Spring Cup weekend

Marc here:

For the Spring cup I decided to write a 3 day personal journal, because I thought it would be quite an experience… and to win the most experience out of it, I thought I should write about what I would go through.

Because it is not a 14 year old girls diary, you can read it here:



Spring Cup 2006

A cold has visited me 3 days before the race, so this is going to be an interesting experience. How will I perform? How satisfying will the racing be? Was it worth starting? Those are the typical tough questions before a race when you are sick or injured. This is my chance to document one case… and maybe it will help me deal better with a similar situation in the future.

Friday I write:
Lets start with Wednesday: I wanted to do intervals in the evening, but after the second interval I realized I must have dirty grease in my cog wheels… the intervals felt really hard, and actually also awkward. So after the 3rd (planed 6) I jogged home, and just running home felt difficult. In the evening my throat hurt, and I felt exhausted. Incidentally, I couldn’t sleep so well and suffered from a headache already for a week. On Thursday my sickness didn’t improve. My throat hurt, but the problem stayed local. I decided not train that day, but in the evening again I was really tired, feeling almost nauseous. As medication I gurgled as much as possible with Hibitane (chlorehixidin is the antiseptic product in it), took often Echina force and did the Bemer (electromagnetic mattress) level 10 in the morning and the evening.
Today the throat started to feel better and I started to have some fluid running down my nose. I hope I can categorize this evolution as positive, as the “bug” is coming out. We traveled to Helsingor today, and actually during the whole travel I felt quite alright. When we arrived the map training felt hard, but maybe the motion sickness was responsible for it. I did the training really slowly, not trying to push… as I am going to run for certain tomorrow, I didn’t need to put an examination on my fitness.

Saturday before the race I write:
I slept really well. My throat doesn’t hurt anymore, there is more “yellow stuff” coming out, and my nose is stuffed up for the first time. I continue gargling and start rinsing my nose with salt water. In the warmth I feel also quite well, that is already really positive, let’s see if I will still feel alright onceI am out there in the cold.
The weather is really rough, around 0°C, overcast but no precipitation and it is windy.

Race strategy: The terrain is flat, with lots of none coherent structures, with many vegetation changes…. Recipe: constant map contact… see myself as a moving point on the map.



Saturday after the race I write:
Click here for the map and course
Click here for the men's results

Well, I survived. I didn’t feel like my cold slowed me down. Though, I didn’t feel like I was running at my full potential, but I felt already this way last weekend (Biofarm Cup in Welsikon)… The possible reasons for that feeling: 1.Just the shape I am in now 2.My inability to run full speed in the snow 3.The cold (sickness) inhibited already my capabilities last weekend.
Quintessence: Because it was an important competition for me, it was a good decision to take part in the race. The cold made it possible to compete at a high level. But it would have been too much risk for only “a training” race.
Of course it is tempting to believe that one would be stronger if he would have been healthy. But this is arises a fundamental question… one is always only as good as that very day, and we have to accept it, and do the best with it.

To the race analysis:
Actually, I screwed up the race to the 1st control, where I lost 1min. I went to the women’s control first, thought it would be mine… actually the object didn’t correspond at all, and the distance neither, but obviously I was not doing “moving point navigation”. Well, this was a bad start!
The rest of the race I got caught by the tracks in the snow leading you through the forest… that is not orienteering… my footsteps should lead myself through the forest, not the tracks. Somehow I got caught in a passive mode and the burning competition fire never came.
Quintessence: the race was no catastrophe, but still a mental and technical struggle from A-Z.

Concept for the tomorrow’s race:
I will run the 3rd leg, 8km, 19controls. I really want to race my own race, despite the snow and competitor contact. Be in charge of what I am doing. First, this will give me satisfaction navigating, and second I will also be the cleanest this way! So, my motto: this is my race, I do it my way!!

Sunday, on the flight back home I write:
Click here for the course and map
Click here for the results

What a response to my unsatisfying race on Saturday! In contrast to yesterday I focused to take my fate in my hands, despite the tracks… and the many runners. The result: it was much more fun, I was much more aggressive in my orienteering and I physically felt like I was able to push to my limits. Technically I felt in total control the entire race, what a great feeling!

