SaMa News

TC with The VeVe Brothers

2006-12-22T15:19:00.000+01:00

With Christmas getting closer, I wanted to find an answer to my doubts if Santa Claus really exists. My last weeks training camp with The VeVe Brothers in Akäslompolo, Lapland, proved me, that he certainly must exist. The landscape is filled with magic. The always rising/setting sun, the crisp cold nights, the emptiness, the beauty, the vastness… and his reindeers are clear signs of his presence. I think this little movie is speaking more than 1000 words:
www.vehkalahdenveikot.fi/files/veveyllas.wmv

We didn’t only spend time training, eating and sleeping, but we also spend a lot of time in our sauna thinking about refined goals for next year. A lot of debates have brought us to elaborate predictions, as you might have noticed at the end of the movie.

Over 24 hours of training in 6 days, this was a good training camp to build up again a base after a two month winter break. Now, if my ankle is willing, I will be able to build up my training for the season 2007.

But in the mean time, let us enjoy Christmas!

US Team Training Camp – Karlstad, Sweden

2006-11-15T16:09:00.000+01:00

Sandra here: I went to my swedish club Ok Tyr for a training camp as well as the club champs in Ultralong and middle distance. I was lucky to be joined by some of the US team members, specifically those who are living in Sweden at this time. It was a great camp, with lots of good training, and some really exciting races as well. Here is our report:9 – 14 November, 2006
Attendance: Suzanne Armstrong (OK Linné) right, Viktoria Brautigam (Södertälje-Nykvarn Orientering) center, Boris Granovskiy (OK Linné) left, Sandra Zürcher (OK Tyr)
Organizer: Tom Hollowell, OK Tyr

Upon arrival on the evening of Thursday, November 8, we were greeted with all the trappings of hospitality by the Hollowell family and fed a fine home-cooked meal of chicken curry that was to set the standard for the whole week's dinners.After a good night's sleep, we set off on our first challenge: an interview with Nya Wermlands-Tidningen, Karlstad's local paper. After answering some questions and posing for photographs, we began a long distance/route choice training on Mosaren, the map that has hosted the Swedish long champs and the Euromeeting in the past. The terrain was both physical and very technical, with a lot of contour and rock detail on hillsides and hill-tops. The course was designed with many route-choice options, as well as the requirement for fine navigation in the control circle. Part of the challenge was running and maintaining concentration through deep moss and blueberry bushes, where we had to raise our legs pretty high on almost every step. Link to the Mosaren map
With yummy lasagna in our stomachs and after waiting for darkness to fall, we drove out to run a night sprint on a 1:4000 map. The sprint course was run in loops of varying lengths which were run in different order by different racers – a standard way to provide simple forking in Swedish trainings and races. Despite various navigation and equipment problems, we all managed to survive the course and returned to the Hollowell estate for some time in the much-appreciated sauna.

Friday started with the whole gang sitting around the breakfast table and admiring their own faces staring at them from the centerfold of Nya Wermlands-Tidningen’s sports section, along with an extensive and reasonably accurate article. Training-wise, this was scheduled to be an easy day with an eye on the ultralong race to be run on Saturday. This morning’s training, run by Viktoria, Sandra, and Boris while Suzanne gave her injured heel a break, involved a combination of two exercises done at an easy pace on a relatively simple area. The first part involved one person running ahead without a map, while one of the others instructed her where to go and what features to look out for. The goal for the person with the map is to think about what she expects to see and to plan each route choice well while simplifying as needed. The goal for the person without the map is to not let the other person run her off a cliff or into an impassable swamp. The second half of the training was golf-O, where your “score” is computed by the number of glances at a map needed to find the control. The rest of the day was spent exploring Karlstad, followed by some carbo-loading at the Hollowell mansion.

Saturday morning greeted us with the camp’s first rain, but the sky almost cleared up by the time we were all done running the Varmland District Ultralong Championships. The courses (20.6km for the guys, 14km for the girls) were set on a map called Sanna and were run in loops of varying lengths, taken in different order by different runners (sound familiar?). They were set around a central control, which we ended up punching a total of five or six times. The courses had a lot of long legs, with the emphasis on route choice and the need to select solid attack points. A key to success was slowing down in the control circles and staying focused despite the tired legs and the long, fast stretches of trail running that often were followed by diving into a very detailed area of the control circle. Our results were solid, with Sandra becoming OK Tyr champion and coming 2nd overall in D21, Viktoria taking 9th, Boris 6th in H21, and Suzanne finishing 4th on an open course with some unusually tough competition – she had to race against Hakan Eriksson, Sweden’s ageless national team orienteer. This was a very encouraging day for all of us, as we managed to complete the tough courses on a day when many competitors dropped out or stumbled into the finish chute. The evening called for a short, slow jog around the neighborhood and a gourmet treat of pork filet back at casa Hollowell.
Link to the Ultralong champs D21 It was hard to imagine that after completing Saturday’s brutal courses that we’d be back for more punishment on Sunday, and yet, here we were, at the start line of OK Tyr’s middle distance championship on the 1:10000 version of the same map we had run the ultralong on. This was a markedly less successful day for us, as tired legs and sore brains took their toll. We all made mistakes along the way, but still enjoyed the technical courses that felt totally different from the ultralong despite being set on the same map. The courses had lots of controls (21 over 4.6km in H21, as opposed to just 30 in 20.6km the day before), lots of changes in direction, and a lot of nice, open, but very detailed areas. It was nice to experience such different course-setting styles on the same area and to think about the different strategies necessary for success in each type of race. In the middle distance, we were often punished for leaving a control without a solid plan for the next one or for failing to compensate for straying off a bearing due to micro-route choice decisions.

Perhaps contrary to better judgement, we headed out on another evening run around the neighborhood before putting on our best Sunday clothes and heading to town to sample some of the best pizza in Varmland. The night finished off with a giant tub of ice cream and a movie at the Hollowell hacienda.

Monday started off with the camp’s last technical training, as the tired gang headed to OK Tyr’s clubhouse to run orienteering intervals. These were meant to be done in pairs in the following fashion: you get a partner and two streamers. Then you start from some central point and each pick a control to hang. You jog to that control spot, hang your streamer, and then run/orienteer fast to the other person's control, collect it, and then orienteer as fast as you can back to the starting point. Then go to the next starting point and repeat. It was a good exercise for technical training, but our overall tiredness prevented us from pushing ourselves physically on the intervals as much as we would have done if we were fresh. The tough, rocky footing combined with deep blueberry made for some tough running, so a major challenge of this exercise was to maintain flow and concentration while working hard just to get through the terrain.
Link to Ok Tyr club house map

After lunch and a nap, we were ready for our last torture… err…. training of the camp, as Tom’s wife Tone assumed the role of slave-driver and led us through a bit of aerobics (Swedish gympa) followed by circuit training focusing on core strength, balance, and stability. Following an hour of these exercises (we did 30 seconds x 3 times of each of 15 exercises, with 30 seconds off in between), exhausted but happy, we returned to the Hollowell compound for delicious omelets, tea, and good conversation.

All in all, the camp went very well, and we all return home in various degrees of exhaustion (which, according to Coach Tom, is the goal of a training camp), but also with a good amount of confidence and motivation coming into this winter training season. It was very nice to get this much time in terrain and also to practice several different types of orienteering, from night sprints to ultralong, all on maps having their own distinct characters. We would like to thank Coach Tom for making this happen, the US Team for providing financial and moral support and, of course, Tone, Christian, and William Hollowell, of Hollowell Manor for a week of fantastic hospitality!

- Team USA-Europe
15 November, 2006

Some funny pictures:
(Touring around Karlstad)
(Don't worry Tom, there is a reasonable explanation for this! :-))

From high above

2006-10-31T14:37:00.000+01:00

I crashed from high above... just two days after accomplishing my exams in dentistry I managed to sprain my ankle enough so that I need to take one month off from running. I was supposed to fly to the World military champs in Brazil today. Well instead 4 days ago, the day of the accident, I began my winter break. I am supposed to be on crutches for 1 week, than i can slowly start with physical therapy and by the end of the third week I can learn again slowly how to run.
Of course I am disappointed I couldn't finish my season like I had planed. But if my leg is again 100% after the therapy, this accident will not have bothered me too much. That is why I am doing all I can to get the best quality healing

Marc is a dentist!

2006-10-24T20:51:00.000+02:00

Marc is finally done with his dental exams!!He passed his last exam today and is now done with his education in dental school! Marc will start working part time as a dentist at the end of the year, but will also invest more time into orienteering in the coming years!

Congratulations Marc!
--Sandra

Last exams and my first marathon

2006-10-08T22:12:00.000+02:00

Long time no news. I am about to beginn with my last session of exams (4 out of 21) this Wednesday. I had 2 weeks to prepare for them since I ended the last exam. But today I planed to give my brain a little break and run a wonderful marathon. What I wrote on my training diary: "My first marathon. I started slowly with my brother to spend some time with him and started racing after 2km in the competition. Caught up with the lead after 7km. After the 10th km I was leading alone... 32km alone ahead is a long time, but the beauty of the scenery always gave me some distraction. 7km before the finish I heard I would be on track to break the course record. So I started pushing hard from this point on. By the last km I was starting to feel anxious to be in the finish, I was getting really tired.... I guess I paced myself just well. I am happy with my first marathon experience.

Running relaxed and easy...hum, doesn't really look like it :-)

A really nice race on a really nice day. 1640m of climb. It was not really good for road runners, that's true. A lot of little trails with big steps, tree roots and big stones. Most downhills were really steep and the profil constantly changed... I liked it. I ran in with 2hrs58min and beat the course record by 1.5min."

