The race was overall not super important, it was no selection-race nor was it a (big) international competition. Nevertheless, there are races and maybe sometimes also trainings, which still can have a quite high importance other the then medals at the end of it. The german middle champs was one of those races for me, as I wasn´t sure where I currently stand shape-wise and also was missing some positive impulse and confirmation. In the end I could take the win in a race where the terrain and course suited me, so I was able to play out my speed.
A short update on the weekend.
I reached the goal I had which was (obviously – I will get to that in a second) winning. It was really satisfying and made me really happy, it confirmed that I am getting back in a proper shape and also was just very important for my head to get a positive feedback back into the loop which for sure was missing. So why “obviously”, well, because I more or less race to win. It might be important to differentiate that not every competition is as important but usually when I start at a competition it has some decent importance for me and therefore take it also very serious, ergo want to win as that is also kind of what a competition is about, otherwise there is no point of so much work and a training would do it…
The win was also my first win as an official Elite orienteer (even though I had the best time in M20 last year which was the same course as Elite, plus of course the win in the sprint last year) but the next day after the middle I got to realize that I am ´officially´ where I want to be – in the top of the elite in german orienteering (at least in terms of german champs), I got to that realization through thinking back over all the years and the medal ceremonies. I am not the biggest fan of (medal) ceremonies, because I just don´t need a medal or anything to show that I won, I just want to see my name in front of the others in the results, at best with a decent margin. Either way I remember a lot of those ceremonies from german champs as a kid and junior and looking with big eyes and respect to the podium when the women and men of the elite class were honored, and also seeing other good runners not making the cut which made the respect to the winner even bigger. Now I won and stood at the top of the podium, even beating some of those I admired as a kid…never stop believing!
Looking back at this years WOC in Norway it was super great to see the German team do so well at international races and such a good starting field, but even though the german athletes did run very well, winning a german champs does not mean the same as winning a country-champ in Switzerland or a nordic country. I for sure don’t want to undervalue the results at the german champs or anything, my point is just that to play on the international stage the winning time was not good enough – yet!
Looking forward to WorldCup.
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