Germany – Orienteering Schwaben

Trail-O Season

Taking Paul to his first Trail-O last year in the Bavarian Forest he was actual that good that he made it into Germany’s junior national team. This changes my priorities in orienteering more to Trail-O. There are not so many Trail-O competitions in central Europe, so gaining experience means a lot of travel.
Our first competition was the Slovak TrailO Sprint weekend. Around 8 h drive for us. The weekend consists of two Trail-O sprints, one Tempo-O and two foot-O training’s. All Trail-O count for the world ranking. One sprint and the Temp-O also counts for the European Cup in Trail-O. The sprints taking place at the map from last years WTOC relay. A super technical semi open quarry area. First sprint went well for me, at the second sprint I didn’t understood anything and had a quite bad result. The Temp-O at Sunday was in some dune area. I still didn’t understood much, but was able to place better than in the second sprint. In the overall ranking I was 31st, earning my first Trail-O world ranking and European Cup points. Paul finished 3rd in he Junior class, which earned him a mention at the IOF homepage.
Next competition was the Aeterna Roma Trail Orienteering Weekend. Two Temp-O and one Sprint, all park based. Like in Slovakia three WRE and two European Cups. The first Temp-O was in a quite park in the outskirts of Rome. I was quite satisfied with my result. The second Temp-O and the sprint were in a more central and busy park. Both competitions were’t that good for me, as I got distracted by the people and the noise.
Already one weekend later I went to Poland for the Bukowa-Cup. This time I was traveling alone, as Paul had some family festivity. The competition was relevant for this years ETOC, so I went there to geek a little. The competition offers three Trail-Os and five foot-Os in three days. I take part in all Trail-Os and four of the five foot-Os. Trail-O was sprint, Temp-O and Pre-O, all WREs. The sprint takes place in a detailed forest, Temp-O in a semi open area and the Pre-O partly in a open a park are and partly in forest with some fine details. The sprint and Temp-O didn’t work very well for me (I don’t think I’ll become a fan of Temp-O). In the Pre-O I had one of my best performances in my Trail-O history and finished in 20th place a second best German.
Finally we made a trip to Finland for the Fin TrailO. For preparation, we also went to a local Trail-O in Turku. And we competed at the Finish Sprit Champs, a 5 k road race ans went to some fixed orienteering courses on the trip. For Paul it was the first time he competed in Pre-O and the first time in Finland. This gives me the chance to beat Paul in Trail-O for the first time. In Turku there was a Pre-O and a Temp-O, both tricky and I made to many mistakes. At the Fin TrailO there were two Pre-Os and one Temp-O. I had some trouble with the small details at the Pre-O but enjoyed the competition. At the Temp-O I tried a new tactic and take time to really understand the map. I still made to many mistakes so this tactic didn’t work for me. At the second Pre-O I had the feeling the I understood the terrain better. but didn’t improve in ranking. Paul was now more in Pre-O and beats me again. Paul’s next Trail-O will be the ETOC in Poland. I will be at the Bavarian Forest 5 days and will not be at ETOC. I´m German national coach for Trail-O now, so for sure I’ll be at WTOC in California next year. If you like to try Trail-O the Temp-O simulator will be a great place to try it at home. If you looking for events the homepage of the Trail Open Project will be a great place to check for events.

Me at at the Slovak TrailO Sprint weekend

Rankings

The new year is a good opportunity to look back to last years rankings. We didn’t take any of the series to serious:

World ranking (highest rank 2025):
Sprint:
Jakob: 1757
Steffen: 1349
Forrest:
Jakob: 1413
Steffen: 1152

National ranking:
Jakob: Did not compete
Steffen: 40. (M40) (run only one ranking event)

German sprint series:
Jakob: 3. (M19)
Steffen: 17. (M19)

Rhein-Main-Ranking:
Jakob: 2. (M19)
Steffen: 5. (M19)

Regional ranking Baden-Württemberg:
Jakob: 3. (M19)
Steffen: 7. (M19) (had only 4/6 counting events)

Bavarian Forest 5 Days 2025

2025 was the 4th edition of the Bavarian Forest 5 Days, organised by Peter and his team. I missed 2023 but have been on all other editions. With nearly 900 competitors from 29 countries it has become a international event.
This year the first two stages took place in the Czech Republic. I struggled little with the map, as it was a little unusual style for me. The map wasn’t bad, I just needed some time to get along with it. Map was a nice hilly forest with less stones than the German part.
Next two days were in the same German forest than last year. More stones and a little more green makes it a different challenge.I was more used to the map maker and course setter, so I was more satisfied with my orienteering.
Final days was a sprint in Grafenau. Not my favorite discipline. I made a stupid ~1 min error that costs me two places at the stages and one at the overall ranking.
Except of day 2, I managed a top 10 at all days and in the overall ranking. You can find results and pictures at BF5D homepage and maps in Livelox. Next year the vent will happen from 1st to 5th August in a new area arround Bad Weissenstadt. Earlier that year (18th to 19th April 2026) you can have a weekend of City Races at the Munich-O-Fest organised by the same team.

