Patrick Hofmeister

It’s been a while since my last update. Here it comes. Whereas many other Germans are complaining about an incredibly bad summer (as far as the weather is concerned),I don’t mind since I spent the last couple of months training, organizing stuff for WMOC 2012 and job hunting. Talking about job hunting. I have some good news to tell. Finally, the application marathon paid off. After 6 months of more or less intensively looking for job opportunities including some very tough assessment centers, I finally got a job offer at DB Schenker Logistics in Frankfurt as a Junior Project Manager. My first day at work will be the 5th of September; so now I start looking for flats and organizing my moving to Frankfurt.

Likewise, I’m heavily involved in organizing the WMOC. In less than 5 weeks, my club MTK Bad Harzburg, is arranging the German Champs Long distance as a sort of rehearsal for next year. Therefore, I spent the last couple of days in the wonderful Harz Mountains. On Sunday, I did a test run on the M21 course of the German Champs. I really enjoyed the open coniferous forest which allows fast running but also requires careful orienteering in the rocky areas. For everyone who plans to run that course I can only recommend to do some uphill/downhill workouts. On Monday/Tuesday it was time for the IOF Event Advisor to visit Bad Harzburg and check on the progress regarding map and course setting of the sprint competitions. All in all i consider it a very valuable and effective meeting where many good ideas came up. The conclusion after he has been out in the terrain: we’re on track but there is still room for improvement.

As far as training is concerned, it’s been going actually pretty well since I am back from Canada. At the end of July, I ran three stages at the 5-days event in Uslar. After a sluggish first day, I kind of woke up on the second day where I managed to come 2nd only one minute down on Rene Rokkjaer (DEN). On the next day it went even better and I was able to win with quite a big margin. Next weekend, I’ll run the regional middle and relay champs. This is going to be the last orienteering test before the German Relay Champs in September. I’m getting excited…

A lot of things have happened since my last blog entry. Most importantly, I have finished my master studies in Jönköping by handing in and defending my master thesis which I had been writing for the last 6 months at Volvo Technology in Gothenburg. Following the graduation, I moved back into my parents’ house in Germany. Lübeck is also going to be the basis from where I’ll be looking for job opportunities in the upcoming weeks. While writing the master thesis, I went back and forth from Sweden to Germany for several job interviews and assessment center days for Logistics traineeships , among others at Lufthansa Technik in Hamburg and Nestlé in Frankfurt. Although I haven’t been offered a job yet, I have gained valuable experiences in every application process which makes me confident that I will find my dream job very soon. So, the job-hunting goes on.

But first, I have treated myself to a well-deserved vacation I was looking forward to for months. I jumped on a plane and flew over the pond to see my amazing girlfriend Astrid in Canada. Astrid and I met 10 months ago in Singapore. Thanks to today’s advanced telecommunication technology we kept dating and established a well-functioning long-distance relationship. In other words, I am in Alberta, Canada right now. The first three nights we spent in style in the majestical Fairmont hotels in Banff and Lake Louise owing to Astrid’s awesome company deals which made the stays a very good bargain. We enjoyed American style breakfasts, checked out the luxurious Spa in Banff, explored the surroundings by hiking up to the Tunnel Mountain in Banff as well as to the Tea House in Lake Louise, had delicious Sushi and a world-class cheese fondue. Of course, we took a lot of pictures to capture the beauty of this country. Check out the incredible turquoise blue water of Lake Louise. Isn’t it amazing?

After these three days of pure luxury, we returned to Astrid’s adopted home town, Jasper. The route on highway 93 via the Columbia Icefields was another stunning experience. Being back home, Astrid went back to work for a couple of days. As the director of the newly opened, gorgeous Reflection Spa at the Jasper Fairmont Park Lodge, she has high responsibility and a lot of work to do. If you ever make it to the Canadian Rockies this Spa is definitely a must.