Sandra ran in a team with Cornelia Luder the first 1/2 half of the marathon. The two girls won the womens category with a really good time of 3hr44!

More to read in German: http://www.napf-marathon.ch/download/PD%20Leichtathletik.pdf

World Cup Selection

2006-09-01T19:49:00.000+02:00

Marc here:
Mmh, it seems like IOF wants to put some movement into orienteering. Great!
Unfortunately the strategic moves they have done seem extremely clumsy to me. Besides many decisions that are quite shocking, the new rule of restricting the number of runners from the weaker nations to 1 or 2 is a tragedy.
I will not enter in the debate; there is enough to read on every other orienteering homepage (check out www.attackpoint.org). What I do not understand the most, is why IOF has not yet learned the fundamentals of democracy… I had hoped they had learned something after the Micro O disaster from last year.
So, my message to the IOF: One needs visions to develop our sport, and the moves towards “evolution” will certainly not please everybody. But please, present your ideas first to the concerned ones and let us debate about it. After also hearing our point of view you might come out with an even more attractive solution, and on top of that we will stand behind your decision.
Let our sport be dynamic and fair! The second has been our jewel in comparison to the other sports, let us not loose it!

World Cup turns into Golden League…

2006-09-01T15:10:00.000+02:00

Sandra here: I have doing a lot of thinking about the World Cup selection process for 2007. I have to say it really frustrates me. The US is slowly getting better as a nation, we have athletes who are motivated, some are even moving to Europe to have more opportunities to train/race, others are working hard at home to become better. Everyone wants a chance at gaining valuable experience in the international circuit, but now we are only allowed 1 women and 1 man in the World Cup races!!! What an absolute tragedy.

Why are we being pushed out for being a "less developed" nation? How can it be fair to rank a nation on 4 World Ranking Events, when most nations who are outside of Europe, or nations with limited financial funding, only have 2-3 events a year at home. The US only has 4 women and 3 men who have 4 World Ranking Event points in the last year, and we are being ranked by our top 20(!!) men and women. It's no wonder that JPN, CAN, CHN, POL, BEL, IRL, NED, ROM, UKR (only to name a few) fall under the same status. We will all ONLY be able to send 1 man and 1 woman to next years World Cup races. I don't necessarily have a problem with the idea that the better nations get to send more athletes than the lower ranked nations, but I feel like reducing some nations down to 1 athlete is far too extreme. This is just the beginning of a negative spiral. Of course we are allowed to race in WREs, and potentially increase our ranking that way, but most non European nations only come over to Europe for the "big" events. American orienteers are limited to the WRE that are organized at home. And even in the US or Canada, the distance that the athletes have to travel to get to a WRE is probably farther than most Europeans have to travel for their races as a whole. Being from a country where funds are also limited, the athletes themselves are paying their travel expenses.
Even if a lower ranked nation moves up in the rankings, there will always be some nations who are only allowed one runner in the World Cup. That will always be too little for any nation that falls into that spot.
What about those non-European nations who have athletes that live in Europe but now cannot take part in the World cup? These athletes are making compromises (moving away from home) in order to be closer to the World cup/World Champs races, but are being limited by the current ranking of their nation as a whole.

Will the World Cup turn into a European Cup??

Besides my own concerns (personal, as well as, in the interest of US orienteering in the future), it seems that the system is flawed; take some examples from the discussion at www.attackpoint.org:

"Russia is 13th, behind countries such as Hungary, Austria, and Germany. Lithuania is way down there too.... I don't think IOF thought this through very well. And what's the intent, anyway? Is it killing off competitive orienteering in the countries where it's already dying?"

"As of today France would get 9 spots and Ukraine 1 in the men's class. The 9th Frenchman is in the 205th spot on the world ranking and in whereas the 2nd Ukrainian is 59th but is out of the world cup (3rd Ukrainian in spot 69 and 4th in 131 but likewise out). That's an extreme case of the stupidity in the rules."

Concerns from other athletes:
"Allotment of runners per nation: My main problem with the proposed system is that I think 1-2 runners for a nation is too few. I don't have problems with the larger nations having more runners, if this is what is necessary to ensure that all potential medal winners have the chance to participate in World Cups and WOC. (Whether it is necessary to increase the numbers to 8-10 to achieve this is another story). For the smaller countries where Elite orienteering is already struggling to survive, or on the verge of breaking through to the next level (hopefully we're in the latter category) these rule changes could be the kiss of death. Sending runners to World Cups gives important motivation and experience to be able to develop to the next level. Keeping the smaller/non-European countries warm should be a main goal of the IOF if they truly wish to increase the strength of Elite Orienteering internationally. I can see no good argument for limiting the numbers of the smaller nations, as long as there still are A and B finals."

"The Russia/Lithuania situation mentioned shows one of the weaknesses with the proposed system. Runners from those countries usually don´t travel much to anything except the bigger championships events (often caused by lack of funding), but they should still be up with the best in the rankings. Maybe this can give some countries/runners an extra motivation to actually travel - but if the money isn´t available... One other thing - why use top 20? To me it seems only the Scandinavian countries (and maybe a few others) even have that many runners that have taken part in 4 WREs? Would the list look very much different if fewer runners were included? Australia, New Zealand and all of Asia could also be losers in the long run with this system."

"Australia is looking pretty good on this list (somehow?), but it is a major problem for us. We have a country geographically the size of Europe, and have only 3 races. Most of us have to travel 6000km just to compete in the Australian Championships on the west coast this year. Then if we want more than 3 races we have to travel overseas, New Zealand isn’t that far away comparatively but it gets pretty expensive chasing WRE’s. After our best runners chase WRE’s its time to travel to Europe for the World Cup races, which is a $1 500 US airfare and a 24 hour flight. It’s unsustainable. I’m sure all non European countries have the same problem."

WOC 2006 Rollercoaster ride!

2006-08-18T12:33:00.000+02:00

Sandra here:

Dissapointing start
This year’s WOC was really a rollercoaster ride for me. I had a very dissapointing run in the long distance qualification, where I skipped a control and didn’t notice. In the finnish the officials had me look at the map and asked if I had been to number 7. I took one look and realized that I hadn’t. My heart sank into my stomach, this was hard to swallow.

Recovered well
At some point you just have to put a bad race behind you and start looking ahead. I still had the sprint ahead of me and I enjoy running sprint. I knew my chances to make the final were slim, and that it would take a clean race to do it.
I was happy with my race when I finished, eventhough looking at my time on my watch when I finished I knew it wouldn’t be fast enough. I was happy to have had fun and run reasonably well after my disaster race in the long.
(click on map to enlarge)

Missed the underpass

I missed making the final by 30 seconds, which is a lot in sprint, but it turned out that would not have been hard to be even 45 seconds faster if I had seen the underpass on the map. Oh well, I ran a consistant race and I could go home satisfied that I was at least close. The day was a great success anyway, the US team got 2 runners into the final. The speedy Saeger sisters had shown us that all their hard sprint training and track workouts pay off. We were insainly proud to have them both in the final, and they did well too. Congrats!

Relay revenge

The US women’s team has been making steady improvements over the last few years and we are getting stronger than ever before. The relay showed to us that we aren’t even that bad… it was a nice feeling. All three of us ran consistant races and felt statisfied in the end. One of our main goals was to beat Cananda, which we did with success, but we also managed to beat many other teams. Usually we are fighting for the last few places in the field, this year we were 17th out of 28 teams. Right on!

Life after WOC
Directly after WOC, once arriving at home in Switzerland, I headed off to the US for a wedding. Erin Olafsen became Mrs. Kristoffer Nielsen. What a beautiful event! Best of all it involved orienteering. The happy couple had mapped Erin’s parent's property, and Mr Daddy-O Ken Walker Sr. field checked the map, put it into Ocad and set courses for the event. After a beautiful cerimony, a reception with class and before the pig roast in the evening, the party shifted gears, changed clothes and had a healthy tournament against eachother. The events in the tournament were volleyball, horse shoes, some kind of college frisbee game, and of course orienteering!! What a great time!

Getting back to normal
My daily routines are going to have to get back to normal again. This shouldn't be a problem, but I also feel like the summer events have flown by in a flash. Now there is time to look forward to all the great orienteering in the fall. Switzerland has all of it’s championship events coming up, icluding the sprint and long this weekend in the Wallis. Should be really nice orienteering. I am looking forward to the fall and am ready for the next challenge.

WOC Relay

2006-08-05T19:46:00.000+02:00

Well, today was quite a disapointment. I ran the last leg after Matthias Merz and Daniel Hubmann. Both did great races so that I could start as the 2nd in the forest, a few seconds after the leading Russian, Valentin Novikov.
Unfortunately things didn't turn out so well from quite early on in the course. I had the bad idea to go through a very tough green to my second control, where I lost my direction and than lost some time relocating. Unfortunately in the process of fighting through the bushes I got something in my right eye. At first I thought it would go away, but instead it bothered me always more during the course. I lost a lot of energy trying to concentrate enough not to make any bigger mistake because of my bad sight. But to the 5th last control I didn't succeed in keeping the damage under control. I searched for the control maybe 90 seconds and Mattias Karlsson from Sweden passed me. This way I also missed a place on the podium, and I came in the finish 4th, behind 1. Russia, 2. Finland, 3.Sweden. Congratulation to them!

Having missed such a chance for a WOC medal, especially in the relay is a big disapointment. But life goes on... in 3 days I have my first exam of a very long spate.

WOC Long Distance

2006-08-03T12:05:00.000+02:00

Well, I have a big smile on my face... one year after achieving the 2nd place at the WOC Long Distance in Japan, I was able to defend this incredible result here in Denmark.

