News from Marc
Hibernation is over, time to turn the page
2010-04-02
My winter training has ended and I am about to modify my training/work routine a bit.
During the winter months, from October until now (with the exception of a holiday in the USA) I focused on work. I was still training hard and with ambitions, but I made the choice to minimize my travelling to enjoy a routine in my daily life, so that I could more easily focus on work and good training simultaneously. This way I was also able to build up several training groups: one with a road runner (Christophe Stauffer) and the other is running (and coaching) with the regional orienteering team for some intervals together with the local track team. I also raced at some XC races and at a super tough 
XC skiing marathon (first xc skiing race again in 8 years!). I finished 5th at the Swiss XC running championships, a feedback which shows me that my shape is quite good.
This winter gave me a bit of a break from orienteering and I could feel now during my first O races that there are some automatisms to work at. Hopefully this will be a chance to rethink some details and help me become a better orienteer in the long run. I will now reduce my work load and do some orienteering training camps to give me the opportunity to work on my technique.
Tomorrow we are heading with the junior regional team to Fontainebleau… gorgeous forests I have been eager to visit again for a long time.
Winter training in the USA
2010-01-20
Since December I have been training again for the new season. The start was a bit shaky. Because of some mild recurrent seasonal illness and an accident on Christmas I 
was often interrupted in my training rhythm.
But since the beginning of January, I am enjoying with Annette Kindschi, Daniel Hubmann and Sandra a trip to the south-western USA. The landscape is very inspiring for training and the climate is supposed to be friendly. And so far it brought me into a good training swing: here you can follow my training, and if you click on the little "earth" you can check out myroute on a satellite image.
We started off Phoenix after a short visit at Sandra's dad's place, then we squatted Cristina Luis' driveway in Tucson before we hit the road to visit the western USA. For this purpose we rented a 9.5m meter Mobil home... huge to our senses, but actually only medium sized for the US standard.
Right now we are crossing Los Angeles in our "monster", but because of the worst weather in years for this region the highways are totally jammed, partly even flooded... which for once gives me time to write an update for my webpage. So far Dani hasn't bumped into the car ahead.
If the weather allows it, we will soon be in Death Valley, than we continue our trip to Las Vegas, Zion, Grand Canyon and Sedona. Unfortunately it is quite unsure if we are able to do this tour, apparently most of those regions are deeply snow covered... more to come later :-)
Unexpected twist in my season
2009-10-11
Yesterday, I ran my first “pure” running competition of the season. I tried to pick a special race for the occasion and I found that the World Long Distance Mountain Running Championships (WMRC) in Söll, Austria, would suit perfectly in my program.
After training really well this spring and summer, I was quite disappointed with my shape at the WOC. I don’t know what went wrong, but I was in a physical low. Week after week it got a little bit better, but I still never found a satisfactory feeling in my competitions.
Two weeks ago, I was even considering not running the WMRC at all, because my shape was too poor! But last weekend, I had two really good National O races and I figured things were turning in a positive way.
And the signs were true; yesterday I had great legs, finally! I ran away from everybody in 
the first few kilometers. A Kenyan was able to pass me at kilometer 33… but I caught him again in the final climb (750m ascend in 3km) to the finish and so, I won! Wow, I really didn’t expect this, but everything just went really well, and to finally feel strong during a race gave me an exceptional motivation to keep pushing. So after 42 kilometers, 2150 meters climb, and 3 hours 06min 20sec, a new course record, I became the world champion, wow :-)!
The whole atmosphere was great and I really enjoyed the course. It was tough, but suited me well. This weekend turned out to more "hectic" than expected. But it was fun.
Results in short:
Söll/Tirol (Ö). Langstrecken-WM im Berglauf (42,195km/2160 m HD/549 Teilnehmer). Männer: 1. Marc Lauenstein (Sz) 3:06:20. 2. Jonathan Wyatt (Neus) 3:12:05. 3. Richy 
Lightfood (Gb) 3:14:05. 4. Raymond Chemungor (Ken) 3:14:51 5. Marco Sturm (De) 3:18:23. 6. Daniel Bett (Ken) 3:19:02. Ferner die weiteren Schweizer: 21. Christian Puricelli 3:31:43. 30. Beat Bieri 3:42:56.