Taunus-Cup 2025

The 2025 Taunus-Cup was our season start. The cup consists of 3 individual races and a final sprint relay at one weekend. Start was Saturday with a middle distance. I hit my knee there mid course and was a little handicapend for the rest of the weekend.
After the middle distance the weekend changed to urban events. Saturday evening we had a night sprint on a ruined castle. 1:1000 scale makes everything coming quite fast. Sunday morning shows an individual sprint with nice route choices and some climb. Afterwards there was a 3 person sprint relay. The relay consist of a lot of forest and climb up to the castle, so it was a very demand last race. Jakob finished 2nd in m19, only beaten by New Zealand’s international Toby Scott and I finished 7th in M19.

Merry Christmas

18. Rammert Run

Mid November the 18^th edition of the now traditional training event Rammert Run took place. It´s an 3 h Score on a topographic map. Participants are mostly from outside the orienteering community. For me it was the 3^rd time at the Rammert Run. I ran it first time in 2022 were I won the race together with Jakob. Last year we hosted the race as there is now a Gentlemans agreement that the winner will host next years edition. Jakob had already run it several times before with another partner.
This year the race took place in eastern are of the Rammert. Jakob and I tried to have not too much pressure as we both said we don´t want to win this year. Even I would say we both have know that this isn’t really true. Planing is on that kind of maps isn’t always easy, so we didn’t start with complete plan. At the beginning there were two passages with hard running that slows us down. But we were still good in time at control 30 which was our first target to plan further. We then were discussing our route on the run. That part of the forest. went faster so we were able to add some controls on the go.The last part we need to go a little faster but this was OK as it was mostly downhill. We managed to take 21 controls and ensured the victory. You can find the map in our map archive.

Bavarian Forest 5 Days or running in the stones

Ok first to say it wasn’t that stony than the previous editions but you still need to count the rocks. The 2024 edition took place in Philippsreut, Haidmühle and Waldenkirchen. South of the Bavarian Forest national park just at the border to the Czech Republic. With entries from 26 countries it has become a real international event.
Day 1 was a long distance in Haidmühle. A lot of route choices in the beginning and tricky rock controls in the end. I didn’t solve and execute the route choices very well but didn’t have much trouble with the rock controls.
In the Morning of day 2 you had the opportunity to compete in Trail-O. The Trail-O was organised by Trail-O relay world champion Ralph Körner. Very tricky controls along different rock and contour features. My performance was very poor but I learned a lot for the next competition days.
In the afternoon there was the sprint race in the city of Waldenkirchen. Sunday afternoon and not so good weather means that orienteers had the city mostly for themselves. This still means a lot of traffic at some controls.
Day 3 to 5 shared the same event center in Philippsreut. But used different parts of the forest with different characteristics.
I wasn’t in good running shape and made to many mistakes so I finished 7^th out of 11 in M40.
The 2025 edition will be from 23 – 27 July with two races in the Czech Republic. You’ll find official results, pictures and Route Gadget on the event website. You can find my maps in my map archive.

Rats Runners OCR Kupferzell

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 2^nd in Young and Wild (youth), Jakob 3^rd in Rats (men’s main) and I was 6th in silver boy (men’s 40+). Together we finished 2^nd in the team competition (Rat Pack), so everybody has a trophy to tacke home.
You can find the results here and pictures here.

World Maze Race 2023

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.

German championships and WRE

Last weekend we travelled to Willebadessen for the German championships over the middle distance and the World ranking event the day after. Before the races we took the chance an did the model event to get a feeling for the map, the course there was nice to run and you had the chance to avoid the green areas.

Because of the bad weather of the last days the start had to be postponed by 1 hour so everybody had enough time to walk the much longer way to the competition center in time. The weather however was very sunny and warm, maybe a bit too warm. For the race we had just a few good to run controls in the first part and then it was mostly climbing, running through rough terrain and undergrowth forest. So the running speed was quite limited and it was more of a stumbling than real running. In the end I finished in 20th place and Steffen in 46th.

For Sunday we hoped for a good long distance with route choices around the rough areas, but there were a lot of routes through the rough terrain again, which was debilitating. Unfortunately I forgot to take an energy gel with me and so I suffered a lot in the end. After more than 2 hours I ended up in 19th place and Steffen finished in 31th place.