Patrick Hofmeister

The University of Paderborn is coming back from the national University Champs with 5 gold medals in their baggage after very succesful days in Leipzig. We won both the Women and Men individual race as well as the relay. Especially Karin Schmalfeld stroke back impressively with a huge margin of 13 minutes to the next female runner. For me it was the first important national elite title and I am very satisfied with my performace that day.

The individual race was held in a heather terrain about an hour away from Leipzig city. The forest around Lausa was slightly hilly with varied runnability and visibility - the white area on the map sometimes turned out to be quite dense. After a lousy start with hesitations at the first and second control I managed to understand the map better at the next controls trying to stay on the red line as close as posible. Until the 16th control I had a very good race so that I never lost more than 10s to the best split. Then, I struggled through the course and lost some time here and there. The biggest mistake happened at the 20th control: I didn’t realised that I crossed the road, didn’t checked the compass direction accurately and searched for a while on the wrong hill, 1′30 was gone. Nevertheless the victory was never in danger and at the end I had a gap of 2:33 to the 2nd Philipp Müller, 3rd was Sebastian Bergmann.
As the two-times defending champion in the relay we, Karin, Roman and I, aimed high and intended to win the tripple being aware of the strength of the team from Dresden. The competition consisted of two sprint races for each of the 3 runners of one team. As the competition area served the Campus of the University Leipzig as well as the nearby Palmengarten. Whereas the first sprint was rather physically demanding the second one was more tecnical with a butterfly and more controls on the Campus. We had 6 solid races without any huge mistake so that we could finally defend our title from the last two years. What a Championship for Paderborn!

Immediately after the relay, the majority of the orienteers journeyed on towards the famous 24 hours orienteering event in Thüringen. Due to the upcoming World Cup I decided not to run the 24 hours but to start in a 12 hours team. I did run 3 courses (1 Long difficult and 2 Long easy)within 5 hours for my team Mitleidstour and went home afterwards to work for the university the next days.

After last weekend’s German Sprint Championships I took it rather easy this week as far as training was concerned. Some 3 or 4 runs at steady speed during the week. On Wednesday we had a university soccer tournament organised by some sport students. It was an honour for me to play for the nominal best team with some strong players of the 5th or 6th league in Germany. My 10-year soccer experience maybe supported the team but unfortunately we didn’t achieve our goal and lost the final. Anyway it was very good alternative training.

On Friday Roman and I participated in a 5k charity run in Münster against breast cancer. We didn’t attempt to push entirely and finished the race together in 15:55. (my Garmin told me later that it was actually 4.8). Nevertheless we could win the race and were happy about a brand new Brooks jacket.
Today there was LM Sprint, held in Braunschweig. Sören and I did invest pretty much to particiapte but finally it was really worth the 3 hours trip. For the first competition the organisers used a quite easy park terrain where the running speed was the limiting factor. I did a clear race and managed to win the competition 8s ahead of homerunner Franz Doetsch. The 2nd Sprint was more demanding. I think I have mostly taken the correct routes-choices apart from the 13th control where I chose the passage south of the 12th instead of the north one. Sören had the fastest legs at the end and was able to beat me by 8s. Nevertheless the overall victory in LM category and DPT was mine.
Meanwhile the nomination for the NOC and WC in Finland was done and I am proud to announce that I am allowed to run all the 3 individual races as well as the relay. Already on Wednesday we are heading off towards the University Champs in Leipzig.

Tired but happy I am after this weekend including German Sprint Champs and national ranking event. After 3 unofficial medals in German Sprints Champs 2003, 2005 and 2007, I finally got my medal on Saturday’s race, held in the historical city centre of Meißen.

The qualification was carried out as a forest sprint in the surroundings of the competition centre in Oberau. It was a good mixture of forest, and open fields, o-tecnically rather easy but for a qualification race allright. Although I lost around 40s to the very first control, I managed to win my heat ahead of Sören Riechers.
The final was supposed to be more demanding, physically as well technically. Meißen’s famous city centre around the Albrechtsburg was a very nice location to fight for medals. Its narrow streets, steep stairs and high walls offered interesting route-choices. After a very good beginning I lost some time at the 5th control where I didn’t know the exact position of the flag. On the long route-choice to the 8th, Alex was gaining more than 25s running the left option. Apart from some slight hesitations at the 12th and 14th control the rest of the course went good for me and my legs had still some energy until the last control. Finally, I was second, 39s down on Alex Lubina who was again the fastest German Sprinter. My training mate Sören Riechers reaching bronze and my brother coming 4th made it a great day for our training group LOWL. Btw: It was not only my first individual medal but also the first one of my club MTK Bad Harzburg. (apart from some Ultra Long distance medals). So, smiling faces all around our club tent.
Yesterday was long distance national ranking in Oberau. Flat forest with partly dense vegetation required an accurate use of the compass and high speed on the paths. I only did some small mistakes on the 20th and 24th control and was able to run a good speed on the first half of the course. The second one was tougher but I managed to stay focus so that could win the race some seconds ahead of Sebastian Bergmann.

HeatA

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BRL