AND: 19. Jon Duncan (GB or NOR?) 3:30:47
Frauen: 1. Anna Pichrtova (Tsch) 3:28:57. 2. Jewgenia Danilowa (Russ) 3:29:23. 3. Anne Frost (Neus) 3:33:20. Ferner: 30. Sandra Dänzer 4:25:05. 40. Denis Lichtensteiger 4:37:44.
2456 meters closer to heaven
2009-07-11
In order to prepare for the WOC in mid August, a group of 6 runners of the national team decided to spend 24 nights in Muottas Muragl, 2450m. The idea is to increase our 
cardio-vascular performance thanks to the constant lack of oxygen, but also to take advantage of the great training opportunities.
If the first benefit of a high altitude training camp is somewhat hypothetical, the amazing surrounding of the Engadin (St-Moritz) is certainly going to boost our training motivation and make the preparation for the 2009 WOC a memorable experience in our career.
Caroline, Ines, Matthias, Fabian, Baptiste and I have now spent 3 days in Muottas Muragl, a mountain restaurant situated above Pontresina, Engadin. We invested those days to acclimated to the new environement. Even though we trained only easily we felt overly tired... the high altitude is asking its tribute. Fortunately Thomas Bührer who has developped our training schedule for the training camp has anticipated that happening and it is only tomorrow that we are starting the intensive training.
Our accomodation, Muottas Muragl, from far away:
A bit closer:
Also flat trails are common in the Engadin:
But hills can also be found:
...and snow :-)
First WC round + JUkola
2009-06-20
PICTURE BY AAPO LAIHO
During the last few weeks, the season has truely started. A week ago we competeted at the first World Cup races of the season followed by the legendary Jukola relay. Those were also the first international races for which I planned to be in a top shape for. Now is a time of a first analysis of this first part of my season.
In the NOC relay in Salo my team finished 8th, in the middle distance World Cup I ended up 25th, in the Sprint WC 10th and at the Jukola in Mikkeli VeVe finished 5th.
All in all I had 4 quite good races. I was a bit disappointed with my 25th place at the middle distance, as I believed I had quite a good race. But after the race analysis I saw that I just didn't push hard enough phyiscally, but focused too much on a very clean run... which it was, but not fast...
In the sprint I was happy to see that my regular track intervals from the last few months have allowed me to achieve my best result in a town sprint of my career. I managed to be in a good sprint shape already in 2005 (15th at the WOC) and last fall (4th at the WC in Switzerland), but those were sprints in a rural environment, which suite my natural abilities more. For the next seasons to come I will try to continue to work on top running speed, as this is probably my physical weakest link.
Picture: www.antin.net
Our 5th place at the Jukola sounds better than our performance was. After the 2nd leg we were 48th, 12.5 minutes behind the lead. We certainly missed a chance to do another top 3 placement. My race was ok, but similar to the WC middle distance I felt technically really secure but just wasn't able to find a feeling of speed.
So, we might do better next year, but in any case it was a fun club experience.
Picture: Aapo Laiho
Our club preperation a few hours before the Jukola start... Family picture: Tero, Ahven, Taimen, Hauki and me.
This weekend I will be competing in the Swiss middle distance championships and after that we are flying back to scandinavia to compete at the WC races in Norway. Let's see if I am able to find that hidden 6st gear...
Season Kick off!
2008-12-03
Batteries are charged, goals are set and the motivation is exploding… I am happy to start the season 2009.
After the mitilary World Champs in mid-October I did 2 weeks of adventurous orienteering in Finland. I mainly trained with Tuomas Mattila and Janne Weckman, but we visited many VeVe runners all around south of Finland. We focused on night orienteering… which is not so difficult to do nowadays in Finland. But the main reason why I wanted to do such trainings is that I find it an easy way to reduce the visibility, therefore simulating “green”, low visibility controls... and those were my troublesome controls in 2008. Well, and night O is also just fun, that is why we made some irrational training “days”, like 4 night trainings in 1 day: 4th of November.
