New website

The blog was not alive for some time now. Sorry for that.
But now I have a brand new website.
Where you'll be able to find some info and, I hope, to track my progress.

Check it out and feel free to leave a feedback.

http://jknapova.wix.com/janaknapova

World Cup Final 2014

The international IOF O-season came to its end with the World Cup Final races in Switzerland, this year around Basel area.

Three races were on the schedule - mixed sprint relay on Friday 3rd Oct., WC Middle on Saturday and WC Sprint Final race on Sunday 5th Oct.

Results, TV broadcasts, GPS and more



Sprint Relay 3rd Oct.

We got ourselves into the racing mode already on Friday with Sprint relay in Basel - Neuewelt. With the team: Míša Omová, Miloš Nykodým, Jan Petržela and me on the last leg, we took the final 8th position in quite tough competition. Good performances from all my teammates! Could have been way better from my side, loosing 45'' in a mistake is not a thing to do in a sprint relay and it's way too much time to run it up then.

The course and terrain were really nice, with clever forking and then quite many interesting routechoices. The only upsetting thing was an untoward frobidden area (purple stripes on the map) which was barely visible on the map nor it was marked in the terrain. (See the map in the link below and try to find it for yourself.) Maybe could have been solved some other way (different map symbol, tape in the terrain,..). Fortunately I had a different forking in that part of the race so I didn't have to think about this (no)routechoice.

MAP with GPS tracking



WC Middle 4th Oct.

The next day the World Cup Middle distance race was waiting for us - typical 'Mittelland' type of the forest with numerous paths and quite many green areas. While finishing the race on the outskirts of the town of Liestal, you could already feell that special atmosphere that always prevails throughout the World Cup races in Switzerland with all those fans cheering for the runners.

My goal was to make a stable race without bigger mistakes. Which may sound a bit unmotivational and 'cliché'. But right now that's what I was working on and what in reverse works for me.
(Of course, there will be other things going on during the trainign season.) So from that point of view I was satisfied with my race. No bigger problems, except for finding K19 and some useless hesitations. 24th place also meant a start place in the World Cup Spritn Final for me :)

MAP in GPSSeuranta
WoO analysis











WC Sprint Final 5th Oct.

The last international IOF event of 2014 took place in the old town of Liestal. Again the atmosphere in the arena was amazing, but more, the courses were really nice and I enjoyed it the whole way! I did quite well, unfortunately lost some time in the second part of the race while running past the stairs  that I should take on K13 and then making a wrong routechouce to K16. But still I can say I'm satisfied with 26th place with 1'45'' behind Tove Alexandersson - winner of the Sprint Final as well as the winner of the whole World Cup 2014.

MAP in GPSSeuranta
TV broadcast
WoO analysis







The races came to and end, yet I was still not going home. I planned staying in Switzerland for few more days visiting Karin & Matthias Leonhardt in Winterthur. We had great time visiting the city, as well as the city fo Bern and Zürich, running in the mountains near Interlaken and making a run trip to Schnebelhorn (the highest mountain of Kanton Zürich). The autumn is amazing in Switzerland..well it's probably amazing almost everywhere..but still :)

Thanks to everybody for making my swiss stay such a wonderfull time!
Special thank you goes to Karin & Matthias for being the best hosts I coudl wish for;
to Rahel for taking me for a run and friendly talk;
to Philipp and Michael for being the best Bern guides (otherwise I wouldn't know where to go in Bern when feeling like literally jumping off the bridge :D);
to Vanessa for showing us yummy burgers place;
and to all of you I met but forgot to mention above :)

SILVER AND BRONZE! - WUOC 2014 Olomouc

19^th WORLD UNIVERSITY
ORIENTEERING CHAMPIONSHIP
12. - 16. 8. 2014

WUOC 2014 was held in the Czech Republic with
the centre in the city of Olomouc. There were people
from 32 countries taking part in the Championships
and the names in the startlists promised tough competition.
As well as the terrains chosen promised challenging races.


I was selected for running long, middle and relay.



Long was held in Nectava valley, really hilly terrain with deep valleys and steep slopes.
Course setter prepared physically tough but nice course with lots of interesting routechoices. Basically you had to choose between long road running or shorter uphill. And I found myself
running quite much around (which was not always the best - referring to K2 +1'). Anyway,
I felt quite strong and knew that if I wouldn't do any mistake I could take a nice result.
And that's how it came! I took BRONZE! My first medal from a senior event. It felt great,
although it took me some time to get the whole thing that I was 3rd. I was so happy I finally
made it! Recently I had always screwed my races with mistakes and my uncontrolled mindset,
it's nice to actually see the work paying off.

And it was amazing to stand on the podium next to Gøril and Bettina with the medal on my neck and looking at and at the same time trying to avoid an eye-contact with my mother-coach,
'cause I was afraid she would break into tears.


