The most demanding sprint race in my career?

I think there's no need to write about all the things from the past. I should have plenty of time to describe all the races, trainings and O-adventures since 19th April. Moreover, these hoary old chestnuts aren't interesting  any more!

Now I am in the beautiful city of Alicante in warm Spain. Only some hours are left before my first start in World University Orienteering Championships. I skipped the yesterday's long distance race and today I am going to compete in the sprint competition.

The preparations went quite OK for me - I managed to avoid any serious injuries or training breaks. I did some really good sprint training sessions. Obviously, it might have been better - like always... However, I feel pretty well prepared, I am healthy, I feel no pain. My last tough physical training took place 5 days ago, so my muscles aren't sore and I am ready to take the challenge!

The first man starts at 16:30, the last one at 18:10 (regards, 'cwelu'!), whereas my start is at 17:24. One of the main favourites - the Czech guy, Stepan Kodeda - starts one minute behind me. I would love not to be overtaken by him. I will do my best! I have a really good attitude and am looking forward to running an interesting course in the sprint paradise, called Alicante.

The prestart area is on the top of the Santa Barbara castle - amazing place! The course is 2,8km and includes as much as 135m of climb! 20% of the race is going to take place in some (probably hilly) parks and the other 80% in the city alleys. I just have to leave these parks as soon as possible and then I'll be in my element!

P.S. I totally recommend: http://biegnaorientacje.pl/!

If you wait for perfect conditions, you'll never get things done.

Last Sunday there was the 2nd edition of Łódź Maraton Dbam o Zdrowie. I am planning to run my first marathon this year in autumn (probably not in Poland) and my favourite street race distance is actually 10k, that's why I decided to take part in Adidas 10k RUN.

As I had already written in the last post, I caught a cold at the end of the Swedish Easter camp and had to take 3 days off (Tuesday-Thursday), spending them mostly in my bed. On Friday and Saturday I made some tough trainings (jogging for about 25-30mins). As you can see, my physical preparation wasn't good (just 15km of training during the last 6 days before the competition, no fast workouts at all). What's more, my mental state sucked (do no ask me why) and I had huge difficulties sleeping at night. Although I didn't feel well and healthy on Sunday morning, I decided to compete.

Since the start line was just about 2km from the place where I live, Witek visited me in the morning and we started our warm-up together at about 8:20. Close to the start we met our coach and had a short talk with him. The goal for this race was clear - open the race with 3:30/km and then see what happens. The start was supposed to be at 9, but there was a little delay of about 10mins. Thanks to it, we had a bit longer warm-up. [Do you remember the race in 1975, when the race was delayed for more than 1 hour and blah blah blah...]

Just before the race my coach asked Pasza about his aim for this race. He answered '32mins'. Then, I realised I had no chances fighting against him. At 9:10 the mayor of Łódź city Hanna Zdanowska gave the signal to start the competition. The interesting thing is that there was the same start place and start time for the marathon runners. I had a great chance to start just behind the extremely thin and (as well extremely) black African runners.

The first metres of the race I ran just behind Pasza, but after some time I saw on my watch that the pace should have been a bit faster and speeded up. From that moment I didn't see him until the end of the race. It's incredibly important not to overspeed at the beginning of this kind of race and I managed to fulfil my assumption and ran the 1st km in 3:27. During the 2nd km (split time - 3:27) a funny thing happened, when I joined some group of runners. Young, blond girl asked me which pace I would have liked to achieve. As soon as I answered 'About 3:20 + something', she slowed down significantly without saying anything.

During the 3rd km we formed a nice group of 4 runners (including me, Leszek Marcinkiewicz and 2 other guys). We ran about 2km together (3:23, 3:27) and then one of them decided to attack (you'll read about him later on in the post as well). None of us had enough power to join him and we stayed in the group of 3.

Since that moment I had to be the leader, 5th km in 3:30. The 6th km was the most difficult one because I had to struggle with awful weather conditions (little rain and strong, freezing wind). This was the worst split of the whole race - 3:32. At the next km Leszek decided to go in the front and I had time to take some rest. However, on one of the curves he ran quite strange (not going as short as possible) and I was in the lead again. 7th km in 3:30.

