I am a man born to run JWOCs...

I ran only 6 JWOC races (all distances in Sweden and middle in Poland) this year, so the time came to take part in the 7th one! Now it was turn to finish the long distance race from the Polish Junior World Orienteering Championships 2004 in Gdynia. Of course I took it as a training, not a competition and my pace wasn't the fastest possible.

It was a really demanding course, not only physically but also technically. Moreover, I felt quite tired after almost 2 weeks of training in Ustka and while running this course I even thought of giving up... But I am not that type of guy!

As you probably expect, below you can see the deep analysis of each control. What's more, I even managed to find Michal Krajcik's [SVK] route choices. He was also 17 years old while competing in Gdynia and took the 29th place! His running time was about 78-79 minutes. The whole race was won by Matthias Merz from Switzerland (72:19) - the runner with black curly hair standing next to me on the main photo above.



1. - 0'10

I think Krajcik chose the best possible way to reach the control. Mine wasn't that bad but it could be better!

2. - :)

The same route choice, Michal only ran too much to the left just before the control.

3. - 0'45

His decision was definitely better. I just lost important power from my legs while climbing up 20 meters more and was simply slower! I started looking for the control in the earlier ditch as well.

4. - :)

Really interesting leg! He chose more running (but faster and no contours to cross) and I preferred to run slower and up-hill (but less). His split time was 7' or 8' + something while mine was 7 and a half. I think both ways were fairly similar but in my opinion he could have saved much energy thanks to his clever (?! - what do you think?) decision.

5. - :)

Nothing special, except for the fact that he had something to drink there ;-)

6. - :)

Exactly the same...

7. - 0'10

I was too careful, I should have just followed the red line as he did. Why? He had the point situated in the forest, I didn't :-P

8. - 1'30

Don't you think I was that foolish! I wanted to run exactly the same as Krajcik did but suddenly a fence appeared in front of me (the map is already 4 years old) and I had to go around...

9. - 0'30

I tried to go closer to the red line but using the path on the left must have been better! There was even a ribbon above that hollow :-)

10. - 0'05

Simple route choice and easy control. 5sec... why? There was a fence just before the point; luckily the point was outside!

11. - :)

I am sure his choice was worse.

12. - :)

One more drink for him, probably...

13. - 1'00

Yeah... the next fence in the terrain :-/ and a wrong decision made 300m before the control.

14. - 0'30

Michal made it a little bit better and I had some problems finding the right place standing just next to it.

15. - 1'00

If I could run this leg for the second time, I would choose Michal Krajcik's route choice.

16. - 0'10

I was in the right re-entrant but thought that mine is the next one and ran unnecessarily some meters more...

17. - 1'00

I was scared of the coming fence and crossed the green area, then I made several contours up which was completely silly! (look at Krajcik's map)

18. - 1'00

I did NOT actually find this hollow, it's doubtful if it still exists?

19. - 0'15

Look at the 16th control's description.

20. - 2'00

My pre-start goal was to run about 90 minutes. I saw it would even be possible to go under this magic boundary and 'found' this control one track earlier...

21. - :)

Point for M10 =)

F - :)

I looked forward to running through the lovely, grassy meadow but some agricultural work had been done there...

Total mistakes: 10'05.

I must say I am really proud of myself that I finished this tough race. I am sure it will bring enormous benefits in the future, especially at JWOC 2011 in Wejherowo.

Grand Prix Pomorza 2008 and foxoring

The first meters of the first stage...

GPP 2008 took place in Warcino. It is a nice and picturesque region which offered 3 fairly different O-maps. I must admit I really liked them all! Unfortunately, there were not so many competitors in each class, especially mine. I would even say it was a disaster to have only 4 other runners to struggle with... I don't intend to hide that my goal at this competition was to win each of the 3 stages and the overall classification as well. However, there was one small problem I had to cope with - my stomachaches which forced me to get a DSQ at two previous GPPs. Luckily, this year they just didn't occur! Third time lucky :-)

1st stage - middle (3,570km)

I had known it was going to be a very similar course to the first day at Baltic Cup 2008. I only wanted to avoid the mistake I made about 3 months ago. My mind was too hot and I missed over 2 minutes at the first control. This time my aim was to reach the first point perfectly and then just control the whole race... and I did it! It was one of the best courses (if not the best one) I ran this year. I left only about 30sec in the forest.
There was one more thing I really enjoyed while running that day - the very end of the course was situated in a nice park, which let me speed up and made me feel as if I was running a sprint distance race.