Quintessence:
Ah, it is good to have such a race! It has been a long time this year since I expected to feel again the competition fire… this one feeling which comes from your belly like a roar, making you push physically to your limits and giving you the possibility to surf in full confidence on the curves of the terrain. One might call it the killer instinct, I don’t know… but I know that is what I seek in elite competition.... but having a margin of 1.2 min to the 2nd fastest runner is actually also quite cool...


Thoughts:
On Saturday I put myself a technical goal (constant map contact), and on Sunday I set myself more an attitude as a goal (take responsibility for every step). Maybe this difference explains part of the better race the 2nd day. When it comes down to an important race, it is supposed to be show time… you put down all your strengths you have. To focus on one card (a technical goal, e.g. constant map contact) wouldn’t it be limiting your potential?
But maybe it is also just a coincidence, Saturday I was still recovering from my cold and didn’t have enough drive. Or maybe on Sunday the terrain just suited me better than the super flat classical race.



Anyway, I hope I will be able to find many times this year the “roaring lynx” in me. To meet him is my motivation to train still so well besides my tough daily routine at the dental clinic.

Sandra here:

Traveling to Denmark for only one race may seem like something crazy to do, but I am very happy to have done it.

On Friday we were able to do an O training on the map Teglstrup Hegn, this was very important to me, when planning our weekend, I had thought about running the night-O, but Marc’s club had planned to do a training, and I thought this would be a better way to prepare for the Classic on Saturday and also for the World champs this summer. I took this training as an opportunity to get to know the terrain in Denmark better and to run all the legs as technical as possible, meaning avoiding the trails and running “straight”. I managed to make a BIG mistake. This type of mistake, I believe, is something that can very easily happen in Denmark, or this type of terrain. I took more direct route to a trail, where I would run to a trail junction and shortly afterwards turn right into the terrain (4-5). Here I came up onto a trail and to the left there was a trail junction, I interpreted it as the small trail to the left of the junction I wanted and I went left. I came to a big junction, and although it was angled a little wrong, I kept going and made a large parallel error. It took me a long time to figure out what happened. In a race this would be a disastrous mistake. But, in a race I would have either gone to the left from control 4 to the trail, or if I went to the right, when I hit the small trail, I would have ran up it to the bigger trail, not cut up through to the trail. So, hypothetically I “wouldn’t” have made this mistake in a “race”, but lets say I did, I already had two clues along my way that told me I was making the mistake. First, when I came up on to the trail, the junction that I saw to the right seemed a little too big for the junction I interpreted it as, and two, the larger junction I came to when turning left was angled strangely and I even check my compass and thought “hum… that’s weird, oh well, keep going” that was a BIG clue!! Take home message, listen to the clues your brain gives you along the way, and take them seriously.
Anyway, I certainly benefited from this training run, I felt nervous for the race the next day after making a big mistake in my training, but I also took the time to analyzed why I made the mistake and contemplate the terrain the evening before. This helped me feel a little more prepared.

Classic DE at Spring Cup on Horserod Hegn og Gurreso Nord.
Click here for DE results.
On Saturday morning I felt confident and ready. I just wanted to go give it a shot and see what happens. I had faith that I could run a decent race and I felt good before the race. This feeling is not something I have very often, and it is a feeling I am always trying to capture. Despite this good feeling, the beginning of my race was not very good. I was slow getting into the map, and slow to the first control. There was quite a bit of snow, so there were already lots of tracks to the controls. This was distracting and a bit annoying, you were forced to run in the track, because it was much faster than trying to run your own line, but it felt unnatural. I tried to keep constant map contact, especially because one was forced towards to control by the tracks. On my way to number 3, the girl who started 1’ behind me caught me already, she whizzed by, and in that moment I realized I am not pushing… strange, but I was so concerned about being in contact with the map, that I wasn’t pushing hard physically. She woke that up in me and I started running hard. Because I sped up, I became uncertain about half way to 3, so I told myself to just keep going on the compass to the big field. I used the field as my attack point for the control. I attacked the control from the stream that came all the way to the field, I should have looked closer, because my control was on the stream one to the right, but I went straight into the green, thinking my control was on the stream I was following. I stood around for 20” and then looked to the right and saw my control. I lost in total about 1’30” in total between my uncertainty in the middle of the leg and not attacking the control cleanly.

