Road to World SKI-O Champ 2021 during COVID-19

It’s been 342 days since the last IOF race (World Ski-O Championship 2020) was held. It’s enough time to reduce weaknesses as well as to do something wrong.

The spring preparation went great. Due to the first wave of COVID, all social contacts were reduced to the minimum. All of my focus and energy was targeted to valuable training sessions and writing the master thesis. It was nice to see the physical progress from one week to another. The only social contact I got during this time was a „private training camp“ in Turnov. I stayed by Denisa and Vojcek for two weeks. Not only did I enjoy to get the training company again, but most of all it was very inspiring to learn from the best ones. I came home even more motivated. Once more, thanks a lot for letting me stay.

The end of May and the whole of June was all about the master thesis and final (master) university exams. Important exams have always been very stressful for me. Due to COVID, the date of my final exams was postponed a couple of times. This resulted in me being stressed for about 7 weeks (instead of 3 weeks) which affected my wellbeing and physical shape.

It took another month to get back to the shape I was in at the beginning of May. I joined some orienteering and ski-o national team camps in July and August. I was happy to show that nepatřím do starého železa as I managed to win some test races in both sports.

We finally got some races again in autumn. To sum up my performances, I am really satisfied with my performances and results at less important races (such as Czech Student Championship), but Czech Championships themself didn’t go well at all. It was too bitter to be DISK at the Czech Sprint Championship instead of 5th place. I simply overlooked one control on the map. This race was the most important one for me as it was a qualification for the Euromeeting. Nenaděláš… The frustration got a bit weaker after the Sprint Relay Championship which took place the same day in the afternoon. I don’t run last legs usually and I’ve never run the sprint relay in my club’s A (best) team. This time I had to cope with both. I was really REALLY nervous. I didn’t want to mess up the result to my teammates. I did a perfect race and left all I had. I was very happy with my performance despite we finished 8sec behind a medal. I did my best and that’s what matters.

The season was over very soon. The last races of the season were cancelled due to the second wave of COVID. The coach recommended I have an „offseason“ for three weeks. With this said, I was allowed to do whatever I wanted during this period. So I did. You can read more about these weeks here (Czech only but Google Translator works pretty well).

We got snow in Czechia already in October! And we got that much that we could even go skiing!!! Even

Scandinavians were jealous about how great conditions we had. I was even more excited to run some PB during some trainings. Everything was great. Until I messed it up.

At the end of the „rest“ week in November, I got a weird pain in my knee out of a sudden. The day after I was ready to quit the long run if the knee hurts. The knee was totally fine after the first 60min so I decided to run the whole planned route. That was a crucial mistake as the knee started to hurt in one long downhill (there were no downhills during the first 60min). I took it easy in the upcoming days and did alternative trainings for the next two weeks.

We had a skiing training camp with the Czech ski-o team in December in Livigno. I totally love to ski there and „collect“ kilometres on skis in easy intensity. I tested my knee in Switzerland and the knee felt alright. I was really happy to join the team and go to Italy. The knee was some days OK, some days worse so I did most of trainings by double poling only. Better than nothing. So far the alternative training was still high-quality training.

But ski-orienteering requires 100% healthy knees. My knee was not in a state to ski on bumpy snowmobile tracks. I decided to take a 100% rest for two weeks after Livigno in order to give the knee space to get 100% fit. It was really hard mentally for me not to train at all. But it didn’t help. The knee felt even worse after the resting period. Since that I spent many and many hours visiting doctors and specialists. I had to get mentally over some wrong diagnoses as well as recommendations to stop doing sport on a competitive level. But the results of MRI was indisputable – a small rupture of the meniscus.

It was six weeks until the World Ski-O Championship. How much money do you bet on me being ready to compete there in at least one race? This has been one of the toughest times of my life. The only sport activity I could do was upper body strength training and aqua jogging. Too bad to have an injury during COVID times. I couldn’t enter any gym or swimming pool. Despite being a national team athlete, I didn’t get any exception to be able to attend these to prepare for a World Championship! It was not only once or twice when I got tears in my eyes as I felt so helpless. I knew how much effort I put in getting better and now there was nothing to do about my situation and no one to help. As there was lockdown in Czechia again I couldn’t even meet friends which made my situation mentally even tougher. Being alone and being depressed is not the best combination. It was a really dark winter for me.

HOPE DIES LAST

YOU STOP BELIEVE IN YOURSELF, NO ONE ELSE WILL

MIRACLES HAPPEN SOMETIMES

I had to repeat these mantras myself many times a day not to be crying again. I put focus to do anything I could in terms of preparations for the WC. I printed about 40 maps from Estonia and analysed GPS. There was no day I would skip the physio knee movements I was supposed to do. It was boring but it was the most I could do towards the WC.

In February, I was finally allowed to do at least indoor biking, my wellbeing got much better. Biking is actually one of my least favourite sports. But this time I was SOOO happy to be able to do literally ANY physical activity again.

It was 10 days before the departure to WSOC in Estonia and I still didn’t know whether I am gonna go or not. The knee was for sure not healed and ready. It’s interesting. In mid-January, I felt like I don’t wanna go to WSOC if I can’t get back in the „normal“ preparation in a week or two. I didn’t want to go to represent my country if not feeling like I am in a good shape and I did the best I could in preparation. Despite the last two months before WSOC, my preparation was the opposite of optimal, I wanted so badly to go to Estonia. I felt like I need to change the environment, meet people again and push my body to physical limits.

We had a selection race a week before WSOC. I took part to see na čem jsem. The conditions were the best I could wish for my knee – fresh powder snow. My knee managed to finish both races in one day. Surprisingly, my physical and technical shape was way better than I expected.

I made the decision: I AM GOING TO ESTONIA TO THE FIRST SPRINT WORLD SKI-O CHAMPIONSHIP!

Once I made the decision I felt like a kid during Christmas. I was just so happy, excited and relieved. How ridiculous considering the number of kilometres I have skied this winter (350km), the number of races I have done (2 races) and the number of skiing sprints I have practised (zero sprints).

With this in mind, I promised myself not to have any expectations from myself and not to be disappointed in my results at WC. All I was sure about was that I will give out literally every piece of power in order to beat the mental pain I had accumulated in my mind during the last months.

I wanna thank super much to all people who heard from themself and put effort to stay in touch during the lockdown despite it was just a viral contact. Thank you all who recognized I am not doing very well and made me to talk to them. It helped a lot to get some social contact and someone to talk to.

Now all focus on my 4th World Ski-O Championship. Can't wait to race, looking forward to meet all friends from all over the world again.