I Made It Again!

This day seemed quite faint back in february when the signup for Grenserittet (“Cross Countries”) opened up, but after just short of five hours on the bike, I have now returned! Yet again the 81 kilometers between Strømstad and Halden were the goal of the trip, and yet again it proved to be harder than planned. Christer also did the race, but I failed to make any kind of contact with him during the day – even though we started in the same group. He did an amazing race and finished in 3 hours and 49 minutes, almost an hour less than me.

The biggest issue this year was that during the last two days before the race, the weather turned really nasty and we got 60mm of rain during those two days in total. This means one thing: Mud, mud and more mud. I’ve never seen so much .. mud. In one area things had gotten so bad that the organizers declared the part of the track to be unridable, and chose to lead the competitors around the area instead. Luckily the weather today was warm and comfy (not too hot), so the parts of the track that hadn’t gone completely muddy were quite good.

Compared to last year I had a much, much slower start this year, averaging 13.37 (!) km/h during the first 29 kms, down from 19km/h the previous year. Last year things did however go from bad to worse, and the last 50 kms saw slower and slower average speeds. This year things were just the opposite, and after the first checkpoint I averaged 17.8km/h, 20.5km/h and 22.6km/h. Seems like I at least had a bit more energy late in the race this year. The total time this year became 4 hours, 45 minutes and 57 seconds, close to two minutes better than last year. Considering the state of the track in the forrest, I’m almost happy with the time. Next year, tho…

Now it’s four weeks until Birkebeiner’n, a 89.5km long race over the mountains between Rena and Lillehammer. I have no idea why I keep doing this, but I’ll still do it next year.

Plans for 2009 – and seven things

Magne has posted his plans for 2009, and as this networking on teh intarwebs thing work, he’s asking his readers to do the same. It’s obviously easy to convince me to do stuff, so here goes nothing:

  • Listen to more amazing music: I’ve finally gotten a proper stereo in our new house, so I’m finding myself just listening to great music.
  • Attempt to keep up on my reading habits, which has dwindled a bit in the last months of 2008.
  • I’m doing Grenserittet and Birkebeinerrittet in August this year too, so I’m getting ready for starting the bicycle season as soon as the snow disappears. Even got new warm underwear for christmas, so I’m starting early! (If I just could remember to get my running shoes too, I might actually start even earlier!)
  • Keep the updates of my blog running, but attempt to start a more focused blog together with Christer.
  • Take more responsibility.
  • Launch at least one new product concept and idea.
  • Launch three new areas of content on pwned.no.
  • Finish more games. I’m really good a starting games, but not really good at finishing them.

Hopefully that covers the issues Magne were talking about, so then we head over to our next networking-on-teh-intarwebs-issue; Christer’s challenge to post seven things people might not know about me (this challenge has been all over Planet PHP for a few days, so people are probably getting bored..):

  1. I studied 2 years at NTNU before heading down south and finishing my master’s degree at HIOF within the field of digital maps and cartography. While in Trondheim I worked as a Oracle (Orakeltjenesten), so I’m a Orakel Emeritus.
  2. I played football for two years when I was 10 and 12. I even managed to be the score the most goals for our team, the 2nd team of Rolvsøy IF, in a season: 3.
  3. I drove a Volvo 340 for a year; a very nice car, but with five (.. or six) people in the car, even the smallest hill became a climb to save our lives..
  4. I’ve competed at The Gathering in different demoscene categories every year since 1997, except 2008. I’ve been less active in the norwegian demoscene during the last year, but that might change in the future.
  5. I’ve played Counter-Strike and Battlefield 2 semiserious for MESED, a clan that I’ve been running since 2000. I were also participating at CPL Copenhagen in 2003 (The Cyberathlete Professional League), where we actually managed to score a draw (and two losses).
  6. I’ve participated in several amateur movie projects (no, not those kind of movies), both as an “actor” and as an editor. I still occasionally edit gaming movies for MESED.
  7. I started up and ran (together with Geir) Vision of Chaos, a computer party in Norway. We managed to get 250-300 visitors in 1999, 2001 and 2002 before I called it quit. We always said we were going to do another party in 2010, as we could call that VoC MMX. The problem is that people no longer know what MMX is.. I also ran a web site for parties and organizing, called partai.org. Maybe we’ll rescue that some day too.

Like that, and that’s the way it is.

I Made It!

After a cruelling 81 kilometers and 4 hours and 47 minutes, I finally reached Halden from Strömstad! Magne finished at 4 hours and 4 minutes, 43 minutes ahead of me. Every possible muscle feels sore at the moment, but it was a great experience. Wouldn’t do it again tomorrow, but there’s a good possibility that we’ll do the race next year too. It rained all morning, but just before we were about to start, the rain magically stopped. The gravel roads where however very wet and soggy, which meant that you had to pedal all the time, all the way. The bike just wouldn’t roll, as the tires got loads of traction and stayed down on the ground. Anyways, weeee’re done!

.. and now I’m doing Birkebeinerrittet in the last weekend of August. Not really looking forward to it at the moment, but that’ll change in a few days.

Photo by Aleksander Toppe!

Going Cross Countries – Grenserittet 2008

Well, the day TOMORROW is approaching fast (just an hour left..) – the day when Magne and I are participating in Grenserittet 2008. Grenserittet (or “Cross Countries” as it’s called in english) is an annual bike race from Strömstad in Sweden to Halden in Norway. It’s a total of 81 kilometers in length, with a few downhills and uphills along the way. Nothing major, but it’s still going to be a good challenge after I picked up biking again in May. Our goal is to finish in under 4 1/2 hour, so we’ll see how that goes. You can search for my name at grenserittet.com and follow our (or at least my) progress along the route.

I’m going to let my Garmin Edge 705 record the run, so hopefully I’ll be able to provide a few graphs and paths after I’ve finished. Here’s to good weather and a not too warm day!