Patrick Hofmeister

The 1st competition of WUOC 2008 in few words: nice spectator area with start, spectator control and run-in at one place and rather easy and fast course but difficult enough running on high speed. That’s the reason why I am not fully satisfied with my race. After a hesitant beginning I tried to push harder after the spectator control but lost a few seconds on my way to some controls. The biggest mistake was probably to the 9th control where I wasn’t concentrated enough and ran straight to a control of the women’s course. To the the 16th control it happened almost again where I just recognized the fence on the street after already having passed the intersection, then I had to correct the route choice and took the left one. The next race will come tomorrow with the long distance. Actually my favorite… you can follow live results on the organizers’ webpage.

The last days I spent with preparations for WUOC and the final exams in university. Sometimes watching all these nice competitions out there in Göteborg, Olomouc or Sälen prevented me from learning, but nevertheless it was a nice motivation for next week in Estonia. On Sunday, we will take off towards Tartu for my first World University Championships. Due to the injury of Leif Bader, it am nominated for all the competitions, sprint, long and middle that will start on Wednesday with the Sprint. The relay team will be designated according to the results next week. Now, I am really looking forward to a nice week in Estonia, coming back to the venue of JWOC 2003. See you in Tartu guys.

After a disappointing June, with disqualification at the german middle championships, I decided not to run the WOC this year. Due to a heavy workload in university, I was not able to fully concentrate on orienteering which was probably the main reason fo the crash at the champs. Afterwards I had to grapple with motivation problems, but now I am back on my way to the World University Championships in Tartu, Estonia, at the end of July. I preferred this competition because the german summer semester ends by the middle of July so that most of the work would have been done when the championships will kick off. Today I managed to change the date of my last exam which was supposed to be held on the 1st of August, thus everything ought to be prepared for a succesful championship.

And the training goes on as well. In particular, I focus on short intervall sessions (2×10x200m in around 31sec or 6×3′ on paths…) combined with some long jogs at the weekends. Yesterday we did a nice orienteering training in the Teutoburger Wald that was supposed to be relevant for the classic distance at the WUOC. You can find the map and my GPS track (the blue line,and the one of another runner of the region below. Unfurtunately, after a very good beginning, I struggled at the end loosing my head somewhere between the bushes.

Long Training