NJ Trail Series 5K - Team OW best losers

First of all - March 4th is D-Day - Olof is getting into surgery and according to the doctor it is about 50% chance of his foot getting better. Until then he has gotten an ok to do about a 5k run once a week. Freely elaborating on that Whitney and Olof entered the NJ Winter Trail series. - a 5k race! Gratned non of us had raced for almost 2 years in running the expectations where very low, and just take it for fun.... but for some reason as soon as the bib comes on all I can think about is how am I going to win! Where is the best place for a sprint etc. Also I am very easy to predict because the tactic is always the same... stay with the lead group as long as possible and if you are with them to the end... win the sprint. And as my friend Micke wrote on his blogg "jag ar bra pa att tavla", when I now can compare myself to citizen racers etc, I have to say "jag ar forbannat bra pa att tavla". The biggest problem was that both Whitney and Olof are extremely out of shape when it comes to running. In the biggest hill which was between 2-3k the runners lightly tripped away from us while Olof at least fell like a rock through the field (I was seriously considering walking several times and my position fell from 3-to7 in like 200 meters). The good news is that runners are not good at "kora over kronet" - something you are toast as a cross country skier if you do not do. So 300 meters after the summit I suddenly was 2:nd again on a small windy single track towards the finish with no major uphills left. Holding on for dear life I managed to keep the 3 seconds I had in lead over the last 1.5k and keeping second.

Whitney also does a great race and is actually close to stealing first, even though she is in a brutal fall on the downhill and scrapes her knees and tear her pants, but gets beaten with about 10 sec over a tiny woman half her size. Overall team OW is extremly happy with the performance and excited to be on the trails. Click on the pictures below that takes you to an album with pictures from the day.