Till now I have not get any good contact with French, so...I got possibility to take part in 'Bohemia 5-Days' a week before the competition began - one place in Estonian Mercury club-company became free. I ran under the name Mihkel Reimaa. In our company were 21 persons, totally there were almost 60 Estonian runners in Bohemia. We rented one pension and drove with rent-cars. We spent in Czech Republic 8 days, looked a beautiful nature, the castles, enjoyed a good food and, of course, the Czech beer.
Ok, and then we found time for running in Bohemian 5-days also.
The landscape was quite a technical, look the scales!, sometimes running was replaced by mountaineering for me. A lot of rocks, steep slopes. Most difficult for me was how to get down from slopes or crevices. The local ones just let themselves down like sledging sometimes. And of course the dense rock areas where I wasn't able to understand what is a rock, what a stone, what something else.On the first day (7,2 km/440 m/24 cp, look at the legend) I saved strength for future and slow run gave enough time for looking for a map and a landscape. Huh, it is not as difficult as I was afraid, I thought. 6-7 I didn't get down from slope, 14-15 the slope was more than 45 degrees and really bad penetrability, 15-16 at beginning I just stick in the underwood, 19-20-21 was a slope, say 30 degrees, quite a dreadful to run. But I didn't get the point how much I must run round the slopes.
On second day I made a mistake already then I started. There was no a 'startpoint' - as you got your map you could run to first point. Most of people runned along the road, so did I until understood a situation. The third point is puzzle even today. At the end of 3-4 I stepped into course setter's trap, obliviously I runned too downward and spent some minutes. 7-8 was a real pain, I did not get downward. There was a labyrinth of slopes and rocks. 14-15 at beginning was same problem, no place to get down - nearly-nearly but then was a three meters steep slope, again up and look for the other place. Summary, in some places I run too fast. And I don't know, getting down from a rocky slopes need a special training, I think. And a little recknessless... At finish my legs were really tired. By the way, starts were every day at least one km from cc and more than 100 m climb. At first this seemed awful, but later I understood that this made the tired and painful legs quite good for a running. An useful tip for me!
On third day was a short distance. I felt positive despite the previous day mistakes. And this was a mistake again.
Huh, the second point, at least 4 minutes a mistake, I just did not connected the map and the landscape. At 7 a unusual scale... 12-14 a doubtful running. At 15 I did not see the rock and there was so easy to run downward.The fourth day. The legs were so tired and quatriceps on left leg quite a painful (you can help your right left if you hold the thumb-compass and the map on left hand). But unexpectedly the running was a quite easy. The first point, a wrong route choosing, really hard to understood between a rock-symbols how much climb is there. The fifth point, there was no info at the map from where attack the point. So I chose the upper variant. Unfortunately there was no variants to get down. I saw the point from top of scale but it was about 8 m downward. After the run I heard that others made the same mistake. It took at least 4 minutes to get down. First time I was angry to the course setter. Before the 8th point the slope was, say, 45 degrees and a friable soil, I slipped down two times 2 meters. Same did others around me.
And then came the 14th point... Also a puzzle until today. Likely I inclined too high and on background of tiredness I made a mistake about 30 min! I went two times to the road to attack the point from road curve. Just a thinking block.The fifth day. The last and really difficult day. Because my previous day big mistake my Estonian concurrent overtake me, so, of course I went to run as fast as I can. Unfortunately I still have not understood the landscape well enough.
The second point was a trap for a lot of runners. So did I. The system was chaotic for me and I saw some people making a same mistakes as I. Similarly the third point. Despite that I was on right level and counted the distance the point area was over my skills. And after the similar misunderstanding with a point four I gave up and took just a pleasant run. And look, there were almost no big problems anymore. So, my legs were just faster than my head. A good experieence for the future.So, this was really a fine trip I can suggest for all. Also you can take a look on http://ok-bor.cz/bohemia/bohemia.php?pa ... y&jazyk=en
for a pictures and stuff. Next year there are WOC near Olomouc and some more multiday events in same area, Hungary, Slovakia.
Best wishes,
Janno