While Astrid has been sweating at work, I have increased my training load quite a bit after rather easy weeks in May. The vast number of hiking trails in merely infinite coniferous forests offers great opportunities for long runs. Every day I explore a new area. On my first long run of two hours I checked out the beautiful area of the five lakes which is located approximately 10k south of Jasper. Already after 5min of running I saw the first elks crossing the path I was running on. Seriously, these animals are all over the place. The other day a female elk was grazing just in front of our little cottage. Anyway, running is fun here, even if it is raining cats and dogs, which was the case the last couple of days. Yesterday, I ran up to the adjacent Maligne Canyon, a remarkably steep valley that has some beautiful waterfalls. Today, I opted for an easier route towards Jasper downtown and the Pyramide lake area. I try to go for the long runs in the morning whereas in the afternoon I tend to take it easy with some swimming or core exercise in the hotel gym. The next days, Astrid is off from work again which means sleeping in, long hikes, white-water rafting and other fun stuff. Life is good!

The first month of my Master thesis work at Volvo Technology in Göteborg is over and slowly but surely I am making progress, regarding the thesis and my running shape.

Everyone who is working full-time knows about the difficulties of finding motivation for after work activities. I sort of underestimated the double load of working and training. To be honest, the first two weeks of work were pretty chaotic. Several factors contributed to which I would call a stuttering start: the new city, the thesis kick-off which is typically difficult, the new training environment as well as sharing a room for two weeks. But now after four weeks and finally having found my own room, I am starting to get used to the 9 hours at work, plus the training before and/or afterwards. The key for success lies in effective time management, accurate planning and prioritization. The master thesis that I am writing together with my friend and fellow student Matthias in the area of Intelligent Transport Solutions gets going and it is actually fun to cooperate closely with a company, especially when the working environment is so awesome as in our case. We got our own working desks, laptops, access to meetings rooms for discussions and even a company mobilephone. It is also nice to know that as being part of a bigger project our thesis has received high priority within the company.

As far as the training is concerned I’m also making steady progress. The last three weeks I could train between 8 and 10 hours including at least one intervall session and two long runs of 1h30 to 2 hours per week. And, it was actually tonight during a 10k steady run in 38min, when I felt for the first time that I’m getting back on track. Unfortunately, there is still quite a lot of old snow in the forest. But sprint training in urban forests is definitely possible. Let’s hope that the winter is over soon so that I can fully benefit from the technically and physically demanding terrains of Ängårdsbergen, Skatås, Knipeflågsbergen and so on. Stay tuned…

An optimist stays up until midnight on NYE to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. I would consider myself as an optimist looking back to a year 2010 full of new impressions and experiences, but likewise started to get ready for what’s coming up in 2011.

To give a brief review of 2010, regarding my sports career the highlights were without a doubt the qualification for IKHPs 1st 10Mila Team, the victory at the German Sprint Championships as well as my first Triathlon in Hamburg. But I do also remember with pleasure me climbing up the 1392 steps of the Swissotel in Singapore at the vertical marathon.

Just to give you an impression of last year’s dynamics, altogether I went to 15 countries, 9 of them I hadn’t visited before. The most exotic trip was most certainly the backpacking through Cambodia, Laos and Thailand in December. Those and all the other experiences I made in Sout-East-Asia make me look back at a very diversified and enriching year 2010.

However, 2011 has already kicked off offering plentiful challenges and opportunities. First, I will be moving back to Sweden to finish my master studies. After the exchange semester in Singapore the only thing that is left for me is the master thesis which I will be writing at Volvo Technology in Göteborg. From Germany it was pretty difficult to fix a furnished flat, but a very friendly orienteer from Göteborg helped me finding a temporary accommodation from where I can look for a more long-term alternative. So, if anyone from Göteborg knows about a furnished apartment in Göteborg for two (me and my thesis partner) from January 17th to June, please let me know.

Again, I was nominated for the German National Orienteering Team. Hopefully, the difficult orienteering terrain in Göteborg will help me improve technically before the extremely demanding World Champs in France.Other than that, I will be part of the organizing committee for both the German Long Distance Championships 2011 where I am going to be the speaker and the WMOC 2012 for which I am responsible for the speaker team and the course setting for the sprint competitions. So, there are a lot of challenges ahead. I am looking forward to tackling them.

