Time to move on

My two weeks in Sweden has come to a close. I am happily tired and as this lifestyle breeds, I am also looking forward to moving on to a new place. Tomorrow I head to Rupholding, Germany for my final week.

I knew this training camp would be intense, detailed, transformative, challenging and a great opportunity. Each session has lived up to that, and then some. After a spending a lot of super saturated training session at the range and on the World Cup courses with drills and structured focus we ended the week with a relaxing ski and run in the mountains just west of Ostersund, on the Norwegian border.

Below are some views running in the mountain valleys from Storulvån, a classic Scandinavian outpost lodge with rooms, restaurant, saunas, communal kitchen, and lots of space to relax and soak in a good weekend's hike. I am camera-less these days, so these are my teammate Lowell's photos. Running in these wide open valleys and high alpine tundra felt great, well my legs were quite tired, but it was good for the spirits. And seeing some reindeer was a plus.

Board walks covered the wetter, marsh areas, but otherwise you follow some well hiked paths. The hiking trails are intertwined with red-cross marked trails that rise well above the snowpack in the winter to provide guidance for ski touring.

Altogether, this place most typified northern Scandinavia for me.

We have been living in comfortable apartments right next to the rollerski tracks, and lots of blueberries. On off days, when it is time to relax and to get away from biathlon, I took to baking.