Patrick Hofmeister

A lot of things have happened here in Sweden after my last article on my blog. It was a good mix of orienteering and non-orienteering stuff that has dominated my life in the last couple of weeks. So, let me do a short update of what has been going on here in Jönköping:
The october still offered some nice opportunities for orienteering at the end of the season. Especially the big relays 25manna and Smalandskavlen were a blast. At 25manna I was running in the second team of IKHP on the second last (the longest) leg. It went pretty well for me until the spectator control. Unfortunately, I lost a lot of time on the last loop due to some stupid mistakes on two different cutting areas. Nevertheless, I was fairly satisfied with my race given the fact that it was my first relay for my club. As a team we came 36th which made us the best second team in the competition. Since our first team finished 3rd, it turned out to be a very successful day for IKHP.
At Smalandskavlen I started for my German club MTK Bad Harzburg. Honestely, this time it was more about having fun with good old fellows and less about achieving a good result. Nevertheless, we gave our best for sure. I went out into the woods as the last runner. Sadly, I was part of the mass start for late runners. Still, there were a bunch of eager guys in there and I wanted to beat them for sure. The only problem was that apparently they handed out two different course length with me getting the longer one for sure. So, I could not win the mass start as such but was still the fastest on my course although my run was full of smaller mistakes here and there.
After these competitions in october I took it easy with the training focusing more on socializing with my new friends from the master programme. I really consider that as crucial because only if your environment is working well including friends, family and academic carreer, you will be able to perform on the highest possible level. If non-sport life sucks, it directly has a bad impact on your training motivation and your performance. But, for three weeks I am now back in training. My training plan stipulated a total training load of 35 hours and I will almost accomplish the intented amount of training hours. However, I had to reschedule some of the workouts because I twisted my ankle twice the last month. Nothing to be too serious about but some slight adaptation were inevitable. So, I might have improved my swimming and cycling skills in the last weeks which is not too bad because it constitutes a good basis for the upcoming tough winter training. Soon, the night orienteering season really kicks off with the 20Mila. 20Mila is a training on the basis of 10Mila held on a weekly basis during the whole winter. Each week a different stage of 10Mila will be arranged. It is going to be a challenge for me, that’s for sure.

What else happened? Well, i have started my Swedish class in university and I think I am doing good progress. Actually, i was proud of myself being able to present myself in Swedish on our elite team meeting last week. By the way this meeting I am talking about, was held at the Scandic hotel in Jönköping which shows the professionality of the sport here in Sweden and especially in Huskvarna.