Yesterday I ran in my first competition of the Swedish season, Måsenstafetten. A five man relay competition down near Nyköping, about 90 minutes south of Stockholm. Lidingö decided to field 2 even teams, and there was a mix of good clubs doing the same, but also some with their strongest team. All 5 legs ran about 8km, and after 2 legs my team was doing quite badly, already 8 minutes behind the lead! Legs 3 and 4 ran well though, and I went out on last leg about 2 minutes behind Holmberg in 2nd, 45 seconds behind Emil in 3rd for our other '1st team'. I started 2 seconds before Skogtjärn and 45 seconds before Millinger. I ran well to the first control, and caught Emil who missed a little. Then I had a longer gaffle than him and Skogtjärn to the second. I followed them towards their control then had to go further east to mine, so they were both out of sight on the way to the 3rd (which Emil missed and I got in front). Running across to the 5th control I could see Holmberg and Millinger about 100m in front, so I knew 2nd place was up for grabs! I really stupidly pushed really hard to catch them, and followed them in overshooting the 6th control. I ran within 5m of it, then ran 100m too far, turned round to see Emil punching it and running away. Ran well to the 7th, different route to the other 4 guys, but then to the 8th, 9th and 10th we were all pretty close (with some small gaffling).
The 10th control was a common radio, and Holmberg took it just before me and Emil. Then he had an extra control and me and Emil ran away up the hill to our 11th. He was running real fast and I struggled to stay in control, so I let him get a small gap. Unfortunately I couldn't close it again! He had a different 13th, and after I plunged into the cold green marsh I didn't see him again. I dropped 10 seconds on the 14th control with a dumbass route, and he was out of sight. All the other boys were out of sight behind so cruised into the finish to take 3rd.
Cool the have 2nd and 3rd places for our teams! And our 2 'even' teams only finished 32 seconds apart. It was an awesome relay training to be up against 3 Swedish internationals and one of the best last leg runners in the country pushing on the last leg.
I took second fastest time of the day, but 2 minutes behind Peter 'local hero' Öberg!
Only disappointment was how far ahead Södertälje were
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