Spring Cup

Saturday was my first big international race of the season. It was a very strong field in the elite class with a lot of top guys, 190 runners in total. Judging from the names in the start list I aimed for a top 25 placing so I was pretty satisfied with coming 25th!!! I made about 3-4 minutes mistakes throughout the course which means I could've been placed in the top 10. I was starting 1 minute behind Daniel Hubmann so I was praying he would make a big mistake in the beginning, but no such luck!  The first 2 controls were very vague and the vegetiation was quite hard for me to read. I lost about 90 seconds total in these 2 controls.  Looking at winsplits you can see that alot of runners had a much worse time in the beginning than I did. I was caught up at the 7th control by Jamie Stevenson and Scott Fraser (1min and 2min behind me). Mats Haldin was also running with them. He had started 4min infront of me but must have made some bad mistakes in the beginning. I thought atleast we can run fast in a pack for the rest of the course, but over the next 2 conrtols they completely monstered me! They were running much faster than I could handle! I had officially been dropped. I was quite annoyed and was quite slow through the next couple of controls whilst my body recovered from its unexpected beating. The rest of the cousre was ok, with only a few small mistakes here and there. I managed to catch Mats Haldin again at the 18th control and ran with him through the last few.

I was disappointed that I couldn't keep up with the speedy guys, but it was really fast terrain. I think at the moment I am more suited to steeper rougher terrain. I know I am running faster than last year, so my training is working. It should be just a matter of time and not getting injured untill I can keep up with the guns!