It’s awesome to compete again. That was my first thought when I reached the helipad of the Swissotel after having climbed 1,336 steps and 73 floors. Even though my time of 8min33 was 1:42 slower than the winning time of the World Rrecord holder Thomas Dold (GER), I was very happy with my performace last Sunday. More importantly, pushing up the stairs running directly against other runners, really made me want to compete again. So, my first tower run was a complete success. And I think this running discipline suits me well. Until half way up the staircase I felt perfectly fine. On floor 42 however, there was a camera taping some impressions from within the staircase to show it on the screen in the venue area. After that the running direction changed and there, I really hit the wall. I couldn’t keep up the pace anymore and had to slow down significantly. At the end, passing floor 60, I could accelerate once more knowing that the finish line is close. Crossing the finish line, I was sure that this was definitely not my last tower run, maybe also because of the view that I could enjoy afterwards. The helipad of the Swissotel is 226m above the city and offers an amazing view over the skyline of Singapore. The biggest challenge for me was pacing myself because I’ve had only 6 running trainings prior to the event in the last 4 months. Only 4 times did I train specifically at the stairs. The highest stairs I could find in my preparation period were 26 storeys in a building close to my place. Another obstacle was all the runners in the staircase, even though it was not a mass start event but groups of eight starting in a 30s interval. The winner was starting together with 3 others men competing in the Ultimate Towerrun Championship after the public event; so they enjoyed an empty staircase. My time was enough to come third in Men’s Open (i reckon it was 10th overall), and entitled me to get an awesome price consisting of trophy,watch ,Mizuno voucher as well a two-night stay in the newly open Swissotel in Shanghai for two persons. As I said, that was not my last tower run…

Yesterday, I had my last academic lecture in my life. It was a Shipping Business class here at Singapore Management University in which a South-African shipbroker talked about “Forward Freight Agreements”. I can’t imagine the study life will be over soon. When I am going back to Europe, the only thing that is left in my academic career is the Master thesis. Most likely I will end up being in Sweden writing the thesis from January onwards, but Matthias and I are still looking for a firm that is willing to collaborate with us. Apparently, writing the final thesis in a company isn’t that popular in Scandinavia.

What has happened the last couple of weeks? Well, in September I celebrated my 25th birthday (wow, I’m getting old) at the swimming pool at my condominium together with some friends from school. I’ve never had my own pool party before. So, the pool will be definetely something I will miss when I am back in Europe. Then, it was Formula 1 weekend in Singapore. I managed to get a ticket for the Marina Bay Grandstand with perfect view on the skyline and the track. It was fascinating to see the race cars speeding up to 300km/h on this curvy city course. And I will never forget the sound of the engines; it was freaking loud, earplugs were a MUST.

Two weeks later, I spent eight awesome days on the Philippines. The archipelago comprising 7,107 islands, offers a wide array of magnificient spots. In addition to the three days we were in Manila, we picked Palawan, a pretty remote island in the South-West of the Philippines. And it was really worth visiting. The Mangrove river tour, the Underground river and cave expedition in Sabang, Island Hopping and Sunset watching in El Nido, only to mention a few of the highlights during our trip.

After the midterm break, the workload at school increased significantly and Saturdays and Sundays in the library became the norm. The Singaporean academic approach follows the American model of small lectures, class participation, groupworks and presentations. Nevertheless, I found some time to do my workouts, meet friends, go to the movies and so forth.

Now, it’s only three weeks left here in Singapore. My parents are coming visit me for a few days on Friday. Likewise, I started to tackle one of my short-term goals. I will be running the Swisshotel Vertical Marathon on November 21, 2010. It is a skyscraper run, 1,336 steps and 73 floors up to the helipad of the Swiss Hotel, one of the tallest hotels in Asia. Even though I haven’t been running the last 4 months because I wanted to give my achilless tendon a complete break, I think I can do well in that competition. My training of the last few months comprised cycling, aquajogging and core strength workouts, around 6 hours a week. Now, I have started serious training and running again including some extra stair intervalls. I am really looking forward to the event which will be likewise the kick-off of the new season.