On my way out from number 4, I got draw across the road, and then on the trial, and because of the snow, running on the trail made more sense than trying to run a straighter line to the control through the woods. I didn’t run on the road, because I read in the course information that it was not allowed to run on the big road. It turns out that they meant only where it was marked on the map as not allowed. I am not the only person that didn’t run on the road for this reason. Attacking the control, I told myself to take it slowly. I took the second white cut in the green, to run up to the control. Unfortunately it turns out that the white in the green only indicate the direction of better running. This is not always the case when mapped in this fashion; sometimes (and most often in my experience) they are mapped accurately. Well, in any case, my cut in the green did not lead to the stream junction, and so I ended up too far to the right, on a cut that lead parallel to the trail, up to the white opening. I attacked the control from there, and didn’t hit it right on, but found it quickly afterwards. I had, however, lost a lot of time, about 5 minutes!!

To number 7, also again, there was a white cute between the two on the map, so my plan was one cut over and then up to the control, well this lead me too far east, I could correct quickly, but I lost 1 minute in the mean time.

To number 16 I should have cut to the trail earlier, the terrain was easy to read, no problem to run straight line (without snow I would have crossed over the hill to the control).

On my way to 17 I felt uncertain, followed the tracks, through the yellow, to the boulder with a control on it, then over across the stream to the control, this was all one track… certainly not my own natural line to the control, but sometimes you really didn’t have a choice, if you wanted to be fast.

I do have to admit that from number 9 on I started to see lots of women elite runners, and I could run much faster in the open terrain. All of this, plus the tracks in the snow made the course easier and I was running faster than I may have alone or without tracks. But this was a great learning experience; I see that physically I CAN run faster, but that I am not confident enough in my orienteering.

Quintessence of my race: This was an ok race. Uncertain in the beginning (early season feeling), mistakes in the green (somewhat bingo but also my experience in that type of green is limited), than finally a fast temp. I learned something very valuable by seeing how other elite runners are running, I need to push myself more!

Splits: my split *= mistake (split from a time of 55’, Ines Brodmann, Swiss national team)
1. 1.19 (1.07)
2. 1.53 (1.31)
3. 7.38* (6.08)
4. 2.19* (2.11)
5. 9.09* (5.36)
6. 2.09 (1.27)
7. 1.56* (0.47)
8. 3.38 (2.23)
9. 3.29 (3.31)
10. 3.00 (3.11)
11. 1.51 (1.43)
12. 2.05 (1.55)
13. 1.11 (0.58)
14. 7.47 (7.17)
15. 2.39 (2.31)
16. 3.51 (3.19)
17. 2.27 (2.37)
18. 0.57 (0.51)
19. 1.48 (1.48)
20. 2.10 (2.07)
21. 0.45 (0.40)
22. 0.46 (0.40)
Total: 64:48 (55:18)

2nd Swiss National event, March 19

Hi all! Sandra here!

I finally have my map from last Sunday for you posted. I, however, do not have commentary on my mistakes or the reasons for them. There has just been too little time this week, and tomorrow morning we are off to Denmark for the next race. This weekend we will be in Denmark for the annual Spring Cup event. On Saturday there is a long distance WRE race, and on Sunday there is the relay. We will certainly update our blog after the weekend with more maps and comments, I promise to also give you mine as well!!

So... here is my map from last Sunday!

Take care, and Tschuss!

National Swiss event, March 19th

March 19th, Swiss National race in Winterthur

Marc writes: Yesterday the swiss runners met in Winterthur for the 1st big orienteering event of the new season. The terrain was relatively fast, because the vegetation has not recovered yet from our long winter… actually, it was still kind of winter, as about 80% of the course was in snow, but there was never more than 10cm at the worst places.

Sandra is soon also going to post her impression of the race, but unlike me, she had to go to work this morning... so for the womens results and map you have to wait a little longer.

Men's Results:
1. Daniel Hubmann 83 Eschlikon TG OL Regio Wil 1:13:19
2. Matthias Merz 84 Beinwil am See OLG Rymenzburg 1:16:36
3. Marc Lauenstein 80 Cormondrèche CO Chenau 1:16:43
1. 11.05(20), time loss 1.25 min.sec
2. 2.29 (2), time loss 0.01 sec
3. 2.18 (2), time loss 0.01
4. 1.57 (1), time loss 0.00
5. 2.03 (1), time loss 0.00
6. 2.05 (5), time loss 0.05
7. 1.47 (6), time loss 0.04
8. 2.00 (19),time loss 0.15
9. 1.55 (23),time loss 0.21
10. 1.57 (1), time loss 0.00
11. 2.18 (4), time loss 0.05
12. 2.03 (7), time loss 0.16
13. 3.44 (8), time loss 0.26
14. 1.57 (9), time loss 0.10
15. 3.04 (3), time loss 0.04
16. 7.53 (2), time loss 0.06
17. 1.52 (2), time loss 0.05
18. 2.34 (18),time loss 1.07
19. 1.17 (2), time loss 0.04
20. 5.34 (7), time loss 0.20
21. 0.50 (16),time loss 0.12
22. 2.16 (4), time loss 0.10
23. 5.25 (18),time loss 0.31
24. 2.40 (4), time loss 0.06
25. 2.11 (3), time loss 0.06
26. 0.48 (3), time loss 0.02
f. 0.31 (5), time loss 0.03

