Around Wrocław

How it is to train orienteering around Wrocław:

We organize Night Orienteering Fight. It will be five nights, sprint races in parks. Two are already behind us. I can see there many people which are separate from job or home TV, even small children (like my Antoni).

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We went 1,5h by car to get to the orienteering map and during training we ran with almost white sheet of paper to train direction.

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This map is also close (1h by car), but I can’t believe how bad was map maker (from Poznan). I did about 15’ mistakes. Course looks nice, but sometimes was so far from the reality. I would be better to train there without a map, just do 700m uphill in 89’ and go back home.

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I had also a funny training in my neighborhood without a map. I try to do force training in totally flat area. In effect I ran 67 times on 6-7 meters high river embankment. It was a 60’ middle speed training with target: don’t slow down on uphill running. Target sounds funny because it’s only about 10”, but I got tired.

Just ballast

Natt-SM. I knew it will be a challenge: 90’ in detailed area, on scale 1:15000, but it was worse. I mean better:) Challenge grew up, when I saw this stony area. During the course I was thinking like amateur: find all controls and come alive. 28th place is not important, just alive.

Two days later THE LAST RACE of 2009 has come: Sista sträcka på Smalandskavlen. Won Kalevan Rasti. Orion take 9th place. Emil Wingstedt (Halden SK) on last leg did 67’34”- it’s real good. The rest is just ballast. You can see my GPS route here.

Polish Champs

Last weekend were Polish Championships in night and relay. They were good, as for polish condition. For me the map was not enough detailed (especially green areas) and this dypoloms :)

DYPOLOM -should be dyplom

go-go (photo by picasaweb.google.pl/lublin.bno)

unexpected winner (photo by picasaweb.google.pl/lublin.bno)

when ladies are happy (photo by picasaweb.google.pl/lublin.bno)

hej Śląsk! (photo by kajo)

results

Eestii forest

the highest Estonian point 318m

CISM is always fun. You go to some country as a soldier. You stay in a military unit and see strategical places, that normally are hidden. Estonia is a small country (1/40 of Polish population) but their military units doesn’t remember Soviet times, Polish still remember.

On long distance my brain wasn’t in the top shape. I made mistake on 1’20” on the 5^th control. There caught me Matthias Merz on 2’. Then I could use 75% of my brain and 100% of my legs. On the way to 24^th control we went straight (two hilly, two green), we should go around from the right and be 1’45” earlier on the finish. Matthias was bronze medalist (80’47”) in this race. I was 2’ after him on 10^th place. The BIG winner was Daniel Hubmann 76’19”. Francois Gonon got silver 80’02”.

one more time /photo by www.mil.ee/ Two days later on THE REAL middle distance my brain and legs were better co-ordinated. Running only by myself I reached 12^th position. Without mistakes (1’40”) I could be 4^th. Yes, I know: “could”, but this is step up for me. I CAN PLAY IN EXTRA LIGE sometimes :)

Banach heh /photo by www.mil.ee/ Relay were in the same terrain as middle. It wasn’t easy. Swiss, Russia, Finland were on the top. Poland took 7^th place. I had, one more time, very good race and a nice fight with Andrey Khramov at the end of a race.

all /photo by www.mill.ee/

Banquet : O my God! It was delicious. Greetings for all the crazy dancing team ;P

results

maps long, middle, relay

new PB

I took part in street race ("Bieg Solidarności") in Wroclaw. I won with time 15'36 on 5,2km, so my best time on 5km is now 15'00". This mean that I'm in live shape. It's a nice feeling, to know all I have to care during o-race is technics.

It's 9 days to Military World Orienteering Championship.

