Ridderrennet 2009

The story so far...

The day started off quite fine with an all right breakfast. I met my assistant ( compulsary to have one) outside the hotel at 9 AM. She was a fit physiotherapist aiming for Marcia Longa next winter. Also she was outgoing and easy to talk with.

At the stadium I had a couple of glasses of lemonade and a banana before warming up. My starting time was at 10:11, half a minute after the first one in my class. I felt a bit tense, but still positively excited. And despite of a sore throat and a bit of a cold, I felt ready to fight!

I had 22 racers in front of me in the slope. Sixteen of them went 20 kilometres, and the rest went 10 kilometres. Though only one male. 300 metres after the start, I passed my competitor and at 2 kilometres I had passed five or six racers. I felt I gained quite good speed and kept the pace fairly well. I distanced my assistant downhill around 8 kilometres, but she returned a bit later. But the last 200 metres i spurted past her again. It is a pleasure to feel so exhausted that I need a couple of minutes to restitute.

Unfortunately, I did not time myself. But now I know that i won the class in 43:26 (mm:ss). Apparantly I beat number two with 5 minutes! Certainly a great feeling! The winner of the 20 kilometres Norwegian Cup race sitskiing was a lot faster than me, apparantly he did the distance in 1:02 (h:mm). That is awesome and deserves a lot of credit. And the others in this class were also faster than me. Albeit this vast time difference, I am very pleased. He is ranked as one of the three or four best in the world!

My experience from this is that I really feel