Preparing for Polish Champs part XII

After the next sprint race I had very mixed feelings. A few minutes after the race I was really disappointed, I thought, that this race had been exceptionally bad, I claimed that I had lost about two minutes to Swedish runners. Finally, as it turned out later my time was satisfactory, and even good. Let’s come to the analysis of my sections from this day. I wanted to train fast decisions making and in this analysis, using GPS tracking, I wanted to assess quality of these sections.

On the first control I made a standard loss, which I had usually gained on the beginning controls. Assessing options on the second one, I think both of them were comparable. My five-seconds loss was caused by “Total eclipse of the heart” and making stop during this section. In the middle of the race I thought that loss, which I had suffered due to my hesitation, was much bigger and disqualified the possibility of a good race. Finally it wasn’t so bad.

Options on the third point were comparable again, this time the key thing was fast decisions making. Obviously you weren’t allowed to jump across the hedge, which some competitors did.

The second mistake I made on the seventh point. Coming back to the previous passage cost me about 7 seconds. Further point didn’t pose bigger problems to me. But… on the 11^th point I caught the next eclipse, I didn’t notice, that next to my point there was large fence and I chose bad option. Fortunately it cost me only about 5 seconds.

I think that my route to the 12^th point was a bit better. I lost 2 seconds to Oskar and I gained 10’’ over Marcin, who took a different way.

Chasing Szymon from Śląsk wrocław, on the fourteenth point I caught up some losses to my Swedish clubmates. Thanks, for this point! The ability of using opponents help is very important. This ability can be useful in May.

Next I made about 2 seconds mistake on the point number 15. I lost with Śląsk competitor on the 16^th point, because I had chosen a worse option. About 2’’ mistake, and additional hesitation before running on the stairs cost me another 2 seconds. 

My option on the 19^th point wasn’t probably bad, but I lost 3’’ before punching this point. Along with Marcin we didn’t notice optimal possibility on the 20^th point, which meant another 2-3 seconds loss. The last 3 seconds I lost running to the finish line. I didn’t cut the corner of the lawn and I hesitated during run to the finish line.

In conclusion, this day I made over 30 seconds mistake. I think that such race could bring me a medal during Polish Championship (a gold one for sure no). I’m still far from my proper shape (I must be making a slow recovery.) However, this race shows me that, the number of theoretical trainings brings desirable results and my decisions are getting quicker.

The loss to strong Swedish competitors (in bad physical shape) shows me that the run on this distance gives me the best chances (maybe the only one) of making good result during JWOC. Let’s stick to it and let’s hope that mission Cracow 2015 will change into mission Norway 2015.