Tuesday, September 10, 2013

WOC 2014 training in Italy

Last week I spent on a training camp with the Norwegian National Team in Asiago in Italy, preparing for the World Orienteering Championships held in july next summer.

In total I did 7 trainings in forest, 3 sprint trainings and one easy run to a peak in the mountains. The weather was great, the spirit in the team good and we had in total a really nice training week in the Italian mountains.

I have not uploaded my maps to DOMA yet, but you can find most of the maps on Silje Ekroll Jahren's homepage.

One of the days we spent in Venice, where the WOC Sprint Final will be arranged. As a second training that day I ran most of the Women's Elite course from the Venice Orienteering Meeting arranged in 2009. To the left you can see my competition map from the race. (The embargoed area for WOC is east of my map + the area north of the 23nd control.)

In my Picasa you find pictures from the whole week in Italy. Most of them are from Venice.

At the moment I'm having some easy days, before the Norwegian Championships on Kongsberg starts on Thursday. Long distance, Middle Qual and Final, and Relay will be held 4 days in row, so it will be a though weekend.

Friday, September 6, 2013

MNM and Norwegian mountains

In the end of August I spent one and a half week in the middle part of Norway. The first weekend I compeeted in the regional championship held a few hours drive south of Trondheim.

Friday’s sprint was held in Røros, where I ran my first WC race (in 2002, finishing 6th). Unfortenately the race this year was not held in the historical centre (on the UNESCO list), but in a combination of a slope with forest and a desert (the biggest in North Europe). Not that type of terrain I prefer for a sprint, and also a too long course, but still a nice race. I did mainly a good perforformance, but lost the lead to the last control, and finished 3rd, 5 seconds behind Magne Dæhli.

Saturday’s Long distance was held in a interesting area east of Os, with several different types of terrain, but tougher physical than it looks like because of undervegetation und rough ground. I did OK in the beginning, except a huge (2.30 min) mistake to the 7th control because I didn't trust my orienteering and stopped 30 m before the control. The last half of the course I was very tired, and did also several mistakes in the area from the 24th to the 28th control. Bjørn Ekeberg won, and I came 8th, far behind.

Sunday I skipped the relay (held on yesterdays map, but in a partly different area), and did in stead a long run from Røros, throgh Møllmansdalen, and over the mountain to the arena of the race. I did also parts of a relay course as training, and was in totalt running 33 km in 3 h 30 min. Pictures from MNM.

The first part of last week I spent in Trondheim, before I went to the mountains for some days. Wednesdays evening we drove to Rondane, and walked to Ronvassbu. Thuesday we hiked to the top of Rindeslottet (2179 m.a.s.l.). It was nice, and not too though. Pictures from Rondeslottet.

In the evening we drove to Turtagrø, and Friday we hoped to climb Store Skagadølstind, Norways third highest peak (2405 m.a.s.l.). The weather was nice and we got a great hike. But because you shold have climbing equipment, it was some ice one the rocks, and clouds on the skies we skipped trying to get to the highest peak, and turned after the North peak. The view was anyway great, as you can see on the pictures from Skagadølstind.

This week I'm on WOC 2014 training camp in Italy with the Norwegian team, and I will hopefully make an update in the beginning of next week.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Colombia - New York

After World Games in Cali I stayed one extra week in Colombia to explore more of the country. I was traveling together with the four Czech runners the whole week, and also the Norwegian coach Petter Thoresen the first days.

It was difficult to decide what we should do since Colombia is a huge country, Cali is not the most touristic part of it, and we only had 6 days. I could have liked to go to some of the high mountains (more than 5000 m.a.s.l.), but it was a bit complicated and dangerous. It could also have been nice to go the the Caribbean coast, but then we needed to fly some hours North.

The day after the relay and closing ceremony we decided to head West to the Pacific coast, and took a bus to Buenaventura. The plan was to continue directly with boat one hour North to a beach resort, since Buenaventura is seen on as one of the most dangerous cities in Colombia because most of the cocaine is shipped out from there. But the last boat had departed when we arrived, and we had to stay in Buenaventura for a night. That went fine, and we felt totally safe.

The next day we took the first boat to Juanchaco/Ladrilleros. It was a nice place, even if it's not the same standard as we have home, and I found it quite similar to Kenya and Zanzibar, where I was two years ago. We took it quite easy and enjoyed life. I tried wave surfing, that as expected was difficult. We also went for whale watching.

After two days we took the boat back to Buenaventura, and bus to Lake Calima, that is the best place for wind surfing in Colombia. I tried kite surfing, and learned how to handle the kite after two hours with a guide.

After two days with Lake Calima we headed back to Cali, and stayed there the last night. The city was now more quiet when during World Games. All people we meet in Colombia was very friendly and more open mined then I'm used to from home. But before I go back to South America next time I will try to learn some spanish, because that makes it much more easy to communicate with people. Pictures from the holiday in Colombia.

On my way back to Europe I had a two day stop in New York City. I have never been there before, and found this a good time to take a stopover, since I anyway had to change flight. New York was as expected a fascinating city, with a lot of opportunities. I was staying on central Manhattan, and tried to see  the most famous tourist attractions like Central Park, Empire State Building, Central Terminal, Rockefeller Center, the Statue of Liberty, Broadway, Times Square and Maddison Square Garden.

I did also two long runs in Central Park. The first run was more sightseeing and I took a lot of pictures. During the last run I did a 10 km long orienteering course. I could of course spent more days in NY, but I will save that for next time I'm coming back, then hopefully not traveling alone. Pictures from New York.