sandrazürcher

The World Championships consist of four disciplines: sprint, middle, and long distance and a relay. Each discipline has a qualification race and the top 15 in each of the three heats run in the final. The relay does not have a qualification race. I was selected to run all the disciplines this year, including the relay. If things were to go optimally it would have meant running 7 races in 8 days.

On Sunday July 13th I competed in the Sprint qualification. I was already pretty nervous a few days in advance and really had to work hard to get myself into the right state of mind. I managed this and the beginning of my race went well.
The race was quite simple, which meant you had to run really fast. I must have run over my limit and in the state of my oxygen debt I skipped a control, running from number 9 straight to 11. All three controls were on a straight line and I just skipped ahead in my map reading. I only realized this mistake when I was told in the finish that I was disqualified. This was very upsetting. I do however have to admit that I made a big error at the end of the race as well. The sounds of the speaker at the finish and seeing spectators flustered me; I suddenly couldn’t read the map well and lost 1 minute on my 12th control. With this mistake I would have not made the cut off for the final anyway, even if I had visited all of the controls. The only positive thing I can take home from this experience I could see in the splits that if I run a normal good sprint race I am fast enough to make the final.

However, it is difficult with the pressure and stress of running at the World Championships to run “normally”. This mental hurdle is something I am still struggling with.

There was certainly no time to wallow over my mistakes; I had 24 hours time to get ready for the long distance qualification race. I am pleased that I could get over the nerves I felt for the first race and felt confident and ready to race again.

The long distance qualification went well but not great. I had a solid run up until the end, with some small mistakes, but still at a speed where I was within qualifying for the final. I saw ahead on the course and noticed that the last few controls were “tricky” and prepared myself to take them carefully.


I was successful at doing this for the first tricky control but did not have my navigation in control for the next one. I ended up loosing 4 minutes on that control and loosing my chances at making the final.

This WOC week so far has been tough. I feel like I have the ability to make the finals, but it takes getting every part of the race right. There is just no room for error. Luckily, I will get one more chance to see how good I can be. The middle distance qualification and final are tomorrow. I hope to navigate to all the controls in a manor that I am proud of when I run into the finish. If I can achieve this and I have a little bit of luck as well I may make it into the final. That would be a nice way to wrap up my individual races at WOC.

On Saturday, there is the long distance final race, where Marc will be taking part in. In 2005 and 2006 he was 2nd, winning the silver medal. Although he has been fighting with a hip injury since this spring he is ready to fight for the medals again. I will be there cheering for him.


On Sunday there is the last event, the relay. Samantha Saeger will run the first leg for the US team. I will run the 2nd and Samantha’s little sister, Hillary Saeger, will run the last leg. Our best placement at a WOC was 17th place in 2006. We hope to break into the first 15 places this year (and beat Canada too!).

I will keep you informed!

(Pictures from Will Smith: http://orienteering.smugmug.com/)

Biofarm Cup: Sprint race in Aarau!

Today we had the 2nd race of the Biofarm Cup series, which was a sprint in the old town of Aarau. This was a very tricky race, with lots of route choices around all of the uncrossable walls, narrow alleyways and stairwells. I am very satisfied with my race, I was able to “solve” all of the problems during the race and I never fell into a trap. This put me into 7th place, 1 second behind 6th.

I thought the map would be interesting too look at without my route first, so here it is:
Biofarm Cup Sprint- without routes

Biofarm Cup Sprint-with routes

Results are here

Yesterday, Swiss Orienteering announced that WOC 2012, if selected to be in Switzerland (there are no other applicants) will be held in Lausanne. Click here for the News article.

This is exciting news for Marc and I. We live in Magglingen, just above Biel, only about 100km from Lausanne. The woods in our area could be typical for some of the races at WOC 2012. This is very motivating.

(picture from www.map.search.ch)

A lot of the Swiss elite runners have set their sights on this WOC. For many of us, it would be a good "last" WOC. I could see that for myself as well. Actually I started a Fab-club at the beginning of this year with the goal to be in the Top 20 by 2012. With this WOC in our neighbourhood, I hope to be able to prepare well for it and achieve my goal. But until then there are many more World Championships to look forward to.

