Haiming - a real challenge

Today I drove to Haiming (Tyrol) where the 8. RLL was held. The rest of the club ran the Austrian Relay Championships on Saturday. I didn't take part because I wanted to relax just one day and doing nothing else and secondly because of a leck of sleep. If this 8.RLL would have been somewhere else I probably wouldn't go there, but: Haiming is something special: very detailed conturs, many many stones - it's almost like Scandinavia.
In the M20 category we were just 3 runners (Mani and Phil were missing) - a sad fact in general, but good for me to reach my first podium this year. But life is a bitch, and I didn't even manage this! I punched a wrong control (103) instead of control 102 because I just did not read correctly. By the way - number 102 was the first control in this race!
So I ran the whole course (9km) without any real big mistakes but at a slower pace as normal (it was really more difficult then a normal race in Austria)

Punching the finish control my time as M20 runner was over. There are 2 more ranking events left, but I can't take part.
What my future as orienteer brings? I will run in Venice this year again (this is the very very last competition in M20) and for next year I don't know. If I train enough I want to run M Elite, but for this it's really necassary to train hard. At my recent level I will run M21 Long.

O-weekend in Burgenland

Last weekend (9+10 Sept) the austrian o-scene met in Rauchwart (Burgenland) for 2 competitions - namly the Bundesländerstaffel on Saturday an the Austrian Long Championships (8.RLL) on Sunday. I know that I'm a little bit late with this post, but because of my stay in Innsbruck I had no time to write it sooner.

Bundesländerstaffel:

First a little instruction about what this relay is exactly. We do not start for our club, but instead for our region, together with other clubs in Salzburg. On relay team consists of 5 members (at least 2 female). Every leg is for different categorys so that there run youngsters, seniors and elites. The best 3 teams of each region count for the final results. Got it?
We (Salzburg) won this relay last year and also had the fastes team, but this year we had a big handicap. 6 elite runners (the best we have) were missing because of work, illness and injuries.
So I had to make the anchor man (the leg for M Elite) of team Salzburg 4. My team colleagues were Leo, Alexandra, Margit and Roland. When Roland handed over to me our team was the 3rd team of Salzburg (I don't know the overall position). The 5,6km course was not really challenging, it was more running than orienteering. I did quit well (just one mistake to control 7) and managed to pass some teams. At the finish our team was ranked 20th (number 3 of Salzburg - so we counted for the overall result).
As predicted our region had no chance this year. We just made it to rank 5, our fastest team was on place number 4.

Results

8. Ranglistenlauf

The following day it was time for the 8. RLL this year which was also the Austrian Long Distance Championships for the elite classes. After yesterdays run I had a quite positiv feeling and I felt like I could run (not just jogging) the whole distance (9,5km with 300m climbing). But it did not work - both - physical and technical.
Control 1 was ok, but to C 2 I was not sure for the first time and lost some time. But it came even worse. In the detailed area around C3 I lost some 2-3 minutes (oh, I hate this kind of terrain). The next one was ok and to C5 - Ladies and Gentleman, I proudly present - BEST TIME. On my way to C7 I felt my legs getting tired and heavy, but I still tried to push myself. To C8 I lost another 2min and to C9 Ernst and Mani caught me (6 and 12min). Now I really thought: "Why should I exhaust myself anymore?" The last 9 controls I did not really fast, including a big mistake of 4-5min at C14.
I finished 20min behind Mani. Quite disapointing....

Results

Training Camp in Lungau

From August 31st - Sept 3rd I took part in a little training camp in Mariapfarr (Lungau) which was organized by my club an included the Salzburg Relay Championships on Saturday and the Salzburg Championships on Sunday.


Training:
The first session took place on the map "St. Andrä - Passeggen" - a small but beautiful terrain. To sum up the training: I felt like a bloody beginner! It's unbelievable how many and which mistakes I made. So I was smashed back to reality. 2,5 months without orienteering is definitely not good for your skills...
The second session this day took place on the map "Bannwald" - nothing special.

Friday began with a little test competition for the following Relay Championships. We used the map "Niederrain" - also a very beautiful terrain with some marshes and open areas. Mani an Me won ahead of Wolfi and Luki. Let's say my 2 runs were ok, but I have to be very carful in the green parts of a course.
In the afternoon we did some training for our brain. Have a look on the map, learn how to get to3 or 4 controls by heart and then find them with what you remember. Luki, Wolfi and Me made a little photo session instead *g*

What I got from training?
I can trust in my orienteering skills again (at least most of the time) and 2 blisters.

Competition:

The Relay was held on the map "Niederrain" (a different part as the training yesterday of course). One team consists of 2 members, who run 2 loops of about 3km. My partner was Markus "Kungän" König.
He was the one to run at the beginning and managed to do quit well. He overhanded me the map on 4th position just some seconds behind the leading team. I also started well and always had contact to my rivals. But than I made a stupid mistake to control number 9 which cost me 2 minutes. I reached the finish in 5th position and a gap to the teams in front of us. Now it was up to Markus to fight back again.
What followed? He (and afterwards me) made big mistakes on our loop an finished in 6th place.

Results: http://www.ol-sbg.at/sc/SC-2006/res_staffel06.html

On Sunday the Salzburg Championships was held on a brand new map named "Fernwald". Next year there will be an austrian ranking event on this map. The M19 category was 6,3 km.
I am very satisfied with my run today. After a long time I did not make any bigger mistake. In the middle of the course I caught up to Mani and Wolfi and even managed to break away from them. But Phil also overtook me (he started 2 minutes behind me).
Unfortunately I am in no good shape, so I loose much time because I can't run as fast as I was able to do last year. In the end I finished in 5th place, 8 minutes behind the European youth champion Warti.

Ergebnisse: http://www.ol-sbg.at/sc/SC-2006/res_6sc06.html