I want to thank deeply all the people who have supported me, coached me and inspired me on my way to this result. Such a performance is not a result of my own work, but the result of many people opening the right doors for me and giving me the right support at the right moment. Such a success is a long combination of things which went right in my surrounding. Thank you!

For several reasons this race is a great satisfaction:
-I went through the most loaded year of my life working very intensely for my last year in dental school. That I was able to build up such an O shape besides the 55 to 70 hours/week is something I could have only dreamt of. During this year I have surely learned to push my limits further.

-I felt quite jealous during all the spring, not being able to try my best at the WOC… finally I not only did I get the chance to do so, but I also achieved a very good performance.

-Maybe even the most resistant people understand now that my second place last year at the WOC was not a matter of running together with Andrey Khramov…
Yesterday I raced from A to Z without any beneficial contact with other runners. How seldom is that at a WOC Long Distance?

In 2 days we will compete in the relay. I feel like it will be a tight fight with many very good teams. But I am looking forward for the challenge together with Matthias and Daniel. Again, we will try our best!

What have I been up to?

2006-07-23T15:01:00.000+02:00

Lots of stuff..
Presented a poster at the European College of Sports Science congress in Lausanne.

Orienteering on the Grosse Scheidegg.

Hanging out with friends from the US.

Orienteering in Zermatt.

It was great!!

... and now I'm off to Denmark!

I will be running the Long (Quali 6.07, Final 2.08), Sprint (Quali and Final 1.08) and hopefully the Relay (5.08), but the team is not yet selected.

Details can be found at: www.woc2006.dk
Reports on the US team at: www.attackpoint.org

Selection for the WOC

2006-07-10T22:01:00.000+02:00

On the 8.7 (middle distance) and the 9.7 (long distance) the Swiss national team held its selection races for the WOC. Because of exams I had to skip the sprint selection race.
The middle distance was a tough race for me, mentally and technically. It had been a while since I raced in a serious competition and on top I didn't get a chance to get accustomed to the terrain, because I had only arrived the evening before. I started quite carefully, respectful for the navigation. But to #11 I did a big mistake, and lost 1.5min… which is too much for a middle distance. Finally I ended up 9th, 3min10sec behind Daniel Hubmann, who had a smashing race. Of course I was quite disappointed about my race and result. I started to wonder if I really was in WOC shape?
Middle distance map:

The answer fell the day after in the long distance race. To the 2nd control I did a 3 minute mistake (!)... but than took control of my race… and won the race 1.5 min ahead of Daniel Hubmann. This was a clear sign, that my decision to take part at the WOC makes sense, because I am in a too good shape to stay home and just learn for my exams.

Long distance map 1:

Long distance map 2:

Here are the results from the middle and long selection races. The team selection can be found here!

Results middle Hjermind Egekrat (6.2 km / 220 m / 22 Posten)

1 Hubmann Daniel 00:32:24

2 Müller Matthias 00:33:39

3 Merz Matthias 00:33:59

4 Ott Christian 00:34:19

5 Müller Andreas 00:34:21

6 Gilgien Matthias 00:34:33

7 Rollier Baptiste 00:35:07

8 Hertner Fabian 00:35:21

9 Lauenstein Marc 00:35:31

10 Schneider David 00:35:37

11 Schuler Benno 00:35:44

12 Koch Dominik 00:35:50

13 Müller Urs 00:35:56

14 Zimmermann Beat 00:37:09

15 Rechsteiner Sandro 00:37:21

16 Friederich Hannes 00:38:34

Results long distance Vesterskov 16.9 km / 660 m / 37 Posten

1 Lauenstein Marc 01:38:23

2 Hubmann Daniel 01:39:59

3 Rollier Baptiste 01:41:39

4 Müller Matthias 01:43:01

5 Hertner Fabian 01:43:34

6 Merz Matthias 01:43:40

7 Ott Christian 01:44:13

8 Koch Dominik 01:44:25

9 Müller Andreas 01:44:51

10 Rüedlinger Andreas 01:45:51

11 Schneider David 01:46:23

Last personal test before swiss test

2006-07-02T18:09:00.000+02:00

Marc here: Today I raced my last competition before the Swiss selection races in Denmark. No big mistakes, good legs, I think I am ready. The terrain was situated 5km from were we live... quite convenient for once!

I will have to miss the sprint races on Thursday 6.7 because I will have my last practical dental exam this day, but I will compete in the middle distance on 8.7 and in the long distance on 9.7. I am curious to see, if I am in WOC shape, like I expect.

The calm before the storm...

2006-06-24T17:36:00.000+02:00

14 days until the Swiss test races...
36 days until the World champs!

Relais de Pentecôte, smoky races!

2006-06-05T11:48:00.000+02:00

This weekend we raced the Pentecost relay, which is maybe the most traditional relay in Switzerland. It is a 7 leg relay. The format of the race is that the two first legs take part during the night of Saturday (start at 21:00), than the 5 morning runners take over with the start around 8 o’clock.
The race is always situated in the most hidden places of Switzerland, where only the basic supplies are provided… water. Every club builds its tent camp around a fire… and with 90 teams, this gives a lot of fires. All the cooking is made on the fire… at least for the real Pentecost relay runners… and the main meal is of course steaks and sausages.

So, besides that the race was situated at an honorable 1700m, hypoxia was trained thanks to the tons of CO liters inhaled before the race.

But fortunately the first half of the race was downhill, so that one could flee from its own smoke smell. That was also my motivation to start like a rocket, besides the fact that I had some places to catch up.

The terrain was mostly really fast, open forest with interesting features. But there was quite a bit of contrast… a dense, slow and technical part from the controls 11 through 18 and some mountain orienteering passages like between 9-11 and 18-25. The leg 9-10 is one potential reason for my sore legs this morning.

I had a quite clean race, a little bit boring to talk about. Since I haven’t orienteered against competitors, I was quite curious how I would do against others. Well, I am very pleased to see that my O shape seems to be good. I had the best time on my relay with 1h12. Fabian Hertner was 2nd 4’22’’ behind. But it must be said that Fabian had a comfortable lead… and I had to catch up people.
I started 4th and finished 2nd. A good result for our club, but I am sure if Baptiste could have come we would have been quite a bit stronger… hopefully next year we can align all our best club members.

Here my course... on 3 scanned samples:

Actually, a detail of the map doesn’t come through the scanning… the smell of smoked sausage.

After the race, I did my cool down running up the Pierre Avoi:

Quite a breath taking cool down, 800m of climb and no loss for stunning scenery. This cool down is the other potential reason for my sore legs… especially because I was quite dehydrated.

Feeling just too itchy about the WOC

2006-05-28T16:21:00.000+02:00

Exactly one year ago, I was preparing for the WOC in Japan. I focused fully on it, ready to make the least compromises possible to get in the shape of my life for that event… as it is actually for any World Championships. I discussed my goal with my professors, and they agreed to give me several days off from seeing patients, so that I could go to training camps to prepare well for the event. I thought to myself, I better move every lever towards these World Championships, and catch up later with the work I need to do to finish my education. And because the next year would be my final year in dentistry, I believed I would have to live like a monk to catch up that work I had missed and pass my exams.
The World Champs were a success, like the whole season. I had made technical and physical improvements thanks to the stronger commitment I gave to it, but more so from having learned to get more out of every experience.
It was with one happy eye I came back from Japan because of the success, and one sad one, because I knew I would have to break this momentum because of school.

So, in October I enrolled for the monastery. My plans were to be a good student and to train enough besides my studies to still have fun competing in 2006 and not loose too much so that to make it hard to be back in shape for 2007.
Well, I studied hard, and as every dental student I worked many extra hours including night shifts at the lab waxing up teeth and doing plaster work. But, my training didn’t suffer too much because of it. With some flexibility, I found ways to train pretty well.

Now I have done half of my practical exams, and actually I have survived them without a hitch. And the end is getting in sight… only 6 weeks left of school (than I have my theoretical exams from August until October). Besides the school load which seems to lighten slowly, I am growing week after week in a better shape. My personal best time on my “through the woods interval loop” are getting faster and faster every week. And just three days ago I dropped my 5km track time by 17 seconds.
So, with going through my exams at a greater ease than expected and my good shape in my hand, my heart started to beat stronger when I received the dates of my theoretical exams… They would only start the week after the WOC in Denmark! Since two weeks the thought of running the WOC were got awoken, and day-by-day the envy to take the challenge to succeed again at the World Champs has been growing… making my body and mind itch. I believe I can do really well at the WOC. So I have decided to change my plans and try to make the team for the WOC.

I will have to skip the sprint selection races, because the same day I will have an exam, and as planed already during the winter I will race the middle and long distance selection race. But instead of before, I will not take back my application for the WOC team.

My motivation for Denmark is not to just be at a WOC, but with the shape I am in I feel the need give it my best at the most important race of the year and play hard at what I like the most… orienteering.

From one training to another... orienteering in the Alps!

2006-05-28T15:17:00.000+02:00

Marc and I were in the Berner Oberland today and decided to go orienteering on a pass just under the snow limit. Getting up to this alpine pass where the map was involved running up 400 meters in 3km, a good „warm-up“.

The alpine terrain was enjoyable as always, but asked for concentration and was tough running. We were both pretty tired at the end of the day.

