Season Summary (part 1)

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

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

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!

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

Maps

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

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

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

Results

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

I want it stony!

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

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

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

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

Austrian Cross Champs

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

Results individual

1st Special-Elite Privat-TL

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

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

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

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