multiHenrik

On Thursday did I travel to the mountain village Hemavan, in the north west of Sweden. Here it was time for a mountain running competition, in two different classes where the teams are made up by partners 2 and 2. The original plan was competing with a (for me) unknown partner, coming from Gothenburg, in the class 24 hour non-stop. In 24 hour you can pick as many checkpoints as possible, 30 CPs were scattered all over the mountain area.

Anyway, Fredrik had has problems with a calf so we could only participate in the shorter 2 day mountain marathon class instead. The distance in the 24 class became about 81 miles, with backpacks of 20 lb. For us it was about 15 miles and 3000 ft a day, with backpacks closer to 8-10 lb.

I hadn't met Fredrik before and didn't know his skills, and that became our biggest disadvantage. I was stronger and faster then him, so I did the orienteering but still had to wait for him and we finished 3rd, 10 min after, for day 1.
Day 2 it was a pursuit start from day 1, so we started 10 min after the leaders and did our best to chase them. We gained time on every mile but it wasn't before the last hour we saw them just 3-4 min ahead of us and at the 2nd last CP we were three teams in 2 min. Now it was just steep downhill, along the ski resort area and we finally reached the first team w/ 200 m left to the goal, but in the dirt and bushes we still didn't quite make it :( We finished technically 1s behind and lost the winners prize of 5000 SEK. The winners had been Swedish champion in road running a couple of years ago, but still - grr... I was so dissappointed! We'll se what's coming up next. Maybe a kayak vacation next weekend if the weather is nice enough.