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.

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.

World Games in Cali - Thoughts about terrains and general impressions

Yesterday I was writing about the World Games races held in Cali in Colombia the first week of August. The races was not the success I had hoped for, but World Games was still a great memory for me. Today I will start with some thoughts about the maps/terrains and than continue with some general impressions from the whole World Games in Cali. 

Maps and courses
I have seen some people complaining about the courses in World Games, and also other international events held the previous years. The main goal with an international event is not necessarily to serve the runners as difficult courses as possible in a nice untouched forest, but to show up the sport.

It's also very individual what type of terrain different runners prefer. Runners who only prefer to run in a specific type of terrain can stay home, or go to smaller races in terrains they like. But as an elite runner on international level you should be able to handle all type of terrains. I can admit that the terrains used for World Games was not the most interesting, but it was probably the best you could find in Cali, and it was still challenging and you needed to run fast, make good route choices and avoid doing mistakes.

If we want orienteering to be a global sport we can't have all big events in for example Scandinavian forest. Someone will always think a course is too easy or too difficult, too long or too short, or the the terrain has too good runnability or are too bushy or stony. But if we want orienteering to grow as a sport we have to think positive and see opportunities, and not just complain about all that we don't like.

Other sports
During World Games we where also able to watch some of the other sports, such as trampoline and acrobatic gymnastics, canoe polo, rugby, korfball and beach handball.

We were eating most meals in a big tent where they served food for all athletes, and it was cool to watch the different type of  body the athletes in different sports had.

Norway won bronze medal in the women's beach handball, and we were able to watch the finals together with them. Brazil won not surprisingly for both men and women.

Closing Cermony
Even if the orienteering competitions was the most imported of World Games, the closing ceremony is my best memory from Cali.

It started with that all the athletes entered the big stadium with a capacity of 50.000 spectators, and after some speeched is became a great party, with a combination of performances by some of the biggest artists in Colombia, among them Carlos Vives, and dancing.

After the 3 hours long closing ceremony, we were some athletes who manged to enter the party for the 3500 volunteers, before we continued to a salsa club. The locals was very friendly the whole week, and glad to try to teach us salsa and other Latin American dances.

After World Games I stayed one week longer in Colombia on holiday, and I will write some word about that later.

World Games in Cali - The races

The first week in August I participated in World Games arranged in Cali in Colombia. Before the event I was writing about what World Games is:
- On my way to World Games in Colombia
- Miami - Cali 

In this post I will write about each of the races, and tomorrow I will continue with some thoughts about the maps/terrains and some general impressions from the whole World Games in Cali.
 
Sprint - DSQ
The first race was the Sprint, that was held in a mix of park and street area. It was not any big challenges, and mainly to choose right or left, and run as fast as possible. I was not feeling so fresh as I had hoped, and lost some time because of my running speed the whole course.

At the 18th control I held the 11th position. But to the 19th control I had a bad direction, came too much to the right and lost 20 seconds. On the last control I did not get any electronically punching, even if the spectators could see that I punched normally with my SI card, and I was disqualified from a possible 18th position. This is the first time I have been disqualified for a missing punch, even if it has been a problem with Sport Ident for many years, and I' can just be glad it has not happed to me before and that it was not a top performance I was disqualified from this time. Matthias Kyburz and Annika Billstam won, while Anne M. Hausken Nordberg won a silver medal to Norway. Results, splits and GPS tracking.

Middle - 13th place
The Middle distance was held in a forest area along a river, and nobody knew exactly what we could expect before the race. The forest was mainly quite dense, and it was smart to use the paths as much as possible, even if it was OK to run through the forest some places.

I was running pretty well the first half of the race, and at the map exchange I held the 7th position, 45 sec behind Matthias Kyburz. But in the end I did five 10 - 30 seconds mistakes, and ended up in 13th position. Kyburz won clearly, but it was positive to see that I was not more than one minute from the silver medal. Results, splits and GPS tracking.

Relay - DSQ
The Mixed Sprint Relay was held in partly the same area as the Middle, but had also a part with more parkland. Norway had a strong team, and was in my opinion among five teams who had a good chance to win a medal.

