DAY 8: 100km and - my birthday

The 8th day of the worlds started with overcast skies and quite a bit of wind too, so pilots were not all that enthusiastic. Up on take off, I was very moved when Aldo sang a Mexican birthday song for me, and it was overwhelming to get so many good wishes, hugs, and nice notes on facebook, email and sms from all over the world. This good spirit must have carried me, because on my birthday, I found the nicest thermals of the whole competition!
It cleared up and nice cu´s developed, with a great cloud base to work with. My big birthday wish was obvious - I wanted EVERYBODY, every single pilot in goal and happy, with a good landing. And for myself, I just wished for thermals in which I could fly a whole circle in climb. I found quite a few of those and managed to stay with the lead gaggle for half the course, which felt good. Must have been all the well wishes carrying me up in the air!
Then the clouds shaded our way back to goal, and I hit a head wind as well.
Only about 15 pilots were lucky, and two of them not quite so lucky, as they suffered a hard landing. While I turned around in the air for the big field, visiting the "lucky piglet" who thinks she´s a sheep and eats grass, there were some accidents around us. I´m in the safety committee here, and I can´t stop thinking of which mistakes we made with the task setting, trying to make it as safe as can be every day. Even some of the most experienced, excellent pilots have destroyed some material or skin here. It hurts me if my friends get injured, and these guys are more friends than competitors. It also hurts me to see the organizers suffering, because they do their best to make it a safe event. Ambulance, rescue team and helicopter are working extremely fast for us, that is at least one positive aspect.

Gerd from my team won the day and was happy that he finally scored really high. Christian Ciech is still in 1st overall.

In the evening, I had planned to cook dinner for my team, but I was too tired to walk out to get some food for cooking. When Jeff, our retrieve and everything organizer, asked me if there will be Mariachi and mud wrestling tonight for my birthday, I just smirked and said it would probably just turn into pizza. Brenda surprised me and the team with a beautiful, delicious birthday cake (chocolate, banana and peanut butter). When she was just ordering some pizza for delivery, Jeffo entered our house with ONE METER of VEGGIE PIZZA! That was the surprise of the evening, and absolute perfect timing too!