4. Baptiste Rollier 82 Valangin CO Chenau 1:17:07
5. Fabian Hertner 85 Pratteln OLV Baselland 1:17:13
6. Benno Schuler 82 Oberarth OLG Goldau 1:17:23
7. Thomas Hodel 72 Horboden CO Chenau 1:18:25
8. Andreas Rüedlinger 85 Bülach OLK Rafzerfeld 1:19:08
9. Andreas Müller 80 Biel OLG Säuliamt 1:19:29
10. David Schneider 81 Wil SG OL Regio Wil 1:19:30
11. Matthias Müller 82 Oberwil-Lieli bussola ok 1:19:50
12. Felix Bentz 79 Uerikon OLG Stäfa 1:19:55
13. Dominik Koch 81 Eptingen OLV Baselland 1:20:32
14. Christian Ott 80 Auenstein OLK Argus 1:20:38
15. Urs Müller 76 Freidorf TG OLR Amriswil 1:20:49

Source (with everybody's splits time): here

Map (click on it to enlarge it):

My analysis:

Start-1
To the first control I made already my biggest mistake… a shameful mistake. I was running up the slope trying to push hard, but also not yet totally focused… maybe because I was quite in a rush getting to the start (I underestimated the time to run the 3 km to the start, also an elementary mistake), but getting quickly into the map is a common problem of mine. Anyway, what happened is that while running up the slope I had mistaken the top road where I wanted to go on with the smaller road just above control #10. I followed this wrong trail until the right turn… I was totally in shock to realize I was somewhere totally different than where I thought I was. Of course I was quite annoyed to start the race in such a bad manner, and actually, this mistake left behind a bad after taste for the whole race.
Time loss: besides a good feeling I also lost 1min25
Take home message: 1. Plan more time going to my start
2. Be tough on myself in the beginning of the race to read everything, force myself to find the focuse and this way avoid such lapse of concentration.


Despite the uncomfortable situation to have to start the race with a mortgage, I did ok the following controls.

8-9
I left #8 without a concept how to nail the next control, and I wasn’t careful enough to find my exact position while moving along. So I rushed in the control region 9 without an attackpoint… by the time I relocated myself I had lost several valuable seconds.
Time loss: 21sec
Take home message: Always have a concept on how to nail the next control. Here the concept should have been to do fine orienteering from the beginning of the leg.

12-13.
I decided on a quite radical route... climbing straight to the big road and making a big detour. Climbing only to the trail, than climbing up gradually, and even straightening the angles of the road (running through the flatter valley) was faster.
Time loss: 26 sec

19-20
Not following the trails on the middle third of the leg was a bad idea, especially because of the snow.
Actually I decided to cut through the forest really spontaneously at the moment where I left the road, letting my gutt feeling make the decision instead of my head.
Time loss: 20 sec
Take home message: Route choices ought to be made by the head, and not the stomach…

22-23
Similar to 19-20, I didn’t make up my mind for a route I would go for. I just told myself “yeah, yeah, go ahead as fast as you can, you will find a quick way”. For several reasons this is a very bad attitude: 1.You can’t run with a flow, because you always have to think about the micro route choices 2.You don’t run the fasted route choice, because you haven’t looked at the whole picture.
Here I should have taken a route more to the left in the first half of the leg.
Time loss: 31 sec
Take home message: Again: 1.Think 2.Run


So I did several mistakes in this run. Mainly they were stupid ones, where I didn’t run enough with care. It is a mental thing to enjoy so much what you are doing, that all your senses are only focused on nailing the next control.

Have you ever thought you could die for the beauty of that moment?

