NK Long 2012

After a long breake of not writing anything I decide to write this small report of the NK long which was held in the Northern part of NL. Near the village called Appelscha. Small a cozy atmosphere together with a nice terrain and good route planning made it a great sunday.

I began my race quite messy, mostly because I was a bit too late for the start. After 8 controle I recovered from all the "stress" and could continue in stable and secure style orienteering. Map. Result.

Some interesting facts of the race:

1-9 average running speed ~ 5'00'', average orienteering speed 7'10''
9-F  average running speed ~ 4'40'', average orienteering speed 4'55''

Average on the whole race: average running speed ~ 4'49'', average orienteering speed 5'15''

Tommorow together with Niels Peter Foppen and his brother Wouter Foppen we will give a fight to the belgium elite on their ground. Belgium championships relay near Brussels is the place to fight.

Small jorney to Denmark.

It took me a few hour to write this shit, but, yeah, here it is. The Danish spring!

Thanks to my Belgium friends for giving me a ride to the first edition of the Danish Spring. Every year this competition becames smaller and smaller. Anyway, I participated in two competitions: middle mass start and relay.

Mass start. The concept was unclear. How do you create a forking  to 150 people on the mass start on the middle distance?  I knew it will be just running and it was just running. About the race itself - I felt me like shit from the  first step I ve made in the forest. Maybe it is because of the long ride to Denmark. Maybe because I was so happy to see my teammates from SAIK that I didn’t do warming up properly.  I felt me so bad on the first part that I missed a few controls as well. 50 place is the best I could do this day. The hilarious thing I did the same mistake twice on the only leg we had twice. 

Results

Map

Relay. Our team ve got the number 66. Mostly because of that we decided to give our team the name “Beast”.  I ve got the honour to run first leg.  With the knowing of terrain from yesterday I knew it will be fast. So this time I did good long warming up.

So 9:29 am, I (the beast number 1) am standing in the third or fourth row waiting to start signal. Start,  first 10 or 20 seconds was not looking at the map, I was carefully gaining some position on the very beginning, on the way to the starting point, which was 200 meters from the start line. After that I decided to look at the map. No surprise, It is an easy course. Come baby, RUN!!!

First one – ok. Second – shit, missed. Standing still, looking for the answers in the map. After some thinking realised where I was and successfully took the control. Third one – speed up baby, FASTER. After this decision, red lamps where burning in my eyes. I was running on the limit till the very end.  However after a few controls I came closer so I saw the leading guys again. It gave me some strength.  The funny one on this course, except the fact I was physically suffering, was that the famous  F.  Gonon was passing me three times on the course. It was defiantly not his day.  On the last forking the leading group has done some mistakes which gave me the opportunity to come closer. Stupid mistake after the spectator control at least 20 sec and I am again at the same distance from the leaders. Anyway, I finished on 10-th position 40 seconds behind the leader. Good job. The beast number two is good to go. Eventually the beast team became 13 th. )))

Results

Courses

"Great weekend"

Last weekend I was in Belgium again. This time I was participating selection races for the Belgium national team. Together with Olle Karner and Andreas Kraas we were, so to speak, additional runners (not competitive). We ran two races: middle and long.

Middle. After two controls I ve met Olle who was starting 2 minutes before me. Some controls together, than I ve decided to make some mistakes on the 8 and 9, so I could run alone again. It went well, I lost almost 50 seconds on this two controls.  The butterfly went well, except some small hesitations on (16 actually it was 12, I had a different course than the owner of the map Yannick) and on 12 ( for me 18-th). On the butterfly control met Olle again. That was quite a surprise, obviosly he couldnot without me. But than, suddenly, I felt me so strong, that I ran wrong direction to the control 22. 

The winner, Fabien Pasquasi, was too strong for me to beat. So I am quite happy with second position on this one. However, I did twist my ankle which affected my performance on long very much.

splits
results 

Long. My ankle became much bigger that day than usual but I still could walk. I thought: if I can walk , than I can run as well.  I did a nice long training. I was running competition speed only on flat and slightly uphill terrain. On the steep slopes up or down and every downhill I was running very carefully because of the injury the day before.I see no need to post the my route choices cause I wasnot running full capacity so only the  Yannick Miechels' Map.  Next weekend Danish Spring.

Results

P.S. On the way back home some stupid fucker stole my fucking bag with all orienteering equipment. However, I would love to see his face, when he opened the bag with smelly shoes and t-shorts.... What a disappointment for me and for him.

NK middle

Dutch champion, woooow!!!!!!!! Anyway, I was not the best that day. A lot of work  to do on my orienteering. Just look at the routechoises (18, 21, 28 - embarrassing!!). This weekend another competion -  will work on those mistakes.

results
splits
The routechoises in red are from the winner Yannick Miechels.

BK middle

The first official start of 2012. For my feeling, I did a quite good race. Afterwards, though, it was quite embarrassing performance. Even I did a competition the day before. No orienteering flow, no confidence, no strength, no speed, only a will (at least that) However, I knew – I could not expect anything from myself at that moment. The good thing is that I ve got a lot of the motivation for the rest of the season. Another good thing is that I am enjoying orienteering again!!! The last is, I think, the most important for me.

splits

My route is red, the another one is Olle Karner's route.

Sylvester 5. day 2 WRE.

I wanted only to say that it was a very easy course. However, maybe because I didnot do any competition since 1 month, I did some mistakes in the begining (3'30" or so). I was planning to run 3d and 4d stages but I didnot. No motivation after this race. Next competition will be somewhere in ... march maybe. So don't waste your time visiting this blog  untill march or so. Unfortunatly no route (forgot my GPS at home)
Results
Splits

Almost perfect race.

Nice terrein, nice route. Thanks John and HOC93! Results