New PB in 5000m! And two other achievements

Yeah! Now I’m satisfied: I made 17:36 in 5000m track. For the five different kilometres I needed 3:25, 3:27, 3:35, 3:37 and 3:27. It’s somehow a victory, even if it was not as fast as one could expect due to the test on treadmill in spring. I have trained to reach 17:00 on 5000m. But from time to time I had to realize that there is a difference between a performance test and a competition and I can’t get that much faster than 2011, when I made 18:14. One reason is indeed that I, as an orienteer, can’t hold to a perfect running training plan. There are simply too many competitions and training camps. After all an orienteer also wants to get better in orienteering, and not only in running!

At the official 5000m in Langenthal on 22 August (three days after a very hard long distance swiss orienteering championship race), I said to myself: okay, your form is not very good and the weather is too hot, so a bad race time is more probable than a good one, but you have to try it anyway. What I did then, was not clever at all: I started much too fast (because I felt extremely good in the beginning) and got much slower during the race, which ended in a race time of 18:24. A horrible result. I already reached this in February 2011 alone in a training. So, directly after the race I decided to try it again before the end of this season. The best possibility was last Tuesday. Kevin Hegg, a club colleague, volunteered for being my pacemaker. Thank you very much!! Thanks to him I could reach my biggest aim: run a more or less constant race.

A completely other kind of victory was the one at the sprint orienteering championships on 9 September in Zofingen. I really liked this sprint! I was exhausted in the finish. It would have been interesting to see how much time I lose on the world cup swiss girls (who were in Finland at this time), because I had a quite good race with only some little stops. Anyway, this gold medal made me feel that my trainings not only answered the purpose of my well-being and joy, they also made me better and faster.
SPM article swiss orienteering 
SPM results

The same with the victory of the last stage of “4foulées” in Les Bois on 12 September. A 10.8 km race on meadows and only few paths and roads (very funny :-)).
4foulées results

Even though these two victories always also depend on the other competitors, they make you think that you can’t go that wrong with your training. A very good feeling! Although not really justified…;-)

Next: Greifenseelauf in Uster on Saturday. I'm looking forward to my first half marathon! And then, in the beginning of october: 25manna in sweden!

It's getting winter slowly.. perfect conditions for swimming in the Aare and cold lakes, like the oeschinensee.

me on the way to one of the last controls at the sprint championships. I'm still working on a better running style ;-)

me at the prize giving ceremony of 4foulées in Les Bois