r e b u i l d i n g

First of all I must apologize for not writting here for a long time. As I wrote here before, I've had some problems with the blog and now I still can't post maps or pictures here... Indeed, I really wanted to writte something here before closing this space.
Last season was like a roller-coaster, with several ups and downs and in the end, with a disastrous outcome: I felt sick and tired of orienteering competitions. I really needed to stop, analyse and reset goals. And that's what I've been doing: I had a big break on my training and now I'm slowly coming back :) I love running and training, so I'll keep this way and for sure I'll find the best answer for my future ;)

Golden long distance

Last weekend the first portuguese national champs started with long and relay.The terrain was really nice, starting by the sea on the sand dunes and then some long legs on the pine forest. My race wasn't good as I wanted. I started very nervous and at control number 4 I was already loosing about 3 and half minute.During all race I never felt I was running on a good flow as I was always making stupid things - from 15 seconds mistake at the control area till 3'mistake on a stupid route choice. I started quite nervous and couldn't manage the feeling during a big part of the race, so my legs weren't working good as well.Surprisingly I crossed the line with the best time and it was great to hear that I got the gold.
Unfortunatly I keep the same problem on my blog on posting the maps so you can't see the mistake show I made. Actualy when analysing and comparing with previous races, I made one of the higher percentages of mistakes - 11,73% (I ran 1h15'53'' and made 8'50''mistake). In the end of spring I improved a lot and averagely I was doing 6% mistake on my races, but now it rised that so very much...nerves??
Relay report in a few days!!! ;) (and hopefully the blog will be working normal and I'll most maps and pictures!)

10 - MILA

Tiomila is a fantastic race by itself. But like two years ago when I ran tiomila for the first time, the best feeling I bring back home the feeling of running as a team. Five girls giving their best for each other is superb.

In spite of my anemia, I’ve been able to run and spend some good time on the forest. I didn’t know how my body would react when competing again, but surprisingly I felt quite good and back on business.

This year Tiomila was held quite close from SNO-home ground and so everybody was looking forward to this! I had one training on relevant terrain on Friday and quickly understood how to play on this game – it’s fast and detailed so if you lose map contact for a moment everything look the same.

And on Saturday, at 1pm all SNO girls were carefully listening our coach (and runner) Kricko…ready for the big moment! After the meeting I started to feel the nerves and butterflies on my belly…! I ran the last leg on the second team with Jo, Lovisa, Karin and Jeanette.
My race started quite ok without big mistakes, but right after a while I started to lose self condifence and many mistakes appeared. Specially after the map change, on the way to number 150 I lost my concentration a bit and did two huge mistakes on that part. I ran most of the race by my own, but there some following group came and caught me. We ran a few controls together till we separate on the way to control number 162, because of different route choices. Then I just kept the speed running with three other girls and ran as fast as I could on the finish line to get the best place between us.

We finished at 93th place what means that the top100 goal was achieved. But that’s not the end of the story…!

After the race we come back home to take some rest (almost impossible with all the excitement of the men’s team being running). But just after a few hours Karin woke me up asking «Do you want to go running the 8th leg of the men’s SNO 5th team??» I didn’t even think twice and just say «yes! Of course!». We quickly get dressed, have some breakfast, drive to the arena and at 8pm I was starting a long tiomila men’s course. There I realize how tough it was and how hard men have to play. It was a great experience to run with such a huge map, huge legs on such a demanding terrain! ;) Unfortunately I couldn’t see Matthias arriving and celebrating the 3rd position, but just on time to see them on the podium. This year’s tiomila was very special: SNO won the junior relay, then the women did great job, we had 10 teams running the men’s relay (one of those were only girls team) and finally the SNO men reached the podium! That was amazing!!!

Ps- Thanks a lot to Karin, Matthias and Scott, my closest friends there, who are always so very welcoming and help me so much on the way to make some small dreams come true.

