Last international performance, 32 km in scooter tracks, 35 controls

To day I skied my, what is ment to be, my last international competition. The goal was a good race and a hopefully a place on the podium. (Photo: Sven Åke Nordenmark) 32 km in scooter tracks, 35 controls, fresh snow and around 0 degrees, two hours winning time, a tough end of the season. I was really looking forward to the competition, hard, but I love it that way. However, I did one misstake to day, I did not test my skies well enough before the start and picked the wrong pair. A bad desicion that influenced the first half of my race. The feeling of skiing with the brake on, was not good and it stressed me into bad long route choices the first two loops. After the second loop, however, I changed skies, and what a feeling! I felt I was flying up the Pagla hill! The two last loops were good both orienteering technically and physically and I climbed from a 8th to a 2nd place.
Josefin Engström won the competition, Tove Alexanderson was third.

And now what? You will probably not find me in the sofa at home every afternoon. I love being outdoors and train, both summer and winter. I also love ski-orienteering to much to quit, and I will most likely ski national compeititons for many years to come.
But to morrow I will rest, then I will start training for my next goals; triathlon, a half ironman distance in Germany and the Venla relay with my team in Wing OK, both competitions in june.

WC podium to day, but where was the flow?

The first half of to days middle distance was really not good, to the spectators control I did a race with total lack of flow both in the map reading and in the tracks, no big misstakes but lost over a minute to the fastes time on the first 3.5-4 km. After the spectator controll I luckily got my head together, and after a strong finish I could climb up on the podium with Josefin Engström and Tove Alexanderson. Sum up for to day: I am happy with the second place and a strong finish of teh race, but not so happy with my performance on the first part of the race.

To days GPS tracking from the race can be found here: GPS W21 middle
(As I am not among the 12 best in the WC and the organiser chose to give the three extra units to other skiers you will not find me in the list)

Christian did a hughe misstake to day and lost lots of time and ended around nr 25. The mens class was won by Erik Rost and Peter Arneson, our club mate in Wing OK, Lars Hol Moholdt ended third!

To morrow we will ski Ultra long distance, hopefully with flow both in the map reading and in the tracks for both of us.

Not even close..

To day we finished second in the WC-relay in Boden. The goal was to give Sweden a fight for the victory, but already on the second leg they were far ahead and were crusing in to a 2min 30sec Victory. Anna skied well on the first leg, agressive and safe and finished in the lead on the first leg. Just as planned. On the second leg Audhild skied well in the start, but from the 6th control she skied to the 8th and lost much time skiing back to the 7th. We were now almost three minutes down togehter with a pack, Finland 1 and 2 and Russia I did an ok race, but the good flow was lacking and did some small misstake. I did catch some time to the lead, but I assume this was bacause of a short forking. So, unfortunatley we were not even close, but still satisfied with a second place. Russia finished third.

The program the next days:
Friday: Rest day
Saturday: Middle distance
Sunday: Ultra long distance

WC-Final in Boden, 1st race, 4th place

The first race in the WC final in Ski-o is history, and it feels great to be competing again! We have both been sick the last weeks and this was the ultimate test in how well we have recovered. Marte did an OK race and finished 4th, behinde Tove Alexanderson, Josefin Engstrøm and Polina Malchikova. Christian had some more trouble and finished 25th. Erik Rost won the mens class in front of Peter Arneson and Stanimir Belomazev. (Picture: Sven Åke Nordenmark)
Martes race to the map change was good. But here she lost much time in fighting the maps in the map change box (i.e. trying to separate one of the maps from the others), this stressed her and stressful map reading resulted in some bad route choices in the end of the race. Just not good enough in a sprint race. Christian still needs a few races to get in shape after the cold he catched in Kazakhstan, oreinteering techincally he did a good race but lost time physically to day. This will hopefully improve the next days.


Results from the sprint: W21, M21
More about the WC sprint: Norwegian orienteering federation

To morrow we will ski relay, and hopefully take another step back towards the top.

Follow the WC final in Boden here: WC Final Ski-o

Christian in Kazakhstan, and I?