Of course I am also motivated for this year as well. I just got home from a training camp in Riga, Latvia and Gnesta, Sweden. Marc and I went to Riga with his VeVe club mates David Schneider and Tero Föhr. Heli Jukola was also in our small training group. We were able to train well in the coastal terrain of Riga and I have a good feeling for the first World Cup races and European champs. After several days in Latvia we took the ferry to Stockholm and met my club, OK Tyr, in Gnesta to train in Swedish woods relevant for the Swedish champs this fall. None of us are planning to run in the Swedish champs this fall, but it was a great opportunity to do organized training and spend some time with my club mates. At the end of our trip we ran in the Masenstafetten relay. I ran the first leg and was very happy with my race. David and Marc ran in a relay with VeVe and placed 2nd, SNO within striking distance ahead. Results are here
My computer broke down yesterday evening, so I can not post any pictures from our trip. What a shame.

Also a shame, during my trip in Sweden I injured my back. I was certain that the pain would go away within a few days and I continued to train. Unfortunately this has not been the case and I now have to take some time off of running. I am getting physical therapy and am also certain that the problem will go away soon, but it is still frustrating to deal with an injury. It also means that I will not be running the Swiss Night-O champs this Saturday (you will be able to see results here).

Next week we have the first selection races in Switzerland. The team will be selected for the European Champs based on two sprints on Thursday (10.April), Swiss Champs for Middle Distance on Saturday (12.April), and a Long Distance on Sunday (13.April). I hope that I can run again by then and take part in these races. You will also be able to find results here

On Friday the 15th of February, Marc and I left Switzerland with the Swiss National team for a training camp in Spain. The “winter” O-camp that the Swiss team has every year is traditionally also open to some “non-team” members. I was very happy to be able to go along, it was a great experience and I learned a lot.

Read more...

Marc and I are going to Lanzarote!! We are leaving on Tuesday the 22nd and spending 10 days on the island. We will be in good company, we are going with Simone and Matthias Niggli, and Daniel Hubmann and his girlfriend Annette Kindschi. I am really looking forward to my first "vacation" on the Canary Islands.

Read more...

Training summary

2005 2006 2007
Running
149h 207h 180h
O-ing
66h 100h 98h
Strength
47h 43h 52h
Total
(with other training (bike, xc-sking, etc) included)
413h 449h 442h


2007 may not look like much progress on paper, and in some cases it also wasn't, but the numbers are maybe deceiving. Running hours are less than last year, but I have to consider that I lost 3.5 weeks of training due to my ankle injury. In this regard, I am happy to have almost trained as many orienteers hours as last year, especially since I took 6.5 weeks off of orienteering to let my ankle injury heal well. Strength training is on the raise, and will be significantly higher in 2008, since I have started a training program lead by Tom Bührer. I see now all the little strength deficits that probably lead to the many little injuries I have had throughout the year. I believe this strength training program is going to bring me a lot in the future.

It's wasn't particularly a successful year in terms of injuries. Until the end of March everything was great. I think I was probably in the best shape of my life. Unfortunately I tore some ligaments in my left ankle on April 5th, the first training of a training camp with the Swiss National team. Such a shame. On a positive note, I was able to recover from the injury after two weeks on crutches and lots of physical therapy (and riding the indoor bike, ug!) to make a come back in June at the World cup in Finland. My qualification race for the first World cup race was probably one of my best sprints ever. The lack of speed work the two months beforehand were apparent in the 2nd half of the race and 30 seconds were missing to run in the A-final. Regardless of that "failure" the race was really good. I could pull through in the B-final and placed 10th giving me my highest WRE points up to that point in time. Even though I was able to get myself into shape for the competition season, my body lost some resilience and by the Fall season I started to have little aches and pains all over. I ended my season with a strong patellar tendonitis and took 3 weeks off of running and training all together (again!). After this training break I felt like I was starting from the beginning, but I think it was good for my motivation and also for my body to recover from a long season.

Training wise you could say it wasn't the most successful, but when it came to performance I had the best year yet! The races in Finland (WC) including my race at Jukola, several races in Switzerland in the summer, World cup in Sweden, WOC, and selection races for the Swiss team for World Cup race in the Fall were all great improvements over the last few years.

