Infected!

This weekend I was in Tibro, Sweden, to run Silva League and get some good preparation for WOC Long-distance in Finland. But things didn't go as planned...

After the Ultralong I was of course pretty tired, and my legs were sore after doing some strength-training on tuesday. But I ran a long easy training on wedensday, which felt better, and on the O-intervals on thursday, my legs felt okay, and responded well to the hard training.

I travelled with Signe, Ida, Emma and Rasmus to Göteborg on friday and stayed the night at my older brothers place. After a morning run saturday, I travelled with Marius and Søren to Tibro with a good feeling in my body and looking forward to the long-distance race with a really good start line-up.

Overall I'm satisfied with my race. The terrain was tougher than I expected, with some soft marshes and a lot of short steep climbs, and not that good visibility and runnability as I thought. I was running ok in the beginning, but didn't execute my routechoices on the long legs very well. In the first butterfly-loop Marius caught me, and I realised that I maybe was taking it a bit too easy. I did well technically efter the butterfly and the speed didn't feel too bad either, but on 4th- and 3rd-last control I wasn't careful enough with my mapreading, and made some stupid mistakes (2 minutes in total).

Afterwards I was a bit surprised that I finished 12 minutes behind, as no. 37, because it was a pretty solid race I did, and physically it was almost better than expected. 

But I can see on the splits and GPS, that I have lost more time than expected. I didn't understand runnability of the marshes and ran through some really wet and slow marshes, and avoided them, when they turned out to be quite fast. And I also lost some time taking the right routechoice to the 5th control even though I considered it to be faster. 

The split also showed that the running technique in terrain, with rocks, blueberry and cutten/fallen trees on the ground needs some more practise, because I loose more time than usual just running through the terrain. And the generel fitness is better than last year...

Luckily I will have plenty of opportunities to remember how to run in Nordic terrain the next couple of months, where I will be going a lot to Finland before WOC. Usually I just need some weeks of orienteering to adapt to the new environments, because I have been living for so long in Oslo.

I also find it interesting to see the result list, because a lot of good runners is also unusually far behind (fx the Swiss runners). For me it's clear that the early World Cup round in New Zealand has changed the trainingplans for many runners this year, myself included. I don't think that these competitions show the true picture of what will happen in Finland in july, because people are at different stages in their training. 

And the training has been going pretty well lately, so I'm not worried about the results on saturday, and I'm happy that I'm improving techically on the long distance. And even though my body felt good, the Ultralong 6 days earlier might still have affected my physical performance...

But....

All good things come to an end, and it happened to me too this weekend. Because after the race the front of my right shin was quite swollen. I remembered that I ran into a stick to the 5th control, and even though it seemed harmless, a had felt a little pain during the rest of the race. It was just a small wound, and I couldn't see anything inside it, but I used some compression the rest of the day to minimize the swelling. But in the morning the skin was red and painful in the area marked on the picture, and it didn't feel good at all. I contacted the medical staff at the arena, and they told me that I had some kind of skin-infection, and I would take a big risk if I ran, because the infection could spread. Then it was an easy decision just to watch the race on sunday. So the gave me some antibiotics, and told me to see my doctor immediatly the next day when I came back to Denmark. 

It got a little worse during the travel back, but this morning it wasn't as red anymore, but still sore and painful.

Today I have been to my own doctor and both Team Danmarks doctor and physiotherapist. I was worried that there could be some kind of stick/thorn deep inside the muscle, causing the pain, but they can't see anything else than swelling and inflammation, so hopefully the antibiotics will kill the bacteria quickly. I was told not to do any training until they can see me again on wedensday, and if it goes as planned, I can start running again wedensday. 

So I cross my fingers that it will get better quickly, because I really want to run 10mila for Vaajakosken Terä, and be able to train a lot on the WOC training camp in Finland afterwards. And if 3 days without training will be the only break from training this spring (compared to 2 fractures in my knee last year and a bone-bruise in the same knee two year ago), I can live with it!

Danish Championships in Sprint and Ultralong

Last weekend I managed to defend my sprint-title in Nordby's small streets, and not to break my leg on the Ultralong like I did last year, but not good enough performance to win.

The sprint looked quite simple on the map, because it was only streets and private buidings/gardens, and the routechoices didn´t appear to differ much. But out there, it was pretty difficult to spot the small streets and alleys, and you had to be really careful, not to loose contact with the map at any time. 