At the moment Christian is skiing the WC round in Kazakhstan, while I am recovering from a bronchitis infection at home in Trondheim. After the middle distance victory in Ukraine, I got sick and could not start in the last races. It feels hard to stay in bed when you want to race, but the title was defended, and that was the goal of the season, so really no reason to complain. Christian did unfortunatley not find the flow he found in the US in the individual races in Ukraine, but skied ok and steady in the top 20. His relay leg was good, and after two legs Switzerland was fighting in the top. However as Christian Spoerry unfortunatley did a big misstake in the last leg they lost lots of places. My team, Christina, Audhild and Andrine skied amasing without me and ended 2nd. I am impressed about what those girls did in the relay!
(Picture: Christian in Ukraine, Sergiy Panchenko)

The first two races in Kazhakstan was very orienteering technical demanding (se sprint map above). Christian did not find the flow but is enjoying the demanding courses, trying not to focus on the results. When you have a hard time finding the flow it is easy to start focusing on results and forget what ski-o is really about. Hopefully he will find the flow in the middle distance.

The WC round in Kazakhstan can be followed here; WC Kazakhstan.
Here you can find results and maps from all the races.

European champion!

To day I won the middle distance in Sumi and defended my european champion title on the middle distance. After a big misstake in the sprint yesterday it felt really great to win to day!
To days race was demanding. It was tough physical and the course offered difficult route choices. I was satisfied with my race and very happy to win. Josefin Engström won silver, Kajsa Richardson bronze!
(Photo: Sindre Haverstad)

European championships in Sumy

First race in Sumy to day, mixed sprint relay. A tough, tight race. Fun, but unfortunatley no great success for Christian or me.

I skied for Norway 1 together with Hans-Jørgen Kvaale ( read his blog here(Norwegian): Team Avancia). Our goal was to ski for a medal. We skied well on the first two legs and was fighting for a medal, then we got map trouble. Hans Jørgen got my map and started skiing the women 2nd leg. For the two first controls the course was the same as for men, then the other men skied in another direction. He understood something was wrong, saw that his map was marked women and decided to try ski with Staffan, it was a 50/50 chance that they had the same forking, he also puched all the controls in the womens relay on his way. However the jury had seen him taking my map and gave me a mens map. So in all we skied 4 times mens leg and 2 times womens leg. Unfortunatley I also lost focus and did a few misstakes and we only managed a 20th place.

Christian skied in the Swiss 3rd team, they had no big hopes for to day, finished 33rd. More important for them was to get to know the tracks and terrain a bit and to get good competition training.

Russia with Paulina Malchicova and Andrey Grigoryev won. Best Norwegian team was our club mate Lars Moholdt and Maren Haverstad on a 10th place. Gion and Ladina finished 12th as best Swiss team.

Results: sprint relay

World Cup USA over - fokus EOC

Today we skied the last individual competition of this World Cup round, a middle distance at Tahoe XC.
I started quite well but to the 4th control I had a mistake while cutting. Because of this I lost all my selv-confidence. And the rest of the race was just bad. A lot of bad routechoices because I didn't dare to cut and a lot of small mistakes. This resulted in a 16th or 17th place depending on which resultlist is correct.

For me the World Cup Round 1 is over. I will not ski the mixed sprint-relay tomorrow. Now all the focus is on the European Champinships in Sumy, Ukraine from February 21st to 26th. After this week I am quite optimistic. My shape improved a lot the last three weeks. Now I have to work with the map-reading and doublepoling. I am really looking forward to the races in the Ukraine.

World Cup Sprint at Auburn Ski Club

Today the World Cup Sprint at Auburn Ski Club on the Donner Pass was held. It was a very hard sprint on 2200m asl on only skating-tracks. The new snow falling over night made it even harder. I had a race without mistakes and even if it felt bad physically, I think it was not too bad. My 10th place is my first ever top 10 result in the World Cup, after 16 years.
Congratulations to Carmen for her 4th place, the best ever swiss result in a World Cup race.

 on the way to the last control (Photo: Carmen Strub)

at the finish-line (Photo: Carmen Strub)

1. World Cup: longdistance in Tahoe Donner

The first World Cup race this season is over. I ended on 15th place on the longdistance race at Tahoe Donner. I had a very bad start and lost some time on the first to controls. With a bad routechoice on the first loop I was quite long behind. The second loop I skied totally alone and out on the last loop I was around 20th place. The long last loop I skied quite well and catched some places. Over all I am not satisfied with my race but the shape has improved a lot the last two weeks. I am optimistic for the coming races and specially for the European Championships in Ukraina in the end of february.
Results here

In the afternoon we had a relaxing classsic training at Royal Gorge, with some nice views.

ski-o training in Kirkwood

Yesterday we had some ski-o intervalls here in Kirkwood. Based on the GPS-tracking of the tracks, Hälge draw a map. We had 6 loops of 6-7min. Each of us skied 4-5 of the loops. Thanks to Hälge for the organisation.

