Thermenland Open or what is that funny object in my pants?

For those of you unfamiliar with East and Central European orienteering, the Thermenland Open is a three day orienteering event organised every year around the area of thermal springs situated in South Western Hungary/South Eastern Austria/North Eastern Slovenia. This year it was in Austria. The weather was like at Kew Gardens in the tropical plants bit. 30+ Celsius with 80%-90% humidity. Total nightmare for me as I cannot breathe, never mind run in such weather.

Anyway, on the second day I had a bit of a nightmare as the Final Details said nothing about linear parkig, the start was 1500m away, but having arrived late it was about 3000m by the time you took into account running in from the car, then running back for the race number which I forgot, then from about 2oom along the route to the start I realised that the only way I could have a description sheet is if I tear back to the Finish. Why on earth they couldn't put them at the start, who knows? Then when I got to the Start I had to go behind a bush, upshot of this was that a few minutes later I couldn't find my compass. Panic, panic, no luck! Start run without compass - two bloody long and technical legs later my 4 minute woman catches me, which didn't cheer me up one bit. Then I realised that something is tickling me on the bum. Guess what? It was the compass which obviously slid off my thumb as I was pulling my O bottoms up behind the bush and lodged in my pants. It took the time of those two long legs for it to slither down enough for me to feel it. The rest of the run was uneventful, except that I was so exhausted by the stress of it all and the weather that I could hardly run.

As it is nearly July I am getting to the total panic mixed with bouts of depression stage about this damned World Champs. It is a lot of work at the best of times, but when the maps are about a year late and with the exception of my race day one, which is absolutely perfect, all the rest is utter crap, I am beginning to have trouble sleeping. NEVER AGAIN!!! SHOOT ME IF I EVER AGAIN EVEN RECOGNISE THE WORD TRAIL-O!!!

On this happy note I will go upstairs and scan my maps from this weekend for your edification. There was a night sprint on Friday evening, which was tremendous fun. The map had two sides: one was of the town of Furstenfeld at 1:5000, the other a labyrinth they built in the Main Square at 1:500. Needless to say that the height of entertainment was watching competitors doing hilarious headless chicken acts darting from flag to flag looking utterly bewildered. I wish I took some photos, it would be really funny.

Day 2 was the ominous compassless run mentioned above, Day 3 was a chasing start which I had to miss to due to a funny turn in the heat after Day 2. We went home early, which was a shame, but I really didn't feel well.

Now we are back to Ber and hopefully life will be a bit less hectic for a short while.

Janet and Bernard plus some lovely roses

Just got back to Ber, but the weather has turned rainy and cold, so I don't think we'll go on too many hikes this week. Janet and Bernard arrived as arranged a few hours after I managed to get Kreso to his train. We very nearly didn't make it, as we were quite late back from the synagogue and then I thought we were going to the East Station. A very fast dash to the Metro, followed by bettering the 4 minute mile at the South Station plus the helpfulness of the lady at the ticket office just got Kreso on his train.

The weather was really nice at the beginning of Janet and Bernard's stay, so we managed lots of interesting outings. Roy took them round the usual tour in Budapest and on Saturday we took them to the orienteering. It started getting rainy, so they couldn't go on the planned hike, but at least I managed to win and am now the Hungarian W60 Middle Distance Champion. This was a very satisfying win, as I beat Klari, Agika and Aletta fair and square.

On Sunday Janet and Bernard went to Szentendre by HEV and walked about in BP, ending up at the Basilica all on their own. This morning Bernard and I came down in the car, while Janet and Roy took the bus.

The pictures: the last one is the Kesz Istvan memorial wooden carved post from a couple of weeks ago. The rest are from the garden, which has come a long way since we left it. Cherries, vegetables and lots of roses proved that the rainy weather at least does something good.

PS: The weather was so dreadful, rainy, cold and miserable that Janet and Bernard have decamped only after one night at Ber. We didn't blame them, as the countryside is not the best place to be when the weather sentences you to stay indoors. Better luck next time!

A long and busy week (yet again)

Long time no blogging. This was yet another of those long weeks when I had no time for anything. The time in Ber was spent with the usual pursuits and then we came in on Friday. The weekend contained three events: The Kesz Pista Memorial event, the Arak Kupa and the 2009 Trail-O Championships. The first one was in memory of a realy nice old guy, and ex-soldier who died 4 years ago right after finishing an orienteering event. Every year, roughly on the same date and in exactly the same place there is a competition in his memory. The terrain is quite technical and I enjoyed it in spite of the heat. On Sunday there was the Arak Kupa, where the oldest class was W50 and only Klari beat me (again!) so I was second. In the afternoon we had the Trail-O Champs where I managed a first - not place, but a first for me of coming last. I was ever so pleased with Kovalcsik Pista doing his first attempt at planning and the course was excellent for a first try (see one of the timed controls in the abandoned quarry!), but the map was dreadful and my brain was obviously not in gear. Such is life! The usual suspects were on the podium and Szaki's new results software for WTOC had its second tryout and it worked splendidly. The selection for WTOC is shaping up, the only thing we are definitely keeping anything and everything crossed is for Fruzsi's baby not arriving early, or even on time. Does anyone know an old remedy to make a baby just a few days late?