After that training camp in Finland I took a 3 week training break, again getting used to daytime living. It was good to have more time for other things than training… like working, meeting friends, cleaning several cadavers in the drawers of my desk and preparing next season. I have also agreed to coach our regional junior orienteering team, so I now have some double planning to do. It is a lot of work, but I like to do this and especially I feel like it is worthy.
Now Sandra and I are doing a mini vacation in Silvaplana, Engadin. For me it is a symbolic kick off for the season. It has snowed so much that we are stuck in our village. The avalanche risk doesn’t allow us to ski the connections to the other village resorts. But this is no problem, because of the huge amounts of snow we aren’t able to move quickly enough to want to go far. Yesterday I went snow shoeing. It took me 5 minutes to do 100m fighting through hip high snow.
Post scriptum: Today, after I wrote this, I went out and experienced one of the most beautiful winter day of my life. After 5 days of intensiv snowing, it cleared up. Temperature -20°C. Enjoy the pictures:
Here a pic of Muotas Muragl (2400m), where I plan to do a 4 week altitude camp next summer to prepare the WOC (it is the small dot up on the mountain).
WMOC 2008
2008-10-13
I just came back from the Military World Champs in Lithuania. You didn’t know I was so strongly involved in the military, did you? Here is the reason why I was able to run at these races: We, the runners from the Swiss team (so far only the men) take advantage of doing our mandatory military days in going to civilian training camps from the team. This year I will have done about 30 days of training abroad, which I can deduce from the 300 days of military almost every Swiss male has to do in his lifetime. In the counter part of its support, the Swiss military department demands that we compete at the annual military World Championships.
Many other countries also support their orienteers through the military, so a lot of the top guys were also taking part. The level of the competition was comparable to a World Cup!
Unfortunately I had troubles getting 100% back in shape after my cold from last week. The 2 rest days after the World Cup races in Switzerland were mainly used to travel to Lithuania and the rather tight competition schedule of the military Championships didn’t give me the necessary rest to feel sharp again. Instead I was fighting with rather strong symptoms of a head cold.
I was able to do pretty good technical races at the middle distance and at the relay. I finished 27th at this first race and came back on the first leg of the relay only 20 seconds behind the lead and my team (David Schneider (2nd leg), Matthias Müller (3rd leg) and I) finished 6th. Switzerland 1 (Baptiste Rollier, Daniel Hubmann, Matthias Merz) finished 2nd.
In the long distance I manage to skip a control. Fortunately I noticed it and could go back. Unfortunately it was the control right before the butterfly loops and I noticed it after I had completed one of the loops, which meant I had to do that loop again. This mistake cost me more than 10 minutes!
Map middle
Map long
Map relay
I found the terrain very interesting to run in. 
Constant turning hills, partly intricate diffuse relief and very low visibility. But the runability despite the dense vegetation was mostly very good. The Russians were way better than all the others, taking 7 of the 8 gold medals. Very impressive! Only Thierry Guergiou was able to defeat them in the long distance.
High point of the Fall
2008-10-06
With the World Cup Final races this weekend I competed at my goal races for the fall season.
The preparations after the summer races went really well. I was able to find strong confidence in my orienteering. Physically I could sense progress week after week, as my hip injury wasn’t anymore holding me back in my training. Because the World Cup races were only short distances I focused in my preparation on shorter interval than usual.
But unfortunately about 3 weeks before the races I started to have digestive troubles. The symptoms were never strong enough for me to take any initiative, but after some races 9 days ago I felt more tired than usually and never recovered. Finally I got a cold only a few days later.
By chance I felt good again by Saturday’s middle distance World cup race in the Wangenerwald, neighboring Zurich’s airport. Running felt comfortable, but where were my higher gears?!? I just wasn’t able to push to the limit and I felt tired already after half of the race. I finished 20th, disappointing 4min behind Daniel Hubmann. Oh, I didn’t want the season to end that way! The spring season was enough of a struggle that I really hoped for better, now that I could train well again.
