Finallly!

This year we have been waiting and waiting and waiting. Praying for snow week after week. We do enjoy both rollerskiing, biking and running, and the preparations for the ski-o season has been going well, but there is nothing like snow and skiing. But it seams like winter is comming late to Trondheim this year, and as winter is not comming to us, we come to winter. The last two weekends we have travelled to find snow. Last weekend Beitosdølen with the Norwegian ski-o team, this weekend Dombås together with Sindre Haverstad and Audhild Rognstad. Finally snow! It feels great to ski again and we have had some really good sessions. First ski-o goal, after cancellations and little snow till now, is Swedish ski-o tour in two weeks. Hope to see you there!

MTBO WOC relay gold for the swiss women

After a good start of the MTBO WOC Christian was selected in the first team. A strong team, good enough to fight for a medal. Unfortunatley they got a bad start and never really got into the medal fight. Because of hugh forking differences it was an exciting relay, and nothing was clear until the last small loop of the last leg. In the end the Swiss men finished seventh. Denmark won in front Czech Republic and Finland.

The swiss womens team, with Maja Rothweiler, Ursina Jäggi and Christine Schaffner did a great relay, leading from start to finish. Congratulations!

Swiss team, Maja, Ursina and Christine

To day we will end the championship with a sprint in the village Sossano.

New 10th place at MTBO WOC

Another hot day in Italy and another 10th place for us. Today in the womens category. Despite lack of map reading flow, I did a good race and finished 10th. I am happy with the result, but most of all that I was much closer to the podium today. I found it hard to read the map on the small tracks and ofte had to stop to read it. As I also did a few smaller misstakes I did not have a good feeling during the race, and although I could push pretty hard during the race, I was somehow surprised by my good result.
Christian also felt lack of map reading flow to day. He also did a few misstakes during the race, over seeing tracks and doing misstakes in some of the intersections. All in all this costed him to much time and he finished 19th. Hopefully we can both take another step forward on the sprint distance.

Tomorrow relay is on the program. The swiss team selection for the first team will be done this afternoon. Christians results the last days might give him a place in the first team, but he will also be happy to bike in the 2nd team. As only norwegian I will have an extra rest day before the sprint.



Middle distance results will be published here: results
Maps from both races can be found here: maps.

10th place at MTBO WOC

In 36C and baking sunshine Christian finished as number 10 at the long distance at the MTBO world championships in the hills of the Vicenza region. Best ever WOC result for him, a small mistake in the end of the race costed him the 7th place, but after all he is happy with his performance. The competition was steep, hot and long with challenging route choices. Christian biked alone the whole race but feels he could push the whole way and did a good orienteering technical race. Samuli Saarela won (2:00:12) in front of Erik S Knudsen (2:04:47) and Ruslan Gritzan (2:06:27), Beat Okele was the best swiss as number 4.

Christian punching the last control.

I also biked the long distance, but had some more problems than Christian and finished on a 20th place. I lost time on both route choices and unsecure map reading. Hopefully I will be able to improve a lot for the middle and sprint distance. My best Bike-o result is a 9th place at the European championships in Denmark, would be great with another top 10 result. Rikke Kornvig won the long distance in the incredible strong time 1:47:59. (Im am indeed impressed!), Ingrid Stengaard was number 2 (+ 6 min) and Laura Scaravonati was number 3 (+10min).

Results: BIKEO WOC LONG

Today rest day is on the program. We did a short (1 h) easy bike ride, a short sightseeing the the city of Vicenzia and have had some ice cream at a gelateria, sure great in the heat! We will bike middle distance thursday, relay friday and sprint distance saturday. We are both looking forward to the rest of the championships

Short update

Here a short update over the things that happend the last few weeks:

Three weeks ago we finally moved to our new home. Nice to finally have our own place. We are enjoying the trainings in Bymarka, which starts right outside our house. A real trainingsparadise in summer and winter time.

To weeks ago we were in western Norway hiking up to Slogen (1564m) together with my parents and Sigrid (Martes sister). A steep top with a great view over the mountains and fjords in Sunnmøre. To bad I deleted all the pictures from my computer. Maybe we will update with som pictures later.
After 7 hours hiking we stayed at the famous Union Øye hotel. The hotel was built in 1891 and all the rooms are original and unique. We got a really tasteful four-course dinner.

Tomorrow we will travel to Italy for the World Championships in MTB-O, which are held in the region of Vicenza. You can follow us here.

MTB-O world cup in Rättvik

Better late than never, here a short rapport from the MTB-O world cup in Rättvik (Sweden) June 18.-20.


