Portugal 2013

After coming back from New Zealand, I had less than 2 weeks at home, before heading south again. But this time the trip was shorter and the destination was Portugal, for two weeks of training camp to kickstart the basic training for WOC in july.

The first week I stayed in Evora, in the southern part of Portugal together with the Danish National Team. We took part in a scientific study about recovery at the same time, so besides 2 technical trainings each day, we had to drink different recovery drinks after each training, do blood-, urin- and spit-tests every morning, and stay on a strickt diet for 7 days. It was a pretty tough program, but also new knowledge about nutrition during hard training camps and competitions and other things. On friday we had to do 2 running tests to see if there had been any significant differences between the recovery. 4000m individually and maximal test on track with punching every 200m in the morning, and 20-25min maximal test in terrain in the afternoon. 

In total I had 17½ hours of training in 7 days, with almost 170km of running and most of it in terrain with a map and a compass. Quite hard start of the basic training again after december and january with much less training, and I was pretty tired afterwards. I ran with a Go Pro camera on some O-intervals and Søren Bobach made a video with my GPS-track and some live video of me running. Unfortunately the GPS-track is a bit unaccurate, but check it out anyway :)

POM 2013

The hard training camp was not the best preparation for POM 2013 starting on saturday, and I didn't push two hard on the first long distance, and focusing on good orienteering. I succeded very well and did an almost perfect technical performance without pushing hard on the long legs, but I still was in a good 5th spot. The terrain changed on the next days middle distances, and it was really rocky, and my tired and sore legs struggled in the hard conditions, and I had to be very careful not to fall. I tried to push harder on day 2 and 3 (WRE), but I had no speed at all, and also made some big mistakes. I started out as 5th in the chasing start, and didn't push too hard again, and suddenly my technical performance was quite good again, and I finished in 4th position overall. It's clear that I struggle to find the flow in my orienteering when competing in full speed right now, as it was in New Zealand. 

Results here

We also did 2 sprint-races in slow pace during POM, and especially the sprint at the top of Monsanto monday afternoon was spetacular!

I have been living with some guys from my new club, Vaajakosken Terä, during POM, and now we moved to the coastal area south of Figuera da Foz, and will stay here until sunday. My legs are really sore and tired after POM, and I will do some easy long trainings here before the competitions in the weekend. Luckily the terrain is more easy running here, and quite relevant for WOC2013 Long Distance. So the WRE Long Distance on sunday will be an important competition for me, and I will try to find some energy before that, so  I can get a good test.