Monday, August 27, 2012

SM Sprint in Gävle

Last weekend I competed in the Swedish Championship in Sprint held in Gävle.

In Saturdays Qualification I wanted to get  a good feeling, and started almost as offensive as I wanted to do in the Final. I did a good performance, and won my qualification heat. Results

Godt sprintløp ga Kvaal Østerbø seier, orientering.no

Sundays final went also well, and my only real mistakes was that I lost about 5 seconds on my route choices to the 1st and 18th control. My result was a shared 4th place, behind Jerker Lysell, Jonas Leandersson and William Lind. I was 25 seconds from the gold and 5 seconds from a medal. Results and GPS tracking 

Kinneberg med nytt SM-gull, Kvaal Østerbø nummer 4, orientering.no

After all the health problems I had during the spring I am now really happy that I have been able to train well for a longer period, and that I am very close to some of the best sprint runners in the World when I do an almost clean technical races.

The Nordic Orienteering Tour are starting in Oslo on Saturday, and I am looking forward to 5 exciting races on Norway, Sweden and Finland. NORT is also the final for this seasons World Cup

- Vi sender hele Nordic Tour "live", orientering.no

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

NC Sprint and NM Ultralong in Steinkjer

Last weekend a Sprint race in the Norwegian Cup and the Norwegian Champs in Ultralong was arranged in Steinkjer.

The Sprint was held in the city center, and I had a good run. My result was a 2nd place, 17 seconds behind Olav Lundanes. The race was also the final in the new Norwegian Cup in sprint orienteering, where I also finished 2nd, behind Olav. Results and GPS tracking

The Ultralong was held in a very nice terrain, with open and quite dry marches. The first 50 min of the race was the toughest, with a lot of climbing until we reached the highest peak on the map on the 7th control. I did mainly a good race, without any control mistakes. I lost some time on a few legs (most to the 17th control), when I was not running the optimal route, but was able to keep a stable speed the whole course, and was satisfied when I finished the 24 km long course after 2h 42 min. Olav won again with solid margin, and I finished in 5th position. Results and GPS tracking

Lundanes og Fasting med seier i Steinkjer, orientering.no
Godt debutår, men mer å hente, orientering.no
Lundanes med klart NM-gull på ultralang, orientering.no

Last week I was also selected in the Norwegian team to the Nordic Orienteering Tour that will be arranged with 5 races in Norway, Sweden and Finland the first week in September. NORT also count as the World Cup Final this season.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

O-ringen in Halmstad

After WOC in Switzerland I travelled directly to Halmstad, south west in Sweden, where I competed in the O-ringen 5 days.

The 1st stage was a Middle distance. I was still tired after the WOC banquet and the travel from Switzerland the previous day. My performance was OK, except a 1 min time loss because I passed the wrong bridge to the 14th control. My result was a 30th place, 3 min behind Olav Lundanes.

The 2nd stage was also a Middle distance, this time held close to the coast in a quite flat and fast terrain. I did several 15 - 20 seconds mistakes, but held almost the same speed as the fastest runners, and finished on a 8th place, 2 min behind Olav and Thierry Gueorgiou, who shared the victory. Overall I advanced to a 12th place.

The 3rd stage was a Sprint in the center of Halmstad. I lost some seconds because I was a bit passive on the first legs, and on the long leg over the river I lost about 10 seconds compared to the right route choice. The rest of the race went well, and I finished in a 7th position, 27 seconds behind Jonas Leandersson. (Jerker Lysell was 34 seconds faster, but was disqualified for passing a forbidden wall.)

The 4th stage was a Long distance just North of Halmstad. I did several smaller and bigger mistakes in the beginning of the race, and in the part from the 7th to the 11th control I lost more than 3 minutes. To the 12th control Gustav Bergman caught me up. He helped me to increase my speed, and even if I lost contact with him I managed to keep a good speed and be more offensive in my orienteering the rest of the race. My result was a 13th place, 8 min behind Olav.

On the 5th and last stage I started as 11th runner in the chasing start. On the 2nd control I caught Erik Rost and Kalvis Mihailovs who had started 20 - 30 seconds in front of me. We were running mostly together for a while, but didn't keep so high speed, and did also some smaller mistakes. To the 15th control we where caught by a big group of William Lind, Olle Kalered, Mattias Karlsson, Johan Modig, Ola Martner and Erik Liljequist. On the long leg to the 19th control we split up, and I was choosing the road to the left. I think it was a pretty good option, and I think the 30-40 seconds I lost to William and the other guys running more straight was mostly because they had a higher running speed. I never managed to catch the runners who got a gap on the long leg, and could finish as 12th runner. An OK result taking into consideration my preparations, but I was still a bit disappointed since it was only 1 minute up to the 6th place, and 3 minutes to the 3rd place. Overall results

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Summary of WOC in Lausanne

My WOC ended almost before it started, since I didn't qualify for the Sprint Final, after beeing 1 second too slow in the Qualification. It was with mixed feelings I watched the Final, where Simone Niggli-Luder and Matthias Kyburz showed great performances. I tried to not follow the tracking on the big screen, because I wanted to run through the course the next day.

Sunday Emil Wingsted (Norwegian sprint coach) and I woke up at 6 o'clock to run the course before breakfast. I ran from our accommodation and did the Qualification course as a warm up, so we had been running 12 km before we started on the Final course. I did a good performance, with mainly good route choices and no really mistakes. Physical I didn't feel to fresh, but was able to push quite hard the whole course. My time was 16.28 and showed me that I could have fighted for a top 6 position, but it would have been really hard to win a medal, that was my goal before the season.

Monday Ulf Forseth Indgaaard and I drove to Champery, where we walked/climbed a Via Ferrata. It was not the most challenging, but a nice trip. Pictures from Via Ferrata in Champery.

Tuesday Ulf, Hans Gunnar Omdal and I ran from the arena for the Middle Final to the highest peak in the area, before we watched the race. It was cool that Latvia got their first WOC gold when Edgars Bertuks won. After the race Ulf and I ran through the course. I was quite tired after being out in the sun the whole day, but did a stable technical performance.

Wednesday Carl Waaler Kaas joined me and Ulf for a new Via Ferrata trip. This time we went to Leysin, and a route with a nicer view. Pictures from Via Ferrata in Leysin.

Thursday  I watched the Long Final, where Olav Lundanes showed up an outstanding performance when he won the gold. After the race I ran from the arena back to our accommodation at the youth hostel in Lausanne. It was a great place to stay during WOC, since it lived around 15 other nations there, and it was just a few hundred meters for the lake.

Friday I wanted to test my shape by running a 3000 m on track. I had hoped to get some other to help me keep up the speed, but ended up running along. After having the splits 2.53 - 2.57 - 3.01 I finished on the time 8.51. That tells me that my shape unfortunately is not as good at it was when I got my PB on 8.29 in February, after being 3 weeks in Kenya. That was not surprisingly since I was sick for 3 weeks in the beginning of June, and I'm quite satisfied that my shape has improved as much as it has the last weeks. I guess I could have been running 10 seconds faster now, and of course it helps to train in track, like I did during the winter, and to run in a strong field.

Saturday I watched the Relays, where Norway won bronze in the women's class and silver in the men's class. When Norway didn't manage to win the men's class it was really nice that the Czech team won the gold medals. In the evening the Banquet ended a great WOC week in Lausanne. Pictures from WOC in Lausanne.

Sunday I traveled to Halmstad in Sweden, where I last week competed in the O-ringen 5 days. I did 5 stable performances, and finished 12th overall. I will write some words form O-ringen later this week, but you can already now watch my maps in my DOMA.