Carl Kaas and Mari Fasting sent me out on the 3rd leg in 5th position, 1 min behind the leading group. I did an OK performance, except to the 6th control, where I according to the GPS tracking lost 40 seconds since I passed my control with a few meters and visited an other forking before I went back to my control. I don't like to complain about forkings, but as you can see in the GPS tracking it's quite big differences in length, and unfortunately I had the longest most places. M. Kyburz was able to give Switzerland a huge lead, but we were still in 5th position, and the other team was within one minute in front of us.

Anne M. Hausken Nordberg did a good last leg, and finished as 2nd runner, but unfortunately we were disqualified since Mari had visited a wrong control. It was the 6th control, the same as I missed, and also Sweden, Great Britan and Czech Republic was disqualified for exactly the same! So it went out to be easier then expected to win a medal, and Austria was definitively the most happy team, winning the bronze, their first ever relay medal in an international championship. Results and GPS tracking.

IOF's World Games page has results, splits and GPS tracking from all the races. In my Picasa album you can find more than 250 pictures from the whole World Games week in Cali.

Miami - Cali

On my way to World Games in Colombia I decided to take a two days long stop in Miami. Even if I have been traveling quite much in my life I have never been in North or South America, and I found this a good time to visit USA, since it would split up the long travel and at the same time I would get some more days with acclimatization to the new time zone and climate with high density.

I was staying at Miami Beach, and took it quite easy. I did some shorter runs, relaxed on the beach and visited some shops and restaurants in the city. My hotel was in the Art Deco District, as you can see on the buildings on some of my pictures.

Tuesday my traveled continued to Cali in Colombia, and I met the others from the Norwegian World Games team. Wednesday we did a short run from the hotel (highest building in town) and relax a bit. Before dinner we watched some other sport, as you can see on my pictures. The security is taken very serious here, with a lot of police men everywhere, but all local people we have meet have been really friendly to us.

Today we have been on the Model Event. It was close to the area for tomorrows sprint race, but no very interesting, as you can see on the map. Model Events is often quite boring, since they save the best areas for the races, but shows how the map is drawn.

You can follow the events live with video streaming and GPS tracking on IOF's World Games page. The sprint starts 17.00 CET on Friday.

Last week I answered some questions for the IOF site, and today I was answering questions in the IOF live chat together with Matthias Kyburz and Maja Alm

On my way to World Games in Colombia

The coming weekend I'm going to compete in World Games in Cali in Colombia. World Games is a huge event with in total 4500 participants from 101 different nations competing in 31 different sports. It’s a sort of Olympic Games for Non Olympic Sports.

Together with the World Champs held in Finland some weeks ago World Games is the highlight of the season, and something I have been looking forward to for a long time. Since it's only arrange every 4th year, and that orienteering is part of such an huge event, I find it very special.

The program is as following:

• Friday 2nd August: Sprint
• Saturday 3rd August: Middle distance
• Sunday 4th August: Mixed Relay

Jakter medalje i Colombia, orientering.no

I have competed in World Games two times earlier, and it was a great experience both times.

World Games 2005 was held in Duisburg in Germany. It went really well for me and I finished 3rd in the Middle distance, beaten by Thierry Gueorgiou and Daniel Hubmann. In the relay I finished first on the first leg.

On my old homepage you can read more and find links to all the maps. As you can se on the pictures we were also on the Opening Ceremony and watching some other sports.

World Games 2009 was arranged in Kaohsiung in Taiwan. The Opening Ceremony was held in the new stadium build for the event, with a capacity of 55,000 people, and involved 4,000 performers

In the Sprint I got a 4th place, in the Middle distance I came 6th, and in the Relay I won a bronze medal together with Lars Skjeset, Mari Fasting and Elise Egseth (which also won bronze in the sprint).

On my old homepage you can find news with maps from the Sprint, Middle and Relay. Last week I also finally managed to upload my pictures from WG 2009 to Picasa.

At the moment I'm in Miami, where I have a one and a half day stop on my way to Colombia. I will try to update my blog with short reports from the races the coming weekend.

WOC in Vuokatti - analyze, maps and pictures

Last week the World Orienteering Championship was arranged in Vuokatti in Finland. I was selected to run the Sprint, and was also one of the candidates for the Relay team.

My training had gone well during the winter and spring, my shape had improved during the last month, and I had showed up some good results in June with a 2nd place in the World Cup sprint in Sigtuna and a 8th place overall in the Nordic Tour. I had therefore high ambitions, and hoped to finally be able to win a medal in my 10th WOC.

