New PB on 3000 m and TC in Skåne

The first Sunday in February I tested my shape in an indoor 3000 m race in Stockholm. It went well, and I was able to keep a stable speed of 2.50 min/km the whole race. I finished on the time 8.29,89, new personal best with 11 seconds. It was a great feedback after the period in Kenya with a lot of running. Results and article on orientering.no

Last week I spent on a training camp with the Norwegian National Team in Åhus in Skåne, south east in Sweden. The training camp was in cooperation with the Swedes, and it was also open for runners outside the national groups, so it was a lot of runners there. It was a few cm of snow, but it was no problem to run in the forest and get good technical trainings. Most of the sessions we had in the pine forest terrains close to Åhus, that are relevant for EOC in Dalarna, but we were also running in Degeberga and Blekinge, which is more relevant for WOC in Switzerland.

Tuesday we had a running test in the terrain, where we ran the same loop three times. I managed to keep a quite stable speed, and had the best time in the Norwegian team.

Thursday we participated in a local night cup with mass start. Everybody was not running the same course so it was not 100 % fair, but it worked quite good to split up the big start field. I came a bit behind the first runners in the beginning, and had problems to get up in the lead, partly because of long forkings. But on the long leg to the third last control most of the runners in front of me ran too much to the left and misses the path, and I could advance to a third place. To the last control I ran to a wrong stone, lost 5-10 seconds, and was passed by several runners. I finished as 6th runner, 18 seconds behind Oleksandr Kratov. Results and splits

Friday evening we were running a sprint from our accommodation on Åhus Strand, before we could relax in the sauna and hot tube.

Sunday the training camp was ended with a mass start race, with two loops and a lot of forking. Unfortunately my performance was bad, but in total it was a good training camp, and it was nice to run a lot of orienteering again after having only focused on the physical training during the period in Kenya in January. Pictures from Åhus

All maps in my Digital Orienteering Map Archive disappeared for some reason before Christmas, but I have now been able to upload the maps from 2011, and have also added some of the maps from 2012. (I will probably add more of the maps from Skåne later.)

Yesterday I travelled to Portugal, where I will stay for two week. The first week together with my club IFK Lidingö and the second week with the Norwegian National Team. The coming days Portugal O-Meeting will be arranged in Viseu, 300 km north east of Lisboa. POM has a though program, with 5 races in 4 days, but I will only run Saturdays Night Sprint and Mondays Middle distance World Ranking Event in full speed. The start field is really strong, with several National Teams and clubs participating as part of their training camps.