While searching the IOF calendar for some Trail-O WREs, I found the orienteering event at the Abu Dhabi Open Maters Games. As this was a good chance to experience a new orienteering country, I checked if had time and start planing. As the starting fee didn’t depend on the number of competitions I checked for other sports as well. Road races and obstacle course races were scheduled one week after the orienteering competitions and outside my vacation time. So I decided to enter the 5000 m track race.
First event was the orienteering middle distance at Saturday. The event takes places at a beach resort on Hudayriyat Island. The map consist of some open sandy area and the beach resort. All courses started in the open area and went then to the beach resort. Coming from German winter I was not used to run in the sun,s o it was hard to keep the speed in the more easy open part. The beach resort part was more tricky but I could finish it without big mistakes. I finished the race on 4th place but with a huge gap to the medals.
Sprint race take place the next day at the same place. Course went mainly through the beach resort were you had to look to find the right passage. It definitely helped if you run the middle distance before. Again I finished at 4th place with a huge gap to the medals.
The athletics organization was a little more chaotic, but I managed to pick my bibs and find a schedule ahead. My 5000 m race was scheduled for Monday evening. For some time I was quite sure that after 2 days of orienteering and a tourist day I wont start. But at the day itself I give it a go. Short before my start they decided to merge to classes, so my race was earlier than expected. This gives me a little hurry and not really time for warmup. The race was OK and I enjoyed my first track race. I managed to finish 6th place in my class.
It was interesting to meet not only people from different countries but also from different sports. This makes it a different experience from orienteering only events.
