Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! GOLD!!!

We had been trying to win the relay gold in Polish Championships for 4 years...
*2006 (M16 - Charubcia, Cilu and me) - I entered the forest first with a considerable advantage but was too weak mentally to keep the lead till the end, I finished 4th but the team from Chociw was disqualified and the bronze medal was a poor consolation...
*2007 (M16 - Tomek M., me and Cilu) - this time it was Tomek
who was too stressed to end his race in the first group and lost almost 7 minutes to the leaders on the first leg, I and Cilu did everything to stand on a podium and we did manage, bronze again...
*2008 (M18 - Charubcia, Cilu and me) - I was sent to the forest as the first runner in our class, however, I started only about a minute ahead of Rino and he caught me already at the 5th control, we ran together to the spectator control but just after it a worse forking came and I finished just some meters behind him, losing the gold only by 5 seconds!
*2009 (M18 - Witek, Cilu and me) - just take a look at the photos all around:)

There were lots of discussions about the 3rd person in our relay. Klusek or Witek? I must admit I was strongly in favour of the latter. And he did not disappoint me at all!
Already during his warm up I could se that he was fully concentrated. He started calmly and kept the leading group till the 2nd forking, where he had to take a much different route choice and go alone... and he was not afraid of doing it! That's the thing I expected from him most. Unfortunately, he lost touch with the first pack of runners and came to the finish 6th with a loss of almost 5mins. However, judging from my own experience it is much better when the 1st leg has the worst forkings;)
The 2nd leg consisted of 9 apprentices and 1 master. And luckily this master was from my team! Cilu had a brilliant race and came to the finish about 3:30 before Tukan Iwiny and almost 8mins ahead of the most dangerous team from Azymut Pabianice. That means that he won over 11 minutes with Groszek giving me a safe pole position for the last leg.
Just before my start in the changeover area I had an unpleasant situation with Olej showing too much self-confidence and claiming 'I will catch you boys'. What's more, he suggested we were too tense and we should have loosened up a bit. I wasn't able to keep my temper any more and growled 'Shut up!'. From the perspective of time I don't regret it at all.
I started really quickly, not knowing the exact time I could lose in the forest. What's more, I turned back much too often! However, in every moment of the race I was sure of our victory (with one exception only - explained later). Already at the first control I made a minor mistake due to some compass problems (0'15). That's why I hadn't checked the route choice to the next control before (0'03). I ran too much down the slope to the 3rd control (0'20). To the 4th control there was a better way to go using the track in the middle of the fields + wrong direction at the beginning of field running (0'15). To the 5th control I was really tired and lost much time just physically. The 6th control went as expected. To the 7th control I went too much to the left and made some extra meters (0'05). On the long leg I took a safe but extremely fast route choice and it was a magnificent decision! The 9th control went perfectly. The 10th control was the one I was afraid of most! Nevertheless, all the time I saw Marian some distance ahead of me and he punched this control just some seconds before helping me find it much quicker than I could have expected;-) I took the wrong direction leaving this control + some hesitance before the 11th catching sight of a long ditch crossing the huge ravine (0'15). Then, a time came for the spectator control (0'02) and I took the opportunity to ask my overjoyed teammates if I was able to cross this yellow field with black dots. I heard 'You can!' and ran up the hill as soon as possible. Now I am going to describe the aforementioned exception: I showed my great stupidity to the 13th control choosing a straighter and 'faster' route choice and lost more than 2 minutes! (2'10). It was the time when I started thinking of Wojtek and Olej. I was sure I would have killed myself if they had caught me because of this awful mistake. Fortunately, I could have spent 5 minutes more in the forest and we would still have won these relays easily. I had to find some hidden power to run at full speed to the 14th control as I was still thinking of the previous disaster. I looked for the control in the left re-entrant first (0'01). I went too much to the left to the last control (0'10), but even better because I was able to spend 10 seconds more in this wonderful forest tasting our superb victory:) I ran to the field and immediately saw a whole group of my club friends and shouted to them 'Eee! First?'. I heard the most beautiful answer in the world 'YEEEEEES!'. I punched the last control precisely and started jogging at the finish. My sweetest dream was being fulfilled! Witek and Cilu joined me in the middle of the run-in and we could end this relay together hearing people clapping their hands loudly.



That's the place where I would love to congratulate our SILVER GIRLS: Ruda, Gosia and Nati. I love you sooo much! Oh, maybe not love, like 2 of you very much (I suppose and hope Nati will read this post:D) and love one and the only one:-)

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