Last weekend we had the last two orienteering races of our regional season. The races were moved from beginning of October so we had a very late season end. I was on training rake from mid October and only back in training for one week so for me it was more the start of season. We had a double sprint race at Saturday in the city of Wannweil. The sprint were Ok but my speed was still very slow. Sunday were our regional long distance champs. They took place in the nearby mountains were there was already snow. Running didn´t worked well for me so I end the race after 4th control, what w2as the last chance to shortened the race. For me it would have been better to skip the races and focus on winter training.
Mid October was the date for the traditional ArgeAlp (Alpine countries working group) orienteering competition. Going through the member regions, Trentino was this years host region. In the nice mountains around Folgaria we had a relay race at Saturday and a individual race at Sunday. At the relay I ran last leg in the open category. I ran 3rd best time on the leg and get our team in a final 5th place. At Sundays individual race I ran M40 and finished in 7th place. I made a bad route choice so probably 5th place would have been possible.
After being alone at the Rats Runners events in 2021 and 2022 we were back with a team. Nico joint Jakob and me so we had a competitive team again. Last year the event in Kupferzell was mid June and really hot. This year it was still warm but much more likeable conditions. His year they were able to update the course and the course had a nice amount of trail and forest track running. Obstacles at the rats runners series are not too extreme or strange and often fit orienteers demands very well. So I could recommend orienteers to try such event. Not only for training effect but also to annoy established OCR runners a little. We had quite good results. Nico finished 2nd in Young and Wild (youth), Jakob 3rd in Rats (men’s main) and I was 6th in silver boy (men’s 40+). Together we finished 2nd in the team competition (Rat Pack), so everybody has a trophy to tacke home. You can find the results here and pictures here.
This year my club hostet a event for the World Maze Race for the first time. The concept is easy. One identical maze all other the world to find the world fastest maze runner. Building the maze was quite easy and surprisingly faster than setting controls on an orienteering map. I tried two of the training courses and the race course by myself and it was really tricky cause you need to make fast decisions. Looks like most competitors had fun but also trouble to follow the course. Maze running is a quite easy way to introduce people into orienteering and my club will use it definitely more often now. You can find the world wide results here.
Without Jakob but with one junior we train I´ve be at the Swiss Sprint Champs in Laufen. Laufen was the host city of the 3rd round of orienteering world cup 2019. The map has been used for sprint and knock out sprint at that time. Course was super tricky and wasn´t really able to plan ahead the whole course and didn´t always take the best route. My time was 22:07, 08:54 min behind winner Joey Hadorn who run the course in for me unbelievable 13:13. You can find the course with some tracks on Livelox.
World Maze Race is coming. This year in conjunction with World Orienteering Day. So why not host a World Maze Race at your World Orienteering Day activity. My club will do so this year. You will find a list of registered events on the World Maze Race website.
Saturday I was on a local street race with my companies running team. In the last editions we´ve been quite good in the team ranking that counts the overall finished kilometres. So I chosen the half marathon. Just than figured out that we had small team and did not compete for the team ranking. The course is relative flat so can go faster times. Muscular issues prevent me from training very well the last weeks so I has some trouble to find the right pace. Second half becomes hard for me but also for some fellow runners so that I was able to overtake one on the last kilometre and nearly close the gap to another one. My time of 1:38:06 min was OK. Better were my results as I finished 5th overall and 3rd in M40.
Yesterday we had our season start. OK, we had a local trainings series and I´ve been to a night sprint event before but this was more for training reasons. Our regional season starts with the regional middle distance championships, so it was already one of the serious events. Competition was held in Zizenhausen near Lake Constance. We haven’t been there since 2021 so it was nice to come back. Start of the course were not so difficult (even some runner lost a lot of time) followed with some technical controls and a compass bearing part. For me it started quite well until I made some bad bearings. Jakob finished first taking the gold medal but challenged by still M18 Nico who we train in the regional squad. I finished in 8th place with already a big gap to Jakob. Most probably I would have won a medal in my age class M35 but would have missed the competition.
In US TV shows kids have always to write an essay about there summer. I don’t know if this is true. I never had to do this in my German school. But I´ll write you an essay about my orienteering summer. Total I made it to 3 international multiday orienteering competitions.
My first trip brought me to to Finland. Mid July I travelled to Lahti for the Fin5. I thought it will be a good idea to enter M21 Elite because of it´s 2 world ranking events. Well afterwards I would say it was not. First day was a long distance WRE. I´ll know beforehand that this would be hard to me. I made a lot of mistakes and decided to quit the race. Rest of the week brought 2 middle distance race were I made still to much mistakes but was able to finish and one awesome WRE sprint. Final day should be a long distance pursuit. Because of my bad performance I changed to a open course which I should make more often in Finland in future races.
Second trip was end of July and beginning of August to the inaugural edition of the Bavarian Forest 5 Days. In former times there was a strong tradition of multiday orienteering events in the Bavarian forest but they disappeared at some time. Now Peter from Endspurt Events brought them back. The race consisted of one sprint and 4 steep and stony forest races. This time I run my age class M40 and was able to finish all races. I was able to finish 6th in the overall results.
My 3rd event was the 2022 edition of Hungaria Kupa. Competition center was at the south Hungarian city Soltvadkert. Part of the maps have been used for the 2018 JWOC. Maps were semi open with a lot of small green dots. Counting bushes I tell it. Made one bigger mistake in every race so I only finished 9th in M40 overall rank. Like always HUngaria Kupa has some nice accompanying events like Night Sprint, Microsprint, Thriathlon-O, Mobile-O and a Beer Relay. I tried Night sprint and Microsprint and had big fun at both but unfortunately never seen a result list.
I know I´m a little very late, but this event deserves it´s own post. After 10 years there was again a race through 3 countries. I´ve already run in the first race in 2012 and now it was back. This time the race was part of the City Race Euro Tour. The race started in Switzerland, crossing the border to Germany and ended in France. It was a nice course, even the most special about is was crossing two borders.
Part of the course. See full map in my map archive.