(Sorry but there's some problem with my blog and I can't attach my maps...as soon as it works I'll post it here)

f r e e - F A L L

That's the moment when you uncomfortably feel different, but in fact don't realize big changes or big moves... but slowly you're going down, down, down...During the last month I've been feeling tiredness, exhaustion, some apathy during racing and running the toughest trainings but in fact couldn't find a reason why. Maybe too much work/travel/training...? but even after one week of light training regeneration last weekend I couldn't race as usual...I felt I was just runing on the forest and not fighting to do my best.. running on the same speed as a turtle. Something should be wrong I thought! And easily with a blood sample I realize my hemoblogin was only 10,3 g/dl and my hematocrit 30%...

Well, now that's the moment when I realize I was free falling. Slowly, just watching the view, watting that the parachute opens! It seemed everything was going easily on the right direction with my training - no injuries, just a small cramp on the right leg sometimes...and now I've got this friendly anemia.We never know what is just behind the corner right? Now it's time to rise head and recover as fast as possible!!!

I would also call a "free fall" to the mistake I did on sunday long distance. After 9 controls I did, maybe, the biggest mistake over the last years. Around 10min on a paralell mistake of course took me out from the lead and totally devastated my motivation to run the rest of controls.... here is the jewel:

Long

Middle

Long and wet

And so, last WRE held in Portugal this season was brilliant. Looong, hard and demanding, both technically and physically, great arenas and overall organization. Besides tricky and tough course, the rainy days gave some help and made it even harder, as all the hard, grassy and fast ground become wet, soft and tough. 13,4km, a long leg with about 3,7km easily become the hardest long distance race I ever ran in Portugal. It's a pitty that we don't run so often this races in Portugal and clubs don't plan courses like that.
Personally, I was pretty disappointed with my technical performance as I made a lot of mistakes (around 12 minutes), but physically I felt fine and able to keep a good pace during all the race. Happily I finished 5th and made by best score at a WRE. Map here

A part of the WRE, on saturday it was held a nice middle distance - quite easy on the beggining and tricky on the last part. On the start I was feeling very tired and with a huge headache as I only had 4h of sleep!!! (long journey from Porto to Arraiolos on the night before). During all the race I felt heavy and slow running and my technique wasn't so good as I would like for a middle distance. Map here

Luckily I spent a very nice time during the weekend with my swedish club -SNO. Next goal is Tiomila and I'm really looking forward to run my first race on SNO blue and yellow colours :)

No POM for me this year :(

Since 2002 I've been running POM...but this year, unfortunately I couldn't take part:( Work at the hospital on monday didn't allowed me to run the WRE and during the other days I couldn't take part of the organization because of work too (my club was the organizing team). It seems it was a huge top level orienteering festival.Congratulations to GD4caminhos that did an excelent job!
Well, and around here my training is going quite ok. Besides my weekly 40h of work at the hospital and thursdays 12h work on the ER, I can manage to do 2 good training sessions per week and of course. I overpass some flu, cramp on right leg...and for now everything seems to be ok.
Last weekend I ran a nice orienteering competition - middle distance in the morning and night relay on the evening.In the morning it was very messy and lost so many seconds on several mistakes...luckily I was the one who miss less and got the victory.

At night relay it was great fun!! As the last runner and because my team was a bit too late I had to start on a mass start. I was on the leading group to the first control but after a while on the way to the second control I found myself alone on the dark forest.Everything went well (according to my experince on night orienteering!!) on the dark long 7km with very interesting final part: at the espectators control I was just 20'' bahind the leading group. After two controls on the forest I was able to get the lead but in the end I wasn't enough fast to run 200m on track to beat these men. I was happy and tired. I just love the feeling ;)

When the doctor become the patient

The daily life of a doctor at the pediatric hospital is like survinging on a jungle. You are surrounded by thousand of virus and bacteria that can catch you anytime... and easily you become the patient :) There're two weeks I've been feeling weaker, coughing and sneezing (without fever), but last week I couldn't hold it and got a terrible flu. I'm still recovering and hoping to be better for next weekend competition. I'll run a mixed night relay, 6 runners from different categories that starts at 4pm...I'll run the last course (7km) by night and I'm really looking forward for it!! Till saturday I have to keep killing my virus but it won't be that easy...tomorrow I'll have 12h work at the E.R. and friday still 8 hours to work. That's my work, my passion and I'm happy with my job. Children are lovely and it's very rewarding work :)

Who is the boss?

