Training Log Archive: tnipen

Finally it's Jættemilen, one of my all-time most favourite races. 20k mass-start with a decent field, including a lot of good juniors from Halden. The field went hard out of the start, but after a few controls joined a pack of about 20 running in a long thin line.

Got through the first butterfly ok, but couldn't see Mathias right behind me. Saw him about 20s behind when going in and out of a control and told him to hurry the hell up because the train seemed to be leaving. Luckily he was right back in the pack at the next control, but we had severely slimmed the group down to about 6.

On a long leg I split from the group by doing a longer route around on trails. I quickly regretted it, but we all arrived at the next control together, so no problem. Tried to pull away with Mathias later on, when the others took a strange route out of a control. We got a 10-15s lead, but we blundered it away on a control later. Was starting to feel a little bit tired, so settled back into the group and didn't attack for a while.

Half an hour of battling later we head into the second butterfly. Luckily for me the two guys doing most of the work in the group went my way. Mathias was less lucky and ended up in the other group. They lost 2 mins and we didn't see him after that.

We cruise through the spectator control and head out on the last 5k. I tried a few times to go different ways, but I wasn't successful. Then on the long leg to the second last control I end up by myself going a slightly longer but simpler route. I ran hard and got a 10s lead on the second to last control. Sprinted the rest and ended up 9th overall, about 7 mins behind the winners. Mathias in a nice 14th place, 3mins back. Great trip, Denmark never disappoints. Results.

Easy run with Mathias and Louise from the hotel to Trørød, and then past my old hood, when I lived in Denmark.

Easy jog around the hood.

Veritas night-o at Bogstad. Caught Mathias by a minute on number 1, so the Nipen train could start. Unfortunately, the train wasn't very epic today. Caught Ivar on our way to #4. I believe we ran right by the control, but the flag was hidden and was probably so low to the ground that it went below my lightbeam as I crested the hill. Lost a good 2 minutes here.

Mathias led the way to #5, and i wasn't really paying attention. We lost about 1'30 here. There is a possibility that we went right by the control again, and without GPS we will give ourselves the benefit of doubt. At this point, Ivar had witnessed the Nipen train blow by from all sorts of directions so he had very little faith in our navigation abilities. More easy navigation and we hammered out some good splits. The 10th control was the same as an earlier control so it should have been easy, but I wanted to take a shortcut right at the end and we ended up losing another minute.

All in all not the best performance by the Nipen brothers, but felt we had some good speed in the legs. Still good enough for 2nd and 3rd place somehow. Results.