Thea Lillehov

Time for some update! At the moment I am in Sao Pedro de Moel in Portugal - the sunny side of life greeting! But let's start with the beginning! Last Thursday the travelling started - arrival in Lisboa was supposed to be at 23.55, due to about 3 hours delay from Vianna we arrived in Lisboa around 03:00. Taxi to the hotel, falling half dead into bed and jumping on the train to Faro some hours later. Arriving in Faro weather all ready showed us the nice side - sunny and warm enough to take of the warm jacket. And it just got better every day! We spended the rest of the day having a look at Faro - relly nice city, at least the old part - and waiting for the rest of " Ulu`s Pauschalreisen". At this moment at the airports in Portugal the luggage workers had started a strike, so when the group finally arrived, it was without luggage. After a good meal and some delicious red wine we arrived at our rooms in St.Lucia near Taviera.

Saturday and time for the first competition, a middle distance. Since I had been exactly twice on a map since the world cup in October, my goal was just to run easy and get back into orienteering again. The easy running went well, the orienteering was a bit hop and drop. The first part of the course was very easy, lots of running on paths and with easy controls. To control 9 i took a bad route choice, running to much in the green area (maps will come later). On the way to nr. 12 I first drifted of to the right, again sticking in some very green areas and then I misinterpretated the control-detail. It was a re-entrance and I did not read good enough on which side of the hill it was supposed to be. Stupid. Except a bad route-choice to nr.13 the rest of the course was okay, but in the end the slow-running together with the mistakes made a slow time..

Sunday - new area, new map, new competition, new chance. Long distance this time. I decided to try to race a bit harder, but with full technical control. The area was beautiful, partly pineforrest, partly open gras areas/sandy areas and partly steeper areas including some red stones completely new to me. The legs were fine, so racing at a harder speed was not a problem. Maybe they were even to good, because on the way out from nr. 13 I ran out 45 degree false, ending out of the map in a heavy bracket area. I could not make out where I was, it was just awful out there and just knowing that the minutes ran away did not make it better.. In the end I lost about 6-7 minutes out there... The rest of the course went ok, so I was really frustrated because of this huge mistake. The positive thing I took with me, was that I felt physically a lot stronger as same time last year.

Then Monday came. Same area and map, but new course and competition, again a long distance. After having done some easy jogging at the beach the evening before and in the morning, my legs felt good and speedy. Having the mistake from yesterday still very present at memory I decided to put all concentration on the technical side of the course. Good decision. From the start on everything went smooth, controls came where I wanted them to be, except from the 6th control where I first went one hill to far. I lost maybe 45" there and maybe further 2' on the rest of the course. Legs where speedy so I just enjoyed running, even after testing how it is falling head over into the brackets;) In the end the time was good enough for a 4th place in the W21E, only 16" behind the third place, but more important was getting back into how to solve the technical problems of the course. I was very satisfied with the race and a big THANKS to Pekka who, before the competition, made me see what I did good on the day before and what to work on!

After this competition I skipped the cool down, due to a painful blister on the heel, but in the evening I could not resist taking a easy run on the beach again. Next morning Rchard took care of my blister, so running was painfree again. The last competition of this years Portugal O-Meeting took place on the boarder to Spain, in Vila Real Santo Antonio. Map was strange, it was supposed to be a 1:10 000 but it was much more like a 1:15 000. At the first 2 controls I had big problems, mostly because of the distance but also because of the bushes beeing bigger than me, not making it very easy to see the controls. In the end I needed more than 8 minutes for the first 2 controls, which was about 5 minutes more than necessary. To the third control I almost walked and again the map tricked me out: control should be on the hill, placed was it on a flat area in front of the hill. Nice start of the competition.. Even if I had decided to take it as a moderate training, this was not the way I wanted it to be.. The rest of the course went more or less ok, except for nr.18, where I lost about 1 minute. Discharging my SI, they told my I did not punch nr.6.. I was there, but maybe I punched to fast? Well, it did not matter, these competitions are to be seen as training.

Directly after the competition we headed for Sao Pedro de Moel (good so, or else I would have got a real sunburn!), where we are staying at Daniela`s. Uschi and Bindi were waiting for us there, completing our group. Bindi, Jürg and me directly headed for a easy run on the beach, coming back to some fantastic pasta bologna! Mmmmmm!! Yesterday startng with morning run on the beach, then one technical session on a map without paths. Beautiful pine forrest with vacum cleaned ground - running was fantastic. Some minor mistakes but in the end ok. After having a look at the old city of Nazare, including coffee and cakes and some big wawes, we had a short break and then headed for a second technical session. Completely different forrest, longer course, still big fun. I did two smaller mistakes, but the rest was really good. In the evening we went at a local restaurant, and I could finally enjoy the shrimps - yummi! And the housemade ice-cream was just perfect!

Now it is Thursday and today we will do only one training, leaving in about 1 hour. Tomorrow we`re heading for Praia de Mira and the competitions there. I will come back with more from there and with maps later.