Map middle
Well, I took my chance the next day at the WC sprint in the Irchel park, in the center of Zürich. Pushing hard felt natural again and the enthusiastic home crowd was pushing us to find extra strength. Oblivious, I crossed the finish line with the fastest time so far. What a sweet surprise! Until the end of the race only Daniel, Matthias and Thierry were able to beat my time. Actually, I missed the bronze for only 0.2 seconds!
Map 1 sprint
Map 2 sprint
Eventhough the high point of the autumn is over; it is too early to say that the season is over for me. We are already on the road towards the military World Champs in Lithuania which will start this Wednesday. Shortly afterwards we will travel to Ungary to prepare next years World Champs and finally I will conclude my season with 2 weeks of pure orienteering in Finland were I will visit my team mates from my finish club VeVe.
… I am looking forward for those treats!
140 swampy kilometers...
2008-08-24
Last week, the Swiss team went on a training camp in Trondheim. The goal was to get a first impression of the terrain for 2010 WOC, work on our technique and on our physical ability in this type of forest.
We did 12 very high quality orienteering trainings during our camp, and I feel like it gave me a really good sense of how to run in Trondheim. The terrain is Scandinavian, but it clearly differs from what I have seen so far. Rolling hills, very few rock features, and an interesting contrast between the typical “Trondheim” open swamps and some dense “bushy” forest, characterize the terrain. We trained 140km of orienteering during this camp, most of it in the swamps… my shoes haven’t dried yet.
I really enjoyed it and I am looking forward for some further training camps in sight of the 2010 WOC.
Besides the orienteering training we also did a “Trondheim” test where we ran 2km on 
the road, the same amount in a swamp and also up a downhill ski slope. We were measuring the running cadence with a foot pod and in between every discipline we would measure the lactic acid. We are planning to do this test every year until the World champs and hopefully measure personal progress every time. I managed to be the team moose as I was the fastest through the swamp… I’ll train hard to keep my trophy in a year.
The long awaited daily flow…
2008-08-13
After the World Champs and O-Ringen I worked for a couple of days before joining the Olympic athletes at their high altitude training camps in the Engadin, just before they left for Peking. But I wasn’t staying there because of the physiological benefits, instead to enjoy the beauty of the mountains. I ran a lot, mainly on small mountain trails up to some peaks or hidden lakes. I even orienteered at two local events, in a terrain I would classify as some of the most spectacular I know. They are situated in the center of the wildest part of the Alps, 
neighboring a national park. All around the intricate forest are high peaks that make up the scenery and the vegetation is typical alpine.
Pass dal Fuorn day 1
Pass dal Fuorn day 2
It was tough to hold back, but I would conclude my week of “Alpine holiday” with the legendary mountain race Sierre-Zinal, and if I wanted to survive the 31km, 2200m of 
climb I needed to be a little bit rested. This race is a legend in the French speaking part of Switzerland and among all mountain runners in the world. Since I was a child, I have dreamt of running once this race. For the last several years, orienteering events have made a participation impossible… but thanks to the early World Champs this year, it was finally my chance.
Only my hip injury was putting some doubt on whether or not I would be able to run. Since May and still at the World Champs the injury would hurt for a couple of days after hard workouts. Amazingly, during the time I was training in the mountains the pain was diminishing from day to day, even though I was running more than 2 hours on most days.
With the chronic pain easing, I rediscovered the freedom one can find in running. After the last tough months of struggling daily and adapting my training according to the pain,
I was more than ever grateful to just put a pair of running shoes and simply enjoymyself.Well, certainly the great surrounding helped to feel a permanent high whentraining :-).
Anyway, I was able to continue on my “runner’s high” at the race Sierre-Zinal. The race was tough, I went through physical ups and downs, but the day was just perfect, a clear blue sky decorated with the highest Alpine peaks (over 4000m high), amazing atmosphere thanks to thousands of supporters and no hip pain from the first until the last step of the race!
I finished 8th in 2h40, 10 minutes behind the winner Marco De Gasperi who is a 5 times World Champion in mountain running. The competition field was said to be very tough, but since I don’t know much about the mountain running community it was difficult for me to judge, however, to see 8 different nationalities in the top 10 is impressive.
