Patrick Hofmeister

After last week’s WC races, the national season continued with German Middle Champs this weekend in Oelsa, Saxony. I tried to recover as good as possible from the hard competition programme in Finland avoiding too much running due to the recurrent Achilles tendon inflammation. Additionally, our club organized a regional school competition with more than 500 runners so that I was once again on journey.
Then, on Saturday we had the German Middle Champs which were at the same time WOC test races. Already in the morning I felt that there is something wrong with me. Anyway, the feeling during the warm-up was not that bad.
I started with a slight hesitation to the first control where I already lost 20s. Then, I had some good controls until the longer leg to the 5th. I didn’t prepare the leg in advance so that I was first running along the path but then turned towards to the road because I reckoned that the straight one would be too slow due to the fern. I lost more than 1min compared to the best split on this leg. Anyway, still among the best at 6 control but then 2 mistakes approaching the control at the following controls and I was more than 1 minute down on the lead. The next controls went fine and I could close the gap a little bit until the 15th control. But then I made again a big mistake because I couldn’t find the deerstand in the terrain, I searched around 50s there. Another 2 mistakes at the end and I was finally down to 7th position. Comparing the splits in the finish I realised that apart from several mistakes I could never run a top speed. A few hours later I knew why. After the price giving ceremony I got totally sick so that I could barely move. Shiverings and fever made it a terrible night so that I decided not to run the long on Sunday which definetely was a good decision.

Very exciting days are lying behind me. I have spent the last week in Finland running the World Cup races, NOC and the famous Jukola relay. But everything in sequence:

I started my trip almost two weeks ago via Kaiserslautern where I visited my best friends, then via Düsseldorf to Helsinki. After a first training on the model map, I was really looking forward to the competition week because the terrain looked like fast running in difficult terrain. As a starter we got a tough long distance on Saturday. I managed to avoid major mistakes but had in total a loss of almost 4 minutes. I wasn’t very disappointed although the margin to the winner Daniel Hubmann was more than 23min. During the race there were passing several top elite runners of the red group and I could experience first hand how to run and orienteer in this kind of terrain. Those experiences I tried to transfer to the upcoming races. Unfortunately already the relay on Sunday didn’t go as we had hoped before. Our start runner Alex missed the first control so that he had to run the whole races alone in the forest and changed over to me at the very end of the starting field. I went out with the aim of running a clear race without burning out myself. Although I did some mistakes here and there I could pass some teams and changed over to Leif who also saved some energy for the next days.
After a day off, it went on with Middle distance on Tuesday. I was aiming high because I had the feeling that I can managed the terraing now quite well which was an absolutely wrong assumption as it turned out in the forest of Middle distance. I started fast and under full control to the first one. Then, we had a longer leg to the second where you had to use the compass very precisely not to loose direction. In this terrain we had been already for the relay so I thought that I only had to run more or less in the direction and then relocate before the control. Unfortunately, this didn’t work at all so that I had to search for the control more than 4 minutes. Ok, re-start I was thinking, a good result is gone but use the rest of the course as a good training. I was running the rest of the course with a clear head, had some slight mistakes here and there, but all in all it was ok. Damn stupid this 2nd control. On Wednesday it was time for sprint. We had a qualification in the morning and the final was supposed to be in the afternoon but only 11 of 40 from each heat made it into the final. So, full speed, no mistake was the motto! The beginning was fine. I could run fast and took the right route choices. To he 6th I chose to go around the hill on the road. But right before the control I misinterpreted the urban area with the asphalt where the control should be. I went in and searched some seconds around a doghouse. Then I saw one of the organizers and realised that I entered the forbidden area. I excused myself, turned back to where I came from and attacked the control once again the right way, 25s where gone and so did the final. At the end I had one bigger hesitation to the 11th and a wrong micro route-choice to the second last control. Thus, not very suprisingly I was 1.39 down on the lead.
During the next days we had some training with map or without in Salo region and from Friday on in Mikkeli where the Jukola was held. There, the terrain differed a lot from Salo’s forest as it was more dense forest, had more tracks and roads and less contour details. I was running 2nd leg for DJK Adler Bottrop (no, not my new club, my favorite is still the MTK). Alex had a really good start and changed over to me in 54 position. I had a very good race except of one major mistake where I turned the map to the south and was running around 100 meters in the wrong direction. Fortunately, I realised the mistake quite fast and turned back. After that I pushed harder to catch up the runners that had passed my during the mistake. At the end I could win 16 places and changed over in 38th spot. As expected we lost some places afterwards but with spot 188 of 1400 teams we are happy. Next to come is German Middle distance Champs the next weekend.