Jeg suger kuk.

That's one of the most important Norwegian expressions and it means 'I have been to the shower'. ;)

There were some highlights of the preseason after coming home from Portugal. Let me write something about them.

'The fat wixxxa, Agata and Witek's sweet 18th' - got a bit cold afterwards and had problems with my Achilles tendon. 2 in 1 is always better than 1 in 1 :)

Short camp with Raumar in Dresden (Germany) - 4 trainings and 2 competitions in just 3 days. 63km altogether, quite exhausting, must admit... I managed to take the 2nd place in unofficial German Night Champs (not really championships, but the most important night competition in Germany throughout a year). However, the O-performance was quite poor during the race.

Mixed long course in Barkowice - a very nice and fast technical training. Well... technical might be a too big word. Physical, let's say :)

Mecsek Kupa in Hungary - a two-day competition with WRE long distance as the second stage. 14,8km and 710m of climb. Not yet prepared for that kind of challenge!

Polish University Cross-Country Championships - didn't feel well before the race (some stomach problems), but tried to do my best and had a very steady and solid race. 32nd place (4 places up comparing to the last year's result). The course was the same, but the weather was much worse, awful!

TIOcamp in Sweden with Raumar - great chance to develop technically (it was my main focus). I am really satisfied with the technical shape in Sweden. I am not sure if the terrain was easier than the ones I had tried orienteering in Sweden earlier or I've just become a better orienteer in this type of Scandinavian terrain? Hope it's the second version.

How to do it?

NIGHT


                                                                                         DAY

How to mess it up?

Unfortunately, I got a bit ill due to freezing weather and icy marshes there in Sweden. I took 3 days off and on Friday I had my first easy jog. On Sunday I competed in the 10k street race. Nice topic for another post;-) Afterwards I headed for Szklarska Poręba for a short physical camp with Dominik and in just some days the first nice 3-day competition in Poland is about to begin. Really looking forward to it!

O-pleasure...;-)

The last stage was my best race this week! The terrain was brilliant! I just love these sink holes - they're so easy and nice to orienteer:) I made just 3 minor mistakes: looking for the 4th control too early, doing too much climbing to the 5th control and running too high before the 8th control. I was 3rd and lost 1:28 to Olej who had an almost clear race but he must have pushed much harder than me. What's more, I could have felt really tired after having competed in 17 races during 19 days!

Too fast and got furious:-D

On Saturday in the evening I took part in a nice Microsprint competition. Just before the start we had thought it was going to be very easy but we hadn't known how wrong we had been! The courses turned out to be extremely fast and I passed everything on the map so quickly...
I didn't manage to qualify for the final because of an over-a-minute-mistake to the 11th control. However, the organizers prepared more maps and we were able to run the Men's Final course as well. There was only one difference - we had no control point (9th) in the fountain!;)

The biggest hangover in my life!

The 5th stage of Hungaria Cup 2009 was a long distance. It was no good news for me because I think I had never felt so bad in my life before! The reason for this feeling was the so-called 'Day of my life' the previous day. I must say that vomiting just before the race is not a funny experience... AT ALL!
That day I fought to... survive in the forest. I did not run, I just walked and lost only some 45 minutes to the winner. Technically, my race was almost perfect; I made only one mistake while leaving the 11th control;)

However, shaking hands with Dwojager and hearing that I am his greatest fan was an unbelievable award for me:-)

AMAZING RELAY!

I know that relay competitions are very interesting and gripping all the time, but I could not have expected such emotions! And there was not only one reason...

Firstly, a dream race of Wojtek Dwojak on the first leg coming 6th to the finish only some 20 seconds behind Dmitry Tsvetkov from Russia. Then, on the result list we could see that Wojtas was 5th because the Russian runner was disqualified! And the new leader was Pavel Gvozdev from... Israel! However, this DSQ turned out to be a mistake made by organisers' computers and the Russian runners were in the game again, fortunately;)
Then, some bad luck in the forest and a worse, longer forking for Banan and 14th place after 2nd leg.
Finally, the last deciding leg! I hope everyone knows now what happened in the forest. Martin Johansson from Sweden got injured and 3 runners stopped to help him. These heroes were Thierry Gueorgiou from France, Anders Nordberg from Norway and Michal Smola from the Czech Republic. They gave up fighting for the medals and saved Martin's life! I think the very whole world is proud of You! Matthias Merz, who was some minutes behind, didn't see them and went on to the finish. Having had a really brilliant race (the best time of all!), he secured the gold medal for Switzerland. However, they didn't actually want this title and I am not surprised at all. The next runners came to the finish afterwards and a real struggle for the 6th (diploma) place began! There were 5 challengers but only one of them could win. Kowal punched the last control as the second one and started a magnificent, incredibly fast and strong finish. When he was passing a large group of Polish supporters (me amongst them), we already knew he was going to win the race just some meters ahead of the rivals. Nevertheless, these 'some meters' were so important for us all!

CONGRATULATIONS POLAND!

Fabulous sprint in Miskolc!

The terrain of the sprint race during the 4th stage of Hungaria Cup was absolutely brilliant! I just love this kind of sprints! It was a great fun to run (quite:P) fast in the streets of Miskolc. I enjoyed my every move and even making mistakes made me happy:) Even happier because thanks to it I could spent more time on this wonderful course:D and the place (2nd, just some 28secs behind Mate) is surprisingly high as well...:-)

Cilu, do you remember this map?;-)

The arena of the 3rd stage was well-known for me. I hope some of my friends from M16 class 2 years ago know why:)

What about my race... it was quite good comparing to the previous ones. I made only one mistake bigger mistake of about 1 minute to the 4th control. Although I didn't feel strong physically that day, I am quite satisfied with my performance and believe in myself a bit more again!

My technique sucks!

The first 2 stages of Hungaria Cup 2009 were ones of my worst races during this season.

On the 1st day I started incredibly fast. Unfortunately, the 2nd control was one of the two controls on the whole course (2nd and 5th) where you just had to slow down a bit. Of course, I did NOT do it and lost almost 6 minutes!!! Then, my only goal was to finish the race...
(map: HK 2009 1st stage and WOC 2009 middle qual)

The next stage was carried out on WOC 2009 long qual map and it was a long distance race for us as well. I wanted to calm down and run a bit slower in order to read the map precisely and got to know that my mistakes are not caused by my running speed. So by what?! I don't really know it yet... Just look at the controls: 1st (nearly 2mins lost), 8th (more than 3') and 13th (more than 2'). What's more, I took the wrong route choice to the 7th control, but ran pretty fast and lost only 50secs. I don't count all the smaller mistakes...