After 10MILA I was feeling pretty good and I was starting to make final adjustments before the above mentioned event. But the last week before the race turned out to be pretty difficult. While the easy trainings gave only good signs, the difficult trainings showed otherwise. I tried to rest as much as I could, but for undisclosed reasons, this was not that easy to do. The last interval training felt perhaps the most difficult this season and the performance was very low. After that I could rest easily and so I did. On Friday, the feeling was already better than on the training, but far from a good-shape feeling.
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| Wazzup coach!? |
Middle distance warm-up was quite OK, seemed like the last days were put in the right place. I was so concentrated before the start that I almost started 1 minute before my starting time. I didn't let that push me over the edge and started carefully, but the control was easy and I didn't hold back. 2nd was as bit shaky already. To the 3rd I was generalizing too much and found myself on the wrong ridge. No time to waste and quickly ahead! Easy to say... For some controls I did run as I could, but not for long. I felt that the engine was running well, but I had no feet underneath me. When given the possibility to run fast on the road to the 8th, I just couldn't do it. I wasn't moving like I was supposed to and when it came to climbing steeper slopes, I wasn't the man for the job either. Now I could just count on smooth orienteering. I sensed that the 10th could be tricky and I was especially careful. After crossing the ridge, things didn't add up. As if I passed the hill from the right but came out on the left? I seemed really strange... All the medallists came out too far left also... The mistake of the day is yet to come, with the 14th. I was doing well until I reached the control circle. I got confused (and I mean really confused) by a big clearing on the right. These was none on the map. What now? I must be in the right place, so I continued. Fighting in the green, I wanted to reach the spur with the ditch. Instead, I wound up at a corner of a clearing. Where am I? There was a ditch on the side of it and the land was dry, so I figured I was at the south-east part of the circle (in the white area). When I realized that the clearing was the light green east of the control, I was already too far. 1 minute lost like that! After that it was an emotionless running to the finish. I was 4th in total, 50 seconds behind the winner (Timo), 7 seconds behind the silver (Peeter) and 1 second behind the bronze (Olle). I wasn't sad about losing the bronze so closely, I didn't even think about that. I really liked the terrain, but I was rather disappointed in myself and a bit with the map. I felt bad losing the gold, because I was able to take it... Nobody ran without mistakes that day, I left 2:50 to my mistakes account.
I was hoping for a better feeling for the relay and was put to the 3rd leg. Nothing extraordinary happened overnight, but I felt better than on the previous day. Jaagup and Timo opened the competition well for us, I went out in the lead, with 1 minute ahead of Olle (EKJ SK). I tried to take it easy in the technical parts and push harder on roads, not to compromise our lead. Already after the 2nd control, it felt as the forest was against me. I couldn't find any good "paths" in the forest and got constantly stuck. I wanted to go straight to the 3rd, but when I reached the small ugly marsh, I decided to follow the small path instead. It didn't seem faster and I let the forest guide me instead of being the guide myself. The last green before the control area was especially fighting against me. I felt that I was losing much time and when I was reaching the control, I saw Olle leaving it. This was one bad route! I knew I could catch up, so I tried to be in control of the situation, but the forest just didn't let me do that. I had to alter my route very often, especially to the 5th. I was approaching the control and all of a sudden I was lying on the ground. I got up quickly, but I couldn't run. I had hit my right knee hard and the instant pain took me swearing. I walked-jogged to the 6th and the pain was relieving. When I got on the road, I could run again, but not full speed. I couldn't catch anyone like this, so I just tried to maintain our position. My forking (4-5-6 controls) was 150 m longer than Olles + falling + not being able to run very fast = 2:33 behind Olle in the 7th control. After some time I didn't feel any pain at all, but I couldn't push very hard (the heart-rate was pretty low too). 13th control area was strange like on the previous day, so I knew I was too much to the left and I was right! The rest was pretty OK, except for the 17th. Having "rested" on more than 2/3 of the course, I was able to have a really fast finish (without pain). Olle's good race insured victory for the army guys and we came in 2nd, 2:22 behind.
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| The Three Musketeers (I don't know who the guy on the right is) |
While on the course I thought that I just slightly hit my knee, than after the race I took a look at my knee and it wasn't pretty. It wasn't cut or anything, it was just a lot bigger than it usually is. It looked like the kneecap was dislocated and there was a big apple underneath the skin. No pain, but it looked very ugly. When the body cooled down, I couldn't move my knee anymore. I got laser treatment already on the same day and hoped that my knee wasn't broken. Fortunately, the doctor said that my knee was in one piece and it's just sore because I hit it and there's a hemorrhage on top of the kneecap.
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| Not feeling any pain (yet) |
Since then I've been laser-treating myself. I didn't even try running at first, so I went swimming instead. Now I went out for a testrun: at the beginning the knee was just sore, nothing more. After having warmed up, I felt basically nothing. I kept the effort short and ran some intervals. Even the overall feeling was much better than on the previous week. It looks like I'll be able to run the Baltic Championships in two days after all. I've got good memories of the beautiful terrains in Nida from last year's BJC. It's going to be awesome!
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| Operating my knee |
By the way, I usually update the maps page before the news page.
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