US WOC Team Trials

2006-05-25T15:05:00.000+02:00

St. Louis, MO
19th-21st May 2006

Being in a situation where I have to run well is probably something that doesn’t happen to me enough. Coming into these team trials I had goals of running at my best and maybe even winning a race or two. On arrival I started to realize that the pressure and stress was going to be harder to handle than I expected. Of course this was mainly do to the pressure I put onto myself, but a component that I hadn’t considered started to become more apparent. The way the selection process is done is based off of 3 out of 4 scores. One score is based off of the last 12 months ranking in the US. The other 3 scores are based off of your results at the 3 races. This means you can drop one bad score, giving the team trial-ers that have a ranking something to fall back on if they don’t have a good race. Those of us without a ranking have a petition system we can fall back on if we don’t have a good race, but this would only be put into practice in very extreme cases. In theory it is equally fair for everyone. What I hadn’t considered is that I had pressure to have three good races to even make the team, the pressure I had put on myself would have been easier to deal with, then the have to feeling of racing well.

Anyway, to make a long story short… this type of pressure is something I think every athlete should go through at some point. I mean ultimately we all do the sport because we want to, and because we like it, but not qualifying had never even come into mind for me before. Suddenly I was faced with the possibility.

My goals were then refined and I gave myself the challenge to be mentally strong for every race. Something I am personally working on anyway.

Mission accomplished?... Kind of.
The sprint and middle distance races were solid races. I felt mentally in control, concentrated and focused. Even though I made no major mistakes, I never felt like I was running my optimal. I didn’t come into the finish and think, yes, that was a great race. I was satisfied with my races, but never thrilled. Good enough, mission accomplished, two-second place finishes, two good scores. Only the long distance to go, and my favorite discipline too!

I felt particularly nervous about the long distance, because in the back of my head I still wanted to win (doesn’t every athlete?). Anyway, my preparation for the race was going normally until 10 minutes before my start when I realized that I didn’t have my punch card (yes.. no SI, real punch cards:-)). Thankfully I have good friends who helped me find a punch card (thanks Eddie and Boris), I ran to the start to see if they had extra’s and was relieved to find out that they did. When I had my punch card I tried to get myself back into a correct mental mind frame and continued with my warm-up routine. Three minutes before my start I realized… I didn’t have my compass with me! My shock turned very quickly into frustrations, “what’s wrong with me today?” Eddie jumped to my rescue again and sprinted up to my car and back, bringing me my compass with 30 seconds to spare! I never regained my composure and my race just followed suite. After blowing the 2nd control and being caught by Pavlina, I made one bad decisions after another and never got into a flow. The race was frustrating, but what bugs me even more is that I was unable to gain control in a tough situation.

This is something I should have considered in advance. How would I react if something goes wrong before a big race? Could I refocus, how would I refocus? I should be prepared for anything, but to be prepared I need to think about it in advance. I am grateful to have such an experience it is helping me prepare better for the next big race. Next time I will be more prepared to be mentally strong!

In any case, I had a great experience being back in the States and seeing my fellow team mates and orienteering enthusiasts. It was fun! Thanks to Eric Buckley and SLOC for a great event. Thanks to the US team for your support, and congratulations to Boris Granovskiy, Eddie Bergeron, Eric Bone. James Scarborough, Clem McGrath, Pavlina Brautigam , Samantha Saeger, Suzanne Armstrong, Hillary Saeger, and myself for making the 2006 WOC team.

Here are the maps:
Sprint
Middle
Long

Sandra in the States

2006-05-17T21:20:00.000+02:00

Sandra here:
Hello from Laural, Maryland!

I have arrived in the US well and am adjusting to the time zone quickly. I am staying with a high school friend, Lindsay Mitchell , and it is so good to see her again and catch up on thing. This is the best way possible to adjust to a new time zone, hanging out with a friend, relaxing, and doing some running on the side.
Only 48 hours separates me from the first event of the US team trials. The schedule looks like this:
Friday May 19th: Sprint distance race, University of Missouri-St.Louis
Saturday May 20th: Middle distance race, S-F Boy Scout Ranch
Sunday May 21st: Long distance race, Hawn State Park

I am slowly feeling perpared for these races after my back injury. Although after my long flight to the States (which included a 5 hour delay in Newark) my back is hurting a little more than before I left, I feel like I have been able to do several quality trainings in the last week and my fitness should be up to par again, but my heart rate is still higher than normal. I am not sure how strong I will be, but I will do my best.

I will update this page after the events with maps and results.
Wish me luck!!

SaMa update

2006-05-08T10:48:00.000+02:00

Sandra here: I thought I would write a short update to what is happening in the life of Sa and Ma. Although Marc would really love to write an update on his life himself, he has an exam at the end of this week and doesn't have time for "extra curricular" activities. I am happy to do it for him.

Quality not quantity, Marc is in form!
It seems that even though Marc has a high stress and busy schedule, he is still able to keep up decent training quality and this is keeping him in good form. Just yesterday he completed an interval training where he saw that his times were faster than last year at this time. This good news comes somewhat heavy hearted, since Marc is not taking part in any international races this year, and watches on the side lines how his team mates compete at the World cup races this week. Of course he can also watch with joy as the Swiss show yet again that they are contenders for the top positions.

1 Week and 4 days until…
The pressure is building as the US team trials for WOC draw nearer. I am unfortunately still having problems with my back, and haven't run a step since over a week. I hope to be able to start with some alternative training today, but I am waiting for the 'ok' from my physical therapist this afternoon. The inflammation that I have in my sacroiliac joint in my back is getting much better. I am almost pain free. Of course it's hard to tell how much the anti-inflammatory medication is masking the pain, and how much is actually progress. I will trust the professionals at hand, and wait its course.
Although my back does seem to be getting more stable, my nerves are getting more and more wobbly. With the US team trials for the World champs in less than two weeks, I feel under pressure to get my back up and running, literally. I am trying to focus on the mental aspects of this challenge presented to me, and keep cool. Clean orienteering and a focused strong head will make up for a small physical deficit due to this injury. Now it's all about achieving a cool head. I will certainly try my best.

Top and flop! My trip to Sweden had it all!

2006-05-02T13:20:00.000+02:00

I had the good luck of being able to travel to Sweden for a training opportunity. My club OK Tyr invited me to a camp in southern Sweden, as well as several days in Karlstad itself, where I was able to enjoy the awesome hospitality of the Hallowell’s. In additions I made a trip to Uppsala to visit Boris, and see this “orienteering paradise” that he lives in. On my way I ran into a bunch of friends, ranging from all the Smiths I personally know, I ran into Hammer and Brent in Uppsala, my good friend Christine who is living in Halden for half a year at several races, and basically the whole Swiss team on different occasions, including even my boyfriend Marc. During my 16-day “training camp” in Sweden from April 14th -30th I completed 16 orienteering trainings, equaling to 14 hours and 30 minutes of orienteering, and totaled over 27 hours of training during my time in Sweden. There were highs and lows on my trip, and a lot of in between. Here is the official ranking.

Top race
Long Distance Elitserie race on Brösarp Västra where I placed 6th in the Elite 2 category.
The terrain was the type of terrain that I am used to, ridge valley terrain, pretty steep, but still fast. Although I felt physically tired, I had a smooth, mistake free (!) race.

Flop race
Middle distance at the Tibro events.
Even before the race I knew that my mental mindset was a recipe for disaster. I tried to get myself focused and concentrated, but with no luck. The terrain in Tibro, although fast and for a lot of people very enjoyable, was difficult technically, at least for me, and I didn’t orienteer carefully enough. The biggest time loss was in a green area, where I zoomed in without knowing exactly where I was “zooming” into. Big mistake, literally. I was never able to get the hang of it…

Best recovery
Long distance at the Tibro events
After the disaster I had in the middle distance race the day before, I was worried about this long distance race. I was right to be worried! I had a rough start, still unable to read the complicated negative terrain. I had started to redeem myself by taking a good route choice on the long leg, only to run 90° wrong out of the control I had just spiked and spend 20’ relocating. After this shameful mistake, I was able to recover really well, and had a great race afterwards. I finally got the hang of the terrain, and had a good time. My splits also showed the positive feeling I had at the end of this race. Nice to recover from the disaster the race had started out to be. Of course my result still sucked!

Fastest orienteering speed
Swedish Sprint championships, 4.49 per km!
I didn’t run the elite category because I want to run the Swiss Sprint championships this fall. It turns out however that the D21 category was the same course as the 3rd heat in the Elite qualification races. The race went really well, full speed and no mistakes! I would have been 9th in the quali and could have qualified for the final. Would have been fun!

Best training
Tom Hollowell took me to a map that was supposed to be similar to the Tiomila terrain. It was flat and fast in the beginning and changed into a technical area about 2km away from where we started. I had been having trouble with direction and following my compass accurately, so we wanted to work on that. The first few km I did with a compass, trying to run the line as accurately as possible with my compass. Then Tom shadowed me through the butterfly loops in the more technical area without a compass. The big highlight of the training was completing a 2km leg without a compass in 9 minutes. This was a really fun training and a confidence booster! Thanks Tom.

Total bummer
During my time in Uppsala I managed to complete two orienteering trainings. The first being pretty tough, I spend a lot of time walking trying to figure out the terrain. During the second training, Boris was good enough to let me follow him for a few legs, while he explained what he was using in the terrain to orienteer. This was extremely helpful, and I would call the rest of the training a success, unfortunately during this training I hurt myself. I somehow managed to hurt my back, which did not improve over the next few days and ultimately stopped me from running in the Tiomila relay for Ok Tyr. Total bummer.

Unfortunately I am still suffering from this injury and am unable to train at the moment. It seems I have a blockage of the SI joint in my back, which has cause the muscle in my back and butt to stiffen up immensely. This is incredibly painful, but I am under good care and receiving physical therapy. Hopefully I will be training again soon. The next big races for me are the team trials for the World championships in three weeks! I am flying to the US for these races, and I sure hope to be pain free by then…

All in all, my trip to Sweden was really positive and helpful. I was able to do a lot of quality technical training and also challenge myself in some tough races. I am confident that it was good training and preparation for the world championships.

