Winter training (mostly indoors or abroad)
Ahead of this winter I have reshifted my focus from sprint back to forest, and particulary hills, ahead of WOC this summer. Last years racing season seemed to drag on forever, and I was very happy and relieved when it was time to start the winter training again, especially after struggling quite badly with my fitness during the autumn. It didn’t start so well, however, with Stockholm getting a lot of snow (that later turned into ice) in the end of November and beginning of December. Horrible running conditions, and I ended up doing a lot of my training on the treadmill (especially the harder sessions). Not my favourite, but there are some advantages as well, e.g. getting very controlled sessions, and not ever having to run down the hill you just climbed.
This winter have also been quite special because we had a lot of parental leave left, and thus could be really flexible with our wherabouts from christmas to the middle of March. We ended up going on two longer trips as a family, the first one being a roadtrip through western Sweden (and Norway), doing a lot of cross country skiing, visiting a lot of family and friends, getting some good training company in Göteborg, and finishing the trip with a national team camp in Halmstad in the end of January.
I was home for 3 (!) days, before heading out on the next adventure: 5½ weeks on the continent, trying to find some good hills, as well as nice places to stay for the whole family. We ended up staying mostly in southern France, which was great, both for the nice weather and hilly terraing. I ended up getting some great training company from Joonas Ahola and (twice) Olli Ojanaho for some days, which was great fun. On the way back north, we stayed in Bern, Switzerland for a week, which was great socially, since we have a lot of friends living there! I also got a sneak peak into the training environment there and some great training company from Joey Hadorn and Mathias Kyburz, which always is inspiring. Joey even managed to talk me into racing the swiss XC running champs, which I actually enjoyed quite much, despite feeling very unprepared. All in all a great trip, with a lot of new experiences, great family memories, and quite a few meters of elevation gained.
Coming back to Stockholm we timed it perfectly with the annual March Snow Chaos, which put me straight back onto the treadmill, but it still felt great to be home again, and to fall back in the routines of pre school drop offs/pick ups, club training, and everything else back in Bagarmossen! And now the snow has finally melted, and the orienteering season starts this weekend. Nothing to complain about!
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A great read Gustav. A world class athlete who still gets ’inspired’ by his fellow athletes. Bravo!