Much have happened since I left Turkey in March, in order I visited Slovenia, Italy, Norway, Sweden and back to Norway.
A week later I decided to run as every year, Lipica Open, a two-stages event held in Slovenia, right beside the Italian border. Tough stony terrain and challenging courses were exactly what I hoped for, I really enjoyed every minute spent in that karst-terrain!
In the middle distance on Saturday I was running very well despite few misses. Unfortunately I lost 2 minutes very close to the finish area, mostly because I was not completely focused on my race.
New day, new chance on Sunday. I already knew the famous terrain of Veliki Dol, since I was there before a couple of times, and on my opinion, it is probably the best of that area. I was quite satisfied with my long distance.. Sure I run some bad route choices and together with that came also silly mistakes, however it was a good fun!
Just one week at home in Primiero to charge the batteries and again it was race-time. On the schedule were:
Suunto Sprint Tour in Pieve di Soligo and Italy Cup the day after in a close by area. I tried to push at my best, but my mind and my legs did not worked properly that weekend.
5th in the sprint and 6th place in the middle, nothing to be excited about, but sure an important lesson for the future.
Many thanks to PWT Italy for the chance they gave, we are now working together towards new goals!
To continue my preparation, during Eastern-holidays I spent two good weeks of training camp on this year’s World Championships terrains near Strömstad – Sweden, first with SC Meran and then with some Austrians.
I must admit that we have not been really lucky with the weather that we met there, but I managed to train enough physically and O-technique. (I actually don´t enjoy so much most of the high cliffs-orienteering map there)
Back from Strömstad finally some rest. Carlotta came also to Oslo for a week, so I tried to show her some of the many touristic attractions that the Capital offers 😉 This included Holmenkollen, Akershus Festning, Oslofjord islands and …. yes that´s almost all actually.
Btw, a great event held each Tuesday evening in Oslo is the “Oslo City Cup” a series of competitions in residential areas. Don´t miss them next time 😉 Here are some of this year´s courses:
This weekend I ran the EM-Test Sprint for the Norwegian Team in Tistedal, close to Halden. The map itself was not too much interesting, but the courses were really good, with many equal “3d route choices” and various terrain surface. I made several small mistakes that cost me around 30″ but I was still satisfied, since I arrived by car at the arena only 20 minutes before my start time. (Crazy traffic in Oslo on Friday afternoon :O )
On Saturday I was running Norwegian Spring middle distance, the terrain was really nice, as often in Halden bushy, but nice. I missed twice at the 3rd and 4th control, plus few other imprecisions, but I am happy with it, since I am not too competitive usually in that kind of terrain.
Now I am flying on Thursday to Wroclaw in Poland for the First Round of World Cup 2016. I will be running Middle + Sprint + Sprint Relay together with Andrea Seppi, Nicole Scalet and Eleonora Donadini.
With the great support of Nonamesport and Bvsport.
You can follow us here: http://worldcup2016.pl
FRESH NEWS: I just got selected for the Salomon Running Academy in Garmisch from the 25th to the 29th of May 😉 (after a suggestion by Carlotta)
I am sure it will be a great experience!
Riccardo
