First race in M20

The past weekend I went to Santiago do Cacém do join my first race ever as M20.

At saturday, since I was without pressure and a sore from the trainings of the week, I did a well-balanced race, with a constant and comfortable pace (no pushing) and trying not to miss since I did not want to put more distance in my legs nor did I want to race down a hill and then have to come up to punch the control.
Only BIG mistake was to control no13 where my brain shut down and I looked to the reentrant of the control and thought it wasn't there so I wandered around to make sure (lol stupid).

At sunday, my mind was just off. Did plenty of mistakes at control no4, 5, 8, 9... Some of them I'm not even sure if they are mistakes or pure stupidity:

I felt well in my first race at M20, I tend to do the courses from M20 next year. 

My goal is to achieve a good result at Long Distance of JWOC, however, I have to be much better and orienteer much faster in middle distance races. 

Best regards,
Filipe

2012 Iberian Championships: 2nd round

This past weekend I went to Figueira da Foz to run the 2nd round of the Iberian Championships.

Saturday I had to races, one in the morning, the middle distance with 4.0km in a sandy terrain, and another one in the afternoon, a very good sprint from my point of view with 2km.

In the middle distance I had with me my great companion and homie the whole race. This fellow was my abdominal pain/stomach pain/intestinal pain/whathefuckIdontknowwhatitisbutit'sallwaystherewhenIwanttorunseriouspain. So let's just say that I couldn't concentrate the whole race. I did it just mindless: forgetting which point I was coming from and which was I going for:

So, that abdominal pain that I had in the morning was so rough that it let my whole abdominal area sore. I was a bit afraid of that to happen again when I started. I had pinches of it the whole race and whenever I started to run faster there it was grabing me. No excuses for the mistakes and the lack of planning I made.

Sunday it was the long distance, more suited for me since I can put the same good and confortable pace from beginning to the end.

It was in a map that I already have been 2 years ago in the Selection races. I remember quite well that day. It was a rainy grey day and I did 115mins in a 7.3km race. It was so bad and I missed so much! I think I didn't know how to orienteer back then. It was so bad. Here is the map for your pleasure :)

Well, I can't say that this time it was better. To the first control I a huge mistake because the area was so green. The rest of the race went more or less but I can take many conclusions that will help me from now on to evolve :)

Greetings Orienteers.

Orienteering Break's Over :)

Hi guys,

I haven't been here since my days in Finland because I just needed some time off to think about the next season and what I will do to be successfull.

So in Portugal we had a little summer break from O-races and, at least for me, the break finished yesterday when we did a mass-start race in a map called Lamarosa, in Coruche. It was a very fast and easy map. I was very slow since I have only been training for 3 weeks and that's how it is going to be the beginning of my season: slow and hard. However I managed to do some stupid mistakes:

Next week comes a race that counts for the national cup and for the Iberian Championships. I've already blew my chances of being Iberian Champion with an missing point on the last race, so pressure is off. LOL. Let's see how will be my body's mood to do hard or soft races.

Hugs and kisses ;)

Trip to Finland, Day 8

The fatigue day.


Today was the day that me, Luis and Miguel, decided to go by bike to Kayravali, a map 18,5Km away from Anna's house. Here is the course we did on google maps:

After that me and Luis did together a Long distance training with 6,8Km:

And then came the hard part. Doing the other 18,5Km back home.

Tomorrow we go to Vuokatti to train in the terrains of WOC2013 :)

Trip to Finland, Day 7

Today we woke up very late so we decided just to go a little to the beach and then go to a training of Rajamaen Rykmentii. We were told at the begining that we would have to be cautious and that relocation was impossible. I came to know that when I went to control no9 (thinking that I already knew where it was because I had already been there) and everything looked the same. I searched the control for 20 mins. After that I gave up. It was just training, there was no need to have an headache about it:

Trip to Finland, Day 6

In the afternoon we went to a "famous" orienteering training that usually happens on Mondays in Finland. I was so amazed for seeing so much people to just train. Even more people than in the races in Portugal!

Here is the map we did today where people had the chance to choose a course from 2 - 9 km or get a blank map and draw the course. I decided to do the 7Km one where I did a very big mistake on control no8 where I was not focused:

Trip to Finland, Day 5

Today we decided to take a rest day and just go to the beach in Sääksjärvi. Here is the course we did by bike from Kyläjoentie to there:

photo of the view at the beach