Yesterday it was time for the first race in 2013, a World Cup middle distance on Waikawa Beach, New Zealand.
I have been in New Zealand for a week, and it has been time enough to adjust my body to the new timezone, and the feeling has been good the last days before the races. I have been travelling with the other danes, we started some days in Auckland with some orienteering trainings, and have travelled south to Wellington, via Coromandel and Mt Taranaki. The weather has been really good, with a lot of sun and good conditions for running.
My injury in my groin has not been a problem, and even though it wasn't possible to get it examined before going down here, I don't think they will find anything.
The terrain was open sanddunes, and some small areas of "white" forest, all with a lot of details and complex orienteering all the way. My race was good in the beginning, I was very careful with my orienteering and navigated well until 9th control, where I was in 6th spot. But I stopped way to early to the 10th and lost more than a minute, trying to relocate in the dunes. I struggled to stay focused, but managed again to find a good rhytm in my orienteering. But to 16th, I went down to run on the fast beach, but was not careful enough going back to the dunes and found 22nd control before 16. The rest af the way I made several small mistakes, and on the 3rd last control I lost almost 1minute again. I was pretty dissapointed when I finished, but my race was good enough for the 10th spot in the competition, because almost everyone else lost time on the course.
But more than 4 minutes mistakes in total is way too much, even though it was very difficult and different mapping-style than we're used to in Denmark. I just wasn't prepared well enough, and it's a shame that I realized too late, that the terrain would consist of so many open sanddunes. Because we have quite similar terrain in Denmark, but I have only been orienteering in sanddunes 1 time since I came back to Denmark (DM-long in september).
My physical shape is good and I had some fast splits when I was running well, so I'm optimistic about the next days sprint races. I have been training some good sprinttrainings in december, and have started to do good sprintorienteering, so hopefully I can perform well later today in the qualification and especially in tomorrows final.
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