During the 8th km (3:28) I suddenly heard a really loud voice of my coach. I took a look at both sides of the streets, but surprisingly I couldn't see him. I felt a bit confused, but after some hundreds of metres the riddle was solved! It turned out that he was standing there with a big megaphone shouting at me - amazing! Surely, it gave me some extra power for the very last kms of the race.

I ran the 9th km in 3:27 just ahead of Leszek and the other runner. Due to the fact that there was a very long and straight street, I could see the runner who left us somewhere close to the '4km' sign. Just after the 9th km there was a place where the courses for marathon and 10k runners split. I was shocked, when I saw that he chose the left 'marathon' gateway...

Going past the '9km' sign, I decided to attack (not willing to have a sprint finish at the end). I used this tactics in Uniejów some months ago (fighting against Pasza) and it worked really well. However, this time Leszek managed to keep my pace (the other one had problems, so the struggle was just between me and Leszek right now). Some 700m before the finish line the roles changed and it was him who tried to run really fast. At first I was not able to keep his pace and thought that the fight is over... Fortunately, I succeeded in avoiding these destroying thoughts and didn't give up. Nevertheless, I was still some metres behind... Suddenly, an unbelievable thing happened and Leszek seemed to have no power left. That's why I managed to outrun him just in front of the entrance to Atlas Arena, where an amazing finish was organized (red carpet, lots of people and so on). Some metres before the finish line I looked behind and was sure I was going to win against him. As soon as I had crossed the finish line, I fell down (I felt extremely exhausted as during the last 2kms I felt like vomitting...). My fall must have looked quite dangerous, since I suddenly got help from the medical assistance. They caught my arms and made me stand up, gave me some isotonic drink... and asked a really funny question: 'Is this your first run?'. ;)

It turned out that I ran the last km in 3:10 and reached the time of 34:21 (only 1sec slower than in Uniejów). I placed 3rd in the overall classification (out of 936 competitors) and took the... 2nd spot in Men's class, because the race was won by Karolina Jarzyńska (woman preparing for the London Olympic Games). Unfortunately, I was not able to wait for the prize giving ceremony, since I was leaving to Szklarska Poręba at 11:31. I heard that the prizes I got are quite precious - cup, T-shirt and Timex watch. Great!

P.S. Tadziu 32167, is this post long and good enough? :)

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!

Take the challenge and watch the great video!

http://orienteering.org.pl/wyzwanie/

Har du røyka sokka dine?

The title is one of the most useful Norwegian expressions (apart from morra di) I managed to learn some days ago. The time between 16th and 26th February I spent in an orienteering PARADISE called Portugal! What's more, it was my first camp with my new Scandinavian club - Raumar Orientering.

Some facts about Raumar:

• all of them can easily speak English
• they fight to get as many 'silly points' as possible
• the head coach Ståle is one of the funniest and most spontaneous coaches in the world
• his daughter Caroline is as crazy as possible
• Torben is a Facebook maniac and listens to all kinds of music (try it loud from 2:02)
• the taller Eirik is a sprint specialist and behaves quite similar to Jacek M.
• Alex (newcomer from Germany) used to be fast like a shark (5000m in 13:38 - eee?!).

In Portugal:

• I ate the most expensive dinner in my life (16,5€), but not the tastiest one...
• we slept in a *** and a **** hotel (with no hot water, from time to time)
• we had a nice photo session at the Atlantic Ocean.

Portuguese O-training diary:

16 II - arrival, just a short jog and some stretching

17 II - long distance training (map), my time limit was 75mins, so I had to shorten the course a bit, running slowly all the time, the terrain was covered with stones, rocks, stones and rocks and stones, didn't manage to find the 29th control, wrong direction, loser!

middle distance training (map), I was supposed to run fast and I tried to, however, it was not that easy due to huge climbs and dense vegetation, awful mistake to the 8th control...