I started out a bit careful, to get a good feeling with the map and terrain. I missed the street on the left routechoice with some seconds, but I didn't realize that it was more than 5 seconds faster going right (I lost 10 seconds to the best split). On the way to the 5th, I couldn't decide what to do, and lost again 7-8 seconds. On the map-change I was 25 seconds behind Rasmus Thrane, and 8-9 seconds behind Claus Bloch and Rune Olsen. But on the last part of the race I ran well, and had good splits, and caught time on the leaders. On the 19th control, I was in 3rd spot, 3 seconds behind, and all 4 runners within 5 seconds. But Rasmus and Claus both missed the 20th control, and I could keep my lead ahead of Rune, and won by 3 seconds. 

Results here

On sunday it was time for Ultralong in Fanø Klitplantage, one of the best and toughest terrains in Denmark. The sanddunes are quite big and either sandy or covered in small bushes, and the green forest is really tricky to navigate and run through. The course was 22,6 km.

I didn't really do well. I made several small mistakes, and especially going back to the forest after the southern part of the course, didn't go well. In the end, I got really tired and made some stupid mistakes on some of the last controls. Physically I didn't feel strong, and I found it really difficult to move my legs efficiently in the sanddunes. And I died pretty much after 2 hours running. But it was good training, and I didn't hurt myself. 

Marius ran a little faster than me and made less mistakes, so he deserved the victory. I was 3 minutes behind in 2nd spot. Results here

The courses and terrain were really good, and as always I enjoyed running on Fanø. It was a shame that the was no speaking, and that we didn't use GPS-tracking on the Ultralong on sunday.

I have been training quite hard, and now it's time for 2 weeks of easy training to be able to perform well in Silva League in Tibro next weekend and in 10mila in 2 weeks.

2nd in Danish Night Champs

Last night the Danish Night Champs were organized in Guldborgland near Viborg. I've never been in this terrain before, so I didn't really know what to expect, but the terrain lookes quite open and fast on the old map. But before the start, people talked about, that it would be quite dense vegetation, and challenging for night orienteering.

I have always found it difficult to estimate how far around you can go and still be faster or at least minimize the risk of making a mistake, without loosing time in night orienteering. I didn't even consider going around to the first control, but still lost 25 seconds. I tried to get a good start, but I was surprised by the dense vegetation to the 2nd control, and suddenly I got stuck in the middle of the leg, and had to run out to the track. After that I was more careful when I chose my routechoice, because the light green and even white forest could a lot in runnability and visibility. I did a quite good race until 9th control, but then we went into a area (10-15), which looked very tricky on the map. I managed to avoid big mistakes on the first 4 controls in the area, but it was almost impossible to read and understand the way of maping the vegetation and keep the direction, because the white forest was not always very white... You had the feeling of being lucky every time you saw the next control, but my there was no more luck left for me on the way to 14th and 15th, and I missed 1min and 1½min here. I worked hard to accept the negative thoughts on the way to the next controls,  but also made some small mistakes on control 18 and 19. On the long legs I tried to push harder, but wasn't very good on keeping the direction, but still managed to do quite well until 26. I had some problems seeing the 26th control, and again to 27 I missed the control in the dark green with almost a minute, and lost the lead to Søren, which he kept the rest of the way and won by 29 seconds. He had the advantage of catching Rasmus Thrane to the 5th control, and I guess it was better to be two runners out there to keep up the speed, and to spot the controls in the dark.

But I am not really satisfied with my performance. Even though I was maybe one of them who lost less time in the tricky area, I didn't manage to gain control of my race after that, and made a lot of small mistakes in the 2nd part of the race. Physically it wasn't my best day either, and I felt quite tired during the race. But in a period of a lot of basic training, you can't expect to feel strong in every competition, so I don't worry to much about that. 

I don't know what I think about the terrain and the course, because normally I really like when it's tricky and you have to read and understand your map carefully to succeed. But in this tricky area during the night, I didn't think it was possible to navigate according to the map, and when you can't see long, it becomes a question of coincedences and luck. It might be ok to use in day-orienteering, when you can see and avoid the bushes and fallen trees... Otherwise it was a good course, and the terrain was surprisingly interesting. And by having the long easier legs in the end of the course it was still possible to make mistakes, because you were tired.