Sunday, December 28, 2008

Winter camp in the mountains!

We reached Przesieka two days ago and since then have had some lovely trainings in a really beautiful surroundings. 'We' means: head coach Pasza, his right hand Jacek, our young couple - Ewa & Piotrek, lonely Marcin (Kasia and Łukasz are going to join us tomorrow), the most popular twin sisters in Polish orienteering - Beata and Kasia, the daughter of our club's president - Kalina, our ambitious club member - Kamil, our competitive juniors representing the young blood - Gwoździk, Gosia, Marko, Kluska, Zielu and me. 3 Ewiak sisters - Ala, Amelka and Nati arrived here yesterday from Berlin.

Since our arrival we already had 6 training sessions including easy running with stretching and short speed-ups (15,8km), 2 morning runs (together 13,2km), a running trip to Odrodzenie and Kamienie Śląskie (22,5km), easy running with stretching to cool down a bit (6,6km), running + stretching and speed-ups 11x75m, some strength exercises 4x50m (about 16,5km). This means we've done almost 75km so far. But don't think I wrote it to show off! I just want to give you some helpful motivation to win the New Year's Eve cross-country race.

I hope you train a lot there in Łódź and miss us a bit ;-)

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Control no. 43 lost forever...

Everything would have been perfect, if it hadn't been for the mysterious control no. 43. Unfortunately, no-one managed to find all the controls on the longest course because of the disappearance of this unlucky control. That's a pity!



Here are the results...

NORMAL

1. Marzena Kaźmierczak 34:10
2. Karolina Kordala 36:10
3. Zuzia Lech 37:15
4. Małgosia Kordala 39:10
5. Ola Filipowska 40:11
6. Kuba Pietek & Marcin Lufniak 45:15

SHORT

1. Szymon Pałka 58:55
2. Dawid Gąsiorek 64:52
3. Natalia Ścieszko 68:20
4. Jakub Mączyński (didn't he lose his card?!) 69:00
5. Karolina Hanuszkiewicz 70:19
6. Aneta Kaźmierczak 72:39
7. Ola Banaś 74:26
8. Agata Stankiewicz 75:57
9. Agnieszka Banaś 79:19
10. Natalia Bartczak 82:03
11. Agata Lech 85:05
12. Łukasz Rzeźnicki (8 controls missing) 51:30

LONG

1. Łukasz Charuba (4 controls missing) 66:55
2. Sebastian Markowiak (4) 75:52
3. Michał Kordala (4) 81:57
4. Paweł Byczuk (6) 41:04
5. Witek Jasiński (6) 47:20
6. Dominik Chudzik (6) 51:45
7. Kamil Student (6) 56:20
8. Bartłomiej Kubiak (6) 71:34
9. Jakub Michalik (6) 83:11
10. Maciej Michalik (6) 89:10

...sorry for the problems

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Christmas mess

First of all, I would like to begin with the tomorrow's technical training I organize together with Zielu. It's going to be a memory training from one control to another. We've prepared 2 such courses: long (5,87km, 12 controls) and short (4,04km, 9 controls). Don't think we have forgotten about younger and inexperienced orienteers - they are going to run a normal orienteering race of 2,85km and 7 controls. The place where we met is obviously our favourite 'Bar under the Larch'. The 00-minute is at 10 o'clock - be PUNCTUAL!
Here are the startlists...

LONG
01 - Maciej Michalik
04 - Amelia Ewiak
07 - Jakub Michalik
10 - Mateusz Połomski
13 - Michał Kordala
16 - Kamil Student
19 - Sebastian Markowiak
22 - Dominik Chudzik
25 - Witek Jasiński
28 - Łukasz Charuba
31 - Paweł Byczuk
34 - Jakub Chrustowicz

SHORT
00 - Ola Banaś
03 - Jakub Mączyński
06 - Natalia Ścieszko
09 - Dawid Gąsiorek
12 - Natalia Ewiak
15 - Szymon Pałka
18 - Agata Lech
21 - Natalia Bartosik
24 - Agnieszka Banaś
27 - Mateusz Miętus
30 - Beata Winczewska
33 - Karolina Hanuszkiewicz
36 - Aneta Kaźmierczak
39 - Kasia Winczewska
42 - Agata Stankiewicz

NORMAL
02 - Małgosia Kordala
05 - Karolina Kordala
08 - Ola Filipowska
11 - Zuzia Lech
14 - Marzenka Kaźmierczak
17 - two boys :-P
Hope 2 C U 2morrow! ;-)

Secondly, I'd love to mention our club Christmas Eve party on Friday. It was really wonderful to celebrate the greatest festival of the year with nearly all the members of our O-club. What's more, it's magnificent to have the brilliant SILVA compass again! The newest solo album of Rychu Peja is worth listening to as well.