Two days after the race my legs are still somewhat tired, the downhill part of the race left some scares. However, I feel a sense of freedom from the never ending hip pain I have had, and I can’t wait to train hard again with just the limit of my physical capacity stopping me… right now I feel invincible (before I burn myself again :-)).
High point of the season 2008
2008-07-29
A week ago we were running the WOC, followed by World Cup races held simultaneously with the O-Ringen. These events were the main goal of the season. Unfortunately, I injured myself quite badly more than three months ago after an almost flawless build up during the winter. This meant my final preparation for the WOC was a bumpy road, consisting of many physical problems generating also mental doubts.
With my 14th place at the WOC long distance I am not very satisfied. 
Even though it wouldn’t have needed much more to get a lot better of a placement on that day, I am not unhappy with my performance. During most of the course I ran at my very optimum. By the end of the race the accumulated tiredness of the last months fighting through this injury caught up with me and I wasn’t anymore able to fight at the highest level, loosing this way approximately 3 minutes because of mistakes... a ranking among the 6 best would have been possible. But with ifs and buts everything would look much different than how it actually is.
Long distance qualification map
Long distance final map 1 and map 2
After the WOC we traveled straight to the O-Ringen. There was no time to get 
accustomed to the very special Scandinavian terrain. In my preparation I decided I would not stay with the Swiss team but with Sandra and a couple of friends from the US. We have a great atmosphere in the Swiss team, but there are also other nice people I want to spend time with.
Because I wasn’t staying with the national team, the World Cup races at O-Ringen felt more like a vacation. I was fully focused on the races, but I also enjoyed the company of the friends and the atmosphere of this impressive O-Ringen with it’s 23000 participants.
Actually, I was really satisfied with my performances. I had 4 quite clean races and finished 14th in the sprint, 6th in the long distance, 8th in the middle distance and overall 5th. Besides that, running on the Swedish Fjells was a great experience!
Map Sprint Day 1
Map Long Day 2: map 1 and map 2 (women's course)
Map Middle Day 3: map 1 and map 2
Map Chase start Day 4
I am happy that this O-Ringen week went so well, because when I arrived to Sweden my hip was quite painful. Secretly I didn’t believe I would be able to run all the races. But somehow the pain got less severe from race to race and by the end of the week it wasn’t bothering me anymore at all. For some odd reasons, now that I have rested several days it is getting again painful. I guess I have to learn to deal with it. At least it is getting slowly better week by week. But it is frustrating not to be able to just go out there and have nothing to worry about besides having fun!
...Eventhough I must say I have learned to do fun trainings, like my typical cable car interval training. From home I would take the cable car twice 450 meters down to Biel and do up hill intervals. Total Training: 10.5km, 1150m of climb and almost 0m downhill. Check it out
From Scandinavia to Czech Republic
2008-06-22
10 days of pure Scandinavian orienteering experience are still condensed in a pack of dirty, swamp stinking cloths in my suitcase. I will have to hurry to get them fresh again for the next challenge is waiting in the Czech Republic… the World Champs.
A couple of days before the Jukola (14.6) I met up with my teammates from VeVe in Tampere to prepare for the biggest orienteering relay in the world. We trained in the toughest terrain and enjoyed the Finish summer atmosphere… immaculate nature, never ending days and mid-night sauna.
VeVe managed again to be on the podium at Jukola and this for the 4th time in a row! 
Unfortunately I missed my mission to come back with the lead on the first leg. All went well until 3/4 of the course, where I managed to establish myself with the lead and felt secure with the way I was orienteering… quite independent and increasing the pace to try to make the gap bigger to the following teams. But to #19 I ran into a white part of the map, which to me looked more like a green swamp… I just couldn’t understand how I had done a mistake. My stomach made a knot and simultaneously my brain started freezing, which didn’t help and made me do another mistake straight afterwards.
It is interesting to see on my GPS track. I was exactly at the right place when I thought I made a mistake, but I “only” misinterpreted the white vegetation from the map.