The human body is complex. To walk, to eat, tu run, to do eveything in our lifes, our brain sends a message to all the rest of our body (many synapses involved and all a big story between) and it answers to our brains request. So it's easy to understand who's the boss between all this: Mr. Brain!!! So, when your brain is not on the best shape it doesn't matter if your legs are stronger than ever... the boss don't let you do what you want. That's what happened to me last weekend competitions... the boss was mad so the poor legs weren't allowed to do the right job.

Plan: give some rest to the boss and keep killing the legs ;)

Let's get it started!

Last weekend portuguese orienteering season started with a nice competition at Coruche. The terrain was soft and nice, perfect to warm up the engine and spice my training motivation.
My brain and legs are still adapting to the «orienteering mode» and I felt some problems during racing, mainly about the speed on the middle distance, lack of confidence when approaching the controls and direction skills.
I feel happy to be back on business ;)

Maps: middle and long

Results middle:

1- Saila Kinni 29:08

2- Kristin Lofgren 33:56

3- Maria Sá 36:04

4- Mariana Moreira 36:23

5-Andreia Silva 39:01

Results long:

1- Saila Kinni 1:01:39

2- Kristin Lofgren 1:10:46

3- Maria Sá 1:11:22

4- Andreia Silva 1:12:21

5- Mariana Moreira 1:13:56

Tell me quando quando quando

While some discuss the future of orienteering in Portugal, others keep training hard like the future is setted on the safest routes. It's a way to face the sad moment portuguese orienteers are living. I would say that right now, orienteering in Portugal «is lost»! Orienteers don't know when or where (or IF) will run international races, selection races and so on.

So, the best to do is keep training and fighting for our personal goals for 2011... (just hope our federation take us to the right place to make it possible). This time I spent a few days at Norte Alentejo, on a training camp organized by GD4caminhos and Ori-Estarreja clubs. 4 days, 8 orienteering trainings and the goals for the camp were achieved. It's fantastic that now these two clubs train together finally I can participate on nice training camps from time to time.

Even being on a dark shadow I keep my fingers crossed for a bright sun for the portuguese orienteering... cause WE ALL deserve it.
Happy New Year!

From top to top

After 2 months closed at home it has been time to travel around the world, meet friends...mostly to have fun and enjoy life:)

I have to say that it's so great and I'm so happy to be back on my life again...! About my training it's going well but it wasn't so easy on the beggining. After stopping for 2 months I had to learn all again and built something to start training. After 4weeks my body is (finally) getting its normal state, but there's still a lot of hard work to do. It's only the first steps!

First (S)top was Sodertalje- Sweden. Next season I'll have the luck to run for SNO and for a few days I had the pleasure to know how such a great team works, meet new friends, run some trainings over -10ºc with snow up to my knees, have some fun...It was really nice time and I feel so lucky and at same time so motivated to belong for such nice group :)

And from the cold weather of the north of Europe the next (S)top was Tenerife :) Humm...so warm and beautiful place for training and for spend some nice days! We (tried to) climb «El Teide»(almost 4000m high), ran nice orienteering trainings, ran around there and visit the most precious parts of the island. I loved it :)

And now I'm back home, ready for the next (S)top -it's Cristhmas!! Merry Cristhmas to all of you! :)

Season-analysis in a nutshell

I would call to the last season «terribly demanding». Not because of competitions neither because of load of training at all, but mainly because of the huge amount of work at university and between this, training and some competitions. Here are some numbers (47weeks of training):

• I ran about 239h of running, which 41h of these are of orienteering;
• Only 18% of my training was orienteering training;
• I had one foot small surgery between - costed me 1month out of training;
• I only ran 18 competitions during all the season;
• I spent 5h/day average studying from january till august, then 10h from august till middle of september and reached the top with 15h/day during october and november...