My ski tour on La Tourne

The good thing about not being able to have the opportunity to see the great things as often, is that once you see them, you are more in awe than you would usually be. I grew up 7km from where I did this ski tour and I have skied there day and night a few years ago, when I was living in Neuchâtel... and yet, yesterdays ski tour seemed to me like an incredible revelation. Because this year I have not experienced the beautiful part of winter (...just the icy roads and trails at night on my way to university and back) this backyard trip in the winter landscape felt magical.

Through the marshes of la vallée de La Sagne

La Vallée and its loooong absolute flat stretch, approx. 13km (of course fighting against facing wind).

But finally getting to the entrance of a side valley... where almost

400m of climb a x.c track will bring us to the top of the Jura mountains in only a few kilometers.

On the way up, you begin to be able to look down. Here a pic from le Mont-Dart.

And the sun is slowly setting, turning the white snow into a pale red...

...the atmosphere grows quieter, while the wind arises...

...reminding you that slowly nature will take over this place...

...and the night will fall...

...to let the moon show its splendor...

...lightning up the highest peak in Europe, the Mont-Blanc!

Training Camp with VeVe in "Le Caylar", March 2006.

On the 24th of February, I started my long awaited month of semester break… and this holiday deserved an appropriate celebration. To do so, what would be better than to head off for southern France to orienteer, meet friends from VeVe (Tuomas, Janne and Baptiste), enjoy the sun and heat?
The orienteering area Janne picked out for us was “Les Grandes Causses”, and our center of mischief would be “Le Caylar”, a little village north of Montpellier. It took me only about 6 hours driving from Neuchâtel (my home town) to there.

As we concentrated on the magical triad: 1.sleep, 2.eat, and 3.orienteer, I will only focus on the last point in my writing.

The terrain there is mostly on a plateau 800m above see level, sprinkled with large boulders. The terrain never recovered from the radical logging in the 18th and 19th century, because the many goats eat the “tree germs” and also because the weather is very rough… hot summers, constant strong winds… and actually relatively cold winters (which we were not aware of before getting there). So the vegetation is mostly grass and very thick bushes. On the edge of this plateau are the steeper maps, with also more forest.

My goals for that training camp were: 1. fine tune O-technique (after a long winter, my O reflexes get sloppy and need some trimming) 2.Get a vacation from the stress I had at the university.

1st Training, Monday morning

On Monday morning, April 27th, after sleeping in (which we ended up doing everyday, actually… best way to achieve my goal #2), we went on the map “Le Potensac”… as a warm up practice for the training camp. The running between the big boulders in the fast “goat fields” was phantastic. No better way to enjoy orienteering as an appetizer, but we thought this was too easy for a main meal, so we decided the next training on the map would be by night.

2nd Training, Monday evening

In the evening we did our first night-O, on the map called “St Eulalie”. We didn’t know by this time that running with our headlamps would turn out to be a routine for the training camp. Baptiste made the course and set the goal of the training… we would have to run in pairs only with one map. The one runner runs from the control to his attackpoint, hands over the map, and the other will do the fine orienteering getting to the control. It was a good practice in relocation (when your partner finally hands you the map), and also for learning to select appropriate attackpoints, but especially to differentiate rough orienteering and fine orienteering. Janne (my partner for that training) and I made no big mistakes… but we where astonished to see that our course took us 1h40min… a tough way to start a training camp.
The terrain was really fast on the top of the slope, but once in the slope the running slowed down considerably… steep, rocky but especially really thick vegetation made moving in a flow tough.



We started with the sunset... running with the reding sky was quite a wonderful experience

3rd Training, Tuesday morning

On Tuesday morning we did our first fast training… a training formula Baptiste and I are slowly getting experts in, as we have done it quite often in the last years… always content with the training result. The idea is to have a first cross country running part, where you run full speed, raising your lactic acid as high as possible, followed by some technical controls. This time we did four repetitions. The uphill took me 3min25sec, 3min21sec, 3min28sec and 3min19sec. The downhills were about 7 minutes.

To my first control of the 2nd loop I made a quite typical mistake for vague terrain. I ran down too far, getting to the edge of were it got steeper. Besides the contours, there is nothing here which can give you a strong hold.
Way to nail the control: 1.precise baring 2.feel the curve of the landscape.
Lesson: If there is contour help, it is a crime not to use it.