But fortunately the other VeVe boys did really well and pulled the team up to the 3rd place. What an exciting race to follow. I planed to go to sleep after my duty but I got stuck in my pajamas in front of the TV the rest of the night.
My Jukola GPS track
Straight after the Jukola the Swiss team met for a training camp in Oslo to prepare for the World Cup held one week later. The training camp was filled with rough and funtechnical trainings but also with the hip pain I’ve been having since April. However, by the end of the week I believed I knew how to handle the terrain and my good race at the World Cup middle distance proved me right. That I finished in the 4th position was a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately my hip was sore enough after the race to be 
able to race the following long distance chase start. It was a tough decision not to take the chance to race with my very good starting position on my preferred distance in such a cool terrain. But letting my hip heal for the World Champs took priority.
You can click on the map cut-out to see the whole map
Now we flew home and we have 1 week before we leave for a totally different orienteering adventure… our preparation training camp for the World Championships. I hope by then my hip will be again less painful.
Test races X 2
2008-06-10
I’m on the way to the World Champs!
Last weekend the Swiss team ran the selection races for the World Champs. Not only I
would test if my shape is good enough, but I would also see if my hip would survive competitions in the tough Swiss terrain.
I skipped the sprint race, as my doctor and I decided the heavy impact would be too much of a risk. I was able to run the middle distance and the long distance painfree!!! What a great feeling… eventhough after the races my hip would get again quite sore, I think it's safe to say that this injury is slowly starting to belong to the past. I finished 8th in the middle distance and 4th in the long distance. Astonishingly I didn’t loose most of my time physically but I made too many mistakes. Fortunately, as I got selected for the World Champs, I can work hard to try to be amongst the worlds best in 5 weeks… the count down is running.
European Championships 2008 - Back to business and launching my webpage
2008-06-02
In the week from May 26th to June 1st we competed at the European Champs in Ventspils, Latvia. The tough coastal terrain and the toughest competition ever can best describe these races. Because of an injury I only participated in the middle distance and the relay.
Back to business:
The EOC were the first races for me after 6 weeks of frustration due to an injury. In mid May, I developed an overuse injury in my hip, and it was only shortly before our departure for the competitions that we decided I was healthy enough to compete again.
To stand at the start of the middle qualification was a great feeling. Having again a bib number on my chest made me feel like I found back to something I adore. But also I had great respect for this competition. Would my injured hip survive the race? Would I be able to find the competition rhythm? Well, I ran carefully in this demanding terrain and I managed not to do big mistakes like some other runners and lost only 55 seconds on the leader (Valentin Novikov) in our qualification heat and ended 7th…and my hip didn’t ache more in the evening: goal achieved.
Map here
The next day the middle distance final was scheduled in the same very technical terrain, but this time with harder course setting. Actually, the first 2/3 of the race was a swamp race where we had to find our way from little hill to little hill in green swamps. I never really got into a racing mode, having too much respect to make a mistake. And when I would want to speed up I would do some flaws and loose time. I finished 27th, 6:18 behind Thierry Gueorgiou the winner… not a great performance from me, but I survived… and taking in regard the last month this is already quite a step up.
Map here
We ended the EOC with the Relay. My team mates were David Schneider and Matthias Müller. I would run the 2nd leg. We counted that there are about 16 teams able to fight for the medals… us included. So we set ourselves the goal to be at least in the 12 best.
Well, not always do things go the way we would like it to happen. David struggled a lot in the sand dunes and came back 28th, 11min behind the lead. I tried a little bit too hard to make up time and didn’t run as clean as I should have, but I was still able to pull us up to the 23rd rank. Matthias finally came to the finish in the same position. At least the other Swiss team (Baptiste Rollier, Matthias Merz and Daniel Hubmann) did much better and finished 2nd.
Map here
Overall I can still look back on a successful week. I was able to compete in three races in a row and I feel like I am able to be back pretty soon in a similar technical and physical shape as I was before my injury.
It should not be forgotten to mention the remarkable runs from my team mates: Daniel Hubmann: 2nd in the Sprint and in the Long Distance, 4th in the middle distance. Matthias Merz 4th at the long distance and Baptiste Rollier 6th in long distance!