For the details of every training, look under the link to my training log.

Swiss Night-O Champs

2006-04-09T11:48:00.000+02:00

NOM
Pfaffenweiher 9.1km + 75m 27c
9th/11--- Mass start.

The start went well. I was running with the top girls to control number 4. Coming from the south into the control made this control pretty hard, and we all searched around in the green for 2’30”. I didn’t find the control with any other elite women, so I am not sure if they all found it before or after me. It’s hard to keep track in the dark. Anyway, I had a different forking to the next control. I managed to switch gears into orienteering alone to number 5 well, but then became over confident to number 6. I wasn’t far off, but lost 5’30” trying to relocate in the dark. Most of this mistake was due to not having my night-O shoes on yet. Later in the course, I saw the features much better and judged distance correctly, but at this point I wasn’t yet able. Leaving number 7, I came up onto the road just next to the control. For some reason I thought I was on the trail directly south of my control and dove into the woods to cut the corner to the next trail. This led me, obviously, very wrong. I managed to relocate at a trail junction, but I certainly stood there for a while trying to figure out what had gone wrong and where I could be, lost 10’ in the process.
At this point I was pretty disappointed with myself and completely unmotivated. Luckily as I was coming into control 8 (finally) I saw another DE runner, this gave me some new motivation. I stayed with her and even passed her on my way to the map exchange. Here, when I looked at the next map I thought, oh no, I have so much more. Seeing that there weren’t many maps on the wall left was also a bummer. But I should have expected that after such big mistakes.
Anyway, I kept going and noticed that I had a total different first control than the other DE runner and at this point my brain really switched on and I told myself to concentrate. I made a little mistake to the second control on this loop, but after that I finally got into a good rhythm and flow. The whole experience was saved by these last 14 controls. I am happy that I could concentrate and get through the course on my own without any more major mistakes.
Night-O is really an experience if you don’t do it very often (this was my first night-O of the year). I had to pull myself together and concentrate on a much higher level than during the day. O-ing in the day allows your ability to see far enough to check your direction and distance. At night, your compass has to become your very best friend, and estimating distance has to come from a feeling. This I find very tough, especially because running in the dark also feels different, so estimating the speed you are running is also a challenge.
I am certain that last nights race was a great training and I am happy that I made the best out of it.

Map part 1
Map part 2
Results

WRE in Neuchâtel 2.4.2006

2006-04-02T21:59:00.000+02:00

How to loose ‘The Flow’!

Today we raced in Switzerland the first WRE of the year, which also counted as the long distance selection race for the European Orienteering Championships and also counting for the BioFarm cup (national cup... with quite a bit of prize money for Swiss conditions).
So, even if I don’t plan to race the EOC, it is easy to believe this was an important race for me, and that I wanted to do well. Oh, and another important motivation… my club organized the race!

The map and my route... Tête Plumée

I started the race well, with a few hesitation, but actually quite smooth, under control, feeling how I was pushing myself just the right amount. Yummy, I felt like today I would be able to join all the elements to do a satisfying race.

…But than came the approach to # 4. I contemplated carefully the control approach on the long running section on the road, left the trail with confidence to hit the control, slid out my magnifier not to miss any detail… and then “black out”… I didn’t get any of the features on the way to the control… I then thought: “OK, just keep the height, than you can’t miss it”. Well, thought wrong … I searched it for over 3 minutes!!! Those 3 minutes wiped away all the self confidence I had and the good mind set… on the next controls I was more running like a headless chicken, with full speed and with many emergency stops or hooks. Uh, orienteering like that really hurts ones feelings… though I had a really tough time stopping my bad habit.
It took me to jam my foot hard between two rocks on my way to #14 to pull me out of that frantic orienteering pattern I was in. It didn’t help me orienteer cleaner, but instead of my berserk mindset making it not possible to do smooth, clean, nice orienteering, it was my foot with its firing sensory nerves to my cortex, which made my brain unable to flow with the elements.

Wow, this was a hell of a fight, this race! But honestly, I am self responsible that the race turned out to be a battle. First it was bad of me to not nail #4, than it was really inexperienced of me not to snap straight back after the mistake into the same rhythm I was in before the mistake. As a result of my “hyper” running, I probably also jammed my foot.
I guess the problem of “braking a fuse” after #4 is that my heart is also orienteering, instead of only my legs and brain… which is not a bad thing, it gives me the extra power needed to make the difference, but I need to be able to control it better! Using a lasso is not a good idea; I need to let my heart free, wild and strong. But it needs to be better trained and listen to my orders.

Quintessence:
Don’t miss controls!
Shit happens, accept it, and take on the challenge to continue the race cleanly.

Results of the race here: http://www.solv.ch/cgi-bin/abfrage?type=rang&year=2006&event=3.Nat.A+Neuchatel&kat=HE

Spring Cup weekend

2006-03-27T11:56:00.000+02:00

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

2006-03-23T21:59:00.000+01:00

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

2006-03-20T08:44:00.000+01:00

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.

2006-03-15T09:58:00.000+01:00

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!

2006-03-11T12:03:00.000+01:00

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!

2006-02-21T15:00:00.000+01:00

SaMa 2nd and 3rd at the Berner Kanton Cross Championships!

On Sunday Marc and I decided to take part in a cross country race. It was the Bern Kanton championships, but also the Swiss University champs. Marc ran a good race, he completed the 8.4km course in 29:39 minutes and placed 7th overall. His placement was good for 2nd in the Berner Kanton championships as well as 2nd in the University champs. The University of Bern, where Marc studies dentistry won the team division. The women's course was 5.4km long, and I finish the race in 23:07 minutes. There were lots of women ahead of me, but it turns out not so many from Bern. I ended up placing 3rd in the Bern Kanton championships and 12th overall.

The course was interesting. They managed to wind 1080 meters into a small field. The loop had 3 180° turns and 2 more turns greater than 130°, this, plus the soft muddy ground made it a relatively slow course. The winners of the men's 8.4km ran 28:59 and the women's winner of the 5.4km course ran 20:55.

Marc and I will run at the Swiss Cross championships in Geneva on March 5th. Rumour has it, that it will also be 1km flat loops; we both are not particularlylooking forwards to doing 12 or 8 rounds each respectively… orienteering is really much more interesting.

2006-02-05T22:29:00.000+01:00

205 Controls!

Marc completed a new world record for most controls in an orienteering course, 205 controls over 27 km. Sandra completed the women’s version, which was 150 controls over 21.4 km.

This event was put on by the Golden Club, a club that gives donations to the Swiss National team in hopes to support the runners to greater and bigger success. This annual event is held in February and is usually a long orienteering mass start race for club and national team members only, followed by a dinner all together. I had the luck of being invited despite not fitting the criteria. Thanks Tom for the invite, it was a lot of fun and an experience finding 150 controls!

A news report can be found here! (in German)

There were 4 map exchanges for the men, and 3 for the women. The women did not complete the first map.
Here are the maps!
Map 1.

Map 2.

Map 3.

Map 4.

Our personal experience can be seen in our training diary, just click on the link that says “Marc's training” or Sandra’s training”

Enjoy!

2006-02-05T16:06:00.000+01:00

1st Swiss National O-race of 2006
Effretikon Sprint Map
Women's Elite category

I finally figured out how to load a scanned map up on our blog.

2006-01-25T21:55:00.000+01:00

What you believe you will achieve!

"In 1954, the entire sports world believed that it was humanly impossible to run a mile in faster than four minutes. Their limiting belief was supported by research reported in more than fifty medical journals throughout the world attesting to that "fact". We now know that Roger Bannister challenged and broke through that barrier. What is not so well known is that the sub- four-minute-mile was achieved by more than forty-five runners within the next eighteen months. It is difficult to believe that all those athletes increased their performance within that short amount of time. A more likely explanation is that once the four-minute barrier was broken, they all believed it could be broken again."
--Thinking body, dancing mind. Chungliang Al Huang and Jerry Lynch

Arizona Christmas

2006-01-23T15:16:00.000+01:00

Christmas1.JPG
Originally uploaded by SaMa News.

Arizona Sun… did us well. Here are some pictures from our two weeks adventure in the US. Click on the picture to see more!

Visiting my family in Arizona over Christmas was such a treat, not only have I not been to Arizona for 2 years, it's also been that long since I celebrated Christmas and New Years with my father, step mother and brother, and I could share the amazing desert of Arizona with Marc who had never been before.

Our days were filled with morning jogs in the near by South Mt. Park in Phoenix, and then with the variety of events and activity that sprinkled our vacation. We did two big trips; the first was to the Grand Canyon, where Marc and I ran down to the bottom and back up, a 30 km round trip with 1335 meters climb at the end in 4 1/2 hours. This was the highlight of our trip for the both of us. Marc says "Arizona was incredible. I always feel at home with high mountains around me, but I have never experienced something similar in any way to the Grand Canyon. A deserted plain, and then suddenly, whoof, a huge negative world opens itself. I told every Swiss person it is a must to see before they die!"
The second big trip was a 9 hour hiking tour on "The Ridgeline". This included 1800 meters of climb and was 22km long. We kept a good pace, but enjoyed ourselves along the way. On this one hike, Marc took over 100 pictures… which he seems to do almost every day we were in Arizona. (This is one reason why it's taken so long to get this post up; I have been sifting through photos for weeks!!)

