Thursday, March 31, 2011

MOC on sunny Sicily

Maps from MOC on Sicily MOC Last weekend I continued the trip on Sicily by competing in the Mediterranean Orienteering Championship south east on the island. Two sprint races and one middle distance were counting in the overall competition, and Gabriele Viale and his team organized again a great event in the south of Italy.

Pictures from MOC on Sicily In my new Digital Orienteering Map Archive you can find most of my maps with route choices, and in my picture gallery a lot of pictures from the whole week on Sicily.

The first race was a sprint in the historical centre of Sciacca, witch is relevant for the WOC Final in Chambery. I did a good race, without any mistakes, and won in front of Audun Weltzien and Daniel Hubmann.

Pictures from MOC on SicilyMaps from MOC on Sicily The second race was a sprint in the previous city Gibellina, that was totally damaged by an earthquake in 1968. Parts of the old city had been build up, and formed now a labyrinth we entered two times during the course. Audun Weltzien did a good race and won in front of Jerker Lysell. Daniel Hubmann was unfortunately disqualified because of a miss punch, and out of the overall competition.

Maps from MOC on SicilyPictures from MOC on Sicily The third and last race was a middle distance in the coast city Selinunte, and parts of the course was in some archaeologically ruins. I lost in total 3 minutes in the green area around the 7th and 8th control, and finished on a 3rd place. Audun Weltzien won both the last race and MOC overall clearly, while Annika Billstam won the women’s class overall.

Pictures from MOC on Sicily Results: Sprint 1, Sprint 2, Middle and Overall
Norsk dobbeltseier på Sicilia, Orienteering.no
Weltzien vant andre løp i MOC, Orienteering.no
- Godt fornøyd med tre solide løp, Orienteering.no
Rapport fra MOC på Sicilia, Orienteering.no
Overlegen MOC-seier til Weltzien, OPN.no

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Successful MOC Sprint Camp on Sicily

Pictures from MOC on SicilyMaps from MOC on Sicily I have now been 4 days on Sicily, and done 8 good trainings during the MOC Sprint Camp organized by Janne Salmi.

In my new Digital Orienteering Map Archive you can find maps from all the trainings and in my picture gallery some pictures from the first four days.

The coming weekend the Mediterranean Orienteering Championship will be held, with two sprint races and a middle distance.

God matching og relevant trening, Orienteering.no

Monday, March 21, 2011

Ready for MOC on Sicily

Yesterday I was travelling to the Italian island Sicily, where the Mediterranean Orienteering Championship will be organized this week.

From Monday to Thursday I will participate in MOC Sprint Camp, a training camp organized by former Finish National team Coach and World Champion Janne Salmi. I will be several good trainings, with mainly focus on sprint, since it is a lot of old cities there which are perfect for sprint orienteering. But it will also be trainings in different types of forest, and a long run to the top of the volcano Mt. Etna.

Unfortunately we are only a few runners from Norway, but it will be a lot of other international runners participating, among them Daniel Huhmann and parts of the Swiss and Swedish National team.

Friday to Sunday the Mediterranean Orienteering Championship will be held, with two sprint races and a middle distance. I have never been on Sicily before, so I am looking forward to discover the island and running orienteering in warm weather again.

Here you can watch a video of me training in Matera during the MOC Camp 2008:


MOC Sprint Tour på Sicilia, OPN.no

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Lidingö - Trondheim

After I came home from Turkey in the end of February I stayed one week on Lidingö, where I am going to move in the beginning of April. I were training together with my new club IFK Lidingö every day, and had a really good week, including several long runs, intervals, strength and speed training. I did also my first session with cross country skiing in Stockholm.

When I was on Lidingö I also got more info about the work I will do for the club. I will work 50 % as project leader for organizing hittaut.nu on Lidingö. I am responsibly for making a huge orienteering map covering the whole island. The map will have around 100 permanent controls, and will both be distributed to all the 40.000 people living on Lidingö, and be available on the website hittaut.nu. I have several competent persons to help me with the project, so it will hopefully work well.

The last week I have been home in Trondheim, where is has been great conditions for cross country skiing. After several weeks with almost only running, it was good for my legs to do some alternative training. Skisporet.no is a great web page, developed by former WOC relay champion Bernt Bjørnsgaard, showing when the major ski tracks have been made.

Thursday was a fantastic day, with sunshine, fresh snow and perfect tracks, and I was skiing through most parts of both Bymarka and Leinstrandmarka, in total more than three and half hour and 50 km. It is nice to again could ski from Granåsen in the south east part of Bymarka, since it was totally embargoed the four years before WOC 2010. Anyway I am doing most of my skiing in Strindamarka, since it is less than 5 minutes drive from my home (and not as much as 10 minutes, as it is to Granåsen). Next week I will hopefully also explore the tracks in Malvikmarka, where the WOC qualifications where held, and Klæbu.

Yesterday I was competing in my first (and only) ski-orienteering race this season on Kvikne, 120 km south of Trondheim. The Norwegian Ski-o Team had their last training camp before the World Champs held in Sweden in the end of March, and Harald Svergja had made a nice network of tracks used for an open race. The conditions were challenging, since it was possible to make short cuts between the tracks in the down hills. Most of my race went quite well, even if I missed the specific training for skiing in narrow scooter tracks. But after half of the second loop I broke one of my skies, lost more than 3 minutes on the last part, and finished 5 minutes behind Lars Moholdt.

When it is good conditions I find ski-orienteering even more fun than orienteering, and I have missed doing more competitions this winter. But since my main focus at the moment is orienteering I have tried to run as much as possible this winter, and therefore I will go to MOC on Sicily the last week in March, and not compete in the Ski-o WOC in Tänndalen, just 3 hours drive from Trondheim.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Antalya in Turkey

Pictures from Turkey Maps from Turkey Last week I was in Antalya in Turkey on my first training camp with my new club IFK Lidingö. This was my first time in Turkey, and the total impression of orienteering in Turkey was really positive.

The first four days we were training in area around the big city Antalya. The maps were mainly good, and the terrains variables from stony detailed terrains to areas with great runability.

There where at least 50 orienteers on training camp in Antalya, and we got competition from Bækkelaget, Turun Metsänkävijät and some other Finish and Russian runners on the two relay trainings we were running.

Pictures from Turkey The two last days we were driving one hour east to the holiday village Side, where we were running the first two days of Antalya O-days.

In the Middle distance I was running in moderate speed since it has been a tough training camp, and I came 6 minutes behind Valentin Novikov, who won in front of my team mates Jonn Are Myhren and Klaus Schgaguler.

Map from Sprint in Side The Sprint was held in a mix of sand dunes, ruins and an old city centre. I was satisfied with my performance, except a 30 sec mistake to the 10th control, and came 4th, 23 seconds behind Tue Lassen.

The maps for the competitions were unfortunately not as good as during the trainings, and were partly the reason several runners did mistakes.

Pictures from Turkey It was nice to be able to know my 15 of my new team mates from IFK Lidingö better during the week in Turkey, and my impression of the club is really good. It is a great atmosphere, and several runners are training very well. After I came home from Turkey I have stayed on Lidingö this week, where I have done a lot of good training and got more info about my new work.

In my DOMA you can find maps from some of the trainings and all races with my route choices.