Yesterday we did a nice mass start training with the Norwegians, Estonian and some runners from OK Orion. It was a good possibility for me to check my shape (especially the technique) when running hard. Already from the beginning the speed was good. I did a some seconds mistake on the first control. On the leg to the second control I think I had a good route choice by running straight in the green area without much climbing. I was able to catch up with the guys from the other forking on control 1. At the next forked control, number 5 i had to slow down in order not to make a mistake. It was there where I lost contact to the guys running for 2nd and 3rd position. But there where still some runners around to fight against. On the next controls I had always good control. In the end I arrived 4th in a really nice training. I think it is a good possibility for improvement when you can run so close against stronger athletes.

This morning it was time to discover what a long distance in Czech Republic looks like! The course was taken from a national A competition held some weeks ago. The course characteristics were 14K and 750m of climb. The winning time by Michal Smola was 92 minutes then. We decided before the start to take a short cut, because the trainings camp is still long. Already on the way to the first control I understood what the training was going to be: a nice uphill run. The controls where not placed in to difficult sites. Technically my training was almost perfect, but I'm missing some shape in the uphill parts. At the end I finished after 1 hour and 15 minutes and 750m of climb.

After quite a long trip - we also broke a tire of our minibus - yesterday we arrived just in time here to Zlate Hory to go out for the first training. It was quite dark after some minutes of training and I had to go home after the first 10 controls. But the first impact with the terrain was quite positive. I really liked to run in between this huge rocks an pick controls in a really fast forest.