 

warming up for the intervalls

two of the loops

We will stay in Kirkwood until tomorrow. Then we will move to the Tahoe region and prepair for the first World Cup competition on monday.

Today Marte skied the 10k skate at the Norwegian Championships in Voss. She ended on 27th place in the race won by Astrid Jacobsen. On Sunday she will ski the last leg in the relay for Strindheim IL. You can follow the Norwegian Championships here.

first days in Kirkwood

Now we have spent the first three days in Kirkwood. The first day it was really little snow and only one km of skitracks with some stones, a lot of grass and water some places. Yesterday it was snowing heavily. We got about 40cm of snow. Today finally the conditions were good. Some degrees below zero, blue sky and enough snow. Now, in the middle of the day it is really warm, the snow on the trees is melting. We just hope that not too much snow is melting the coming days.
We are staying in Kirkwood until friday. Then we move the the Tahoe region. The worldcup starts with the long distance on monday 30.januar.

Here some impressions from todays training:

Much has happend

Much has happend since our last update.

Christmas we spent at Christians parents place in Switzerland. It was nice to finally meet all the family again. After to days in Dottikon we travelled to Silvaplana in the Engadin valley (with a stop in Davos on the way up and down) for some days of skiing. The conditions in Davos were perfect. A lot of snow and blue sky. In Engadin there was quite little snow. But we had some nice trainings around Pontresina. The training in high altitude was a good preparation for the worldcup in the USA for Christian. Beside the training we enjoied the good food in the grison-region and of course the company of Christians partents.

 Marte skiing in Davos

in the Roseg-valley, Pontresina

 waiting for the train in Bever

At New Years Eve Martes Parents and Sigrid visited us in Trondheim. We had an nice Tapas dinner after some skiing earlier the same day. It's always nice to have visitors at our new home.

Sigrid and Christian skiing "Vårløypa"

The first weekend in January the competitons in Konnerud were cancelled due to lack of snow. We decided to travel to Östersund instead and compete in J-H-cup. It was a very good competiton. Thanks to Torgny for the organisation. We had both quite good races. The shape seems to get better.

The week after the norwegian champinships were held at Budor. It started with a very demanding (both physical and o-technical) long distance mass-start on Friday. Marte won with quite big margin. Christian started well bot lost a lot of time on the second half.

The middle distance on Saturday was much the same. Another gold for Marte and another bad day for Christian.
On Sunday the relay was held. We skiied as last year with Christian on the first, Marte on the second and Lars Moholdt on the last leg. Christian lost some time on the first leg, but we were still in contact with the other teams fighting for the medals. Marte skied well until the last control, which she forgot to punch. So we were disqualified after coming in as the second team.

All in all it was a good weekend for Marte, a bad for Christian, but it was good training for the rest of the season.

Results and some maps can be found on ski-o.com

 Christian on the last meters in the middle distance

Marte starting her relay-leg

Now Marte is prepearing for the Norwegian championships in xc-skiing in Voss next weekend and Christian is on the way to the worldcup in Lake Tahoe.

Season-opening

Last weekend the season finally started. We took part in the races in Evertsberg in Sweden. Evertsberg is past by the Vasaloppet after about 45 km.
On saturday we skied a sprint in the open areas around Evertsberg. It was quite challenging and a lot of misstakes were made. Marte reached the second place while Christian was a bit longer down on the resultlist.
The middle-distance on sunday was mostly in the forest and on marshes with very little snow. We both lost quite much time to the winners. There is still a big job to do.

Christian discussing routechoices with Christian Spörry

 

On monday an tuesday we started to do our job by joining the Mora skigymnas at their trainingscamp at Idre Fjäll. We skied a line-orienteering, gladiatorslingor and a middle-distance testrace. It was great to train that much ski-o and I think, we took a step forward. Thanks to Ekan and Ola for the perfect organisation.

Christian at the test-race

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