This is going to be my first blog entry after heading for Asia. A lot of amazing things have happened since then, therefore it is definitely time for a first update. I’m going to attach one picture for every stage of the journey at the end of this article.

Starting with the flight from Hamburg to Singapore, the first highlight awaited Matthias and me during the transit in Dubai. A three-hour guided cab-tour through the luxury city of the Middle East was what we got, for only 40€. The very friendly taxi driver showed us all the magnificient constructions, ranging from the 7-star Atlantis Hotel and the Aquaventure to the tallest building of the world, the Burj Khalifa. The majority of those facilties has been built over the last 10 years and the sheiks are not afraid of going on like that.

After having arrived in Singapore, we went to our hostel The-inn-crowd in Little India. A good place for people on a small budget. Finding a reasonable accomodation for our exchange semester was paramount for the following days. Nevertheless, we could also gain a first impression of our home city for the upcoming 5 months. Franzi, an old friend of Matthias, who has been working in Singapore for the last one and a half years, got us tickets for the helipad party on the 226m tall Swiss-Hotel. Unfortunately, the weather forecast predicted thunder and rain which was why the doors to the helipad remained closed and we had to entertain ourselves on the 72nd storey in the New Asia Bar. But the view over the city area was amazing anyways.

The following day, I finally managed to find a flat. A small room in a condominium of a Chinese family. Air-conditioned, fully equiped and the possibility to use all the common facilities such as swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna or bbq pit. Plus, very good located, only 5min to the MRT station and 6km from the very city centre of Singapore and my university. Afterwards, Matthias and me went to Sentosa, the entertainment island of Singapore, to celebrate the signature of the contract drinking a cold beer at the Cafe del Mar Beach Club.

After 3 days in Singapore, we were heading to Bangkok for our Thailand trip. There, we met up with Matthias girlfriend Zlata. 14 weeks of backpacking awaited us. The first two days we spent in the capital. What a bustling city? This city never sleeps indeed. Thousands of tourists running from one sighseeing attraction to the next, curling through the millions of locals that were trying to sell something. From dry fish, over clothes to travel packages, the variety of things you can buy there on the streets is unlimited. One of their best offers is of course the wide range of faked clothes. Seriously, negotiating with the Thai salesmen was a blast. However, 2 days were enough to get an impression of the chaos in this city and we were happy to escape from Bangkok’s hustle and bustle.

Then, it was time for island hopping. We took the night bus along the east coast to Chumphon where we caught a ferry that brought us to our first stop on Koh Tao. Koh Tao is the smallest of the three islands that are located in the gulf of Thailand around 80km away from the mainland. Koh Tao is famous for its magnificient snorkeling and diving spots. Likewise, is the island rather remote. Only one asphalt road goes along the main port where the ferries from Chumphon and the other islands arrive. We stayed in a simple bungalow for two nights and what we did was basically chilling at the beach, eating and snorkeling. The snorkeling spots in the north were gorgeous indeed. It was like swimming in an aquarium with tons of fishes of different size and colour. The daytrip including snorkeling gear, coffee and fruits on board cost us around 7€. Incredible!

Next stop was Koh Phagnan. The bigger brother of Koh Tao that gained international recognition mainly because of the wild Fullmoon-Parties that are held there once a month. During that time over 20,000 party people transform the beach along Haad Rin to a nightlife district. While we stayed on the island, there was no Fullmoon-Party going on, but we went there on a regular Tuesday just to get an impression of the area. I can clearly visualize how it must look like on one of those parties. But Koh Phagnan has more to offer than just the Fullmoon-Parties. We visited a bunch of waterfalls that displayed natural beauty despite of the lack of water running down. The highlight on Koh Phagnan was without a doubt the beautiful and affordable bungalows right on the beach. This is why we extended our stay to four nights in total.

The third and last island we visited was Koh Samui. This is the most popular island in Thailand which has been developed considerably during the last couple of years. Along the white sandy beach of Chaweng the number of first-class resorts is infinite. Therefore, the price level on the island is undeniably higher compared to the other two islands we visited. We enjoyed our stay in Lamai but it was nothing special compared to what we have seen before.

