Friday 29 May 2009

More Sprinting

Last weekend was round 2 of the Danish Park Tour. My rival from round 1, Rene Rokkjær wasn't  running. This time however, I had to contend with the formidable Claus Bloch. The races this week were in Viborg, so we had to get up nice and early for the 2 hour drive to the event. 
The first course went ok. I made a small mistake on the way to the 6th where I was a bit wobbly, I climbed up the path and then dropped it all to go around some bushes. I didn't lose too much time on Claus though. I lost 20+ seconds on the 19th control. I decided to take the small track through the green to lead me right to the control. It would've been a good route choice if I was a midget (I mean a real midget). It was really overgrown and I basically had to walk/crawl along it. Apart from this, I was happy with my run. I finished in 2nd place, 7 seconds behind Claus Bloch.
Again we had not so much time to recover untill the second race. Just over an hour. I had time to warm down, put on warm clothes, scoff down a bananna and some cashews and then it was time to warm up again. The second race went quite well too. I made a small mistake on the fifth where I ran to the wrong tree. Then I made a big mistake on the 7th control. I think atleast 20 seconds or so. I came in between the wrong buildings, then I panicked and ran to the right even further from the control before realising. The rest of the course went ok, apart from feeling quite tired. I managed to win the second race by 10 seconds giving me a 3 second lead overall.
On a completely random note; I found this video the other day on Veoh. It's from the WOC sprint final in Czech Republic last year. It brought back all of my supressed memories of forgetting my racing flats and having to run in one of the Australian officials' gigantic clog-like trainers. So, I whacked some music on there and stuck it on youtube :) 

Saturday 16 May 2009

JFM Sprint(s)

Yesterday we had the first of the Dansk Park Tour events. It is a sprint race series (20min EWT's) with 2 races per evening. There are 4 days in total over the next month or so. Points are given on your placing from the total time of each 2 races combined. The overall winner is the one with the most points on their best 3 out of the 4 events. 
Yesterday also doubled as the JFM (Jysk/Fynsk Mesterskab) sprint champs. Both of my runs were pretty good except for 1 control on each course I lost most of my time. On the first course (3.7km) I had a good route choice on the way to the 5th control, but then I hesitated and went down a path with an impassable hedge that I thought I could cross. It was a dumb mistake as the way I was already going would have been faster anyway. I lost 20-30 seconds. I also had a little bit of a bad route choice on the 8th control.
I finished my first course at about 6pm. My second start was at 7.34pm, so I didn't have so much time to recover. It was physically quite tough to run hard on the second course (3.5km, but the GPS watch says I ran 4.7km!). I lost alot of time on the first control (about 30 seconds). I didn't read my description and I assumed the control was on the corner of the building in the middle of the circle. It was actually right behind me tucked in the corned of the olive green, which was a hedge. At first I thought I was at a wrong building, so I went back out towards the road. Next I thought it was in the wrong place so I checked the next corner, then when I turned around I saw it. Lesson learnt. The rest of the course was ok. I took what looks like a strange route choice on the 9th control. The first bridge over the railways was also the route to the start so there were alot of people crossing the opposite way. I only lost a few seconds though. After that I only lost a few seconds at a couple of controls in the circle. Just tired I guess. 
I ended up in second place in both races behind Rene Rokkjær and second overall. Maja won the womens grade though :)

Saturday 9 May 2009

DNF at SM

Last weekend was Sjælland Mesterskab (Zealand Championships) in Grib Skov just North of Copenhagen. Saturday was the relays. Unfortunately Odense didn't have a team so I just ran around the longest open course. I only ran at 90% to try and have a perfect run, but I still made some dumb mistakes. I think I was too relaxed. When I am running at 90% I have picked up a bad habit of only concentrating at 90% aswell :)
Sunday was the SM long distance race. I was unofficial because I am living on the wrong island, but I still wanted to have a good run against the Rasmus's. I started really well. I felt quite fast and only made a few small mistakes. Just after the 8th control disaster struck. I was jumping over the small ditch after the control and a sharp stick went right through the bottom of my shoe (Inov8 Talon 212). Luckily it didn't pierce the skin. (This is the 2nd time I have had this problem. It happened to me with my Inov8 mudroc 280's when I was warming up in Hungary last year... I think the rubber they use is a bit too soft and thin for rough dry forest. I wonder has this happened to anyone else or am I just that unlucky???) I tried to pull it out, but the rubber had squeezed tight around it. I took the shoe off and spent the next 6 minutes or so fighting to get it out. I had to watch the 2 starters behind me go past. Finally I managed to push the stick into the shoe using another stick and pull it out from the inside. I raced through the next 2 controls and caught up to Michael Sørensen who had started 6mins behind me. We ran through the rest of the course together. We were running pretty fast, I was struggling with the pace a little as I had run so hard to catch him up again. On the way to the 26th control I took a different route choice. When trying to jump over a ditch I fell in up to my neck in slimy black mud/water. It really freaked me out, any deeper and I probably wouldn't have come back up. It was the last straw. I got the next control then walked back along the road to the finish. I missed out the last 1-2km loop and DNF'd. After vigorously wiping the mud off myself and bathing in my cologne I saw Michael Sørensen come in to finish in first place. On a day where just about everything seemed to go wrong, I at least had the consolation that I had been running well enough to win if things had gone a bit differently :)