Polska and WOC

sprint team

Sprint was a great day for Polish Team. On qualification all our runners (three boys, one girl) got to the final. In final race I was 14^th, Dwojak 22th and our young girl Hania was 34^th. Those are real good results.

animal

Relay went unusual. Dwojak on the first leg had great race (came six), then Banach lost a little, but then I had good race and on the spectator control I heard we could be six. I counted on my fingers how many teams were before us and I counted around nine. After finish they told me we are six and explain why. First time I get a diploma on WOC (6^th place).

first time

Long Final was too long for me (29^th place). After control 22^nd I lost my power. The good thing is that to control 22 (3/4 of the course) I had alone race with great speed and technique. This gave me good feeling for future.

relay team

Through all WOC days we had wonderful fans from Poland. First time I felt, that someone real love us. It’s much easier to give 110% of power, if you hear Polska! Polska! Polska!

real fans

maps you can see here (by RouteGadget)

Death group

Long Q went good. First 2/3 of the course I was running alone with good speed and technique. Then caught me Daniel Hubmann. I finished on 10th possition. In my group “men A” from a winner to the 15^th runner was 3’22” (men B 8'54"; men C 6'31"). I think it’s very tight. See you in the final day.

Results

Old times: JWOC 2001

It was in Miskolc. We were very young (now we are just young:) I hope I’m still half crazy than I was 2001. It was good times.

peeper

all happy

naket lady

relay finish

podium

Three weeks on high

We have finished high altitude sport camp in Switzerland. Like year ago, we went to Sankt Moritz and like year ago, it was extremely nice. Mostly we trained running, but we had couple of orienteering trainings and some competition. Thanks to Carolina, Ines, Matthias, Marc, Baptiste and Fabian that we could train with you, it was great lesson.

snow slope from superbysior on Vimeo.

Eating or tearing maps

When my son was 8 months old, he has got first orienteering lesson. Now he is much older - 10 months, but still not interested about orienteering, except eating or tearing maps.

Wojciech Kowalski i jego lekcja orientacji from superbysior on Vimeo.

WC Oslo Middle +Long

When we left Poland there was only rain. In Oslo all the time is sun. It’s too good weather for running, too hot. I expected extreme terrain. I was surprised. It wasn’t so bad. All the course I was running alone and I did only 1’25” mistakes. I’m really proud of me.

On long distance I had a lot of alone (group 2-3 runners) fun to 21th control. Than caught me a 10 person group and I changed sport from orienteering to cross country running.

After a mounth full of competition I'm exhausted. Now it's time for 5weeks of recharging batteries and restore power.

Polish Champs

… were quite nice. On the SPRINT distance map and terrain were good, but the course planner didn’t remember about different rout choice, what is one of the main things on sprint.

MIDDLE distance was OK, sometimes too easy. The speed was decisive in the race. But I want other challenge: technique. So I go abroad to WC in Salo or to WC in Oslo. This are real orienteering lessons!

CLASSIC race was very interesting! Big congratulation for organizers. They didn’t afraid to do a course for 89’ (15,5km) for a winner. For me it’s normal, but for Polish reality not. You can see replay (.kmz open in Google Earth) from this race here now or will be there soon.

On first two races I had no mistake:) than on classic I did 2’. During whole weekend I was able to keep good speed. Good, mean enough for polish O-level. Generally I’m in a small physical hole. I know it’s good for me, because top will come on August/September.

One more time

Good Lord!

The gpsseuranta.net from Jukola is great. During the race I didn’t know that so many things was happening around me. From the start to 9th control, I was thinking I ran alone, couple of seconds after William Lind. But now I see that there was mix of runners. I was enough to do some small mistake (me on 1,2 control) or run little bit shorter (keep more strait line – me on 3 control) and you could be with other runners.

I can’t believe in that. I have to see it one more time. 

3 times kicked

Word Cup (NOC middle and sprint). Finish terrain didn’t disappoint me on middle distance. I expected challenge and got it (66th place). On sprint qualification I was pushing very strong, I did only 5” mistake and I was missed the final by 14”. It’s not nice to be happy of your race and be out of final. Yesterday I took part in Forrsa Games and one more time my bottom kicked – 4’12” behind first. Great.

around Miskolc

I spend with Polish Team six days around Miskolc. We did couple of interesting trainings (you can see it below). During two, hard days I did 46 km in the forest. Thanks to Czech Team for opportunity to take part in their WOC qualification race to classic distance. The course had 16,3km. In real I did 21,3km and I was missing a lot. Better now than during WOC. You can see Google Earth replay of the relay race. There are four runners from Polish Team. They’re running on different legs and teams: Maciek Grabowski/green dot, Wojtek Kowalski/red, Alek Bernaciak /blue, Mateusz Wensław/purple. You only need to click on H-relay.kmz and open it by Google Earth.