Patrick Hofmeister

Silver in German Sprint Champs

Patrick | 11.05.2009 | Kategorie: Allgemein | 2495 Kommentare

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

First 10Mila experience - long, dark and cold

Patrick | 20.04.2009 | Kategorie: Allgemein | 22 Kommentare

10Mila 2009 is over… and it was really worth a trip. We took off already on Friday to run the Elitserien in Helsingborg. It was a very interesting forest-sprint with a steeper part at the slope and a flat part in the middle of the course that offered some good route-choice possibilities. I was totally absent that day, crashed at the 4th and 6th control and lost almost one minute at the two controls. Another stupid mistake occured at the spectator control where I misinterpreted the thickets and the race was completely botched. I seem to be not focused at the moment, it has to be considered why…
The 10Mila, the biggest relay originally held in the Stockholm region, came down to Skane this year. So we took the opportunity to participate with a German team that was composed by regional OWL (Ostwesfalen-Lippe) runners and some friends such as my brother, Eike Bruns, Lars Resch and Alexander Lubina who was our man at the starting line. He did a good solid run and changed to me in 97th spot, some 6 minutes down to the leading teams. Then, it was my turn. Already at the 1st control I crashed. I tried to close the 200m gap to the group right before me, overpaced and got stuck at the wrong gaffling and lost almost 8 minutes until I was able to relocate. F***, I had to re-start… But now I could run my own race, passing team after team until the spectator control. On the last loop I made another stupid mistakes in the marshes and lost again some minutes. Furthermore, the coldness of 3 degrees below zero and the wet marshes made my muscles cramp so that the speed wasn’t the best at the final part of the course. Finally, I finished in 124th spot but lost more than 20 minutes on my leg. Incredible… But 10Mila is a team-competition and my team mates mostly did great jobs, especially my clubmates Eike and Christoph on their night legs brought our team next to the Top100. Some up and downs in the following legs resulted in a final 128th place of 349 teams. For our first 10Mila not bad…

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10Mila

Hung(a)ry for success

Patrick | 15.04.2009 | Kategorie: Allgemein | 1 Kommentar

… was the slogan that accompanied us during our first training camp in Hungary. Together with the German national team, including youth and junior runners we spent the week before Easter in Miscolc to prepare for the upcoming WOC. On the Easter weekend there were organized the Postas Cup, normally a rather regional event but due to the official training camp, this year attended by many national teams.

A priori we decided not to take part in the official training camp next to the Slovakian border but to focus more on the terrain in the Bükk mountains. This kind of terrain is mainly characterized by its steep and stony slopes. Thus, not very surprisingly, the training camp turned out to be especially physically very demanding. I had to adapt the programme slightly due to some reoccuring problems with my Achilles tendon. Nevertheless, I was able to train more than 13 hours, mainly in the forest with the map. We had sessions such as Postenjagd, reduced map, relay starts, route-choice training, forest sprint and control picking. On Friday, right before the first competition, a sprint prologue in Eger, we had a 5000m run. This session was supposed to simulate the sprint-day during the WOC week when the qualification and final is held on one single day. Naturally, we were far away from our records with running times around 17 minutes. The competitions were rather disappointing. In the Sprint I climbed an unpassable fence that I recognized after the race. Although I was not officially disqualified, morally I was it. The Middle qualification was ok apart from one stupid 40s mistake at the second last control. In the Final (the same day) I had not very much energy left in my legs, made two mistake entering control 2 and 5 and finally finished 5th in the B-final. On Sunday there was long distance, 16,2k and 670m climbing. At the beginning the course was quite fast with two long route-choices and the controls mostly in white forest with good runability. Unfortunately, my race was already over in the first butterfly where I mixed up the loops and was disqualified. The misfortune climaxed in the relay when I lost my SI-Card on my way to the spectator control, the search took around 2 minutes.

Now, after a 10 hour trip on the East-European highways and a short stop in Leipzig over night, I am back in Paderborn where the summer semester has already begun. Thus, I have to get back into a good work-training balance the next weeks. Already on Thursday evening I am going to kick off for the Skandinavian trip to Eliteserien Sprint in Helsingborg and 10Mila in Perstorp. You can follow the races on 10Mila homepage:

Team LOWL:

1 Alexander Lubina
2 Patrick Hofmeister
3 Eike Bruns
4 Christoph Hofmeister
5 Lars Resch
6 Björn Risch
7 Sören Riechers
8 Karin Schmalfeld
9 Niko Risch
10 Roman Schulte-Zurhausen

Maps:

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Staffelstart

Early Spring Cup 2009: Successful start into the O-season

Patrick | 15.03.2009 | Kategorie: Allgemein | 33 Kommentare

This year the national o-season kicked off earlier than usual. Even before the international start into the season the first German ranking event with the fancy name “Early Spring Cup” was held in Dudenhofen, next to Mannheim.