Furthermore, I have a funny map riddle for you. On the map presented below there are 10 circles. In 5 of them there is a mistake. Find out the numbers of wrong circles and say what's actually wrong? E.g. a pasturage...



Finally, I would like to show you my yesterday's technical training. Unfortunately, only partly done with Zielu. The course wasn't different, it was created just to have a goal to reach while running.



Today I set my personal record in the number of kilometers run in an individual training week. It was almost 104km! I'm lovin' it :)

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Something more fascinating than running?

Yeah! But only today... Why? Between 3 and 5 p.m. my first practical driving lesson took place. It was really amazing to take the wheel and visit e.g. Konstantynów. That's a pity that a next session is coming not until next Saturday.

In the morning we had PoZnO competition and had a good time in Łagiewnicki forest. There were no tracks on the map and sometimes it was even plain. Unfortunately, as usual some problems occured due to the mistake on the NEW map! Nevertheless, it's no good crying over spilt milk - it was just a funny training :-)



Tonight the Gran Derbi of Europe! Barca against Real Madrid at Camp Nou! You canNOT miss it! Who's gonna win?

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Unexpected competition on Santa's Day

It was called 'I Łódzki Dwubój Biegowy' (the English translation for 'dwubój' is 'biathlon' - funny, isn't it?) and consisted of 2 races. The first one was an orienteering sprint distance race.



My aim was to gain as much advantage as possible since the second stage was going to be a cross-country race for about 2,5km with a handicapped start.



And I pretty managed! I started 15 seconds ahead of Zielu, which enabled me to win the whole competition and get a huge chocolate Santa Claus. ;-)
Then we made a short cross with a map and came back home to relax a bit - I slept really soundly after such a draining day and hardly managed to wake up to watch the football match from Premiership broadcast on Canal+!

For my trainings, last week was very demanding, I trained every day and ran over 100km. I am sure it's the only and right way to achieve what I really want and look for. Today's training session's gonna be 13th in a row and tomorrow the deserved break is expected to get ready for the coming 12 days!

Finally, there's one more thing I would like to add. Namely the prize won by our friend Ruda in the poll organised by World of O and Ultimate Orienteering. Congratulations:) You see, it was really worth voting!

Thursday, December 4, 2008

...last season's summary.

Because of having some time before today's training I decided to sum up my last year's sporting activity. I really like maths and am quite good at it (I think ;-P) - that's why I usually perceive almost everything in figures...
I considered training period between 12th November 2007 and 23rd November 2008. Here are the results of my hard calculation work:

weeks - 54
(6 of them - cooling down just after the season)
km - 2787,315
a weekly average - 51,62

days - 378
physical trainings - 136
technical trainings - 84
O-competitions - 71
(34 of them - abroad)
tests/running competitions - 8
days spent on sports camps - 148
(81 of them - abroad)
days without running - 113
(24 of them - during the cooling down period)

Some conclusions
it seems to be quite a lot... and surely it was. It enabled me to achieve 4 Polish Champs medals (out of 6) and miss the podium just 2 times at the most important competitions in Poland. What's more, I did not only qualify for EYOC, which had been one of the main goals for the past season, but also for JWOC, which I hadn't even dreamt of!
Nonetheless, was my performance during these two incredibly important and prestigious competitions satisfying enough? On the one hand, it was my debut and I could feel a bit stressed and inexperienced; on the other hand, I became a proud member of Polish Youth Team and my results should have been much better since it is a really responsible role of honour. In any case, I promise I'll take all pains to improve my strength and techniques next year.
I do believe this season was just a 'flyover' to the orienteering at highest world level. Certainly, it was a climax of my junior career, but I hope the real heights are still to come some day...

Monday, December 1, 2008

Great club training in the well-known terrain

Do you remember OOM 2006 in Spała? If not, just see the picture on the right and keep smiling ;-)

Map from the long distance? Yeah, this is the place we visited this Saturday to carry out a lovely technical training. The weather was really favourable and the attendance was pretty high.
However, it was not a normal training. The thing which made it different and more interesting from all the previous ones was the fact that there were no control flags on the controls - just a SI-card station on the metal stand. This forced us to keep the highest concentration level almost all the time.
Although there was no place for rivalry that day, some official results were published.



Last week I started tough physical trainings as well. The long 6-week rest after a very hard and demanding season for me was over on 23rd November. Now I am ready to train as much as possible to bright light next year.
On the right side of my blog you're able to see my preparations for the next season in figures. I'll try to fulfil them quite regularly.
I also believe I'll be free from serious injuries and illnesses to pursue my goals and make my dreams come true...

Tomorrow it's gonna be a really hard day for me since I am to play 2 school basketball matches and afterwards run 10km (4:15/km). But in fact, these are the days I live for!