Eva Jurenikova

I was not quite sure how my body would react to the fact that WOC2010 is over. It is common to experience some kind of a burn-out when motivation and energy to train disappears. Then the best thing to do is probably to have some rest both physically and mentally.

When I was driving back to Borlänge last Monday I decided I would take it easy some days and would not force myself to train if I did not feel like it. So apart from running VasaStafetten last Saturday, I let myself be lazy.

Now one week after coming back home, I feel I have done enough thinking and analysing of my performances at WOC. It is time to move on. Of course, I am going to remember some moments and feelings for a long time. Perhaps my brightest memory from WOC2010 is running through the arena during the relay. I managed to catch up a few runners starting ahead of me earlier on the course. The spectators were screaming and I was feeling so strong there. My relay performance made the final impression from WOC positive even if my long distance run where my expectations were high, was not very good.

What else will I remember from Trondheim? I think all the training camps we had prior to the champs and Gjenvollhytta ski cottage where we spent almost 40 days in total. On the other hand I have a bit of a bad feeling about the terrain choice for races around Granåsen and also some worries about the future of elite orienteering.

Read J Kocbach´s article WOC of the Future ( I made a comment there)

All my WOC maps with my comments in Swedish are in my map archive.

Photos taken by Patrik and me during WOC

Photos of Czech team by Petr Kaderavek

WOC2010 official website

WOC on Norwegian TV

WOC on Czech TV (sprint only)

Results and photos of Czech team at WorldofO

My training diary

This year´s probably most important race and I cannot be content with my performance. I was too hesitating in the forest, not able to make fast and right decisions about the route choices; changing my plan in the middle of a leg a few times. Usually route choosing is what I am good at, but not this time. I was lacking self-confidence. After the qualification race when I was quite a lot behind, I was in doubt about my shape and my ability to run well on the soft ground. I was asking myself whether I had better feeling in my body last week and also during O-Ringen. However I knew that such thoughts are not very helpful and I promised myself to fight hard and focus only on orienteering. I lost a few minutes on wrong route choices (2nd, 5th, 17th control) but I missed only very little on the shorter legs, the only bigger mistake was at one of the controls in the butterfly. I was not enjoying the orienteering as much as I would hope for when it is a WOC final. We had been training a lot in such a nice terrain here in Trondheim so for me the area around Granåsen is a bit of disappointment. I have written more in Swedish and published my map in my map archive.

Very happy – that was how I felt when it finalized that I would finish 6th yesterday. Happy with my performance which was very close to my maximum and happy with the result, of course. I started the day with a close to a perfect race in the qualification when my tactics was to save energi, concentrate on myself and be very careful/precise in my orienteering. During the rather short rest between the qualification and final I had my doubts but I managed to find the right state of mind and was both mentally and physically ready when I stood at the starting line. I liked the course, the fact that it was a lot of climbing up to the fortress perhaps contributed to my good result. I managed to choose right route choices most of the time. I lost rather many seconds inside the fortress, without realizing it, probably because too much hesitation. I have written more about the races in Swedish and uploaded the maps in my map archive.

Even if I had been feeling fine after a couple of weeks of good training, it was still a positive surprise for me to finish 2nd at O-Ringen. I had four stable performances (E1, E3-E5) and one rather bad (E2). I did not feel that I was running very fast in the forest and most of the time I was pretty careful and almost scared to make mistakes. It seems to be the right tactics. I was experiencing this flow-feeling a lot - focused and relaxed at the same time. I was also recovering well between the races. No doubt I am in a good shape and hopefully it can still improve a bit after some resting and interval training during the coming days.

All maps from O-Ringen in my map archive

Some articles and video from O-Ringen:
Jurenikova nöjd tvåa (Dalademokraten)
Andersson and Niggli crowned at O-Ringen (Ultimate orienteering)
Simone Niggli överlägsen vinnare (SVT webTV)
Ingen rår på suveräna Simone (SOFT article + webTV)

After a high volume block with many hours of orienteering in Sälen and Trondheim I switched to more intense training in the beginning of this week. I have done 2 "test sessions" - on Tuesday 4*1000m on track with 3 minutes rest/jogging and on Thursday 4*700m steep hill "Medvägabacken" with 110m climbing. I know my times from the past so I can compare and get a hint about my physical shape. Of course it does not give me the whole picture, 1km intervals on a track and long distance in Trondheim is not the same but it increases my self-confidence when I can see that my times are improving. Today I will travel to Örebro to participate in O-Ringen. The race fits well in my peaking plan - the terrain is not completely different from Trondheim and I know that racing of this kind should improve my shape even more. I will try to do my best, concentrate properly at the time of the race but I am saving my mental energy and I am not thinking about O-Ringen before and in between the stages. Then there is the last week before WOC. In the previous years I sometimes did not allow myself to take it easy enough, training quite hard almost until the WOC races. I am still hesitating and I will decide about the plan for the last days after I get home from O-Ringen. Sometimes it would be nice to have a coach who could decide instead of me but at the same time I am the one who knows my body best and I also should have the necessary knowledge after all the years of training and studying.
My training diary
My map archive

Right now I am listening to the WUOC online and hoping for some more good results from the Czech team. My club was organizing the WUOC Tour sprint race on Wednesday. The arena was located only 1km from my home. It was a bit special feeling to see runners from so many different countries running on my home ground. I hope they have been enjoying the whole WUOC. It seems Stora Tuna OK has done a great job organizing the event. They showed the big variation of terrain here in Dalarna, which makes Dalarna a really good place to live for an orienteer. Perhaps some of the WUOC participants got interested to move here.
My photos from WUOC Sprint / DM sprint
Dala Sports Academy - orienteering & university studies