It was supposed to be one of the highlights in the national elite orienteering schedule, the o-weekend carried out in Rheinland-Pfalz and Saarland. From my point of view, actually the organizers did a great job. Apart from some organizational problems, the two competitions, a relay on Saturday and the Middle Distance on Sunday, were truly excellent. The German National Team used the opportunity for a meeting and some additional trainings. Already at 6.15 am on Saturday we started with a little warm up of 15min around our accomodation. In the morning Ingo Horst, former national team runner, came up with a training called “Postenjagd im Frühlingswald”. Running in a 3-men-team with 2 different type of maps: the one had only a corridor from control to control with a clear passage right before the control cycle. The two others had a blank map on the front and a detailed map extract on the backside that indicated the part from the passage to the control. Reaching the passage the one with the corridor map had to cry out “Die Postenjagd im Frühlingswald beginnt” which was the signal to attack. After punshing the control the maps were exchanged. A very funny training approach that I really enjoyed.

In the afternoon there was a regional relay event. An interesting course and a nice terrain with good runability made the race quite thrilling until the end. I was running the last leg for our team. After a good starting leg of our first runner Eike, my brother lost some meters to the leading teams. I did a good performance and managed to run away from Post Dresden securing the first prestige relay of the year.

After a transfer to the venue in Dudenhofen (Rheinland-Pfalz), there was middle distance today. The terrain was flat with mostly low visibility and different runability. I tried to read the map carefully when needed adapting the running speed accordingly. But I failed already at the first control where I misinterpretated the vegetation and had to turn back. Due to the fact that this was the only mistake, I could win the race with a huge margin of 2min to the second Christoph Brandt and another two minutes to my teammate Eike. My brother finishing 4th and Claudia-Ann in 3rd spot in the women class made it a succesful weekend for the MTK. The next competition will be Spring Cup. We’ll see how the season will start on international level…

Colorful German Night Champs

Patrick | 02.03.2009 | Kategorie: Allgemein | 2516 Kommentare

While most of the European Top-Runners are preparing in Southern Europe for the upcoming season, I am staying in Germany taking benefit from some interesting competitions, like last weekend taking place the German Night Championships in the ancient “Landschaftspark Nord” in Duisburg. Although I already knew the special features of the industrial area, the conditions by night are always kind of special. Furthermore, the use of the compass is not very advisable in this terrain due to many metallic relics out there.

Equipped with a hightech Lupine I finally went out on the 8,4k course fascinated by the colorful athmosphere generated by illuminated buildings trying to focus on the map. I did an OK-race with several short hesitations and mistakes. Especially, the ones at the end at control 23th and 26th where I passed close by and had to return, made me angry. Anyway, it was enough to win the first title of the year, 1min ahead of Alexander Lubina and Ingo Horst in 3rd place.
On Sunday there was a regional sprint event held on the World Games 2005 model event map. The scale of 1:7500 as well as the course length of 4,2k made the race look more like a middle distance than a sprint. Despite the exhausting competition the day before, my legs felt quite good so that I was able to run at high speed the whole course. Apart from two mistakes at the 5th and 11th control I ran well. By catching up with Sebastian Bergmann and Roman S-Z. I realised that it was a good race. Finally, I finished in 1st spot more than one minute ahead of Sebastian. Next weekend there will be the first 10mila meeting including a sports medicine performance diagnostics in the University of Paderborn.

