final week-end in Austria

Last week-end, the Austrian night-champs and the final run for this year's Austria Cup were held in Alberndorf, Upper Austria.

I like night-o the most, running through the dark forest, just seeing a few meters in front, what better can be out there? The organizers made the only right decision: not using reflectors! Since headlamps are getting stronger and stronger (my new MagicShine has 1.400 Lumen and is by far not the strongest one) many runners tend to run like the bell of a church on Easter Sunday: ding-dong, left-right, ding-dong, left-right, until they see the reflector. After a race, many of them don't even know which object they were looking for... :-)


No.1 was easy going by path-hopping. No.2 just running around the big nose and fall down to the stone. To the 3rd one, we had the first heavy and steep climbing-part, where I lost 15-20sec in the control area (being too far to the left). Again 15sec to No.4 - going directly out to the open field instead of climbing over the stony ground in the forest would be much faster.

No.5 was my biggest mistake for the day: coming up the hill, I thought to be at the right stone-complex. As I didn't see any flag, I thought to be north of the western complex and started running to the east. At the big "L"-cliff I found myself and turned. But the 105sec have already gone...

To the sixth, I got lost half way - running through the green made an extra time of approx. 15sec. And to No.7, one should run south around the fence running down to the control instead of running through greens and marshes - again 15sec.

To the next longer one I took the safe route via the open field. No.9 was then very strange in the control area :-/ - 90sec gone. There I was cought by Erik who started 3mins behind me. The rest of the race was more or less running behind and checking what he is doing, with one big perception: I am loosing extremly on running downhill! Maybe I am really too old for Elite and running down like crazy...

On Sunday, we had a 12k course with 480 (in the End 565) climbing. Pretty long after such a short recovery period. I had a nice run with a weaker period from No.9 (30sec) to No.10 (40sec) to No.11 (105sec). Route choices were quite clear, muscles gave the feedback of being tired from the beginning, mind was working very well (despite 9-11) and the enjoyment-factor was very high.

This week is again full of work (last one far more than 60hrs), so almost no training again. On the week-end I am going to Prague - no orienteering :-( - just sightseeing as an ordinary tourist and on Tuesday I will start at the famous Wiener Neustädter Stadt-Meisterschaft (the most traditional competition in Austria).