After the island hopping it was time to get back to the mainland. We spent two nights in the Krabi region before I took the flight back to Singapore. The two weeks in Thailand in a nutshell: a fantastic trip full of adventure and new impressions that I will never forget!

Now, I have been in Singapore for three weeks. Time is flying. But I believe it is better to write about that stuff in the next article.

So stay tuned!

Now, as the heatwave is hitting Germany with a vengeance, it is time to provide a little review of the happenings of the early phases of this summer. Almost four weeks ago I packed my stuff and left Jönköping to travel through Scandinavia in order to take part in the Nordic Orienteering Tour (NORT). I wrote already about the first stage in Finland where I had a pretty good race and kept the time behind the winner to a minimum. Race number 2 was a knock-out sprint held in Stockholm. First, there was a regular sprint qualification from which the best 30 runners made it into the quarter finals. I made one big mistake at the control right before the long route-choice and lost 15s there. The rest of the race was fairly good which brought me to 58th place at the end, a little bit more than 2 minutes behind the fastest man that day. The finals in the old town of Stockholm were very interesting to follow although there was still a lot of room for improvement as far as the TV production was concerned. Four days later the NORT stopped in Raufoss, 100k north of Oslo. This time the competition format was a longer middle distance held as a chasing start. I started around 10min behind the leader of the overall standing Daniel Hubmann. Nevertheless, there were a bunch of other runners heading out into the woods around me. Already at the fourth control we were a group of five runners. Apart from the short loop in the middle part of the race, I had runners around me all the time. Technically it went very well making maybe 1 minute mistake all in all. At the end I finished in 42nd spot, mainly due to the fact that many runners skipped the last stage. Anyways, I was happy with my overall result that reflects three solid runs in demanding Scandinavian terrain.
The day after the last World Cup race, the German team took part in the O-Festivalen relay. I was running the third and shortest leg. Physically I could not push that hard but technically it went well again. We came on a decent 10th place at the end. After a short stop at a local pub watching Germany demolishing the English football team, we drove north to Trondheim. The 6 hours road trip already gave us a little foretaste of what was to expect in Trondheim. Through the car windows we could see the amazing landscape consisting of open highlands, wide marshes, mountain lakes and small streams meandering through steep valleys. Most of the trainings in Trondheim met our expectations, especially those on the maps Bosbergsheia and Iladalen. At the end of the week, we took part in the selection races of Sweden and Norway. First, it was Sprint where I showed another good sprint performance this year being only 1min31s behind the best time. Unfortunately, the middle and long distance were disastrous. A lot of green forest and huge mistake made me ending up at the end of the result list.
Now, I am at my parents place enjoying the lovely hot German summer. For those who do not know yet, the World Cup races were my last competitions this season. In two weeks, I will be sitting on a flight to Singapore where I am studying the next 4 months. This means no WOC for me this year. I made this decision already some months ago and adapted my season plans accordingly. Instead of the World Champs I was running the European Champs and the Nordic Tour. For the rest of this year I am prioritizing my studies which draw to a close. According to the latest ranking the Singapore Management University is among the top business schools worldwide. Thus, I hope to get some further inspirations for my master thesis. Drop by on this Blog to stay informed about what is going on with me in Asia. Then however I will be providing more daily life and travel reports than orienteering news.

The Nordic Orienteering Tour consisting of 3 World Cup races in Helsinki, Stockholm and Oslo kicked off yesterday with the super-combination, a combined middle and sprint distance race. I became 59th out of 77 runners and was around 6min30s behind the winner Daniel Hubmann. The first part of the course had middle distance character. I think I managed that part pretty well only losing a couple of seconds here and there due to slight hesitations. After 5k there was the map change and a seemless change to urban sprint terrain. Apart from some slower route-choice to the 8th, 14th and 17th control I showed a decent performance also in this part of the course. As good as it went technically as bad I felt physically. Since the EOC relay I have been suffering from the Tibialis-anterior-Syndrom, an injury that attacks the muscle at the under leg close to the shin bone. Before the start it felt pretty ok but during the race it went worse and the leg felt horrible especially on the sprint course. It was like a huge recurrent cramp that went through my leg. Due to the fact that I was not nominated for the first IKHP team at Jukola, the decision not to start at all at this competition was not too hard to make. I will try to recover instead until the World Cup Tour goes on next Tuesday with the Knock-out Sprint in Stockholm. If I am able to continue the tour and go up with the national team to the WOC training camp in Trondheim will be decided after the Sprint on Tuesday.

