The first weekend of competition at Kolmårdensdubblen was quite successful. My first race in Sweden for 18 months was the middle distance on Saturday and I was really looking forward to getting into the forest. I was happy with my race and felt strong over the 5.5km, missing 25 sec on one short leg and some wobbly routes. I ended up in 3rd place over 1 minute behind the winner, Swedish national team runner Mattias Millinger. The gap was large, but the result was encouraging. The prize for 3rd was a Swedish axe...strange, I don't think that will be coming home.
On Sunday it was the 5 man relay Kolmårdskavlen. Malungs OK, had a strong team and I went out 4th of 5 legs, with David Andersson on the last leg. Erik Rost put me out in 6th place 4 minutes behind the leaders OK Linne. I was not very happy with my race, with some mistakes throughout. But I managed to gain some time on the leading team sending out Daid in 5th place online 1.20min behind. David ran strongly on the last leg to bring us into 2nd position only 40 seconds from the victory. So the team and the club were quite happy with the result.
This showed some good signs for Tiomila in two weeks time.
After recovering from the weekend of racing the week has been full of some high quality orienteering training. Based in Falun close to clubmates in Malungs OK and staying with Swedish national team runner and Malungs OK clubmate David Andersson and his partner Lina Eliasson, the training opportunities have been endless.
The quality of orienteering technique training is quite intense but very beneficial for the World Championships in August. With new ideas for training and racing leading up to the World Championships in Trondheim, coming out of a good week of training.
However on Friday a small hiccup hampered my program for the weekend. With what seemed like an insignificant fall in the forest turning into 4 stitches and a swollen knee. This meant that there was no training or competition at Stigtomtakavlen on Saturday and Sunday. But the knee is recovering fast and I'm looking forward to resuming the training on Monday leading into the next races, with the Eliteseries sprint on Friday and the big one, Tiomila on Saturday night.
Malungs OK, has announced our team for Tiomila, and with everyone fit and healthy its exciting to be part of it.
Malungs OK - Tiomila Team
1) Anders Åkerman 9,1 km
2) Martin Hammarberg 12,2 km
3) Erik Rost 16,8 km
4) Lars Åkerman 8,8 km
5) Thomas Carlsson 12,2 km
6) Johan Lindberg 6,1 km
7) Jimmy Birklin 5,8 km
8) Julian Dent 11,2 km
9) William Lind 11,2 km
10) David Andersson 17,0/12,0 km
You'll be able to watch all the action from next weekend here with live Web TV available for $10.
