soon finished...

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

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

ÖSTM Relay

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

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

CISM in Võru/EST

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

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

ÖSTM Long distance

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

TCT - TrainingCamp Trondheim

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

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

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

WOC Middle Qualification

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

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!