Forgot the most important thing

Hey,

From now on I'll be writing in english just to inovate a little bit.

As you know I haven't been around the blog too much. A lot has passed in the last month. Right after writing about injuries and recovery, I got another worse injury that I could not, so far, heal. It's an injury on the right calf that I think it was caused by running too much on tarmac. I haven't been able to train in the last 2 weeks. Nevertheless, I've been racing in several cross countries. Not able to give what i would give if I trained hard, but did good. 

This, together with a bunch of exames and tests in school, were the reason for me not coming here more often.

In the days of 18 to 22, I went to Viseu - Sátão, to participate in the biggest portuguese competion, Portugal "O" Meeting. I was injured so I wasn't expecting too much. However, I wanted to win a stage. 

Here are the maps and the analysis (everything was done in hard floor right after the race). All the minutes that I say that I lost is pure analysis of my technique and not runnability or in comparison of other route choices or other athletes.

First Day:

Lost over 13mins in the race. Not all but almost in the controls: 1; 5; 8; 11.

Second day:

Lost 11', controls no 1 and 13 were the most troublesome.

Third day:

Lost again 11', loosing too much time in the controls 4; 5; 6 and 9.

4th day, the most extreme:

Lost 20'!! My first half of the race was pretty bad... Loosing too much time in almost all controls. Just when i got caught by Daniel Catarino, something "clicked" in my head and I started to run faster as my orienteering got more fluid. Recovered 3' for him in the controls 7 - Finish, but wasn't enough.

Really hard course this one. So were the terrains. I liked it very much. I want to go there again, I have some issues that i left unsolved there, ahah :p. Much to improve!

So, in the end i wasn't able to win a stage, being a 4th place in a stage my best place. Finished 6th general classification. I think I could've won at least 3 stages if my head was in the best place. 

Our team motto is: « "Dream" "Commitment" "Experience" "FOCUS"». 

After POM, I can conclude that I run too fast for what I can orienteer, at least when I forget one of the most important things in the motto: to "FOCUS"! I'm not willing to give up on my ability to run fast so I will, after I recover from all my injuries, focus more on the ability to read the map while running fast.

Next weekend, on the 25th and 26th Feb., there will be in Marinha Grande, another big competion in which I will compete with the same people. I won't go, again, with my head cleared. I say this because yesterday, when i got up from my chair i felt something near my right groint, which I think it is one hernia. When I was a little kid I got a surgery to remove a hernia, so it's quite possible... Oh well, can't stop now. Got much to think about and got to train HARD as soon as possible.

Cheers,

Filipe Augusto