Well, these are only numbers...I had my goals setted in the beggining on the season: some were reached, other not and actually I achieved one not expected. I believe that the lack of orienteering training and competition can explain something about the not-achieved.

I know I had a terrible amount of things to manage with and it seems tough, but when you have the best family, boyfriend and coach in the world, things become easier. Thank you so much :)

I'm happy and glad when comparing these numbers with the final result of such a demanding season :):)

Welcome back to your life Maria :)

Finally I have my life back. I can feel the wind on my face, ear the birds in the morning outside, watch the sunset on the sea, taste a delicious hot chocolate in the evening and smell the wet ground after a rain shower.

After one year of study and preparation to the final exam of the Medical school, finally I'm free :) During the last two months I was totally focused on my study and so I spent around 12-15h a day on my desk studying, rarely going outside home,whithout proper sleeping, big doses of coffee and huge stress load. Just outside of my room to have meals. That's insane to study for such exam.

Happily this study marathon is over and I have my life back. I'm glad I could manage to achive my goals. Now I have a month of holidays till januray when I'll start working as a doctor :)

Mostely the feelings are of relief, happiness and motivation for the upcoming new goals!

Still looking for the answer

After PWT race a journalist ask me «What was your best ever international result before coming to Peth?»...ups...funny question... I said «I don't have any :)». He smiled to me and ask again «so what made the difference today?»
That's the answer that I'm still looking for. There are some reasons that can predict a good result but there are so much more that easily can destroy all your training homework...I've been seriously thinking about this question and after reading my coach's blog (here)I became aware of the good training job we did together for this race.Is this the answer?...Maybe that fact of only being focused on sprint... or maybe the fact of still being a better road runner than a forest runner...



Above there is the map with my route choices (red) and better routes than mine (blue) in 4 controls. I ran this course on 17'37'', 2km race, but according to the tracking I ran about 4,2km !!!
After deep analyse of my course I realize about 52 seconds mistake (that's a lot!).I ran quite slowly to the first control and to the second one I took some seconds to understand what was in the map and what I should do. Then mistake to number 8,9 and 11(stupid route choices). On the way to 13 I was running quite slowly trying to understand if 14control was on the upper or lower part of the stairs...Mistake to number 20: I was on the «only running mode» and missed the entrance to the control...and then to number 22 I thought «run to the street you already know» but this route was a bit longer and costed me some seconds more. And well, 52 seconds and some extra meters...

Next weekend I'll run the Iberian Champ (in Leiria-Portugal)on sand dunes terrain.I'm not that well prepared to run on this type of terrain and the long distance scares me a little bit:) we'll see...!;)

PWT - Park Wonderfull Tour ;)

This story begins in July when I received the invitation to run Park World Tour in Perth. This time, I wasn't really sure about what to do. In one hand I had a lot to study and to be focused on, but on the other hand running Park World Tour seemed to be such a good challange for me and for my training during these months between July and September. Besides, it was an honor for me to be invited to such a international top level competition that I couldn't say no!! So the goal was setted and I started my preparation for this race on 11th September.

But September arrived so fast and it was time to pack my bags to Scotland! I packed it with a bunch of good running trainings (PB on 200m-32'- and 400 10x intervals- 1'14'') and also a few good orienteering park trainings...but we never know if 2+2 will be 4!!!