Sprint Qual, Vuokatti - 1st place
The Sprint Qualification was held in a holiday village with a lot of open park land. Last year in Lausanne I was one second from qualifying to the final, after doing an OK performance and being 43 sec behind the winner in my heat. Then I had been sick several weeks in the spring, and I know my shape was much better now. But still it's a lot of runners who can do well in a quite easy qualification course, and I would not do the same mistake this year. I wanted also to use the qualification race to perform in the same way as I had planed to to in the afternoons final.

The qualification course showed also this year out to be quite easy, and I could run quite straight on most of the legs. But it was a lot of hedges and other vegetation, all the houses looked the same, and it was also a few route choices that needed to be planed, so I still had to be really foucues the whole course. My running felt very easy, and in the end of the course I wondered if I should push harder.

Afterward I think I did a really solid qualification race, where I had a good plan for all legs and was running in a stable pace with good flow and no hesitation. I was surprised I was able to win the heat 2 with as much as 25 seconds, but that gave me a good feedback before the afternoons final! Results, splits and GPS tracking.

Sprint Final, Sotkamo - 7th place
The Final was held from the baseball stadium in Sotkamo, and it was a lot of spectators and a great atmosphere, simular to Trondheim 2010. The organizers had also used a lot for additional impassable fences that made to orienteering much more tricky.

I started as I had planed, but did not get the best flow in the first part of the course, and had problems picking my route choices with all the fences on the map. The last part of the course went better, and I was able to run more offensive. I managed to find good routes of most legs, but in total I lost aprox. 5 seconds 5 places because of hesitation or not taking the optimal route.

My result was a 7th place, 29 sec behind Mårten Boström, who did an impressively good performance. To the silver, won by Scott Fraser, it was 13 sec. I had hoped for a medal, and was a bit disappointed afterwards, since I have finished between 4th and 8th position several times before. But it's a lot of runners who aim for a top position, and I did quite well. In overall I'm quite satisfied with my performance, since I found the course very challenging, and I avoided any big mistakes. All the runners winning medals are good friends of me, and I visited Mårten one week when he worked on Zanzibar last winter. Results, splits and GPS tracking.

Relay, Vuokatti - 6th place
Before the WOC I know I was a candidate for the Relay team, but had not expected to be choose, since I hoped the runners doing the individual forest races should do well and have an advantage. Anyway I prepared as good as possible after the sprint, and had some good trainings in relevant terrain where I got a good feeling.

When I after the Midlde final was told that I was selected to run the 1st leg for the Norwegian team I felt it like an honor, and got quite excited, but also felt some pressure, since we had finished 2nd in the WOC relay the 3 last years, and had ambitions to fight for the victory.

To both the 1st and 3rd controls I lost a few seconds since I was not running optimal routes. I had the longest forking in the beginning, and at the 3rd control I was nr 16, 33 sec behind Switzerland. But I could see a lot of good runners in front of me, and was not stressed.

On the long leg I thought running to the right could be a good option, using the paths to avoid the green. But I didn't want to run alone, and followed all the others who went straight. On the end of the leg the runners I could see in front of me went too much to the left (to go to the other forkings), and Ukraine and I was the only runners who continued straight to my forking. At the 5th control I was nr 13, 48 sec behind Switzerland.

The rest of the course went really well, and I managed to pass a lot of teams (which had other forkings or did mistakes). At the next radio (7/8 on the map) I was 5th, and when I finished I was 2nd, 3 sec behind Switzerland, and with a 30 sec gap to the following teams. Results, my splits and GPS tracking.

Carl Kaas on our second lag did well in the beginning, and was alone in the lead on the first radio. But unfortunately he did not find the best route on the long leg, and did also some mistakes in the end of the leg. Magen Dæhli on our last leg did also some mistakes in the beginning and had problems on the long leg, but after a strong finish he came in as 6th team, 3 min behind Russia, and 2 min from a medal.

It was more forking then expected, and a surprisingly thigh relay. We did not run as good as we had planed as a team, and got the position we deserved. The Norwegian team did not win any individual medals for the first time in many years. But the spirit was still good in the team, and we got a perfect end of the championship since our girls team won the relay after running 3 really sold legs, exactly as you should do in a relay:-)

In my Picasa album you can find more than 300 pictures from the whole WOC week in Vuokatti.