognised that I can't go without orienteering and therefore I started professional and purposeful training with my coach Richi. After around two years the training began to pay off and first good achievements appeared. Without doubt, the most beautiful one was my victory in the EYOC longdistance 2006 in Slovenia, followed by the win in the JEC longdistance in Switzerland half a year later. Due to the great support by all of my sponsors, my swedish and austrian club and of course the Austrian Army I can focus on a more intensive and better training than ever and I'm hungry for new challenges. Let's see how the story continues ... :)

Wolfgang Siegert

2009-03-09T12:43:00.005+01:00

Born: 24.02.1988
Orienteering since: 1997
Lives in: Seebenstein / Klosterneuburg
Profession: Professional Sportsman / student
Club: WAT (AUT) / Göteborg Majorna OK (SWE)
Coach: Manfred Zeilinger / Markus Kössler
Best results: JEC Relay 2008 1st; JEC Middle 2008 3rd; JWOC Long 2008 24th, some Austrian youth titles
Sponsors: Bundesheer

About me:
I am also a 21 years old student of Business Engineering from Klosterneuburg near Vienna. Orienteering is a very big part of my life since I started at the age of 9. The first steps were difficult, but I stayed with the sport and it has become bigger and bigger over the years until now. At the moment I am employed at the Austrian Army as a professional sportsman.
My aims for 2009 are the qualification for WOC in Hungary as well as top placings at the Austrian Championships. For my new Swedish club Göteborg Majorna OK I'll try to perform well at Tiomila and Jukola.
Although my main support is by the Austrian Army (Bundesheer) I am always interested in new supporters to let me participate at international competitions around the world.

2009-03-08T20:23:00.007+01:00