On Sunday we brought Kreso home to BP with us and on Monday morning we were off to the Bukk. We started with the plateau and Kreso has been most helpful in suggesting alterations, improvements and general good tips on my course. There were a few controls which he accepted as they were and one - just one - that he not only didn't alter, but acutally liked. His serious demeanour broke out in a smile and he said that that control was good. I was pleased indeed. His method and speed of working is such that in an entire day we only managed to get through half my course and we didn't get anywhere near my model event. Second and third day were spent in Csanyik refining Laci's course and doing major map updates. I think I cannot commit to paper (or computer screen) what I have been thinking about a certain young man all in the know will know who. If he did the map last summer as agreed and made it a bit less inaccurate, we would be laughing now. As it is, Kreso was only with us for 3 days and most of it was spent correcting his hopelessly inaccurate work. Finally, we managed to finish the course, but - again - didn't get to the model controls. There is an outside chance that Kreso will come again, but as he has just started his own business, it is not likely.

We learnt a great deal from him and realised the most valuable contribution he has made was adding an international elite competitor's perspective and his amazing spacial and mapping skills. We also had a short meeting with Tuomo Peltola the IOF Controller for WOC, where he raised a lot of very interesting and useful points as well.

Just to run down on the pictures:

Apart from the quarry already mentioned, there is a tiger in the grass right next to control 8 in the ZOO, a gorgeous rose near one of the timed controls, the Lillafured Palace Hotel near where we stayed, one of the rocky controls from the Champs and a couple of amorous tortoises also from the ZOO.

The garden in Ber

The weather is gorgeous today, but soon it will get too hot. I went out to have a look and found how much work Roy must have done while I was away in the Bukk. The roses are out, the Morello cherry tree has lots of fruit on it and the veg patch is well on its way. Special features, like the climbing cage for the beans (Thanks Sheila and Steph!) and the vines for the future shady patio are ready to go. Heaven!!!

Planning/controlling, Slovenia & other delights

Thankfully, the planning and controlling up in the Bukk went great. The only complaint I would have is that 4 days were not enough. However, the weather held and we finished marking out my entire course on the plateau, did the same for the timed controls and 2 extra controls of my Model Event, planned and marked out Laci's Model Event and revisited, controlled and refined about half of the controls of his competition course. This leaves 10 controls on my Model course and the remaining half of his competition course to control and finally mark out. When we are going to get back there is doubtful. Correction: we know exactly when we are getting there again, as Kreso, the Assistant IOF Advisor is coming next week, but when we can finish our courses is still up in the lap of the gods.

After the Bukk we all departed for Slovenia to take part in two Trail-O events. Well, the fact that I took no pictures of it should tell you something. Partly, I didn't get my camera out much because the weather was rather dodgy, but the main reason was, that I was so disappointed and finally angry about the organisation, terrain and courses that the last thing I wanted to do was to photograph them.

Saturday's event was in a large and beautiful park in Ljubljana. What's wrong with that, you may ask? Well, first of all: some of the terrain was very hard for people in wheelchairs to negotiate. They needed a lot of help, which exhausted them and took more time than expected. I felt very cross with some of the peculiarities of Kreso's planning and how some of the rules were disregarded. Some Hungarians did very well in spite of all this, but I did particularly badly. I think I had the same reaction to this course as I did to Feri's Championship course last year. It seemed boring, repetitive (11 out of 18 controls were with the "in between" course description), breaking the rules and very unfair in places. My motivation went and with it the results. The only positive thing was that Roy entered as well and we could walk around together. He was even more scathing about it than me.

The dinner we were given was not very large, but adequate and as it was free, nobody complained. The persentations were made there and Hungary came away with quite a few of the podium places, so I don't think we brought any shame on our country in spite of the dodgy course. Then we were taken on a guided sight seeing tour of downtown Ljubljana, which from my point of view was the highlight of the whole weekend. The guide was very knowledgable and friendly and we did see most of the historical old centre of the city. (see my pictures!) Our accommodation was a half hour of a drive away in the direction of Sunday's event and while there was a very noisy wedding reception going all night with loud fireworks around midnight, we all slept like logs.

Sunday's event promised a lot, as it was put on in very technical, rocky karst terrain. Well, the terrain was gorgeous and I wished we were there to orienteer, not Trail-O. The planner used a map, which was enlarged to 1:4000 from having been drawn (presumably) at 1:7,500 or 1:10,000. Therefore, all paths and roads were about 20 metres wide and it looked as if they have done no updates on it either. This map would have been superb for orienteering, but for Trail-O it did leave a lot to be desired. The other hiccup was the planner's obvious ignorance of the rules of Trail-O in respect of control descriptions. The centres of his circles seemed more or less in the right places, but a lot of his descriptions did not match them. I was really cheesed off and as it started pouring with rain I was just about to retire when I suddenly realised that the path I was on was totally unsuitable for wheelchairs. From then on most of us who were out there, although the guys obviously more than the girls, spent most of their time pushing, pulling, shoving and almost carrying all wheelchair competitors up and down the rocky, uneven and in places extremely steep paths. I could not understand how you can put on Trail-O on such terrain, flagrantly disregarding the rules and not even warning us when we turned up with quite a few wheelchair athletes at registration. Quite the opposite: when we complained about the steep muddy ascent to the Start, they told us, don't worry it gets a lot better afterwards! Well, it got so good that Niko fell out of his chair and needed 3 people to pick him and his vehicle up. Results are still not available, but at least I have manged to get above 50% that day, which is very good for me.

Finally, we made it home via Eszteregnye, where the more civicly minded of us have stopped to vote in the European Elections. Eventful week - yet again - I wish I could retire for another week to sleep!

PS: I came 23rd out of 45 on Sunday, which isn't bad. Especially as I could only manage 44th out of 50 on Saturday! I have even beaten Mateja Kerestes, who was the Open winner on Saturday. Still, this one was not planned by Kreso whose planning style she must be well aquainted with by now! :-)