Battelfield Bühlertann or playing in the mud

After one year break the Rats Runners obstacle races are back. In 2019 I run two races (Bühlertann and Kupferzell) of the series. This year only Bühlertann will take place. The race in Bühlertann is hosted by the local motocross club that has a lot of experience with mud. Originally we planed to run with a team and challenge for the victory in the team category as we did in Kupferzell 2019. Unfortunately several date changes made me a solo starter. The running course is 10.5 k mainly trail/cross with several river crossings an steep and slippery parts. Hard people can go for two rounds. Perfect running terrain for orienteers. Highlight is the motocross track in the end of the course. Design of all obstacles made it possible to get other it alone. Obstacles are mainly place on two parts of the course. After one third around the BMX course (muddy challenge) and at the very end of the course (field of tears, 10 obstacles on the last 600 m). If anybody asks why to do this the slogan of the series “Stronger people are harder to kill” is a good answer. I not completely satisfied with my run as had some problems with strength (gym was closed too long) and running speed (too less orienteering competitions). I managed to run 3 mins faster than 2019 and finished 4th in the Silver Boys (M40+) class 2 min behind 3rd place. For next year I´ll try to manage the podium and hopefully we will have a team again.
My GPS track: https://www.attackpoint.org/sessiondata.jsp?sessionid=7563731
Pictures: https://www.rats-runners.de/buehlertann-2021.html
Results: https://www.rats-runners.de/ergebnisse.html?eventCode=RR-2021-03&classCode=RP

Regional Championships middle Baden-Württemberg

The first regional event this year was the regional championships organized by the SV Wannweil. Even though I wasn’t a big part of the organization this year I had to set and pick controls, so there was no chance for me to run in the championships. The map in Ohnastetten on the Schwäbische Alb is in some parts really stony and especially these parts were used in the course setting. Most Competitors were grateful we held the competition, as all the other competitions in the region were canceled so far. The difficult courses and small fields of competitors had the effect of longer victory times.

Steffen was one of the competitors in the H19 class and ended up in second place.

  1. Per Dammeier 1:17:41
  2.  Steffen Hartmann  1:20:26
  3. Manuel Werner 1:56:03

Results can be found here and for the maps check out our map archive.

Italy – Five O Dolomiti Paganella

This years five days of Italy (moved from last year as most things in these times) take place in the beautiful Dolomiti Paganella area. We had good memories from ArgeAlp 2010 taking place in the same area and it was nice to have the chance to compete international again, so we entered. To have most out of the competition we entered the M21 elite course. The elite had a small but good field including former Swiss junior squad members Florian Schneider and Lukas Diener and 1972 WOC relay silver medallist Dieter Wolf.
First competition (a sprint) was scheduled for the evening, so we took the chance to go to one of the model events in the morning. The map Rifugio Meriz had some tricky parts on it that we didn´t manage very well but gave a good feeling of what to expect in the upcoming competitions.
First competition was a sprint in Fai Della Paganella. Two interesting map pars that were connected with one long leg. Course was a little long but I didn´t want miss any part of it. Results of day 1:
https://www.5daysitaly.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/split-stage-1.pdf
Day 2 was long distance in Andalo on the forest of ArgeAlp 2010. That year I wasn´t very successful but this year I had the feeling that everything was under control. Results of day 2:
https://www.5daysitaly.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/spilt-stage-2.pdf
Day 3 was middle distance and take place in the neighbouring forest to yesterday. Very detailed in the beginning and some route choices in steeper areas in the end. Route choices and orienteering were quite bad today. Results of day 3:
https://www.5daysitaly.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/split-st3.pdf
The afternoon we hiked around Lago di Molveno and added another 12 k and 350 climb to our day.
Day 4 was another middle distance an brought us up to the Chalet Forst. Steep area with technical parts. Interesting forest but hard to run. Results of day 4:
https://www.5daysitaly.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/splits-stage-4.pdf
In the afternoon we took the lift to La Selleta to hike La Paganella were you have a fantastic view. We found a lot of nice looking tracks so the hike was longer than planed and added another 11 k and 350 m climb to the day.
Final day brought us back to Fai Della Paganella. A longer middle distance race in a very technical terrain we some running in the end to come back to the arena. Orienteering went fine but running was more fight. Results of day 5:
https://www.5daysitaly.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/split-st5.pdf
We both ended in top 10:
1. Siro Corsi 4:09:15
2. Albin Alisö +0:15:10
3. Mads Møller Skaug +0:15:49

6. Jakob Schach +0:35:08

10. Steffen Hartmann +02:37:45

You can found total results here. For maps check our map archive. If you plan to orienteer in Italy check orienteering.it for upcoming events of PWT Italy. They are always worth to travel.

Essinger Panoramalauf

Saturday we had the first competition this year. We started at the 3 hill run of the Essinger Panoramalauf (Essinger landscape run). A 23 k race with ~500 m climb. The event was resheduled from June last year to November last year and finally to June this year. There were some restrictions like no drinks on course but otherise it was a good competion feeling. We run the 23 K course first time so it wasn´t easy to find the right speed. Worked quite fine for Jakob and OK for me.
Jakob: 1:43:23 (12th total, 3rd M30)
Steffen: 2:09:34 (71st total, 13th M40)
Results:
https://lac-essingen.de/panoramalauf/#0_0D6FAD

After race drink.