Another scorelauf and JWOC 4 years later...

Firstly, I must admit the party was really cool and I had a really good fun till 5:30. The details, I think, are inappropriate to publish on this blog. However, now it's time to come back to normal life and my daily routine called... running!

So-called scorelauf from the mountain (yesterday)

I hadn't thought we could manage to attend this training after only 3 hours of sleeping but we DID! And for that reason we are the true winners!

As far as the training is concerned, I made almost the best route choice (5,43km) but almost makes a great difference. I should have taken control no. 31 at first and finish my course with the leg 40-39. This way (330m shorter) was chosen by Piotrek and Kamil who beat me by about a minute.

My running speed was quite high. I hadn't thought I would be able to run that fast after such a night. My biggest mistake (2 minutes) appeared at control number 40. Unfortunately, I can't say why I made it. Probably my brain was just too tired and lazy to think after about half an hour of strong running (having had only 3 hours' rest). Then I lost my motivation and slowed down very much. I couldn't really feel my legs working at all. They became so heavy that I had problems carrying them!

My running time was about 34:40. Taking into account my tiredness, huge mistake and not the best way taken, I think the time of 30 mins was within the reach of my legs.



JWOC 2004 (Gdynia, POL) middle distance final

Jacek didn't want to be worse than me and organised a nice training for me today. We ran the middle distance final from the JWOC 2004 in Gdynia.

Jacek started 10 minutes ahead of me to hang white A4 sheets of paper where the real controls should be situated. Ula was with us there as well and helped to gather those 'controls' afterwards. We left no rubbish in the forest!

Unfortunately, that was the worst day after the party. Although I slept 3 times longer, I felt at least 5 times worse than yesterday. As for the technical aspects I must admit it's a quite tough type of terrain here. It becomes really easy after couple of trainings but for the first time after over 2 months it turned out to be very difficult.

The course parameters were 4,61km long and 230m up-hill. My running time was 37:31 and Jacek's one was 29:34 (he ran this course for the second time now) while the winner's (Audun Bjerkreim Nilsen from Norway) time was about 27 minutes.

My pulse rate was really high as for me (avg 176, max 187) and it only stems from my enormous tiredness, not my fast pace.

Below you can see today's map and the deep analysis of each control.



S-1
I think I chose the best possible way. I could only shorten it a bit by avoiding running to the path's bend. Unfortunately, several metres before the control a group of boars whizzed in front of me and I got a little bit scared.

1-2
I confused the re-entrants. I thought that I was already on the right spur. If there had been no ditch there, I would have lost much more time!

2-3
There were two possible ways to reach the control and as you can see on the map both of them were used during the today's training. Jacek's one meant running further from the red line but almost no up-hill running and easier part of the map to read. I must admit it was immensely better!

3-4
No problems finding the control but lots of dry branches lying disorderly on the ground made me run too much to the left from the third control.

4-5
Really easy control. Normally I would choose the same way as Jacek did but today I was probably so tired that I wanted to avoid as much up-hill running as possible.

5-6
I lost accurate contact with the map just some 30 metres before the control but fortunately easily gained my concentration back.

6-7
Nothing special. The easiest control of the whole course.

7-8
There was one small path more there. I thought that's the one I had to cross and started looking for the control too early. But that's NO excuse! I should have looked much more on the contours.

8-9
Good one for me;)

9-10
If I had run as Jacek did (I mean the fact that I ran too much to the left about 100m before the control), it would have been a perfect route choice!

10-11
After beautiful white forest it also came time for some struggling with the horribly green forest.

11-12
Jacek had known there is a new track just some meters east from the control. I hadn't...

12-13
Looking at the split times, it was my best control of that course. It was a kind of central Poland's running (so flat), maybe that's why...?

13-14
I forgot I was not in Sweden, where such marshes are easy to run through, and my legs got drowned (to the knees). Furthermore, I hadn't checked the control description and didn't know it was a tower. It made me feel a little bit unsecure just before the control.

14-F
It was extremely hard for me to force myself to run at the highest speed but Jacek did his best to help me:)

Jacek's (JWOC 2008 middle distance gold medalist, click on his name to check this out!) short summary:
Having run this course in May, I wanted to make it better by avoiding mistakes I had made that time. The first step was to choose another route choice to 1st control and this time it was successful (in May I missed there about 0'45). The next controls were really nice (especially the long one to number 3) until number 6 where I missed about 10 seconds. 9th control was another 0'10 left, but the final part of the course was almost perfect. To conclude, I am really happy with my performance, because I managed to avoid big mistakes (which was not difficult when running the course the second time :-). However, I know that I am a little bit slower than in May because of the JWOC gold medal race ;-).
When it comes to Podzio, I am not disappointed with his performance, because he is really tired this weekend (after a hard night training on Friday) and I hope it was a good lesson for him which will result in better races in the future.