Siljarastit (and Huippuliiga 1/4)

Today I was competing in Sauvo (south-western part of Finland) and it was also season opening for me. Weather was windy and cloudy with degrees at 5 - 7c. I finished in 13th place 1´49 behind todays winner Pasi Ikonen. I´m quite happy with my performance, at least the orienteering was at a good level for the first start this year. Running didn´t feel so easy, probably cause of little running in terrain in Finland at high speed in this year cause of snowy terrains in Sipoo. The terrain and route was "almost easy" from the 5th control forward. Especially the flat open "hills" in the end was really fast. My only real miss came at the 5th when I was approaching little too much from the right side and went down in the slopes too late. Lost some 0´30 there. On the 7th I had problems getting down and lost 0´10 - 0´15 more. Rest of the couse I managed to run pretty much the way I planned and "orienteering-thinking" stayed ahead as it should. This race gave made me confident of my skills (I can still orienteer:) and now I can focus on upcoming important starts, already next weekend.

M21E 6,81km

1. Pasi Ikonen 36´57
2. Petteri Muukkonen 37´02
3. Hannu Airila 37´45
...
13. Jörgen Wickholm 38´46

Trainingcamp in Bulgaria 27.3-3.4

It has been a good camp with some nice orienteering trainings near the Black Sea. A couple of them with higher tempo in high-speed terrains and some low pace running to recover in between. Always so enjoyable to get a new map and go running in a snowfree forest, especially when there has been so much snow back home that running anywhere else than on roads has been impossible. (of course NOTHING is impossible, but it is hard to concentrate on orienteering when you´re plumsing in some 60 cm of snow...) My orienteering technique is getting better each day and running in terrain feels more and more natural. This camp is quite short, therefore more high-intensity trainings.

After this week it will be important to recover well before any harder trainings in this critical moment when new competition season is starting. My first start will probably be in Kevätyön viesti 10.4, but not if there is much snow in the forest. First individual start is going to be in Huippuliiga at Siljarastit 17.4.

Winter ´10

It has been the snowiest winter in many years (since somewhere in the 80´s) in Finland. For an orienteerer that means alternative training or trainingcamps in southern Europe or other snowfree places. For me it has been mostly alternative training, besides the Sylvester 5-days in Belgium 26-31.12.09. Orienteering there was much better and interesting than I expected. Good maps and partly very detailed areas. Overall victory in front of P. Hendrikx and the becoming SV runner Ken Peeters.

Rest of the winter I´ve been at home in Sipoo. A lot more skiing than previous years, but not more than some 900km totally. A litte bit more fast running on tracks and powerblock-like weeks once a month. Overall good wintertraining without injuries. Looking forward to the upcoming season.

Season starts with Spring Cup

Only 8 days till my first competitions this season. everything has gone well in trainings, tough we still have a lot of snow in Sipoo. shape should be ok, but I´m not expecting that running is at my best in these first starts. waiting to get on the line..

I married my princess :)

This year has only started and it has happend a lot. In the beginning of january I were in Portugal with other elite orienteerers from Finland. My 10 days camp in Evora and Algarve was successful. Many good trainings i terrains allowing high speed and orienteering challenge. After that two weeks of basic "home training" and then off to Mexico. Training there was a lot different from what I would have done in Finland at this time. That was an important factor. Mexico was very nice and lot of interesting Maya-stuff. The ultimate highlight was our beach wedding in the sunset 27.1 :)
Now back home and back to "normal" training conditions. Tomorrow ski-orienteering competition middle distance in Janakkala, nice.