So it was time to leave emotions behind and focus on the middle distance race.
The terrain for middle, near the village of Protivanov, was totally different from the one
we knew from the long distance. It was flat so it promised some fast running but there were
also many green parts that were rather tricky. Good compass work and good change of speed
were the keys to the success, I guess. Unfortunately, I did few smaller mistakes (like 10" to K6; 20" K13; 25" K15; 35" K19). But I could pick almost no control without being far right, few meters to the left, ahead, etc. So no smooth orienteering for me that day and I felt a bit frustrated about it. But then I came to the finish on the 7th place, which was good and even
better was that I shared it with my teammate and friend Venda.

Last day came another highlight of this amazing week. We got SILVER medal in relay!
Venda H. did a really good job on the first leg and came in the first group. I did okay race on the second one and Iveta Š. ran great and really strong last leg! She came to the finish second,
just 15 seconds after Sweden.
And we were happy for boys too as they also took the SILVER!


Maps, results and more can be found either in my czech post or on the official event webpage.

STŘÍBRO A BRONZ! - AKADEMICKÉ MISTROVSTVÍ SVĚTA 2014

19^th WORLD UNIVERSITY
ORIENTEERING CHAMPIONSHIP
12. - 16. 8. 2014

Akademické mistrovství světa 2014 se tentokrát konalo na domácí půdě. Do Olomouce, který se stal centrem šampionátu,
se sjeli závodníci z 32 zemí světa a jména ve startovních
listinách naznačovala, že je na co se těšit!

Pár týdnů před mistrovstvím jsem dostala otázku z tisku, jaká jsou
má očekávání a cíle na AMS a jak se těším na domácí české terény.

Akademické mistrovství světa pro mě bylo druhým nejdůležitějším vrcholem sezóny, hned po Mistrovství světa v Itálii. Takže očekávání i cíle byly nemalé. Mým hlavním cílem však zůstalo zajít závod bez větší chyby. Teď už asi můžu prozradit, že jsem věřila, že pokud podám kvalitní výkon bez větší chyby, se kterým budu spokojená, může to cinkat. A to byl zatraceně silný impuls k tomu,
abych si to zvládla všechno pohlídat a dala tomu všechno, co jsem v tu chvíli uměla.

Co mě ale rozhodilo byla druhá část otázky - "Jak se těšíš na domácí české terény?"
"Sakriš, vždyť já už ani nevím, jak vypadají!", říkám si. Letošní sezónu zahájilo ME
v Portugalsku, dva týdny nato následovalo soustředění a závody ve Švédsku, tři dny
doma a hurá prozkoumat terény MS do Itálie, dva víkendy závodění v ČR a opět směr
Itálie, Finsko, Itálie, Švédsko.. a je konec července a mě se ptají na české terény
a obíhačky kopců, když teď mi přijde, že už umím jen švédský styl - běhat pokud možno
co nejvíce pod čarou.

Naštěstí na závěrečné přípravě před samotným mistrovstvím
se ukázalo, že "co se v mládí naučíš.." a když se k tomu přidala kvalitní mapová
a psychická příprava, odjížděla jsem do Olomouce zas o trochu jistější.

Nominovala jsem se na závod klasiky (long), krátkou trať (middle) a do štafety.
Sprinty jsem tentokrát vynechávala.

LONG

Long se běžel v okolí Nectavského údolí, mezi Moravskou Třebovou a Konicí. Strmé kopce
a zařízlá údolí slibovala fyzicky náročný závod bohatý na záludné volby postupů. Skoro každý postup bylo co řešit. Možná mě až zaskočilo, jak moc jsem obíhala po cestách.

Ve výsledku jsem volila celkem dobré postupy, až na ten na K2, kde byla moje obíhačka příliš dlouhá a dostala jsem tu od ostatních holek +1' a pseudo-postup na K7. Zásek 20-30'' se mi
podařil na K10, školácká chyba odběhu na jinou cestu. Ale to byla snad jediná mapová chybka
na celé trati, tak jsem mohla být se svým výkonem maximálně spokojená.

Do cíle jsem doběhla druhá za Norkou Gøril Rønning Sund a pak už jen napjatě čekala, jak se
bude vyvíjet závod pro holky, co startovaly za mnou. Nakonec byla rychlejší i Švýcarka Bettina Aebi. A já slavila BRONZ! První medaili ze světového studentského šampionátu. Veliká radost!

Výsledky
Mapa
Mapa s volbami postupů

MIDDLE

Po dni volna, kdy jsme fandili týmovým kamarádům, kteří běželi sprint v Olomouci na Svatém Kopečku a v místní ZOO, přišel další můj závod - middle v lesích poblíž vesnice Protivanov.
Po longu naprosto odlišný terén. Závod téměř bez převýšení, v čistém lese palba, ale naopak
v pasážích, kde byly kontroly schované v hustníkách, bylo potřeba přibrzdit a jít úplně najisto.

