Last selection races for WOC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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