You can check my GPS track here: http://www.tulospalvelu.fi/gps/20100617mcH/

The European Championships 2010 are over, time to have a short review. Starting with the sprint distance on Sunday where I had a very bad day as far as my o-technique was concerned. In the first part which was open forest with a dense network of difuse aisles, I totally got confused and made almost two minutes mistake. Of course, the run was ruined. By hindsight i should have relied more on my compass and distance feeling than counting the aisles. With regard to the long qualification the next morning, I decided to leave out the B-Final on Sunday afternoon which was a good decision since I felt pretty strong on Monday’s long qualification.

Technically, I had a good run I must say. I just lost some time on the routechoices to the 7th, 8th and 12th control because I did not manage to follow the planned route. As I came to the finish I heard Per Forsberg saying that I didn’t make it into the A-Final, but was out only by some seconds. This placement, however, should only last for a short moment until I read out my SI-Card and realized that I had a misspunch. Apparently, I did the rookie mistake not punching the refreshment control. I definitely have to work on this since it was not the first misspunch at an important international championship.

The following day it was time for relay. I was running the last leg after Alexander Lubina and Torben Wendler. Alex had a solid run, not in the very top but only a little bit more than 3 minutes behind the leading teams. For Torben, it was almost the same, not a very good run but neither bad. So, I went out in the woods together with the Portuguese team around ten minutes behind the leader. My legs felt strong that day and I could find a good pace at the beginning. To the 4th control, however, I made a huge mistake when I came down the slope too much in western direction. I mixed up two ditches which gave me a hard time to relocate. To the 6th control it was better to cross the green and run over the hill instead of running around. Another mistake happened at the 9th where I did not see the yellow area in the terrain and got confused. The rest of the course went pretty okay. Unfortunately, two teams (Estonia and Ukraine) managed to pass me on the last leg so that we came 18th in the nation’s ranking. As Top15 was our stipulated goal, we were running a little bit below expectations.
Unfortunately, after the relay my shin bone started to hurt. Probably, due to the fact that I was running in dobb spikes for the first time since last year’s world champs. The pain was getting worse the following days which prevented me from starting in the Long Distance B-Final on Saturday. Now, after three days without running, it felt a lot better which is why I am confident with regard to the upcoming Nordic World Cup Tour.
As there are a lot of discussions going on about the quality of this European Championships, I would like to comment on that. From a logistics point of view it was a very good championship. The accommodation was just fantastic providing good food and services. It was situated 200m away from the finish area of both sprint qualification and final. All other trainings and competitions could be reached within 15 minutes driving. Another plus point can be given for the course planning. I think all of the courses were technically demanding and complied with the IOF regulations. The deviation in winning time on the long distance was probably mainly due to the hot weather although this could have been taking into account during the preparations since temperatures around 30 degrees are not unlikely during summer in Bulgaria. But there are two things I would really criticize. First of all, the poor media coverage has to be mentioned. An international championship without GPS and up-to-date live results is not attractive to follow. In the finish area, it was okay to follow the races, compared to the World Champs in Hungary or Ukraine, it was not a big difference but looking at the online results made people going nuts. But my strongest criticism is related to the map drawing. How can it be that there are tons of new symbols on a map for an international championship? Small trees, water features etc. got their own smaller symbol on the map which were not readable while running. I think this is even more worth to discuss than other topics. Nevertheless, it was fantastic to compete in the nice Bulgarian forests. In my opinion this event really contributed to the diversity of our sport, which is good. The above mentioned issues, however, should be evaluated carefully.