Patrick Hofmeister

This year the national o-season kicked off earlier than usual. Even before the international start into the season the first German ranking event with the fancy name “Early Spring Cup” was held in Dudenhofen, next to Mannheim.

It was supposed to be one of the highlights in the national elite orienteering schedule, the o-weekend carried out in Rheinland-Pfalz and Saarland. From my point of view, actually the organizers did a great job. Apart from some organizational problems, the two competitions, a relay on Saturday and the Middle Distance on Sunday, were truly excellent. The German National Team used the opportunity for a meeting and some additional trainings. Already at 6.15 am on Saturday we started with a little warm up of 15min around our accomodation. In the morning Ingo Horst, former national team runner, came up with a training called “Postenjagd im Frühlingswald”. Running in a 3-men-team with 2 different type of maps: the one had only a corridor from control to control with a clear passage right before the control cycle. The two others had a blank map on the front and a detailed map extract on the backside that indicated the part from the passage to the control. Reaching the passage the one with the corridor map had to cry out “Die Postenjagd im Frühlingswald beginnt” which was the signal to attack. After punshing the control the maps were exchanged. A very funny training approach that I really enjoyed.

In the afternoon there was a regional relay event. An interesting course and a nice terrain with good runability made the race quite thrilling until the end. I was running the last leg for our team. After a good starting leg of our first runner Eike, my brother lost some meters to the leading teams. I did a good performance and managed to run away from Post Dresden securing the first prestige relay of the year.

After a transfer to the venue in Dudenhofen (Rheinland-Pfalz), there was middle distance today. The terrain was flat with mostly low visibility and different runability. I tried to read the map carefully when needed adapting the running speed accordingly. But I failed already at the first control where I misinterpretated the vegetation and had to turn back. Due to the fact that this was the only mistake, I could win the race with a huge margin of 2min to the second Christoph Brandt and another two minutes to my teammate Eike. My brother finishing 4th and Claudia-Ann in 3rd spot in the women class made it a succesful weekend for the MTK. The next competition will be Spring Cup. We’ll see how the season will start on international level…

While most of the European Top-Runners are preparing in Southern Europe for the upcoming season, I am staying in Germany taking benefit from some interesting competitions, like last weekend taking place the German Night Championships in the ancient “Landschaftspark Nord” in Duisburg. Although I already knew the special features of the industrial area, the conditions by night are always kind of special. Furthermore, the use of the compass is not very advisable in this terrain due to many metallic relics out there.

Equipped with a hightech Lupine I finally went out on the 8,4k course fascinated by the colorful athmosphere generated by illuminated buildings trying to focus on the map. I did an OK-race with several short hesitations and mistakes. Especially, the ones at the end at control 23th and 26th where I passed close by and had to return, made me angry. Anyway, it was enough to win the first title of the year, 1min ahead of Alexander Lubina and Ingo Horst in 3rd place.
On Sunday there was a regional sprint event held on the World Games 2005 model event map. The scale of 1:7500 as well as the course length of 4,2k made the race look more like a middle distance than a sprint. Despite the exhausting competition the day before, my legs felt quite good so that I was able to run at high speed the whole course. Apart from two mistakes at the 5th and 11th control I ran well. By catching up with Sebastian Bergmann and Roman S-Z. I realised that it was a good race. Finally, I finished in 1st spot more than one minute ahead of Sebastian. Next weekend there will be the first 10mila meeting including a sports medicine performance diagnostics in the University of Paderborn.