I have nothing to complain about the results in the autumn’s Finnish Championships. Including the qualification races, I received three 1st positions and two 2nd places as a result. As you view the races as performances, it looks even better. I could have done only 5 min better totally (long qualification 1min, long final 1min, middle qualification 40s, middle final 1min and the relay 1min 20s). Interestingly, I missed only 2min in the control-taking phases! That’s a good job as the total length of these five races was 42,42km with 89 controls to pick up. Short stories about the medal races:
FC-long, 1st place. Had a bit jammed body in the qualification, and I was slightly feared how I’ll do in the final. Did I orienteer too much in the preceding week? Fortunately the powder was dry in the early stages of the race and I earned some quality company for the rest of the competition. Due to eye injury, which happened already after 20mins of running, my map-reading was impaired. By descending the speed in some places I was still able to orienteer well. The only bigger mistake was done when arriving to the difficult area (9th control), where I lost 45s. In the end the speed was high and almost got stuck in the swamp ditches permanently… I took the end quite carefully and could thereby insure my first gold on long distance by a clear margin.
FC-middle distance, 2nd place. Had some problems before the races again. Strange stomach flue had been distressing me for four days and managing in the second race of the day was unclear. Luckily the fluid balance hadn’t got affected due to sickness and the influence was mainly psychological. Already the qualificationhad went well, even when running at ”easy pace”. Though, the hear rate levels were too low in both races, as they were 10-12 beats lower than normally, which indicated that body wasn’t functioning normally. As an o-performance the finalwas rather good – challenging legs and solving them “on the spot” was the name of the game all the time. Couple of times I felt like running a hard training only (because of the jamness and the low intensity), but that may have been only a positive thing as the race was tricky by nature. In the finish I felt good and was happy that nice guy like Kim won the race!
FC-relay, 2nd place. Surprisingly good feeling before the start (had slept only 4h and my stomach was still bad) and it didn’t got worse even by the fact, that the co-starters were World Champions Thierry (KR) and Matthias (RR). Physically I was in a jam again, but the speed didn’t feel bad. HR average was again only 173 and I was not even close to reach the anaerobic threshold level (185). Surely the threshold is lower at the moment as measured by beats per minute, even without the stomach flu. Thierry ran away from me at 10th control, as I missed a bit. The control flag has fallen down and I didn’t find the place straight away. I almost managed to get Thierry caught again, but then changed my plan (for good reason) and made some zigzag for half a minute. That was it then and to be honest, I have had no chances in the end for at least with that diesel engine I was driving with. I’m happy with this performancetoo, and the other Terä-boys did a good job again. The New Vaajakosken Terä’s history (2005-2010) from the Finnish Champs relay is not too bad: 1., 1., 3., 4., 2. ja 2.
The season is nearing to it’s end and only couple of races are left to be run: Pre-Jukolaon next weekend, weekend after that World Cup and Pre-WOC 2011 in Franceand finally the World Cup –finals in Switzerland. The long race in France and the middle in Switzerland are naturally of the highest interests, as it was advertised the earlier burger-news. And I almost forgot that we are travelling to Smålandskavlen as well, after a one penalty-year due to our win in 2008!