18 II - POM long (map), not allowed to run fast, so I focused on my O-technique, had problems finding the 12th control (a really tricky one!), apart from that - I handled the terrain quite well;

POM night sprint (map), congratulations to the course setter! the 3rd and 4th controls were very interesting, I managed to spot the right route choice to the 3rd one, but got caught at the next one - I should have gone the way I had begun to run and then up the stairs, really difficult to notice while running at full speed! all the way I had problems with my headlamp, which did literally everything to get out of my head... 5th place - nice one;)

19 II - POM middle (map), my aim for this race was to run the 3rd, 6th, 9th (and so on...) fast, I succeeded in winning 4 (out of 6) these splits, to the 6th I took the wrong route choice, I think, and to the 12th one I went too much down... ridiculous mistake to the 10th control (the slow one!), I realised that I found the 14th control (instead of the 10th one), but was not able to find the 10th one anyway...

night training (map), this forest was a real jungle! the mistakes to the 29th and 4th one shouldn't be named 'mistakes', just look at the 12-16 part, I think it's a big favourite to win the AMBA of the year 2012 competition;-) funny that I got to know about a different map scale only at the end of the course...

20 II - POM middle WRE (map), it was the most important competition of POM for me (for all, I think), I could not find the right rhythm at the beginning, then I caught a good flow until the spectator control, afterwards I got really tired, stopped thinking and lost almost 4mins on the last loop, shit happens.

sprint training (map), if you had had no control descriptions, you just shouldn't have entered this training session, I got disqualified at the 11th control (not the right side of the fence, even if I had checked it, strange...) and made a huge mistake to the 14th one, almost all of us had problems finding the entrance to the 16th control from the street (it was funny looking at the others' confusion there:))

21 II - POM long, chasing start (map), the most interesting course and terrain of the whole stay, I think, fortunately, I ran at low speed, so I could easily see all the features in the terrain, had only problems on my way to the very 1st control because of the aforementioned low speed (I just couldn't recognize the distance), moreover, much more stones in the terrain there than on the map;

sprint training (map), another amazing city for a sprint distance! unfortunately, the map was wrong in the area of the 3rd control (at the bottom of the stairs), very bad route choice to the 4th control (not planned before...), the rest of the course went flawlessly.

22 II - leaving Viseu (rocky mountains area) and moving forward to Quiaios (sand dune area)

technical training (map), Vetle made the courses for us, there were no controls in the forest, so we had to be really concentrated all the time, only some minor problems;)

23 II - Quiaios Hotel relay (map), I ran the 2nd leg in Raumar's 'foreign' team, managed to jump up 8 places, forgot to start my Garmin watch and realised it just after leaving the 7th control and then a huge mistake to the 8th one - seems so easy to lose concentration (watch out later in the season!), the terrain was incredibly fast! note that Scott Fraser ran this course (6,6km) in 30:30, I did it a bit (4mins) slower;)

middle distance training (map), one of the most pleasant training sessions, such a nice terrain it was! use your compass and have fun:) I had!

24 II - contours (map), my favourite training session of the whole camp! I ran it from the behind and if it hadn't been for the 12th control, it would have been a perfect workout;

shortened middle distance training (map) - I ran the first part with Nati and tried to teach her a little bit, from the 6th control we split and I made my own race, on the left side of the map there begins the... Ocean!

25 II - XIII MOC long WRE (map), was a bit afraid of the distance (18,7km) on the last day of the camp, but it turned out to be no problem for me;) the terrain was so magnificent to run that I enjoyed every second of the race, made only 2 major mistakes to the 8th and 17th control (about 1'15 each) - not that much taking into account the running time of 1:48:36, got a really satisfying 5th place and beat the other Raumar boyz!

MOC night sprint (map), we were a bit late for a start, so I didn't manage to make an appropriate warm-up, however, I felt quite well (I think I had warmed up long enough in the morning!), this one was the easiest sprint of all I ran during this camp, made almost no mistakes and placed 3rd - 1st international podium place as an 'official' elite runner:)

26 II - 17 hour long travel back home.

To sum it all up, during these 9 days I did almost 137km with a map in my hand and spent nearly 15h in the bushes.

Last but not least, I must (want to) admit that it has been one of the best camps in my life so far! I had a wonderful time. The trainings were really challenging and the company was brilliant! Nati, Anne, Marie, Line Maria, Caroline, Ståle, Torben, Alex, Eirik, Eirik, Vetle, Anders - thank you very much for those amazing 10 days!

Takk for your attention:-)