The first ever international MTB-O competition in Sweden started with a middle distance in Leksand. And I was the first to start. So the goal was to finish first too. I had a quite good race in the wet and muddy conditions, with some bad route choices. After about 30% of the race, the Finn starting behind me nearly nearly catched me. But on the whole second loop I could hold him behind me and finished first as planned. I ended on a 21th position.

(photo: Sven Åke Nordenmark)

On Sunday a long distance with mass start and butterfly forking was planned with start at 9:30. Due to problems with the maps the start was postponed first to 10:00, then to 10:30 and 11:00 before they decided to start at 15:00. This meant to go home, eat lunch and warm up again.

When we finally started I had problems with the 1:20000-map. So I decided just to follow the others to the first control. On the way to the second control I managed to get in touch with the map and was part of the leading group of about 20 men. Short after the second control I had a puncture. When I wanted to inflate the new tub with the air gun I realized that I had forgotten to pack a cartridge after the last flight. What a beginners-mistake. So I decided just to walk back and forget this race when Sindre Haverstad passed with his brand new Biltema-pump which I could borrow. After many minutes, stiff in the arms and with far too little air in the tire I could continue. I had to ride carefully over all roots and stones and in all turns not to tear the tire of the rim. So I kept on in a speed which made it a good map reading training and ended nearly last. At least I learnd something that day.

disappointed after the long distance

(Photo: Sven Åke Nordenmark)

The world cup round ended with a mixed relay on Monday. Rolf Wermelinger biked well on the first leg and handed over to me as nr. 5. I stared a bit too stressed which resulted in an over 2min-mistake at the first control. Got even more stressed by that and was really unfocussed the first part of the race. After another 1min-mistake to the 4th control and losing my second map right after the 4th (had to jump out of the path, let 3 riders pass, go back and pick up the map and then continue) I just had to forget about the first part and start to concentrate. The rest of the race was quite good. Ursina Jäggi biked the last leg and we ended on 17th place.

Results can be found here.

Mark Stodgell made a great headcam footage of the relay.
Take a watch: http://www.stodgell.co.uk/?p=2893

5:18:33

The time I used for IRONMAN 70.3 in Switzerland, 70.3 miles in total, 1.9 km swimming, 91.1 km road bike, 21.1 km running. I never did an half ironman before, I did not know what was waiting for me or what to expect. However, I still had a few goals for the day: To swim in 40 minutes, to be in the best 1/4 of my age group, in the best 1/3 of the total starters and last, but not least, to beat triathlete and friend Vibeke, in the half marathon.

Me out running the half marathon (Photo: Mathias Hohl)

It all started an early morning in Zurichsee by Zurich in Switzerland. It started with a swim that turned out be more or less a 1.9 km cat fight. 370 women fighting to be the first to the shore. Swimming is definitively my weakest part of a triathlon, and with all the "kicking and slapping" I was not able to swim in the middle of the bunch and had to maneuver out of the field to swim on my own. 47 min for 1.8 km, was not quit the 40 minutes I was hopping for, but as it turned out to be more of a fight than a swim it was ok. When I came ashore, as 86 of 100 in my age group, and eventually got my wet-suit of I started to climb the result list. An amazing bike course, along the see and up in the hills, all the time with a great view at the Alps. I did much better than I expected, I pushed hard all the way, but amazingly my legs felt good and I biked much faster that I expected. After 2h45min I could put on my running shoes. Allthough my legs felt like two timber logs, I kept a good rhythm and kept on climbing the result list. 1h40min on a half ironman might not be that impressive, but I soon understood that after 1.9 km swim and 91.1 km bike it was more about surviving than make a new record. I crossed the finish line after 5h18min33sek as numer 19. More than pleased by my result, and happy that I was still able to walk...

And did I reach my goals? Well, I did not swim in 40 minutes (but I did not expect such a fight), but I did get in the top 1/4 (actually (1/5))in my age group, almost in to 1/5 th of the total(2500!) and I beated my friend Vibeke in the half ironman.... with 30 sek...

Results and more information about the competitions can be found here: IRONMAN 70.3 Switzerland.
Vibeke finished 9th. I am very impressed! Visit Vibekes triathlon blog: here.

Vibeke and me relaxing at Christians parents place in Dottikon (Photo: Mathias Hohl)

Thanks to my parents in law, Magdalena and Mathias, we had perfect support before and after the race and a great fan club cheering for us and a private photographer.

Will I do it again?

Yes, I think so. It was great fun!