Back in good (c)old Germany

Patrick | 18.02.2009 | Kategorie: Allgemein | 1974 Kommentare

For more than two weeks I have been in Germany now. Before my return I spent some days in Andorra (Pas de la Casa,Granvalira). The skiing conditions could barely have been better: fresh-fallen snow in the first nights and afterwards sunny blue sky all day long. At the end we aggreed that Andorra was definetely worth a trip representing a very alternative to the Alpine skiing regions. Immediately after my vacations, I took the plane back to Germany to participate in the first national team meeting of the year in my club’s hometown Bad Harzburg. In addition to several informative discussions concerning season planning, the weekend included a cross-test, strengthening exercises as well as an o-training on Sunday morning. Unfortunately, I caught a nasty gastrointestinal virus so that I had to stop training for a while as I was back in Paderborn. I used the involuntary break to write applications for the Bachelor thesis and recovered slowly but surely. The last two weeks I could train according to plan and I was glad to attend the regional junior training camp in Hildesheim last weekend where we ran the famous Marienburg training organized by Stephan Schliebener and Heidrun Finke. It consisted of 3 loops of “window-o” resulting in a total workout of almost 2 hours. On Sunday the “famous” Peter Artmann OL took place, an o-training that was like a trip into the past including a map drawn by hand with symbols that have never existed. This week I have been in Lübeck at my parents home training together with my brother like in good old times. Next weekend there will be a formation of regional orienteering coaches taught by Stephan Schliebener in o-mapping. Hopefully the weather will be more friendly and not that cold for the 5-hours fieldwork that lie ahead of us.

Time to say goodbye… o adeeuuuu Barcelona!!!

Patrick | 23.01.2009 | Kategorie: Allgemein | 2572 Kommentare

The last 5 months I have spent as an Erasmus student in the beautiful and exiting Catalan city Barcelona. Especially in the last couple of days learning aroung-the-clock time has passed that fast, incredible! Alltogether, I took exams in 4 classes, one was in English class but the others were examined in Spanish. Now I am done with all the university stuff and it’s a really good feeling. The next days I will take a little bit easier, before I will go for some skiing to “Andorra -Pas de la Casa” on Sunday! As far as my training is concerned I am happy that I managed to train quite a lot during the exam period. On the one hand it cost quite an effort to go out for training when you just finished your 8 hours studying, but on the other hand it is a good way to recharge your batteries. The last week I had some good workouts doing around 110k in total and this week was planned to be even tougher. But unfortunately I have had an unpleasant cough since Monday so that I decided to take some days off. From the 1st of February on I will be back in Paderborn. Although I am really looking forward to meeting all my friends again, I will miss the Eramus-Life… that’s for sure!

Gracias a todos por este tiempo de puta madre en los últimos 5 meses. He disfrutado mucho de los entrenos, competiciones y conversiones interesantes con vosotros. Voy a echaros de menos pero seguramente volveré un día. Ens veurem nois i noies…

Foggy Iberian Championships in Portugal

Patrick | 10.12.2008 | Kategorie: Allgemein | 3161 Kommentare

Last weekend I took advantage of a general holiday in Spain travelling across the Iberian Peninsula to participate in the Iberian Championships held in Portugal, in a small town Idanha-A-Nova next to the Spanish border. I kicked off already on Friday morning in Vueling towards Madrid to get a picture from what the capital has to offer. In less than 3 hours I rushed through the city to catch a glimpse of the essential sights such as Sol, the Royal Palace, Plaza Mayor, The Prado Museum and El Parque Retiro. I have to admit that Madrid is really worth to visit, although Barcelona is even better. It has much more this international feeling that I do really apreciate. After that short stop in Madrid, we went on in a minibus of the Spanish Orienteering Federation.

Having been arrived at the Portuguese border I availed myself of the absence of one Spanish teammember and gota nice warm bed to sleep in… nice start! Saturday was supposed to be the day of the Middle Distance. 5,6k and 245 meters of climbing on a day that was rather made to stay in bed than to run an orienteering competition: 8 deegres, fog with visibility under 50m and awesome dizzle all day long. My performace was as poor as the weather conditions as I failed to read the map properly at the beginning which produced some big big mistakes to the 2nd and 4th control. Although on the route to the 4th there had to be something strange on the map because many runners had problems there, some even got lost out of the map. After these big mistakes it went ok, but I couldn’t really push very hard knowing that the race had actually been already over at the 4th control. At the end I still finished in 3rd position, but definetely all the other runners might have had problems as well.

