Best Overall Orienteering National Cup Result Ever
Despite my o-season ended in advance.
Saturday morning national relay cup, Saturday afternoon national cup sprint. The day after another national relay cup. This has been my last harder week before Czech long distnace championship. I am excited about the championship to come. I am ready. Until...
...Sunday's race is tough. Coming till its end. Downhill. One bad step. I am on the ground. All I realize is that my knee went backwards instead of forwards when my leg landed on the ground. I am the first leg runner. I can’t give up. Stand up. Run! Run Johanka!
First steps are hardly walking but after another ones I speed up to running. I managed to finish the course and send Maky to second leg.
Now it’s time to take care of my leg. It doesn’t hurt much. There are not even any bad symptoms. Maybe I was lucky and nothing bad happened to the leg. Anyway, I rather avoid as much walking as possible.
Four hours in the car to get home. Leg feels OK. When I climed first stair up in our garder, big pain in the leg appears. Now I know the leg is not good. I tried my luck to get an appointment by doctor as soon as possible. Thanks so much Katka for fixing this VIP date by your dad already on Monday morning!
X-ray didn’t show anything wrong. The most important question right now: „Can I race at the weekend? It’s Czech chapionship!“ „Well, if I were you I would definitely not compete.“ „But the leg is OK, just hurting a bit.“ „Yes, but if you do one more bad step, it can have a long lasting consequences“. Achjo, injuries are fakt naprd!!!
My leg got significantly a better day after a day. On Thursday I could walk upstairs or downstairs without any injury symptoms. Should I go to the championship? I really want to!
I decided to be smart. At least this time. Ski-O season is about to come and that’s my main target. I can not afford any long lasting troubles. Sad, but wise, I stay home for the weekend. My O-heart is broken, but I know this decision will pay off.
On Monday, it’s time for an intensive camp in Nové Město na Moravě. I need to be ready to go hard!
As the O-season is over for me I can already assess my results and performances. First of all, it is important to mention I no longer target for orienteering, but ski-orienteering instead. My year's plan has changed from two sports targets into one. The reason is simple. My body couldn't handle it. Orienteers need to rest in late autumn and start with lot of endurance trainings. Ski orienteers have an important high intesity and quality season in late autumn. It doesn't really work to combine (if you are not Tove Alexandersson). Anyway, I set a smaller goals for the summer season in order to be motivated and enjoy orienteering.
I was not supposed to run Czech sprint relay championship neither Czech sprint championship. I was called to start just one day before. With no preparation at all I did my best. But the lack of fast intervals was impossible to hide. What a surprise we finished at third position in sprint relays! Unfortunately, one control point was missing to our second leg runner. Czech Middle distance championship was an event I was really looking forward to. Nice Vysočina reagion terrains are my favourite. I was super dissapointed I didn't make it to the final A. Final B was too far behind my expectations. I felt strong physically, mentally as well es my oreinteering skills were good. But I had a bad strategy. From previous years I expected a no-mistake performance with reduced speed to be enough for final A. But that days course was so easy that almost no one made a mistake and my good but too secured performance was not enough. Czech long distance championship. Did not start. Injued knee.
Czech relay championship. Did not start. Injured knee.
Czech club championship. Did not start. Injured knee. Nic moc, že? But the more unlucky I was during all championships, the luckier I was during national cup rounds. I managed to be in TOP15 in 6 races out of 8 where I started. I managed TOP 10 in 4 races out of them. And twice I made it to the velká bedna. That's far my best results ever. No surprise, it led to my best overall position ever - 11th place. I was aiming to TOP 10 and was ranked 9th just before the last national cup race - Czech distance. But my absence in this race didn't give me an opportunity to fight for my postion and I fell down to place11. Still happy to have good and stable performances whole year.
How will be the next season be? Will I put all focus to the ski-o preparation? Will I miss o-successes and put effort to achieve something in orienteering? The answers will come in next year ;)
