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.