Při první návštěvě warm-up mapky jsem zvládla (omylem) prokrosit bažinu a při té druhé
jsem si málem vypíchla oko, což skončilo krásným šlincem přes půl obličeje. Ivetě, která
startovala až přes hodinu po mě, jsem pro jistotu řekla, že když se nevrátím do cíle, ať mě
prosím jdou po kouskách sbírat z lesa, a vydala jsem se směr startovní koridory. Přesto jsem
se necítila tak jako přes startem longu, neprošla jsem si tou správnou nervozitou a následným zklidněním jako před longem. Jednoduše jsem se bála, že budu stát na startovní čáře bez jakéhokoliv většího nasazení. Naštěstí atmosféra velkého závodu Tě nenechá klidným a svoje závodní tempo jsem úspěšně našla cestou na jedničku a pak už mohla dělat, co umím.

Bohužel mapově závod nešel tak hladce. Snad žádnou kontrolu jsem nenaběhla krásně přímo,
vždy to bylo pět metrů vpravo, sedm vlevo, zpátky. Trochu frustrující. Žádná velká chyba,
ale pár menších bylo a ty mrzí! (10" K6; 20" K13; 25" K15; 35" K19). Přesto jsem si opět
luxusně zafinišovala:D a mohla se tak ve výsledku dělit shodným časem o 7. místo s Vendou H., což byl supr pocit:) Dalším highlightem dne pak bylo fandění Ivetě, která si doběhla pro stříbro!
A stříbro získal i Honza Petržela v mužích. Takže další úspěšný den pro český tým:)

Výsledky
Mapa

ŠTAFETY

Štafety se běžely ve skoro stejném prostoru jako předchozí závod na middlu, takže jsme
celkem dobře věděli, co nás čeká.

Běžela jsem druhý úsek. Naši štafetu hodně dobře rozběhla Venda Horčičková. A Iveta Šístková předvedla skvělý výkon na posledním úseku a radovaly jsme se ze STŘÍBRA! Jen kousíček za zlatými Švédkami.

Kluci nás v tom nenechali a vybojovali taky stříbro!

Výsledky
Mapa

Televizní záznam ČT Sport


Obrovské DÍKY všem za podporu a fandění! Byli jste skvělí! :)

A na závěr stříbrný štafetový fotoromán..
(photos by Kade.cz)

 

SUMMER READING TIP

sir Bradley Wiggins - My Time
a book worth reading, at least once

WOC 2014 Italy

Quite many days, trainings and also some other competitions have passsed since this year's World Orienteering Championships held in Italy. And some big competitions will start in a while (WUOC in Olomouc).

But let's take a short visit back to beautiful Venice and amazing Italian mountains.

On this Championships I ran two disciplines - sprint and middle.

SPRINT

Due to the changes in rules, sprint was the only discipline left with qualification and then final race. After a smooth qualification in the village of Burano I had really big troubles in the final in Venice St. Elena. My first WOC final. I was a bit nervous on the startline and was not able to cope with those feelings, which then resulted in taking wrong routechoices and doing mistakes. I am really upset about my performance.

But still it showed me my weaker sides I can now work on.

Nevertheless it was something special to run orienteering in Venice! Amazing experience!

MIDDLE

That's what I focused on in my preparations for the middle distance then - finding the optimal prestart balance. Self-couching, positive thinking..here we go. It felt good! I wasn't paying big attention to Fanni Gyurkó while passing her with 2minutes already on the second control.

But then it came again.. lack of concentration, fast running, not being able to tell my legs "you have to slow down right now! and take a closer look at the map!" - 3minutes mistake to the 6th control. "**** that! It's past now, continue and do your best", although it was a bit harder then.

Gaining that speed on the field again, passing through the arena.. "okay, how we do this.. concentration! all the time, till the end! map is the priority.. orientering hela vägen, right, that's the clue" and I'm hearing cheering "You're doing really great! C'mon! It's really good!" "what?! I did like 3+minutes mistake, what are you people saying, are you blind or" "**** what are you thinking about, focus!" ..3,5minutes mistake to the 12th control, the one right after the arena passage. And I'm upset again.

Yet again I got a valuable feedback from myself what to focus on in the next preparations and competitions.

offical WOC 2014 website

TV broadcast České televize

What doesn't kill you makes you stonger!

Each big orienteering event is a challenge for me, it's always amazing to take part in and fight with the best ones for the best possible results. Especially WOC is a HUGE portions of motivation for me. With the atmosphere and emotions it reminds me why I love the sport so much and why it's worth it to squeeze yourself a bit harder in every training and work on your skills.

Let's work hard for Scotland's WOC 2015!:)

JUKOLA 2014 Venlojen viesti

Jukola a.k.a. the biggest orienteering event.
This year in the beautiful area of Kuopio Finland.


I ran 4th (last) leg of Venlojen viesti for my swedish club SNO.
We took 35th place. Which is nice among so many teams running. But my performance could have been better (see below), yet still it was an amazing competition in a beautiful terrain and forest!
My admiration goes to Frida, our first leg runner, for her outstanding performance! But of course many thanks to the whole team!

Kuopio-Jukola 2014 website
GPS