Thea Lillehov

WOC 2010 long distance has passed - without me. Sad, frustrating and unchangeable. That's life.

The qualification race was a ok race, but nothing more. Maps can be found at WorldOfO (heat c). First and second control went well, 9th best split times on both controls. Then I wasn't careful enough to the third control - not the best route choice, climbing an extra hill and then I ran too far. I relocated fast and found my control, but I lost more than 4'... Control nr. 4 was fine, to nr. 5 I again did not take the best route choice and hesitated before the control. Another 3,5' lost. At nr. 6 I slept for a short moment and went too far down - 2' lost. Of course some of that time is due to being slower than the best girls too, so maybe the mistake was about 1,5'. Nr. 7 was fine, at nr. 8 I left some time because I went up in the false re-entrance. To nr. 9 I took the straight-on route choice. I think that was the best - good runability, easy orienteering. But, the steep hill almost killed me and my speed dropped down to very low in the part before the downhill-session started. I tried to push really hard and tried to tell myself that it hurts for everybody. Somehow it worked and I could pick up the speed again, but I still lost about 3' on this leg. The last controls were all ok and in the finish I was told that it might be close to a place in the final. But, my feeling was that it wasn't good enough and I was sad enough right. It was just too many minutes left out there.
At the first moment, things weren't too bad, since I had my family and David to talk to and to comfort me. But, in the evening, when things got quiet and everybody went to sleep, I must admit that I felled some tears. It wasn't a very good night, I had so many thoughts and feelings that had to be dealt with. It helps a lot having lovely people supporting you, but things like that you just have to do by your self. I have trained, prepared and focused on this WOC for a very long time and failure always hurt. This time maybe more than before.

But, the show must go on. Crying isn't that fun either, so it is anyway better to find something else to do. And with a relay to come, the legs and the brain need some challenge to stay fit. For that reason I went to the city to run the women's sprint final course yesterday morning. I wanted to do this from the beginning on, so I had not looked at the map before the "start". I felt really good, the course suited me nearly perfect and I did a pretty clean race. In the fortress I did choose the poorer route choice (back and forth!), but for the rest it was good. My time would have been good enough for a 29th position, just stupid that I wasn't able to pass the qualification hurdle! Of course we also watched the final yesterday!

Today I ran a short course at the WOC arena. Beautiful area, nice course, good legs and more or less brave brain. Things are getting better! And most important of all - on Sunday it's WOC-Relay!!! I will be running the last leg. It will be tough, cool and hopefully great orienteering!

Finally it is time for the World Championship!!!

But the way to the WOC has been a long one. Yesterday we travelled more or less all day - from Vienna via Berlin to Oslo and the to Trondheim. A nice surprise was that my sister had booked the same flight from Oslo to Trondheim, so I have all ready experienced some welcomed family support;):
After check-in and a decent meal we could pack out our things (actually not much of it, since the space is. let's say...limited;)) and then spend the rest of the evening doing nothing.

Today has been a calm and cosy day so far. Sleeping until 8h (that's pure luxury!), loong and delicious breakfast, sprint training in a nice forest (the biathletes doing a shooting training were a bit scary, but the delicious blueberries made it all just fine again). Soon we'll go for the sprint model event, but just to have a short look at some special things, since we did a good training on the same map just some few weeks ago. Then photo shooting, dinner at Casa Breitschädel and back home to visit the technical model event here at the hotel. Team meeting and then it is almost time to go to bed. Time to pick out some positive mind-pictures and thoughts and just enjoy the feeling. Ok, there will be excitement and tingling nerves too, but I'm so happy and grateful for being able to run the WOC at more or less home ground, so I guess that will override the nerves;):

09:23 tomorrow morning my WOC starts - cross your fingers!