One of the most challenging and beautiful terrain for an adventure race in Sweden is for sure to be found in the northern part of our country. Still, most adventure racers live in the bigger cities down south. Choosing the place for the Swedish championship can be a bit of a challenge balancing different interests, but this year they were spot on! The Ljungdalen area, with amazing singletracks, great wilderness and the highest peak south of the polar circle (Helags, 1792 m) is a great place for racing. Still, closer to Stockholm than to the polar circle…
At the race briefing, race director Erik said that his ambition with the race course was to let teams to experience many of the challenges and doubts found in a long adventure race, but in a shorter format. Today, a few days after the race all of us who participated in the race know that he gave us what he promised! The Swedish championship was divided into three different categories, male, mix and female, all to be raced by teams of two. Team Haglöfs Silva was represented by Björn and Robert male…) and Josefina and Mattias (mixed). They were challenged by many of the best Swedish adventure racers with teams such as Sweco, Statkraft, FJS and Axa-adidas. Most of the race course was the same for all categories, but mixed and female was shortened on a few places to make all top teams reach the finishline at the same time.
The race started with a high speed 3 hour prologue of biking, running, air madrass swimming and some rope work. The air madrass swimming was divided into two different sections, a small fast flowing river and a supercold lake above the tree level. Due to logistics (we had our madrasses in the backpack, biking to the lake) we had planned to use two sets of madrasses. Bit of a disappointment when we found that Björn bought 4 double beds instead of single beds… Not even Robert can reach around that madrass! Both our team stayed up in front during this prologue, males taking an extra CP on the air madrass swim and left Ljungdalen on bikes up towards Flatruet among the first.
A 20 km hilly bike leg on gravel roads took us up to Flatruet, the highest placed public gravel road in Sweden! We then followed 4wheel-tracks and an amazing single track down to the valley again.
At the end of this bike-section we felt a superstong tail wind coming in on the tar-road to Storsjö and realized that the coming kayaking could be a bit windy. Both of our teams chose to put on neoprene pants and brought some extra dry clothing in case of trouble… Björn and Robert was the first team on the water, with FJS and Sweco chasing close behind. Heading to the first CP, teams had to enter the Ljungan river from a shallow area, bit of a tricky navigation. Unfortunately Björn brought Robert and FJS into the wrong river, forcing them all to turn back which cost them some 10 minutes and the lead. This section was very nice with deep narrow rivers and some navigation, but rules regarding when you were allowed to portage, or not, were not superclear and teams had understood them different. Mattias and Josefina was probably one of the teams taking the longest route, not crossing any shallow areas, what so ever, which for a while cost them their lead, even though they never went wrong (as Björn did).
After the supernice narrow river section, there was CPs to be reached by kayaking on the big lake. By now the wind was strong, at first from behind. The male course was made so that the shortest way to the next CP was from kayaking on the middle of the lake. Björn and Robert did well in their pretty stable Zedtech surfskies, but had to work hard with the paddle steering in the big surf. Josefina and Mattias messed up a little with the tow line and Josefina took a bath, but when they took the line away and did well in the big waves. Unfortunately many other teams had problems in the big waves and some teams was even forced to withdraw on this section due to hypothermia from spending long time swimming in the cold water.
Björn and Robert was the first team out of the water, having put out a 9 minute lead ahead of FJS and Statkraft. For Josefina and Mattias, the lead was even bigger, since the two teams chasing closest behind, Sweco and Statkraft, both were forced to withdraw on this section (they both continued as unranked on the next trekking though). After the kayaking a short bike link to one of the key sections of this Swedish championship, the mountain trekking. 44 km of trekking with 2500 m of vertical climb for males and the mixed course with one peak (500m) taken away.
The wind was strong, the mist was thick and we were super excited. Before the race we all knew that this section would be important for the outcome of the race. We had planned to keep the weight of the backpack as low as possible and even swapped to smaller lighter backpacks for this section. Björn had planned for about 6 hours of running and told Robert to bring food for 5… Both teams started out in a good pace and as the mixed course missed out the first CP of the male course, Mattias and Josefina was soon the first team out on the mountain.
As visibility was sometimes down to 20-30 meters and the map of 1:60 000, an accurate work with compass, altimeter and map was crucial. The thick mist and the strong wind also made us choose different routes to make it more safe, which made progress slower than (Björn) expected. By the second last CP Josefina had Björn and Robert in visual (they never saw Josefina and Mattias) but Björn took a less good route down to Ljungdalen and the mixed team was first in to transition (after almost 8 hours of trekking). At this transition in Ljungdalen both teams were told that their lead was very big and that many teams had dropped out.
The race continued with a 60 km long mountainbiking on hiking paths up around the mountains, with a stop for some mountaineering to the Helags peak. The mountaineering section was later taken out due to superstrong wind, 26 m/s, in average. This biking was extremely beautiful and most of it bikeable IF you do not have a strong headwind, heavy rain and have been racing for almost 24 hours…;) Anyway, we managed to be on our bikes for a pretty big part of the section, we got some fantastic downhill biking from the Helags mountain hut and we also got a bit of freezing, exhaustion and misery… Finally back in Ljungdalen we swapped to running shoes for a short last section of running and Canadian canoe. As we reached finishline, we vere a bit behind schedule (race director and ours) but many hours ahead of the other teams. A great performance for both of our teams on a great race course!
Media
- Interview in the Swedish radio with Mattias and Josefina.
- Local newspaper in Västerbotten, both on the web and in the paper version.
- The Swedish website for multisport, multisport.se.