Some highlights!
Swedish Ultralong Champs: 16.2km with 600m climb. I was in really good shape and felt great the whole way around. Navigation also went really well and I ended up 33rd out of 65 women.
World cup in Norway: Even though the race wasn't actually good, I was really proud to have made the A-final based on my performance in Finland one week earlier.
Swiss Selection Sprint race #2- Thun : 2'18" behind 2nd place.
World cup Sweden, Long distance: 13.8km mass start race with loops. I was 36th after the 1st loop and 40th after the 2nd loop. Good start. The last loop was less good due to bad route choice, but I was still very happy with the result and my ability to run such a long race in difficult terrain. Ended up 53rd place out of 67 starters.
WOC Sprint Qualifier: I finally made my first WOC A final. I am proud of this race because I managed to concur the huge mental mountain of distracting and unproductive thoughts I have had at other WOCs, I was able to focus on the process and run within my ability. I never really thought I could make the A-final in the sprint, but I did, which goes to show you should believe in yourself.
WOC relay: Excited about the good result from last year I wanted to run a very good race. I was able to prepare myself for the race and it produced good results. I am learning how to prepare myself for big races. After the 2nd leg we were only 3 minutes out of a Top 10 place. That is possible in the future!!
WOC Sprint final: I am happy not to have flipped out because I was nervous about being in the final. The preparation is working, I am learning and gaining experience for the future.
Swiss Relay Champs: Getting 3rd and therefore winning my first medal at a Swiss Champs was an exciting moment!
Middle distance qualification race for the WC for the Swiss team: I had a solid race, managed to beat two women on the Swiss team and was "only" 9 minutes behind Sime.

Misfortunate races!
World cup in Norway: I was too worried about the other runners in the race. After catching the first starter at the first control, I never really was able to concentrate fully on myself. Parts of the race were really good, but I made too many mistakes because I didn't trust myself.
WOC Long distance quali: After qualifying for the A-final in the sprint, it was really hard for me to have the correct mindset for the race. I should have gotten up early and gone on a morning jog to prepare for the race. I basically blew the race because I wasn't running concentrated and focused on the process. By the end of the race I also started to give up a little, thinking I was way out of qualifying. If I had known that it would only be 17 seconds separating me from the final... Oh well you learn from your mistakes, and this taught me to never give up and to be positive during a race. You really never know how you are doing compared to the others until you are in the finish.
World cup in Switzerland: This could have been one of my best results ever. The terrain was familiar to me, and I was in good enough shape to have done well. Even with the cold I had, I still could have performed much better than I did. I blew it again because of my lack of focus on myself. I didn't think about the orienteering, but rather on who ever started right behind me and when they would catch me. Talk about negative... I shouldn't assume that someone will catch me. The example from this race is that I took a "safe" but bad route choice from the 5th to the 6th control. I didn't want to take the logical route choice because I thought that the girl who started behind me would see me. Stupid. Ironically I was 1 minute faster than her at that point in the race. She caught me at number 6:-(

Overall I can take one simple lesson from the races that didn't go well. Believe in yourself. In addition, I need to prepare myself and focus on the process not the outcome.

I am looking forward to 2008. With a training camp in January (Lanzarote, mostly running), February (Sprain, O camp with the Swiss team), March (Riga + Finland with Marc), April (Uppsala, Tiomila), I will be ready for the competition season. First big event is in May, the European champs and first World cup races in Riga, Latvia and than WOC in the Czech Republic and the World cup at O-Ringen in July. August is still open, I might come to the US champs in Wyoming, but might instead go with the Swiss team to Trondheim. In the fall I will start a Masters degree in Performance Sports and Management and will take part in the World cup final here in Switzerland.


I am motivated for the future and I can see many years of focused training and competition in orienteering ahead of me. That is one reason why I had decided to ground a fan club. More information is here: http://2thetopin2012.blogspot.com/

I want to thank everyone for their support over the last few year, especially Marc who is always there for me, Tom Hollowell for his advise and encouragement, Peter Gagarin because he pretty much keeps us on the US team in tact and Boris for the company on this journey.

Happy New Years!

my training break lasted for 3 weeks and it was a nice break. i really needed to let my body recover a bit from this last season.

to kick start my winter training i went to my club, ok tyr in Karlstad to do some technical training before the winter closes in and the darkness engulfs scandinavia. A few good friends came along, Franziska Wolleb, also a club mate, and company from Uppsala, Boris Granovskiy and Patrick Higgins. it was a great atmosphere to do some technical training. the physical side didn't take precedence and i got a chance to work on a few specific technical skills.

Read more...