Marc and my father, Peter, also climbed Weavers Needle, a two pitch technical climb after a 3 hour hike to the base. There are pictures of the needle in our album… it's certainly not for someone who doesn't like heights, like myself. I think this may have been a big disappointment for my father that he couldn't talk his daughter into climbing it. Oh well, I left the climbing to the boys… and they certainly enjoyed it!

We certainly had a shock returning to Switzerland after two weeks of sun and 25°C weather. But, on the other hand, it has made the long winter months a little shorter, and recharged our drained batteries. Thanks to my dad, my step mom, and my brother for a wonderful time. Lets do it again!!

High training volume hasn't left time for much less…

We apologize for such a long gap in our news. It's been on our list of things to do for several weeks now, we want to update you on our wonderful trip to Arizona over Christmas and to share results and maps* from our first race of the year the Effretiker Sprint.

The first National A-meet and first round of the Biofarm Cup took place on Sunday, January 15th in Effretikion. s-sport, SaMa's sponsor for orienteering and sporting equipments organized this annual sprint. The event proved to be of high class level, with a spectator control in the event hall, GPS tracking devices provided by FWRD for all the elite runners, and over 1500 runners from other categories to accompany us. It was an exciting event, and it certainly gave me a touch of anxiety at first, but then thereafter reinstated how much I enjoy orienteering and competing. It's a good feeling to get the first event of the year under your belt, although this felt almost "too" early to being thinking about competing, it also felt like the correct timing to evaluate my physical fitness from the winter training months, and also time to start up on a much needed interval program in my training.

The results are here, and I have made a comparison of my spits with some of the runners ahead of me. The GPS tracking device also gave me some addition information.

For instance:
Maximal speed: 14.8 km/h
Average speed: 9.6km/h :-/ seems really pretty slow…
Actual distance covered: 3.2km

Effretiker Stadt-OL (Elite Sprint) 1. Nat. OL A 15.01.06
DE (2.8km, 60 m, 19 Po.)

Sime (1st)- Lea (5th)- Jenny (8th)- Barbara (12th)- Sandra (17th)
1) 1.05- 1.23- 1.23- 1.17- 1.27-
2) 1.54- 1.56- 2.12- 2.24- 2.36- slow (route choice?)
3) 0.39- 0.43- 0.49- 0.51- 0.53-
4) 1.39- 1.46- 1.54- 2.02- 2.07- slow (good route choice)
5) 0.19- 0.19- 0.24- 0.27- 0.24-
6) 0.36- 0.41- 0.46- 0.46- 0.46-
7) 1.34- 1.24- 1.25- 1.45- 1.29- good! Route choice correct.
8) 0.13- 0.27- 0.18- 0.20- 0.29- 12" lost (went to 9 before 8)
9) 0.08- 0.07- 0.20- 0.09- 0.08- fast:-)
10) 0.31- 0.33- 0.35- 0.37- 0.37-
11) 1.34- 2.12- 1.55- 2.08- 1.54- fast, don't know why (better route choice to the left supposedly)
12) 0.44- 0.49- 0.54- 1.00- 0.54-
13) 0.14- 0.15- 0.17- 0.17- 0.16-
14) 0.15- 0.15- 0.16- 0.16- 0.19-
15) 0.37- 0.43- 0.48- 0.46- 0.47-
16) 1.00- 1.15- 1.18- 1.26- 1.55- 45" lost (should have stayed flat around and the up, not up and down, missed the control coming down too!)
17) 0.59- 1.03- 1.14- 1.19- 1.06- Good split!
18) 0.40- 0.43- 0.49- 0.51- 0.53-
19) 0.13- 0.14- 0.16- 0.16- 0.22- slow??
ziel) 0.28- 0.27- 0.30- 0.33- 0.34-
15.22- 17.15- 18.23- 19.31- 19.56-

*I am having technical problems posting my map. When I have actually achieved doing this, I will add my map and routes. For now, if you want to get an idea of the course and see Sime's routes, look here.

Marc did not have, what we would call, an optimal day on Sunday. He writes: "Fortunately the hectic environment of the race stimulated me enough to get out of my haze I had been in for the last few days. Actually, I don't think I would have made it out of bed if Sandra wouldn't have given me an ultimatum. As for the race, well, my brain is definitely in hibernation! Made a 30sec, a 45 sec, a 10sec and 60sec mistake... all only in ONE race! Not such a great start to the season! I ended up 2min31sec behind the winner, our "recently junior" now elite runner Fabian Hertner... in the 18th place. Fabians race was really strong, I am impressed."

When asked if these types of races can also be a positive "wake up call", meaning that a sloppy race is good once in a while to give you a sharp reminder that you've got to pay attention to navigation, too? Marc answers with "Actually, I think you are very right with the "sloppy race" theory. I did learn a lot from that bad race. I hope I can put my experience into practice. To bad it is a long while until the next race."

Marc and I managed to round of some Biofarm Cup points, Marc with 8 points and Sandra with 9 points. The next opportunity to get points is also the next National A meet on March 19th in Welsikon.

2006-01-01T15:08:00.000+01:00

2005 a thing of the past!

2005 was a successful, yet unsuccessful year for me. I see it as a success more now in retrospective than during the year. Clearly it was successful for me in a personal aspect, starting a new (first) job and being good enough at it that they have hired me for several more years is certainly successful. I feel, however, some remorse is in my orienteering success, or lack there of. I felt bitter towards the progress I have made in orienteering throughout the year, but now I can finally see it as a success. I, of course, wanted to be better than I was, and felt like I wasn’t making any progress. But now, I can look back and see that I have made some really visible progress and that where I want to be (in terms of results and orienteering technique) is very close to where I am. I am on the edge of the next big step; I just need to take it. 2006 will be all about orienteering technique and mental preparation. If I can work on these two important parts of orienteering I will take the next step and I think I will be happy with my results. Of course it can’t go without saying that when I make this next step I will only be looking forward to the next goal. But for now I should look back at 2005 as a success, preparing me for what I will achieve in 2006.

Here are the stats on ’05:

Total hours of training in 2005 = 414 hours
Goal 400 hours☺
Running hours (including Aqua-jogging) 225 hours (54%)
Orienteering 66 hours (16%)
O + running hours = 70% of training.
Strength 27 hours (6%)
Cross training 96 hours (23%)
Sick days = 27 (this includes days where I rested in order not to get sick, but it’s way too high!!)

Orienteering races = 40 races and 32 hours
Orienteering training = 34 hours

2006 Goals
Increase orienteering hours (over 150 hours) but mostly in training hours, I feel like I race enough… I was certainly surprised that I had so little orienteering hours, I was doing quite a lot of O training in May and June, but I didn’t do enough orienteering in January through March. I took a break after the World cup races in October, but had a training camp with the US team in Denmark in November.
I plan to increase my overall training hours, but I will be more cautious in order to keep sick days down. Should actually increase training hours anyway, by reducing sick days. Rest days will stay about the same.

As mentioned above, my main goal for 2006 is to increase my O technique and mental training. This already began last year, and is in process now. I am doing an analysis of every race I ran last year and documenting the problems. I hope this will help me figure out why I make the mistake I do. I will make a list of problems I have and work on one in every training I do this spring.

Ironically my first race is already on Sunday January 15th, but it’s the only one for months. I will have to prepare mentally because I don’t feel prepared to race yet. It is my first challenge of the year.

Base training

2005-12-16T11:27:00.000+01:00

Base training, where are the limits, what is the best way to stay healthy?

Sandra here: My theory for December's training is that if you need time off you should take it!! When doing high volume training a feeling of over reaching often occurs, this is a sensation of tiredness after extensive training, which can lead to productive adaptation i.e. getting faster or stronger when necessary rest follows, but is also the first step to over training if necessary rest does not follow. It makes no sense to go too far into over reaching until you have achieved a certain base in your training, making you capable of withstanding these high training loads which cause over reaching. In order to achieve a necessary base, you need to train in high volume, which makes it this an intertwined cycle. It is always hard to judge when an athlete needs some rest, and when it's okay to keep pushing. This is why I allow myself rest days in November and December with less restriction than say January through March.

I have trained well for the last 21 days, completing 36 hours of training. This includes one day off, and three recovery days where I only trained one hour in the day. You can look under Sandra's training if you're curious. Last week and the beginning of this week I felt great, I even had the thought, which I often do when I'm training a lot: "I feel better the more I train!", but this can only last so long. Yesterday and today I have noticed that I am tired. My weight training yesterday was more difficult than usual, and I feel spent. I also haven't slept enough the last two nights. With these factors together I have decided to take another recovery day, this means either nothing at all, or some biking at home. If this was January or February, and I knew I had a good base behind me I would push through until the end of the week, because next week is a recovery week, but I believe that right now is a critical period, yes to do a lot of training, but also not to force anything. The risk for sickness and injury are too high at this time of year, both of which can set you back longer than taking one day off.

Any thoughts?

2005-12-15T11:02:00.000+01:00

HoHoHo SaMa news readers!

Christmas is certainly on its way… Marc and I have been counting the days until the 24th of December (9 days!!), especially because we will be boarding a jet plane and heading to Phoenix, Arizona, where my father lives, for two weeks of vacation. We are both looking forward to this trip with fervent anticipation. The idea of living in "the desert" with blue skis and 25°C weather is just too much to handle. We are both preparing ourselves for lots of running, mt. biking, hiking, rock climbing, and of course some relaxing on the side. My mouth is already watering for delicious Mexican food, and I may even treat myself to a Margarita as well. Our plans also include going to the Grand Canyon and to hike down and up in one day. We will even have to bring a hat and gloves for this occasion, the Grand Canyon may have snow at this time of the year. Should be exciting! We will certainly keep in touch!

