Patrick Hofmeister

After only three weeks in Jönköping, I came back to Germany this weekend to run the German Relay Championships with my club MTK Bad Harzburg. The venue of the competition was the beautiful woodland with a lot of sandstone rocks around Kirkel, only 30km half an hour driving from Saarbrücken. Flying from Gothenborg to Frankfurt Hahn with a famous Irish low-cost airline I could reach the venue in a cheap and quite fast way. To ensure optimal preparation we decided not stay in the mass accommodation but in a very lovely hotel in Kirkel. Friendly service, modern and comfortable rooms as well as awesome breakfast and dinner made it a very pleasant stay there. So, the conditions were perfect. But what about our performance?
We started with Eike on the first leg. Known as a routine start-runner, we were a little bit surprised not see him in one of the first groups coming to the change-over. What happened? The forest turned out to be more difficult than we had expected. Some green controls and tough slopes separated the starter field already in the beginning. Moreover, there was a butterfly forking with 3 loops of different lengths. Eike made some mistakes here and there and was already 9min behind the leader Post Dresden. Christoph was not in his best shape, nevertheless he was able to catch up with some teams on the second leg and was in 6th position when I headed out into the forest as our last leg runner. I started fast, pushed hard on the though first leg, had a bit shorter gaffling I guess and caught up Philipp Müller (Post Dresden) quite early. Our group was unfortunately destroyed by the butterfly which was in my opinion in this way inappropriate for a relay. I had the long loop and also made a mistake of 1min there as I mixed up two cliffs in the control circle. Another mistake on the route to the 12th control and I had no chance to fight for the medals because Ingo Horst and Philipp Müller had already passed me in the butterfly. Finally, we came 6th but more than 15min behind the winner Planeta Radebeul.
The next day was a Middle Distance held as a World Ranking Event. Since my flight was supposed to depart in Frankfurt Hahn already at 15.40, I had to start very early in the starting field. Nevertheless, I had a stable run with only a few smaller mistakes. To the 2nd control I lost some 20s standing on the stone above the cliff, to the 5th I came a bit into the green area and in general I was not sure about my routechoices. Maybe some seconds here and there. But altogether, I was very satisfied with my performance although I knew that there are some guys who can simply run faster than me. Thus, I was not very surprised when I came home to Sweden opening the result list in the internet seeing that Christian Teich and Alexander Lubina were more than 3min faster. The season is now more or less over for me because I decided not take part in the German Long Distance Championships. I intend to make use of the running timeout until November to give my body and my Achilles tendon a break and to focus on university stuff.

Yesterday, it was time for my first start in the blue-yellow jersey of my new Swedish club IK Hakarpspojkarna. For my debut competition I chose nothing less than the DM Lang (Smaland’s Long Distance Champs) held next to Växjö. After some trainings in the Jönköping region as well as at the club house, which is by the way pretty nice being on the very top of a hill in Huskvarna with an awesome view over Jönköping and the Vättern, I felt quite well-prepared for my first competition in Sweden since Tiomila.

Due to inacurrate registration and some late changes in the startlist, I was supposed to be the last starter of the field. The terrain description told me nothing special of the forst: typical flat Smaland terrain with moderate contour features and some stones. Nothing to be scared of, although I have to admit that especially at the beginning I had problems to distinguish between the stones which were mapped and which were not. All in all I had problems to find the smartest route-choice through the very diversified terrain. When I had better taken the roads, I went straight and when the best route was straight I made a long way round. (see 2,10,13) Apart from that, I made a huge mistake at the 9th control. I reckon that many runners had problems there because the stone was hidden in a little green and the map was probably a little bit imprecise in that area. Another mistake occured to the 15th control where I lost the focus approaching the control and had to relocate on the path between the 15th and 16th control. The performance could be considered half-decent, but as I already indicated in the headline with plenty of room for improvement.

Tomorrow we are going to have a relay training with my clubmates at the IKHP stugan. I am looking forward to that one because it is the last rehearsal before the German Relay Championships next weekend which I am going to run with my club MTK Bad Harzburg. Although there are some strong rivals I hope that we are ready to fight for the medals…