On the 3rd loop I missed the 3rd control. Here the vegetation was the helping device to nail the control, and not the slope (which is too uniform). Leaving the 2nd control full speed, I underestimated the importance of the exactitude of my approach. I believed the wall and the thick green would be perfect helps to guide me… well, the wall was, but the green turned out to be very diffuse. I misinterpreted my location and ran way too far down, thinking I was correct… a nice parallel mistake.
Way to nail the control: 1.Lucid concept of how to nail the next control while leaving the previous one 2.Applicate high precision orienteering on the whole leg.

Lesson: When using greens for navigation, a constant and exact map contact is required… it is very dangerous to do rough orienteering in “bush-O”, because the available features for the relocation are to diffuse and can be easily misinterpreted.


This training we were lucky to have a photograher. Thank you Baptiste for the pics!





Me fighting in the last uphill







Tuomas Sipilla flighing up the cross-country section







GO JANNE!

Janne Weckman tiptoeing





Me confused... picture of me in my mistake on the 3 round.

Janne fighting for the victory in the last downhill after a smashing orienteering part.







Tuomas in his smooth and elegant style




Quintessence of the training: it was really tough physically, technically and mentally… just perfect!

4th training, Tuesday evening

And in the afternoon, night O again… of course! We went on the eastern side of the map we had been in the morning for the Cross-O. My ability to concentrate decreased systematically during the training... at the same rate as the night grew darker.







Check out this mistake:
I have to admit, that I resigned to finish the whole course… of course only because I didn’t want to let my 3 friends wait in the cold.

5th training, Wednesday morning

Recovery training. Line-O on the map “Le Parpaillou”. Slowly I understood that the challenge of that type of terrain is not primarily the fine navigation in the impressive rock fields, but much more the ability to do bush-O… when the visibility is low, the features diffuse, the possibility to keep a straight direction is zero, in those circumstances the master of the terrain will show.
To train those features, Janne planed us a challenging line-O. It took a lot of concentration to remain precise…

6th Training, Wednesday afternoon

Baptiste put out a Micro-O, as a control substitute he put toilet paper as controls. Worked out really well! We thought we wouldn’t push too much the challenge, and exceptionally resigned in doing a night-O training that day.

7th Training, Thursday morning

Our 2nd fast training. At least it was supposed to be that way…
Tuomas prepared a training the Finn call “pressure training”. We raced short courses, where we would start in chase, with 30 seconds gap. Of course the goal was to catch the leading person… who would have the most pressure.
The weather was freezing, and that day I never managed to emerge from a thick fog my head and body seemed to be in. I did huge mistakes and my heart rate was stuck in the basement, never climbing higher than the 160s.

Here is my biggest mistake:

I left the trail far too early, thinking I was much further. Well, this was a nice beginners mistake. I must say I am quite ashamed of it, but I need to take the lesson out of it! Elementary orienteering is not given, it also requires concentration!

That day, the snow had found us even in southern France

8th training, Thursday evening

I must say, that after the morning training, I was not looking forward to go out in the snow again, especially in the dark. But actually, it turned out to be a really fun practice… after resting enough the whole day! Because we were all struggling with motivation, we decided to go on the most enjoyable map, “Le Potensac” and to start all together. Because of the great visibility of the terrain, we would see the lights from the others far away, which would lift our spirits. As expected, no one achieved to break away, and we all finished in less than 1 min.

9th and last training, Friday morning

To kill ourselves at the end of the training camp, we decided to do a last fast training. We asked Baptiste, who had left the day before for the PWT in Italy, to plan us a middle distance on the map “La Roc Orientation”. It took me about 4 controls to get all the cogwheels running smoothly, and than it went pretty well. I lost most of my time trying to pass some of the really thick thorny walls, not always mapped as such… but for a middle distance it took me a little long… 50 minutes. But which was good, the more tired we are at the end of the training camp, the merrier we are, isn’t it like that?!?
… Well, I preferred not to think about the Swiss cross country champs, which I was running 2 days later…

Conclusion

A perfect training camp. High quality, no injuries, good atmosphere. The only down part was the weather, which got worse everyday… but we made the best out of it.
Physically we did enough fast trainings, and until the last training, we were able to keep the speed high enough (with the exeption of freezing Thurday).
Technically, we encountered many different challenges: fine orientation in the stone fields, compass orienteering, a lot of night-O, and what brought me personally the most: the tough bush-O parts.

Thank you Tuomas, Janne and Baptiste!