Salzburger X-country Champs

Salzburg and Cross Country Championships - now there is a story. There is always something that adds spice to these annual championships and this year was no different. It all started way back in March when they were supposed to be held. After months of preparation the day of the champs dawned bright and beautiful - not! We had a massive storm move through our area and the champs were postponed.

Until November 22. And so it was that the day of the champs dawned bright and beautiful again - not! It was a typical Salzburg winter day - cold, snowy and windy. That did not, however, deter the 12 henndorf runners who made their way direction Eugendorf in the cold wintery conditions.

The track was worthy to be called a x-country loop, so much better than the normal dribble that gets served up around here during winter. It was a curvy loop with up and downhills over a soft field bottom, that wasn't yet frozen. Total length 1 km (maybe a bit short) and a height difference of 25 m per loop. The track was also very slippery and difficult under foot and so I knew our orienteerers would be perfectly suited to it.

The first race was the u16 where we had two runners taking part, Laurenz and Clements. The race started well and after the first loop Laurenz was 4th. By the end of the second loop he had moved into the lead, and won the LM title U16. Clements had a great "first time" run for the club as well and finished well up.

The second race was the juniors and the Men short, where yourstruely decided to take part. As most of you know I haven't been well for more than 2 years now and am still suffering some bone infection that the operations were not able to remove. This means I haven't trained since god knows when and am fairly unfit *putting it mildly*. Here we had the most entries, the field been lead by Felix "gogles" Breitschädel and lead by Richard "mad dog" Gathercole (me) from the back as well. Felix eventually finished in 3rd place, followed closely by Warti and Wolfi. I lead up the back markers.

In the junior race Mani finished 3rd and Luki was 4th underlying our strength in the junior classes. Which of course didn't end there. We only had one Lady running today (in the U18 champs) and she came away with the title, so well done also to Alexander Breitfellner!

That left just the main (long) race where we had 4 official entries and 2 unofficial ones *grin* Our best runner was Andreas "German import" Eberhardt who finished an excellent 5th place and proved that he is getting back into top shape again. Reini, Andi and Arthur challenged for positions in the middle of the field and generally had a great time.

Once it was all said and done, the general feeling was that we had fun and enjoyed ourselves. In some areas the results were not as planned, and in some they were substantially better. The racing at the next LM cross will certainly be interesting.

So enjoy the winter training,
Richard.

P.S: Results here!
P.S.S: Photo's here!