Tour de Spikes in Lidecko?
January 9, 2008 ...by Joergen Necas
On Sunday January 6th I've attended a training event especially prepared for Michal Smola.
The event took place in hilly terrains near Lidecko, small mountain village about 30 km from Zlin. These terrains were chosen for one purpose - to simulate WOC terrains near Olomouc. There is a great base camp in a pull-up near training area in Lidecko providing us with shelter against the snow and cold weather. And after the training we could watch stunning performance of our XC skier Lukas Bauer on Tour de Ski on TV.
Organizers prepared a sprint event in the forest for the morning.
The length of the course was 2,4 km.
The beginning of the course was situated in opened land - meadows and orchards.
The second part continued in a typical forest with many terrain shapes like cliffs, boulders, pits and small depressions.
The end of the course was in the hilliest part of the area - there was a huge climbing and few traverses (the run in same attitude).
It wasn't easy - there were a lot of route choices, but unfortunately I put the controls into the forest, so I didn't enjoyed it so much.
We had a small lunch in the pull-up and then training event continued. The middle distance was scheduled.
The putting of controls into the forest took Jan Sidla 1,5 hour! He's finally back and we can go off.
We loped to the start and I was the first runner in the forest.
After few meters running in the rugged terrain I found my shoes absolutely unsuitable.
I took light trainers but shoes with spikes would be better!
The hillside was covered with a thin layer of fresh snow, which was terrible for me running in trainers, so I slid down only.
I thought I couldn't finish the race, but finally I reached the finish area. The course was perfectly prepared.
And in the end I have one figure describing how demanding the training was - the average time for 1km was 10 minutes!
It was great simulation of WOC terrain - traverses in thickets, many boulders or often direction changes, simply the right middle!
Joergen Necas, H18, TZL.
Many thanks to VIZ.
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