Top and flop! My trip to Sweden had it all!

I had the good luck of being able to travel to Sweden for a training opportunity. My club OK Tyr invited me to a camp in southern Sweden, as well as several days in Karlstad itself, where I was able to enjoy the awesome hospitality of the Hallowell’s. In additions I made a trip to Uppsala to visit Boris, and see this “orienteering paradise” that he lives in. On my way I ran into a bunch of friends, ranging from all the Smiths I personally know, I ran into Hammer and Brent in Uppsala, my good friend Christine who is living in Halden for half a year at several races, and basically the whole Swiss team on different occasions, including even my boyfriend Marc. During my 16-day “training camp” in Sweden from April 14th -30th I completed 16 orienteering trainings, equaling to 14 hours and 30 minutes of orienteering, and totaled over 27 hours of training during my time in Sweden. There were highs and lows on my trip, and a lot of in between. Here is the official ranking.

Top race
Long Distance Elitserie race on Brösarp Västra where I placed 6th in the Elite 2 category.
The terrain was the type of terrain that I am used to, ridge valley terrain, pretty steep, but still fast. Although I felt physically tired, I had a smooth, mistake free (!) race.


Flop race
Middle distance at the Tibro events.
Even before the race I knew that my mental mindset was a recipe for disaster. I tried to get myself focused and concentrated, but with no luck. The terrain in Tibro, although fast and for a lot of people very enjoyable, was difficult technically, at least for me, and I didn’t orienteer carefully enough. The biggest time loss was in a green area, where I zoomed in without knowing exactly where I was “zooming” into. Big mistake, literally. I was never able to get the hang of it…

Best recovery
Long distance at the Tibro events
After the disaster I had in the middle distance race the day before, I was worried about this long distance race. I was right to be worried! I had a rough start, still unable to read the complicated negative terrain. I had started to redeem myself by taking a good route choice on the long leg, only to run 90° wrong out of the control I had just spiked and spend 20’ relocating. After this shameful mistake, I was able to recover really well, and had a great race afterwards. I finally got the hang of the terrain, and had a good time. My splits also showed the positive feeling I had at the end of this race. Nice to recover from the disaster the race had started out to be. Of course my result still sucked!

Fastest orienteering speed
Swedish Sprint championships, 4.49 per km!
I didn’t run the elite category because I want to run the Swiss Sprint championships this fall. It turns out however that the D21 category was the same course as the 3rd heat in the Elite qualification races. The race went really well, full speed and no mistakes! I would have been 9th in the quali and could have qualified for the final. Would have been fun!

Best training
Tom Hollowell took me to a map that was supposed to be similar to the Tiomila terrain. It was flat and fast in the beginning and changed into a technical area about 2km away from where we started. I had been having trouble with direction and following my compass accurately, so we wanted to work on that. The first few km I did with a compass, trying to run the line as accurately as possible with my compass. Then Tom shadowed me through the butterfly loops in the more technical area without a compass. The big highlight of the training was completing a 2km leg without a compass in 9 minutes. This was a really fun training and a confidence booster! Thanks Tom.

Total bummer
During my time in Uppsala I managed to complete two orienteering trainings. The first being pretty tough, I spend a lot of time walking trying to figure out the terrain. During the second training, Boris was good enough to let me follow him for a few legs, while he explained what he was using in the terrain to orienteer. This was extremely helpful, and I would call the rest of the training a success, unfortunately during this training I hurt myself. I somehow managed to hurt my back, which did not improve over the next few days and ultimately stopped me from running in the Tiomila relay for Ok Tyr. Total bummer.

Unfortunately I am still suffering from this injury and am unable to train at the moment. It seems I have a blockage of the SI joint in my back, which has cause the muscle in my back and butt to stiffen up immensely. This is incredibly painful, but I am under good care and receiving physical therapy. Hopefully I will be training again soon. The next big races for me are the team trials for the World championships in three weeks! I am flying to the US for these races, and I sure hope to be pain free by then…

All in all, my trip to Sweden was really positive and helpful. I was able to do a lot of quality technical training and also challenge myself in some tough races. I am confident that it was good training and preparation for the world championships.

For the details of every training, look under the link to my training log.