Friday, April 29, 2011

3 weeks in Sweden – ready for 10mila

Maps from Rånässtafetten 3 weeks ago I moved to Lidingö, and the first period has gone fast, since I have been busy with moving into my apartment, working with hittaut.nu for Lidingö, training and running several competitions.

Maps from Stigtomtakavlen Except the weekend with SM Night and Sprint on Gotland I have stayed in the Stockholm area. Together with my club mates in IFK Lidingö I have been running the relays Rånässtafetten and Stigtomtakavlen, which have been good trainings before 10mila. I have also been able to do several orienteering trainings on different maps around the 10mila area. In the beginning I found the quite flat, stony and diffuse terrain around Stockholm difficult to both run and orienteer fast in. But last weekend I was able to do some good sessions here, since I was skipped the Elitserien in Jönköping, and now I feel a much better flow when I run in the terrain. In my DOMA you can find maps from all the races and some of the 10mila trainings.

Maps from 10mila training This weekend the big relay 10mila is held just south of Stockholm. I will run one of the last legs for IFK Lidingö. The atmosphere in the club is great, and I am looking forward to an exciting weekend. IFK Lidingö was last year 7th in the men’s class, and won the women’s class, so we have to perform our best to follow up these results. You can follow the whole relay live through 10mila’s online services.

Kvaal Østerbø blir «svensk», Adressa.no

Sunday, April 24, 2011

SM on Gotland

Pictures from SM on Gotland Last weekend I was running my first Swedish Championship, when the Night and Sprint where held on Gotland. The highlight for me was the Sprint held in the old city of Visby.

Maps from SM Night on Gotland Before the entry deadline I was not sure if I should enter for Friday’s night race, since I have only trained a few sessions with headlamp the last year. But I like night orienteering, and found it a good challenge to enter, sine I anyway was going there the whole weekend and the terrain on Gotland is quite special since it an island.

Maps from SM Night on Gotland On the Night race it was a really long leg to the first control, and even if I tried hard to keep a good direction I lost the control in the diffuse area just before the control. After searching for the control some minutes I went out to the road, and took the control from the opposite side after having lost more then 6 minutes. After the huge mistake I had lost the chance for a good position, and I was running in cruising speed the rest of the course. It went quite well until the map change, but in the end I started to be tired, and did some mistakes. When I finished I was told by the organizer that I was disqualified, since I had punched the control just west of the first control I should have had. All in all a really bad night race for me, even if the area was cool. Oleksandr Kratov won, as he also did last year. Results and GPS tracking

Maps from SM Sprint Qual on Gotland The Sprint Qualification on Saturday was in a nice area just North of Visby centre. Unfortunately most of the course was really boring, with only a few interesting legs, and not many route choices. I did a clean race in “qualification speed”, and finished on 2nd place in my heat, 8 seconds behind Patrik Karlsson. ). Results and splits

Maps from SM Sprint Final on Gotland Sunday’s Sprint Final was held mainly in the old city of Visby. It was several route choices and many narrow streets. I was satisfied with my race, but think I lost a few seconds on my route choice to the 2nd, 4th and 11th control. Jerker Lysell won, and I came on 4th place, 15 seconds behind. My running speed was OK, but I felt more tired than I had hoped, so maybe it would have been smart to skip the night race (like the 3 runners beating me did). Results, splits and GPS tracking