Some Stories From Vaajakosken Terä Training Camp Halden, Norway

„Your flight to Stockholm is six hours delayed” this is definitely not what you want to hear on your way to a training camp. Instead of a nice orienteering training, Riccardo and I spend our first day waiting for our flight in Berlin Tegel. Luckily for us two, Timbe and Touhu waited in Stockholm and we could drive from there to Halden. Thanks guys! Quite tired we arrived there and we haven’t been for long so happy to taste some pasta and meat. While we were eating, Timbe decided that it’s now the best time to start with the first night training.

Nice weather awaited us in the morning and it was absolutely perfect for our butterflies. After some warm-up loops it was time to fix the hair, so that everyone could represent a nice athlete for camera action. Each one had to run the same loop in full speed, while someone followed with camera to record the performance. This was something new to me, but it’s really interesting to look how you did in forest, how many times you are reading the map, how you are running, how you handled with mistakes and compare your run with others.

„Preparing for the camp, I looked at the training programme and saw there that we should do training without compass. That would be quit heavy I thought, especially in Nordic terrain and night. Haha let’s see how this works, I told myself. “

Part I

Old map, no compass, new vegetation. That are the key dates for our Macro training. The beginning went quite well, but it didn’t take too long and at control three most of us were together, thanks to some good performances and some not that good. But till the end, nearly everyone had at one control his difficulties. I had bad luck and made my mistake exactly at the control where Touho, our photographer, stood and could see what I did…

Damn and everything on photos.

Part II

„I am a man who walks alone and when I’m walking a dark road at night or strolling through the park. When the light begins to change, I sometimes feel a little strange, a little anxious

when it’s dark. FEAR of the dark, FEAR of the dark” this epic motivating song of Iron Maiden drowned out of the radio before our second night training. This time without compass. This is so crazy difficult. I nearly run out of the map, but found somehow a way back to the last control. After five controls I gave up and went back home. A bit disappointing, because I had a good night training the day before and I thought maybe night-o is nothing for me. But it didn’t take long time and I saw a headlamp on the path I was running. The guy to whom the headlamp belonged had no plan where he was and how to handle the map. Uff, maybe it’s not me who can’t do night-o, maybe it’s just too difficult I thought. After sauna and shower, it was time for GPS analysis. And big surprise, it wasn’t only me who was struggling in this training. Big respect to Timbe, Toni and Will, those were the only ones who did the whole training.

Part III

Our coach told us after that horrible night training, that we should go once again in the same forest and try it on day without compass. So the goal was to run without compass and make as less meters as possible. The guy who has the shortest distance will win. More important than the distance was that now, on daytime, everyone managed to perform well without compass. This was warmly welcome to my self confidence.

I think it was a really good camp and we could learn very much. We trained a lot, a total distance around 100km, in day and night, easy speed and fast, alone and mass start. It’s always a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to the relays with you.

The tallest and oldest of the Swiss runners

Jonas

PS: Some brothers (no, Andrin wasn’t there) don’t like it when there’s too much chilli in the meal. One starts sweating, the other gets terrible problems while running, (not) an advantage in partner night training …;)