Last month has been pretty much professional in terms of orienteering training and we have seen a bit of world also. The tour started one month ago with the training-camp in Hungary, which was followed by a short preparation camp for the European Championships in Mora, Sweden. In addition, we spent couple of days in Stockholm-region and after only couple of days rest, we were ready to start the last trip of the hard preparation period, this one heading to Switzerland. The return to home was of course nice one, and Jouni Kahelin's invitation to an interval session made it even better.
Let's go back to Switzerland for a while though. As you can see from the photo above, the weather was totally different than last year at the same time. I was constantly checking the weather forecast, and it promised some sunshine in addition to the rain showers. Well, the crude fact was, that the sunny moments lasted for minutes, but the rain showers for hours. Or was it days? Alltogether, trainings were good and service pretty much high standard.
My own orienteering performances aroused some critical thougths indeed. In summary I would say: who in the world who is preparing himself for the WOC2012-middle distance can be so bad, damn? And on the other hand, long distance seems to be piece of cake. I should probably learn to take it a bit more carefully on middle distance. Well, there is plenty of time before the champs will take place.
Another thing, I have been wondering about this spring is the performing on homeground. Now I have had better preparation for them (and EOC) than before, especially in sport-spesific way. How dum can you be that you can't figure that out sooner? It's not too much off from the primary goals, if you train a bit more in the slow terrains to get better results in the beginning of the season? Well, I can't say it yet - whether I will get more self-confidence from the early spring races in Finland or not. Omega (=results) tells it soon.
To the main issue: really nice training we did today. The devil's son, Mr.Kahelin, had planned an interval-session for Terä-runners. I checked it out yesterday and my conclusion was that it is a crabby one. Lots of snow and harvester had been eating all the trees (probably due to Kahelin's will). But the truth was different, route was challenging, but mostly snow-free. Also the speeds (5.00->4.00min/km) were high enough. Thanks for the company and the spirit for the guys.
Next stop Silja-rastit on Saturday. Vi ses där (even if the last news was only an April 1st joke)!