After disappointing EOC testraces in Ticino and therefore «only» EOC reserve in Neuchâtel, it was time to switch back to forest orienteering in very nice and steep Czech terrain.
The last 1.5 weeks before travelling to Czech were not going great, a pretty bad lung function test (probaply because of pollen) and I had to deal with a small but really annoying hamstring injury. At least again one lesson learned: 1h high jump and javelin, plus one lap running and two strides are not enough warm up for testing how fast I can run a 1k. Nevertheless for the weekend in Czech my leg was more or less fine again (lucky me;)).
So I didn’t expect much because forest was really not my main goal for this year and my shape was as described before far from perfect. But the feeling in the two trainings before the middle actually gave me back some of my confidence
The first middle went pretty well (despite a 1′ mistake to control 3 which you see on the map below). But the feeling physically was still really bad. So I was happy and also a bit surprised about my 11th spot. In the afternoon my race was even better, but as the terrain was also a lot easier, and the others didn’t do as many mistakes as in the morning, it resulted in almost the same (9th place). Also I fell pretty hard on the way to the 9th control and my toe, calf and hamstring were now in a really bad condition (It almost sounds like I was the oldest running there;)). First I wasn’t sure if I want to kill myself on Sunday with the hardest long I’ve ever done.
But as Sunday morning came there was no doubt I wanted to run this long. The race then started pretty unconcentrated… To the first control I already took two wrong turns (luckily they cost me only some seconds). But with a good middle part and two really good routes I was even in the fight for top 4 and a WOC place. But after the 13th control not much was going right…. Wrong route to 14 and two stupid 1′ mistakes to 18 and twenty. Physically I was keeping a really good pace till the end, even though my hamstring didn’t allow me to push at the limit on the streets. In the end an 8th place is really good for my first elite long test but still these mistakes bother a bit…..
So conclusion of this whole weekend: 11., 9., 8. You can perform well even though you think you are a wreck;). Looking foward now to some more forest competitions and a training camp in Idre in one month. (Oh yeah and some exams till then…..)