The month of December has been somewhat uneventful. I have been able to train well since the beginning of November and am already getting excited about next years season. Marc has had his hands full with school, but still manages to get a decent amount of training in, although he is certainly used to more. In the beginning of December Marc developed shin splints from running on pavement to school and back. He has had to find alternative ways to train for the last two weeks, but is doing a good job. Classic skiing seems to be the best form of training that doesn't bother his shin. Of course in Bern there isn't enough snow to ski to school, so Marc pulled out his roller skis! This has been an adventure in its self, sometimes icy conditions makes his way to school somewhat dangerous, but he assures me he can handle it :-)

In the next few days we will have Christmas with Marc's family, as well as with my mom. Wrapping presents, Christmas cookies and Christmas decorations have put me into a jolly mood!
We would like to wish all of our reader a very wonderful holiday season!
Take care,
SaMa

Sime and Marc.JPG

2005-12-04T21:28:00.000+01:00

NR9G9357.JPG
Originally uploaded by SaMa News.

Marc and Sime were invited to be models for a pamphlet on ankle and feet exercises. The pamphlet will be published in the magazine Mobile in February. Here are a few examples of the photos taken. It looks like fun.

2005-12-01T11:25:00.000+01:00

International Bieler Cross
27. November 2005
Marc Lauenstein 6th overall, 3rd in his age category!

Marc completed the 8.7km course in 28:17, despite snowy conditions and cold weather. Winning a silver medal at the World Orienteering Championships this year makes you in Swittzerland a little famous, and Marc felt the effect of this with this upcoming race. He had several phone calls from reporters, and even the local TV station came to film him during the race. A pre-race preparation includes, of course, choosing the correct shoes!

Fotos from Martin Jörg

2005-11-24T14:17:00.000+01:00

Gold, Grants, and Grrr!
SaMa news: We have been busy, successful, and sick… it has been an interesting few weeks for us.

Marc started school at the end of October, which opened a whole new saga in our lives. His last year in Dentistry is going to be wicked tough… and we are trying to adjust to the new lifestyle. Marc’s typical school day consists of getting up at 6am, leaving for school by 6:30 to get there at 7am, preparing his patient reports before classes start at 8am. For half the day he is in classes, and for the second half he is treating his patients. At 5pm he finally has some time to complete his patient reports, plan his patients treatment, and start working on the lab work that needs to be done. This means he typically leaves school at 8pm at the earliest. His day is not yet finished, because if he has the energy he runs the 16km home, only to get home around 9:30pm. Eight and a half hours later the whole thing starts again! Please don’t get me wrong, Marc is not unhappy with what he is doing, but he is just very busy.

Sandra’s situation has also changed a bit; originally I was only going to be working 50% starting in November, but there just happened to be a project that I could join (and be paid for), making it possible for me to work 100% until the end of the year. I certainly don’t mind, although it makes it a little more challenging to train, but I am very fortunate that I can train over lunch, plus I am very happy to be part of a new team and working on a publication. But I am also somewhat busy!

What has happened over the last three weeks… lets start with the Gold!
Marc, with his teammates Baptiste Rollier, and Thomas Hodel won the Gold at the Swiss Team Orienteering Championships on November 6th, 2005.
Team orienteering is a normal orienteering race completed in teams of three. There is one punching unit (SI card) per team, and two mandatory control points where all team members have to be together. All other controls can be run by single members of the team, the tactic being that breaking the race up between team members is faster than running all together. The team decides at the start where the next meeting place is, and one member begins running to the controls, while the other two run to the meeting place. From stories that I have heard, it doesn’t always work out to meet each other and in this case the member with the SI unit continues, because waiting would result in too much time lose. Marc, Baptiste, and Thomas had a stratigical meeting the evening before to workout the details, but you only see the map and course at the start. The race was close, Swiss team members Daniel Hubmann and David Schneider, with brother Beat Hubmann were only 30” slower on the 12.6km and 650 meters climb course!
Congratulations to the Swiss Champions!

Sandra has also had her success!
I spend most of the summer and into the fall working on writing a research grant to fund what could be my job for the next two years. We turned the grant in on September 15th (Marc’s birthday) and had to wait over a month for a response. Finally on November 22, the Federal Council for Sport had a meeting to decide which grant applications should be accepted, and my grant has been fully financed!!! This secures my job situation for the next two years, and is also a personal success because I wrote the grant myself! In order to celebrate Marc made sure to have the appropriate drinks!

So what is all the Grrrr about?
Well Marc and I are at the time being both sick… it’s nothing very serious, but we have strong enough head colds that training has come off the schedule. While Marc is already feeling better, I am at home sick as a dog… hence I actually have time to write something on our blog. Hopefully we’ll be up and running soon! (no pun intended :-))

Take care and until next time! SaMa

2005-11-08T16:42:00.000+01:00

WOC 2006!
Training Camp November '05
Silkeborg, Denmark.
Training volume can be seen under Sandra's training link.

Arrival in Silkeborg: Thursday November 3, 2005.

Training run on Silkeborg Vesterskov with Christine Friedrich (a friend from Switzerland who came with me to Denmark) and Ekaternia Orekhova (the girl friend of US teammate Boris Granovskiy). The rest of the crew (US Team members Karen, Boris, James, and US team coach Tom Hallowell, plus Helen from GB, Christine from Switzerland, and Junior's from Tom's Swedish club OK Tyr) arrived in the evening.

2005-11-08T16:33:00.000+01:00

Day 1: Friday November 4, 2005

Training 1: Line-0 + control picking (two loops).
This training was a great introduction to the terrain. I found it a very good first exercise, right from the start we learned what the terrain looks like, and what features are useful for fast, smooth orienteering. My first impression was that the features on the map (especially the contours) were in general easy to read, and that following along the line was not particularly difficult, although somewhat slower than expected. I however made my first mistake after climbing through some light green, and didn't get on the correct ridge. My second mistake in the controls was in issue of concentration, after finding Karen at control 4 with a twisted ankle, and I was thinking more about her on the way to control 5, then the map. Realized my mistake fairly quickly. On the second loop the line-O became easier to read and a little faster. On the controls I found I was getting a little tired, but could still concentrate. Several controls were not set, which ended in a congregation of runners (Helen, Christine, and I) at control 4.
Take home message: Light green is thick and difficult run ability. It will be even worse in the summer. When making route choice decisions, avoid the light green. Dark green is thick coniferous pines, you can get through it, and it won't get thicker in the summer. Sometimes the pines are planted in rows, making running through it not particularly hard.

Loop 1.

2005-11-08T16:31:00.000+01:00

Training 2: Middle distance exercise.
Our instruction was to have flow in and out of the controls and to look ahead. Both of these things are something I do not do particularly well. Fortunately I had Tom as a shadow during my course (on purpose), which forced me to have a particularly high level of concentration. I felt like a achieved the flow that I wanted and felt really happy about the orienteering. My main weakness was relocation, both times I made a mistake I stood there stunned, instead of staying calm and working through the problem. I didn't push particularly hard physically (especially on the roads where I would normally bring it up a notch), but was constant in my pace and working hard.
Take home message: At the moment you have realized you are making a mistake, keep moving in order to find a feature to relocate off of, usually there is one very near by that leads you quickly back into the control and saves time in comparison to standing stunned for 30 seconds instead of acting.

2005-11-08T16:26:00.000+01:00

Day 2: Saturday November 5, 2005.

Training 1: Route choice exercise.
I was paired with Christine and we executed two different routes to compare which route is faster. On the map, Christine's route is in blue and mine is in red. Next to each control there is a star, the color of the star represents which route was faster.
This exercise was incredibly valuable, and also a lot of fun. In general going around was faster, as in the case of 2 to3 where running through the field was 2 minutes faster, and from 3 to 4 as well, but in the case of 5 to 6, going straight seems to be faster (although Karen and Helen said it was about the same). Karen and Helen compared the route 6 to 7, and Helen was faster going steep up to the fields and down to the control, than Karen going straight. Here I think the point is that taking a easy to execute route is faster even though it was certainly more physically demanding climbing up to the fields. From 10 to 11, the most optimal route is to cut up earlier from the trail onto the trail just after the out of bounds area, Christine stayed longer on the trail than optimal, according to our comparison with others.
Take home message: Trail routes around, and routes using fields were in most cases faster. Coming into a control from a easy to get to attackpoint was generally faster.

2005-11-08T16:17:00.000+01:00

Training 2: Pace changing exercise.
This is an exercise that I need more practice at. In the first loop I was chasing both Christine and Karen, and I could really concentrate. But in the last two loops, Christine was always chasing me and I would push too hard on the road and blow up in the forest. Somewhat frustrating not to be more in control, but at least I learned that this is something to work on.

2005-11-08T16:13:00.000+01:00

Day 3: Sunday November 6, 2005

Training camp race!
I was having pain in my left knee and was unable to race this course, although I was able to run the whole thing at a jog. My knee hurt most in terrain, which was really a shame, since this terrain is so nice to run though.
My first mistake was to control 2, here I went over the hill to attack the control instead of around, which was 1. steep, and 2. green. Lost maybe 30-45 seconds.
Control 7, came over the hill where we had a control yesterday and was certain I would spike this control. Came off the hill a little to the left and ended up beside the control. This area is an example of where white on the map is not constant in the terrain; there should almost be a vegetation boundary there, just before number 7 the forest gets thicker and visibility drops a lot. I remembered what Tom had told me the night before, and tried not to stop moving, turning around to have view of the hill from yesterday's control and attacking the control again, this time I spiked it. Probably lost 45"-1', I guess.
Control 10, came up to the top of the hill and just was to the left of the control. Dropped one contour line and realized that the control shouldn't be that low, turn back up and went to the right to find the control, lost time 30".

