Thea Lillehov

Saturday evening it was time for the annual Sprint Championship, this time in Vienna. Before the competition my feelings were a bit split. On the one side I of course wanted a medal, on the other side I have chosen to use the autumn to train really hard for the 5000m and to have both would probably be too much of a mouthful. With four weeks of really heavy training in the legs, I knew it would not be a easy game to take a medal, but getting faster in general is at the moment just more important than to prepare for the sprint.

Technically my race was okay, some seconds here and there, but nothing really bad. The legs did feel okay but I was not exactly flying.. In the finish I was not that disappointed about the 6th place, the race was ok, but I was a bit surprised that I was so far behind. Well, I will not spend too many thoughts on that, since the explanation is pretty clear.

The sprint took place in a hospital area. It is a area made out of large, mostly parallell buildings with grassy areas in between(map). It is not a very difficult area, but it would have been a so much more interesting and difficult competition if they had made some longer legs, instead of just putting in so many controls as possible.. Yesterdays course was just sad, 21 controls and not one single routechoice.. Of course sprint is a lot about taking fast decisions, but when the only subject is to decide fast, not once to decide where to go, then it's maybe a bit too easy. But, the good thing was, for once we had a proper course-lenght for a sprint, which was very nice! Also the frame around the competiton was very good, with live-cameras, professional and funny comments from the moderators and a very good ambiente!

Yesterday we had the "Bundesländerstaffel", which is a mixed (gender and age) relay between the different regions of Austria. Womens elite is, together with the fast younger and not so young-boys, running first leg. Appr. 4km with 190m climbing waited for us, in a mostly open forrest with some tricky, very detailled areas. Lots of gullys and re-entrances! 55 teams on the startline and our 3 Carinthian-teams all in the back, since we did not have enough teams last year to get into the classification (you need three teams for that - we had two). In the beginning of the race it was a rat-race, all of us climbing the hill together. Some faster, some slower . On the third control most of us still together - and then only one punching unit and the control placed in a narrow valley between two rocks.. Half of the teams chose to climb on to the top after punching, the rest to climb down again the same way as we came, which made it a rather intimate punching situation .
The course was really nice and very well forked, maybe almost too much, since you lost about 45-60" having the longer forking on the 4th control.. For my part I did not push all too hard, since it is my regeneration-week. But, it was still a very nice race, technically pretty clear and the legs felt fine. It is a relay that always makes fun to run, since you are running together with all kinds of runners, not only the elit-categories as usual. And next year it is on home-ground in Carinthia, jippi!! But, we will still start in the back, since 1 out of our 3 teams got disqualified. Well, next year we just need to have at least 5 teams up running, then it should be at least possible to get classified . So all Carinthian runners (yes, even the retired ones!!) - get prepared, you will be needed!! .