2nd stage - long (7,790km)

Probably I didn't really believe I could have had 2 brilliant races in a row because this performance was full of small and unnecessary (I know it sounds amusing but I was so brainless that day!) mistakes. There were only 2 controls (of 15!) + finish which were satisfying enough for my excessive ambitions. It is far too little...



3rd stage - shortened long (6,540km)

It was a comical race, just look at the map below. Is everything alright with the course? I don't really think so... Two controls (no. 4 & 10) are mixed up. While punching the third control I noticed that fact immediately. What would you do in this situation? Follow the red line or the numbers?! Of course I followed the line and it was the only right way to go. I think everyone should remember it but... in fact, if it had been Polish Championship, the whole race would probably have been cancelled.



Warcino Cup in radioorienteering - foxoring

That was something absolutely new for me. I heard about this type of orienteering many times but never had the opportunity to take part in it. In the afternoon after the second day of GPP my dream (not really...:-p) came true.
Foxoring is the easiest form of radio-O. It's a kind of scorelauf with a normal orienteering map. There is only one difference - the controls are not precisely marked on the map. There are only some big circles in which you have to look for your control with the help of a special radio equipment.
After my first experience in radio-O I am sure it's not the kind of discipline I would be fond of competing in. Why? There are 2 easy reasons:

• you're not the master of the whole course, you are not independent, you have to rely on your equipment and have much luck;
• orienteering - I love this game! simple? ;-)

Nevertheless, as the form of entertainment and relaxing from 'normal' orienteering radio-O is worth recommending!



What I achieved...
...and a red boxing punching bag.

Holiday camp in Ustka

This was a kind of a sport camp especially for young children, who have to learn the very basics of orienteering and for some a little bit more experienced runners to improve their skills. I think (and hope!) we belonged to the second group. I don't really think that trainings were tough enough to satisfy my legs and brain but it was a great opportunity to take some beneficial rest after really demanding 2 months of strong running in Norway, Sweden, Czech Republic and Switzerland...

Unfortunately, this camp's trainings can be easily divided into two parts. Why? 2 maps mean 2 parts...

Fast running through the white

The first and friendlier for orienteers map was bordered by a Baltic See. It was quite rich in details as far as contours and knolls are concerned. The biggest advantage of this map was its pretty good runnability. That was like the Eden for my legs, which really screamed for flying through the forest, not high-jumping like in Switzerland.

Bushy and marshy...

The latter map was fairly boring and didn't give so much pleasure. Fortunately, our trainings were really sophisticated there and didn't make me sleep while running ;-)

To conclude...

Not so many kilometers run but a great amount of time spent on laughing. As several times I played a role of a teacher, I hope I made the young competitors understand the basics and simply love orienteering!

No words needed...

Aargauer 3-Tage-OL 2008

Just before I left home for Switzerland I had checked the course parameters for this competition. The first stage was about 4-5km and the last two ones about 7,5km, so I was prepared for a middle distance and two shortened long distance races. However, you must take into account that I checked the class I am used to running in, that is M18... but during our O-camp it turned out that all older boys are bound to run in HAL (men's elite). Don't think I was anxious or sad about it! I was delighted I would have the opportunity to spend more time in Swiss forests and just learn more:-)

1. Etappe [German version] - middle (5,8km and 180m climb)

At the beginning of the course I had some technical and physical problems. My legs weren't working as I would wish they did. Luckily, in the middle part of the race I saw Zielu in the forest and it gave me so much power and determination I thought I could fly then and the rest of the course went almost perfect. As I stood in front of the results table and saw I had beaten Hevi by over a minute, I knew I had a really good performance. Only the last Polish starter - Rino - conquered me... by a second. Undoubtedly, it was my best race during this 3 days' competition.



2. Etappe - long (10,2km and 155m climb)

I knew it would be flat as a table and was prepared for very fast running and speed thinking. There was only one thing (or frankly speaking - millions of them) which made this prestart assumption much more difficult to put into operation. Ditches, ditches and one more time ditches... Furthermore, the map scale was 1:10 000 and our course was over 10km long. For that reason I really often had problems finding the next control on the map I should have looked for.
In addition, I would like to say I think I've never had so many controls (29) before and I found them all! That's my personal record;-)

There was one more trouble we had to cope with during this 2nd stage - control descriptions. I have quite a good eyesight but while running they were just impossible to read for me. I had to stop for a while and remember about 3 controls in advance not to waste time later.

