Portugal O-Meeting

The last four days I have competed in Portugal O-Meeting close to Viseu in the north in Portugal.

Saturday it started with two races in one day. The first was a Long distance race held in the morning, which I was running at easy speed. The terrain was hilly and partly very stony.

In the evening the first highlight of POM was arranged, with a Night sprint in the old city of Viseu, which was a perfect place for a sprint. The race went well, but I hesitated a few seconds some places to avoid doing mistakes. My result was a shared 2nd place with Mathias Merz. Severin Howald did an impressive race, and won clearly.

Sunday it was a Middel distance race I was running in easy to moderate speed. In the evening we did corridor training.

Monday was the other highlight of POM, a Middle distance World Ranking Event. The terrain had a lot of small rock details, and partly dense vegetation, which made it quite tricky. I was quite tired physically, but it went OK technically until the 12th control. When I passed the arena I had the chance to get a top 10 position, but I missed the 19th control with 3 minutes, and did also some other mistakes.

Today POM was ended with a Long distance chasing start. I ran the course in easy speed. The terrain was not as nice as yesterday, and the green was really bad. It was difficult to read from the map where you could run or not. I lost much time several places. Thierry and Simone won POM overall.

You can find maps from all the races in my Digital Orienteering Map Archive.

Tomorrow we are driving one hour west, to the coast, where we will train in pine forest and sand dunes. It will be a nice change from the stony terrain we have met on POM the last days. It is really nice to be on training camp together with as much as 20 other runners from my club IFK Lidingö, and we are having great fun together.

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.

Zanzibar

My last five days in Africa I decided to spend on Zanzibar, where my friend Mårten Boström is working as a GIS and Database Professional Officer for one year. Sine Zanzibar in only a one hour flight from Nairobi I found this a good chance to visit him and get some nice days there at the end of my trip. Zanzibar is a Tanzanian island at the east coast of Africa, and is known for being a holiday paradise with nice beaches. Mårten is aiming to qualify for the Finish team to the marathon in this summer’s Olympic Games in London, so I was also guaranteed a good training mate.

I travelled together with Niklas Serrander and we arrived late Tuesday after spending most of the day on safari in Nakuru. We were lucky and were able to find his penthouse apartment, even if we showed up one day too early and didn’t have his exact address or locale mobile number. Since it is hot and high air density on Zanzibar Mårten is having his first training at 6 am when the sun is coming up, exactly as we had in Kenya. The second training is normal starting 5 – 6 pm, so he has finished before it gets dark 7 pm.

Wednesday we spent some hours in the old city, Stone Town, which is on the UNESCO’s World Heritage list. It was a challenge to find all the food we wanted for barbequing in the evening, and we ended up with scampi and a lot of vegetables and fruits. I was also running two times 50 minutes with Mårten from his place. In the morning on paths in a forest and in the evening along the beach.

Thursday started with a 10 000 m on track before breakfast. I helped Mårten keeping the right speed, and took a break two times so I ended up running 5000 + 2000 + 2000 m. After the training we went to dolphin safari, where we were able to snorkel just a few meters from the dolphins.

Friday started with a 24 km long progressive run before breakfast. After a short warm up we started running 4.20 min/km, and ended with the pace 3.35. The rest of the day Niklas and I spent on spice safari, where we learned about all the different spices and fruits growing on Zanzibar, before we visited a nice beach. In the evening we got massage before we were eating dinner in Stone Town.

Saturday started with a morning run on the beach, and after breakfast Niklas and I was running a middle distance course from the Zanzibar O-day held in connection with a trip organized by Janne Salmi two weeks earlier. Because the tide was higher then drawn on the map we were running with water high up on our legs more then half the course. (Unfortunately I did not bring my camera during the training since I wanted to keep focus on the orienteering.) After lunch we drove to the east coast of the island and went snorkelling for a few hours. It was very cool, even if we did not see as many fish’s as expected. The day ended with a run along the beach and dinner on an Ethiopian restaurant in Stone Town.

Sunday started with sprint orienteering in Stone Town, which was a nice challenge with all the narrow streets full of people, bikes and mopeds. I was running 3 different sprint courses, with a few minutes break between each. The map Mårten had made held really high quality. After breakfast Niklas and I went on a boat trip to Prison Island, where they had turtles and some nice beaches. The day was ended with barbequing, but unfortunately I got fever so I took an early night and the travel home the following day was a bit tough.

As you can see in my picture gallery it was some really nice days on Zanzibar, filled with a lot of different activities, and I would like to thank Mårten and his wife Matleena for the hospitality and all help during the stay.

The last week in Kenya and safari in Nakuru

After training on high altitude in Eldoret in Kenya a bit more then 3 weeks I left the place to spend the last days of January on Zanzibar. (More about the days on Zanzibar will come later.)

On the way from Eldoret to Nairobi Niklas Serrander and I stopped in Nakuru, and went on safari in the Lake Nakuru National Park for about five hours.

It was exciting to see the animals on close hold out in the nature, and we were able to see buffalo, monkey, zebra, rhino, giraffe, antilope, pelicans and many other birds and smaller animals.

I have made a new picture gallery with 65 photos from the safari.

I was really satisfied with my training during the 3 weeks I stayed I Eldoret, and was able to run much more than I have ever done before; 193 + 204 + 180 km. The last week I started to be tired, and had to take a day with only one running session after some of the intensive sessions. Anyway I felt strong during the whole period, but think 3 week was enough if I should be able to train with the quality and quantity I did during my stay in Eldoret.

Before I went to Kenya I had hoped to be able to climb a big mountain. To Mt. Kenya (5199 m.a.s.l.), the second highest peak in Africa, it would take at least 7 hours drive each way, plus 2 – 4 days to climb the mountain. Mt. Elgon (4321 m.a.s.l.) was just a few hours drive from Eldoret, but since it was not any huts close to the peak we would have needed to bring a tent if we did not managed to take the whole trip in one day. I decided it would be to though or take to many days to climb a mountain this time, but guess I will try to climb Mt. Kenya in the end of my stay next time I am coming back to Kenya.