Training camp summary
This was an excellent training camp. The terrain is interesting, and also challenging. I am really looking forward to coming back to this area, and also to concentration on this terrain for the World Championships. I think this is the type of terrain I can also practice for in Switzerland, and am looking forward to doing more terrain running, hill repeats, but also intervals (speed will be important in this terrain, but hill strength as well). I wish we would have had more time, and maybe a rest afternoon on Sunday and back into the woods on Monday. But I guess it will have to wait until next spring!

I would like to thank Tom Hallowell for an excellent camp. A very thought through and organized camp with fun, yet very relevant exercises. Also thank you for the personal coaching, and taking the time to come into the forest with me.

2005-10-31T15:45:00.000+01:00

SaMa have just completed a 3 week training break!
Sandra here: Today is the beginning of our winter base training. I will start my year's training off with a training camp in Denmark from Thursday afternoon until Sunday. The US-team coach, Tom Hollowell, has organized a WOC '06 training camp. The attendance is international, we have runners from the US, Canada, England, and Switzerland. I am looking forward to having a glance into next year's WOC terrain. It will be the perfect start to achieving this coming year's goals. Marc has started his winter base training in another fashion completely. His last year in dentistry school has started today. To start things off right, he will be running home from school, a mere 1 hour 20 minute jog, but this is how Marc gets most of his base hours in, otherwise he doesn't usually have much time. We do however want to celebrate the beginning of his school year, because it means there is an end in site. In one year from now he will be a dentist and joining the likes of the working folk!

2005-10-26T13:41:00.000+02:00

SaMa introduces: Sandra Zurcher and Marc Lauenstein

2005-10-25T15:37:00.000+02:00

SaMa news: Marc has been busy, and wants to share his first race analyse with you. As you may well know, Marc ran very well this year in the long distance events of the World cup, including his Silver medal at the World championships in Japan. He even came out on top in the overall World Cup standing in long distance. (Standings are here ) His last individual race of the international season was that of the World cup long distance race in Italy, where he placed 3rd, only 39 seconds behind the leader, Chris Terkelsen!
So here are his routes, and his personal analyse of the race from control to control.

Marc: The race I am describing was the last individual race of the WC Final in Italy. The long distance. Having finished 4th in the WC in GB, 2nd at the World Champs in Japan, I wanted to prove myself that I was able to finish the season with consistency on the long distance discipline. All the discussion after my silver medal at the World Champs was an other strong motivation to run well. I wanted to show the ones who were sceptical about this result, that it wasn't an accident.

Unfortunately, things hadn't been going so well lately. Since end of August I had some hamstring problems which bothered me in my training (actually still does), I got sick in September (just before the long Swiss champs), I was suffering from diahrea (too much pasta? Actually some rumours go around that the water in our little village was quite bad), and the two sprints races the days before were a catastrophy.

Anyhow, the day of the race I felt super motivated, and all the bad circumstances couldn't disturb me. This was my chance, and I was determined to take it.

Part 1.

Part 2.

Part 3.

Leg: Time loss -Comment
S-1: 13'' -The start went well. Feeling secure and knowing what I want. I am astonished how much time I lost… on Tero how has the best time here. He must have been quite agressive
1-2: 16'' -Went well too. Running in the steep slopes, across the ski resort, I had the impression of running an alpine O marathon… old memories with Baptiste when we used to do such races arose.
2-3: 10'' -I still don't know which would have been the best route. Probably the biggest time lost would be to spend too much time at the control trying to find THE best route. Going straight/slightly to the right is actually not such a bad idea, I think. But going all the way to the right is very elegant. But there are some risks that the slope towards the control is bad to run on. The route I chose is ok, too... I guess.
3-4: 2'' -Stayed quite high leaving the control. This way I could attack number 4 from the plateau. I have a lot of respect for slope controls, so finding attackpoints, like the plateau here,is very valuable.
4-5: 5'' -The mistake not to do was to run down to the road. With the house close to the control it was easy to find the location.
5-6: 18'' -I don't know how I lost so much time here. Funny!
6-7: 6'' -Nice conrol to run, but easy. This flat section of the map, where forest, half-open and wild rocky field alternated reminded me a lot of my home terrain, the Jura.
7-8: 12'' -I took the wrong route. I missed to see the little trail leading almost to the control. I wasn't feeling really well at this point in the race. My stomach hurt and my legs felt weak. So I really had to kick myself to move fast enough... with the consequence that I didn't take enough time to plan well my routes.
8-9: 8'' -Nothing special to say, just that it was a real pleasure to run in those rocky pastures.
9-10: 17'' -Nice route choice. Going straight, as I did, was slower than going to the left.
10-11: 1'27'' -My unforgivable mistake. Leaving the control, I had it very clear in my head: "leave the control without loosing height, pass the ridge and find the control on the nose behind". Well, I should have been more careful. When I passed the ridge, I didn't see the rocky nose. I should have stopped on the highest point, and I would have seen that I need to go right to find it. Instead I made something up, and searched around all the rocks in the wrong place, convinced I have to be at the right place without looking at the map. Too bad.
11-12: 7'' -Running up the slope to the control I felt tired and my stomach was hard like a rock. I was a little worried about how I will finish the race. But in my mind set there was no compromise possible for that race. I had to give it all, otherwise I wouldn't be satisfied... taking the risk that I was stiring into an unknown zone... pushing myself to the limit.
12-13: 25'' -I spend a long time drinking my whole 5dl sportsdrink. Honestly, it didn't feel good, but I knew it would pay off to drink lots. Coming into the control area I am surprised about how big the rocks are, and I do an extra detour.
13-14: 15'' Maybe was it faster to go up the little pass on the right, instead of going around!?
14-15: -Running down I let it roll… and the pressure gets too big…
15-16: 10'' -Leaving the control I need to unload. This done, I feel great, the greatest I have felt all the race. Now I feel hungry and confident about the rest of the course. When I get to the control, I see a norwegian dress running down towards it… it was Holger, who made a bigger mistake and who started 2 minutes ahead of me.
16-17: 24'' -I can see Holger in front of me, he is maybe 15 seconds ahead. I am not totally focused, and I descend too much on the slope.
17-18: 0'' -Holger is still ahead. I haven't come any closer to him. Crossing the road, I read my map, look up… and I just see the norwegian dress disapearing behind a tree too much on the left. I nail the control, and I know, Holger his now behind me.
18-19: 20'' -I should have opted for a straighter line. Furthermore I was very respectful attacking the control… a black pit in a chaos of stones, I thought it would be difficult. But actually the control was very visible.
19-20: 5'' -I spend my time reading in advance the whole last loop. It looks interesting, and I feel strong again. I am very motivated. In contrast to the first time when I went through the finish area, the spectators cheer me up with much more energy... I understand I am in a good position.
20-21: 8'' -The leg goes well, I feel strong. Going to the control I am paying very much attention. You better nail a control in a steep slope with rocks and high cliffs.
21-22: 1'' -Everything goes well, but those rocks and cliffs are really impressive.
22-23: 29'' -Running down the big reentrant, the pressure gets again too big in my stomach… I unload, and feel fresh again. I am a little astonished, though, how much time I loose. I wonder if my micro route choices weren't optimal.
23-24: 17'' -Again, I am suprised of my bigger time loss.
24-25: 12'' -Running up the hill is tough. But when you know it is your last real climb, it does help.
25-26: 1'' -I try to run as fast as possible on the leg, and make an effort to concentrate coming close to the control.
26-27: 0'' -Focuse for the last time
27-F: 3'' -Let it go, RUN, I tell myself. Well, I almost missed the finish. Leaving the control I was so pressed to get through the finishline that I ran off in a totally wrong direction.

I crossed the line with the 3rd best time, 39 seconds behind Chris Terkelsen, the winner. The result is great, but truely, what makes me the most content is that I was able to overcome myself so much. In that competition, I have fought myself up from the worst feeling to the best feeling, over and over. Many times I was afraid my legs were soon about to fail, but I took the risk to push harder than usual, and I was rewarded that astonishingly energy came back. With only one bigger mistake over 90 seconds, I have had a good concentration. Again, in those circumstances, this is not to be taken granted.

This race was my hardest race I have run since long. And it is maybe the one I am the most proud of. I feel like I have extracted the maximum of my potential of that day. What can an athlete want more from his performance?

2005-10-25T09:48:00.000+02:00

Wait, maybe this wasn't a good introduction, here is Sandra after she had her breakfast.

2005-10-25T09:41:00.000+02:00

SaMa news: And the first part of SaMa... is... yes, you guessed right Sa!
A short introduction to her:
Well, I think the pictures tells everything

2005-10-25T09:12:00.000+02:00

SaMa news: I would like to introduce to you... Marc! Yes this is the Ma in SaMa, the one and only! He will shortly write something to y'all, but for now I thought an introduction was appropriate!

2005-10-24T22:26:00.000+02:00

Sandra here: Well well, so this little blog has been created because I am about to have more time on my hands... yes! more time! The story is, my job at which I am currently employed full time, will be reduced to a part time job for the next two years (which is a good thing!) and I will have more time for important things (orienteering, learning French, improving my German, keeping in touch with my friends) but also for fun things like keeping this blog about Marc and I up-to-date! I look forward to telling the news from our home front, a small village just north of Bern, even the news from Marc, when he's busy drilling and fixing (teeth that is) and studying for his State-exams! So, with this inaugural post, I would like to welcome you, make yourself at home, and keep in touch!