What to do now doc? QUARANTINE!

Vomiting, headache, muscle pain, fever...nowadays it only has one meaning on doctor's head : you have the flu! H1N1 caught you girl! You have to spent the next seven days at home: QUARANTINE!

This I heard last tuesday afternoon, after spending all monday's night vomiting :( next seven days at home and of course no running, no training, no competition...:(
After three days at home the phone rang and I got the results of the test: it was negative!! So i was free again:):) and of course next day I was back on training! I started slowly and carefully and on sunday I was already able to run part of the race a bit faster than previous trainings. I hope that this week I'll be back on routine;)

I miss...

I miss the river, the park, the snow, the laught of the girls, the nice words of the coach, the thursday night orienteering trainings, the kilimanjaro, the sunny but very cold days...

I miss Jagniatkow kilometers path, the cross laps, the long long trainings on Sundays, the skiing time in Szklarska Poreba...

I miss the friends and I miss the coach! Yes I really do.

Winter trainings are much pleasant and much easier when you run on such a nice group of friends and with such great coach...Training more than 500min per week alone, with my headphones, is boring. I've been remembering a lot the nice winter training I had last season...

I really miss it a lot!

Saturday night da ba da dan dee na na na ;)

Saturday night da ba da dan dee na na na... pretty baby;)

No..saturday night wasn't time for training on the dance floor but it was the same fun! I ran night orienteering training, 7km, 17controls and 61min runing. I was quite satisfied with my training..! Last season I started to run a bit more at night because before I was always too scared to do it. So it was pretty nice to me to feel confortable in the forest, thinking on map and nothing else (like monsters or bad men in the forest ;)

I made a stupid mistake to the first control (yeah..it was the first one since many months) but then everything went fine. I could run as much straight as possible (there was some green) and I tried to avoid paths also to make it worth.

It was also funny because on the previous weekend we had a training camp of the national team on the same map and actually we ran on the same places and even in the same controls but, sincerely, I didn't realize about this during night! With my small lamp I just could read the map and see some meters in front so everything seemed new :)

Happy endings - I just love them ;)

Like a movie (those where they marry, have children and are happy forever) my season is finished :):):)
My last race, my last km «on the field» were in Spain, Toledo, on Iberian Championships.

This is map from middle distance. Well, for sure it doesn't fit on the «happy ending» style because it was literaly a disaster! I dont know, but I think this time I was more woried with my running speed then with my orienteering technique. So I was absolutely «lost» on my goals for this race and when I thought «this map looks very very fast» I lost all the possibilitys of doing a good race.

But fortunately we had another race on the afternoon, and I was really motivated to do a good job. It was held on the historical city of Toledo,with many crowded and tricky streets. In my mind I had it clear «don't run too fast! otherwise you'll make mistakes». It worked quite well, but some hesitations and a bad route choice cost me some seconds. But in the end of race I was happy with my «orienteering speed». It seems that I had a clear lead with more then a minute to the other runners but well, then Ona Ràfols from Spain came and she beat me...by one second ;)
Besides looking frustrating (in fact it was a bit) I was happy with my race, with my speed, with my good recovery between races and well...you know...Toledo is a wonderfull city so you just have reasons to be happy :):):)

Next day we had long distance and I felt really motivated to do a good race. I started quite well, without big mistakes, but after crossing a hard green on the way to the 6th control I lost my direction and the sense of which hill is what...I didn't stop to check, and well, in fact I stopped...but too late, when I was on the path above. And obviously when I was running towards number 6 I saw Ona Ràfols who started 3min after me...
We ran most of the course together and in one hand it was good because we were pushing harder but in other hand I think we made mistakes because of running together. On the last part I had a bit more fuel on my body and I finished I was about 20seconds faster... Ona wons (1:03:06) I was second (1:05:45) and Alicia Gil Sanchez was third (1:11:01).

And coming back home, with all «training baggage» of the season packed, I had such a great smile! Finally I can say that this season I made a big step on the right direction and my motivation to keep walking like this is high :)