3. Etappe - long, chasing start (10,1km and 290m climb)

After 2 previous days I had such an enormous time advantage over Hewi that we were forced (?) to run together. I started the whole 3 seconds ahead of him... I didn't really feel like running a chasing start race that day as I felt a quite intense pain in the very upper part of my calf because of yesterday's race. As far as the terrain and course are concerned, they were really interesting in my opinion and the forest was fairly... friendly.

All in all...

I ended on the 11th place in men's elite of over 30 runners and the 3rd of 7 Poles. I think I could easily make it to the top 7 (only 2 minutes behind after 3 days).

Furthermore, this was a so-called observed competition in reference to the EYOC 2008, so I think I did quite a good job in my way to success:)

The Swiss massacre...

Polish Youth Team spent exactly 2 weeks in Switzerland preparing for the coming EYOC in October. We stayed in Solothurn - the most beautiful baroque city of Switzerland. That's also the place were EYOC 2008 sprint distance is going to be held.
Switzerland became the 10th foreign country I have ever done orienteering in. As always we had a lot of fun, the weather was really hot, only at nights some heavy thunderstorms occured. But, in fact, our goal was to train as much as possible. Below you can see the results of our long and hard technical, as well as physical work...

Memory training

We began our technical trainings with a real challenge for our brains. We had to remember the whole course of about 0,8-1,5km consisting of 2-4 controls and then just run the course without a map. We ran 5 such loops and found out that Swiss forests are full of lower or higher blackberry bushes covering the ground. Running with no long socks was really painful! Unfortunately, I have no map of this training session because there were only a few copies.

Tunnel-races

We never got bored during our technical trainings because they were really sophisticated. These tunnel-races may seem quite hard at first but if you think they were the most difficult trainings of our whole stay, you are deeply wrong! Just see the paragraph below...



Swiss games

It would have been a sin if we had run no Swiss game in Switzerland. Actually, the best way to finish that training is to keep the right direction all the time. However, you must take into consideration that sometimes it was just impossible to follow the red line because of vast areas of thick and prickly bushes. I think everyone who had made it to the end could be proud of oneself!

In pairs...

This training was designed especially for the younger runners to learn something from their older friends. I was to run with Papuś (P. Parfianowicz) and must admit his technique is quite good and I didn't really have to make amends to his running many times.

This training takes place at each Polish Youth Team camp. I must say I really like it because we can choose our partners by ourselves and, what's even more important, we can set our own course. Unfortunately, some points looked brilliant only on the map, not in the terrain!

One more time with Zielu but this time it was a kind of rivalry, at least it was supposed to. Actually, we were a bit too tired that day to run at our highest speed level and our running times are not magnificent at all.

Sprint?!

Yeah... it was called a sprint distance. In fact, its length and city part prompted so but what was going on in the final FOREST part? One control was almost impossible to reach with flat salomon shoes. It was only 65m away from the previous control and it took me 2:50 to find it. Isn't it too much?

2 middles + 1 sprint = long

This long distance training consisted of 2 middle loops (4,6km; 3,7km) and 1 short one (2,3km). Altogether it made one and a half hour of nice running. It was also quite funny to have 2 TV controls (thanks to Jacek) on the course.

First legs

That's the training I am always looking forward to because it's full of exciting competition and fast running. There were 5 double forkings on the whole course (controls no. 1, 5, 9, 12, 15).

* 1-4 - nothing special, in the whole group of 6 runners

* 5 - I have a closer forking but a bit more difficult to find, I manage to leave that area as the third one, behind Jacek and Hewi

* 6-9 - fast running with Slavko and chasing the leading couple

* 10 - I am very close to them but don't see them punch the control and have to go back, Slavko and Rino now just ahead of me

* 11-13 - going as fast as possible with Rino, Slavko a little bit behind us

* 14 - deciding control! Hewi has no power left in his legs and we are getting ahead of him, Rino is stronger and joins Jacek, now they are in the lead

* 15-16 - running alone, I can't see Jacek and Rino

* 17-18 - they make a small mistake at the 17th control and now they are within reach of my eyes but are still some 120m ahead

* 19 - they disappear in the forest and win, I am the third one to cross the finish line.



What I actually did there?!



Probably you are interested why the title sounds 'The Swiss massacre' - click on it and you'll have the answer!

I have one question to you as well: did anyone notice that both tunnel-races and both Swiss games were carried out on the same map? ;-)

Tomorrow I am going to publish how successful or not I was during the Aargauer 3-Tage-OL 2008 - the crowning of our entire work in Switzerland.