Last saturday Park World Tour started with the qualification race at Scone Palace. Map seemed to be simple but in fact, orienteering there was very tricky. I must say that I couldnt find a flow on my orienteering and neither a moment of full concentration - I missed controls and had to run back, I run on the incorrect order, uf!...well so many mistakes that after a while I decided just to jog to the finish line- it was worthless to waste energy there.

But my preparation was to the Perth city center race (Final) and I had a hope that I could succeed well there. I was focused, motivated and aware of the mistakes that I could easily do. During the race I just tried to do my best on each control, running the fastest as I could on the long legs and the most focused I could on the trickest ones. But to be honest I never felt that I was running fast because I was too afraid to do mistakes and was so very carefull on my orienteering, reading all the details. When finishing my race I was happy and pretty satisfied, but i wasnt aware how good it was, till the first sweedish girl came and I still staied on the leading chair :):):)

I finished 6th best girl in this PWT race!!!:):) It feels so good to be rewarded for this big effort and finally feeling that such a good job that I've been doing with my coach wasn't worthless. Earing the worlds of Per Forsberg during this price giving ceremony, calling my name between such good sweedish runners was great. It had a really important meaning for me this achievment.

I took home a lot of good feelings, lessons and experiences from this race: I learnt some scotish dances :):):) ; I went to the airport on a Mini 30 years old car (!!!) ; 2x5x52x10 (maybe one day); and I hope this result push me to further challanges!!!

pictures and words

After four days of resting and recharging (just a little bit part of) my batteries, I'm back home there's one week and I haven't been doing anything different than,

It's been really demanding to keep studying 8,9 sometimes 10,11 or even 12 hours a day and manage to find time and a rested body to run and train adequately.

The scheduled life is going on and my motivation to keep it is really high as I have my personal goals very well setted. But I have to confess..sometimes I feel...

vacaciones

The bag is packed and I'm ready for 4 days of peace and love...

and orienteering too ;) [of course!!!]

inspiration

These two women on portuguse suits are presently the best 5000 and 10 000m female runners in Europe. I admire them a lot and I confess that I suffered so that much watching their races, fighting for medals during this european champs last week...They brought home two bronze medals (one on 5000 other on 10 000m) and a big bag of motivation for further achivements!! Its great to see portuguse female runners on the top of the european runners and for sure it's inspiring for training :)

Lately my training is going on the right direction towards the main competitions in september. After the end of classes I have more time, specially for rest, so I can get more from training than before. Apart of this I keep my daily studying - about 8h per day- preparing as best as I can for my exam in November...!!! So my «summer life» is almost the same as winter or spring life, as I keep sleeping, eating, training and studying acording the timetables - like a machine.

As I appreciate a balance on my life, I decided to take two periods of rest during this hard study time - last week I spent 4 days in the south of Portugal with my family, enjoying the sun and the beach- and in two weeks and a half I'll spend some days around Barcelona (where? it seems to be a secret till the date I'll arrive there :):)

So till 17th august the «machine» will be here studying between these four walls and time to time watching and vibrating with woc races ;)

I dream about moments like this :)

The end

Today I finished six years of hard study on Medicine. I'm a doctor now... :) I'm quite speechlesss and with a mix of good feelings...but overall I'm really happy and glad. Thanks a lot to all of you who have been walking along with me during this time. Now it'll starts a new chapter on my life!

3 days OFF

3 days off, 5 min floating on the mediteranean sea, eat some tapas and drink a beer in the evening, run some nice orienteering races, walk throught Barcelona without any rush, sleep siesta and just enjoy being resting were magic to recharge (a part of) my batteries.

Sprint map

About my orienteering it was quite funny on the beggining of the race, because on the way to the first control my map flow away from my hands and I had to run to catch it and then be back on my race.I did some stupid mistakes and my speed wasnt the best for a sprint race at all. But for a vacation competition I'm satisfied :)

Now unfortunately I'm back to the hospital, to the library, to the book... and keep holding this flow till november...