In the evenings the prize giving ceremony took place and all the 1000 participants could enjoy a typical Portguese dinner sponsered by the local community. On Sunday there was a World Ranking Event held as shortened long distance with an estimated winning time of under one hour. The terrain was more open than the one of the day before but offered as well some interesting stony parts. Fences and stonewalls made a steady running rhythm impossible, as it is shown very tellingly in my GPS track(the blue line in the map is the route of my clubmate Biel Rafols). I made one big mistake in the first tecnical part at control 6 where I could not hold the compass direction searching on a wrong hill. There I lost 2:30. To the 9th I chose the direct route through the green and some stones which was not the best option I think. Slightly before the finish I made another mistake coming too far away from the compass line to the 21th. Anyway, the pace was ok as I ran almost the same split times as Tommi Tollkö. Nevertheless he won the race with a gap of 6min ahead of me.

From now on I am focusing on the final exams in January, but in the meantime I will be in Germany for some nice Christmas celebrations. I am really looking forward to seeing my family and to enjoying the festive spirit at home.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all the readers of my blog! See you again next year…

Liga Española in Alcalá de Henares

Patrick | 10.11.2008 | Kategorie: Allgemein | 2568 Kommentare

Everybody knows the famous story of the nutty knight-errant Don Quijote written by Miguel Cervantes which is considered to be one of the most influential work of literature to emerge from the Spanish Golden Age and perhaps the entire Spanish literary canon. For me, as an ambitious Erasmus student ;-), there was no doubt that I had to go to visit Cervantes’ place of birth in Alcalá next to Madrid. Lucky me, that this weekend Alcalá constituted the venue of the 10th Liga Española ranking event.

So, we pulled out from Barcelona on Friday afternoon, a six hours trip towards the capital of Spain. Owing to a good sleeping bag and thick clothes, my first night on a Spanisch hard floor was quite comfortable, although the estimated inside temperature of the gym was about 5 degrees. On Saturday there were two races: Middle Distance in the morning and a Night Sprint in the historical city centre of Alcalá in the evening. For the last two weeks I have suffered a big cold and haven’t trained a lot so my expectations for this weekend were quite low. The terrain for the middle and the long distance consisted of open areas with many small valleys, cliffs and rocks with pretty good runability. I managed the course quite well except of the 5th and 18th control where I lost around 30s because I misinterpreted the curves right before the control. To the 10th control it would have been better to come from above to the control crossing the valley earlier. I finished, as usual ;-), in 4th spot, 2:45 behind Tommi Tölkkö. Middle

The night sprint was a good possibility to get to know better the city of Alcalá. Start and Finish were at the “Plaza de Cervantes” with many spectators watching the event. The course was pretty easy with many long legs where you could study the map quite intensively. Moreover, the were two closed doors (the doors were additionaly marked as closed on the plastic bag) in the castle part of the race which affected the legs 6-7 and 7-8. Although my race was far away from perfect with many hesitations and wrong decisions, I finished 2nd, 30s behind Roger Casal. After the race I had time to visit the city by night. Sprint

Catalunya Mountain Half Marathon

Patrick | 28.10.2008 | Kategorie: Allgemein | 2504 Kommentare

Doing something for the first time is mostly pretty difficult. Yesterday I had a double debut: first Half Marathon and first time running a competition in the mountains together with my clubmates from COC (Club d’Orientació Catalunya). I used the opportunity on the one hand to check my current shape at the beginning of the winter training in Spain, on the other hand to gain experience in such races.

The weather conditions were almost perfect that day: sunny, calm and some 18 degrees in the valley. Before the race I had studied the distance profile (with 700 metres of climbing) very intensively, so I expected six steep climbs respectively downhills. Therefore I started rather cautiously, the first kilometer was flat anyway. But already on the first climb the group dispersed and I was alone, one Moroccan in front of me, and a small group behind. So I tried to find my own rhythm. Between 4k and 5k there was likely the most impressive part of the course. There we ran through a semi-dry riverbed over rocks and stones, meanwhile I was passed by one guy of the following group, but I always kept him in sight for the next 5k.
Right before the toughest climb at 12k I caught him up again and we pushed each other up the small stony path. At this point I realised for the first time that I might be the stronger one of us that day. Reaching the top I really enjoyed the beautiful surroundings and the magnificent view over Sant LLorenc Savall and the valley. Then, directly after the last refreshment point at 16k, I started my attack and went apart from him. Immediately there was a gap of 200-300m so that I could keep on running the original rhythm. There were some more up and downs on the last kilometers but mostly it went downwards into the historical city centre of Sant Llorenc Savall. Finally I ended up in 2nd spot (100:01), 2min behind the winner that I unfortunately never saw again after 2k. Now, I am trying to compensate although this week has been supposed to be tough.