My 2009

Then this year has come to an end, and its been a very eventful year!
A lot of memories, experiences, ups and downs, and also some good moments on the bike..
So here is the highlights from my bikeyear 2009 i wont forget!


The year started off good, already in my second race i got my first win! A freezing cold, rainy Amgen Tour of California criterium in Santa Rosa


Went through my first Tour de L'aude, the biggest ten day tour for women, and I got two really nice 6th and 7th places, and even more surprising in the mountainstages! Was a great thing for me, and that made my confidence for my future a lot bigger!


Emakumeen Bira was the next good tour, where i got one 5th place, and the best of all, a 4th place in the hill time trial. Think it was more people then I that was very surprised to see my name in between the climbers on that resultlist..


Next win came in the Swedish national championship, but this year in the Time trial! Won over Susanne Ljungskog and Emma Johansson, to great international riders, and this was the most unexpected thing of the year!


Finally i got my medal at the European Championships, which last couple of years been a big goal for me, but would never guessed it would come in the Time trial!


After all that succes first part of the season i the second part struggled a little and I could really feel that im young and the season was very long, since i started off in Qatar already first days of February.
But in Toscana i got a nice 5th place in the time trial there.


After that i finsihed off the season with the Worlds, which to the results, wasnt any good thing for me, but taking part and also this year in the Time trial is great learning for the future and gives a lot.


So with a great 2009 i'm very excited to see what 2010 can bring, but i also learnt some things to do diffrent to next year..

But for now i wish you all a happy new year!

winterdays

It's been a nice christmas time, mostly spended with family and friends and it's been more snow then i can remember from last few years!
So last couple of days i had some nice sessions on the skies, and it's so beautiful and white all around!
Today i also passed by the dentist and a visit to the hospital in the town close by mine for a test. So there is some stuff that has to be done while being home here, and head back to Spain is gonna feel pretty relaxing.
But first im awaiting visitors tomorow!
Dennis is coming up to Sweden and bringing a friend and we gonna celebrate new years here! Think it will be a very nice end of the year, and a perfect beginning of next!

GOD JUL!

Here in Sweden we celebrate christmas today the 24th..

My christmas day started off in a very nice, wintery way. I decided to, this year, go skiing since I last year spended the christmas eve in the emergency room at the hospital after crashing during my bikeride..
So after 28 nice kilometres in good ski conditions i was more then ready for all the nice food on the traditional swedish "christmas table".
And the afternoon i've spended with a lot of family, food, christmas porridge and even a visit from Santa Claus!

Merry Christmas to you all!

Time for a nice reunion

After a day spended with meetings and other necessary appointments, i'm now gonna hit the cold air again, but this time over to a friends place!
So finally i will see my closest friends again, and since we all moved to diffrent places after highschool we dont meet that often anymore, so we have a lot to catch up on!
And I also managed to complete my christmas present shopping today, so now its just to wait for Santa Claus...

Christmas spirit!

Finally home in Örebro, and finally some christmas spirit! And the word finally after a less fun travel with delayed flights, once again with ryan air...
Landed in a nice, white and beautiful winterlandscape with a termometer showing -13 degrees. And what a good timing too, today was the first day with rain in Girona!
Hopefully i will be able to go on skies again, or that the temperature jumps up a few degrees so i can feel the nice, smooth change from my road bike to winterbike with studded tires, trying to avoid crash my knees and hips this december again.. And last winter I even stood on ice skates!

So back home, and just a few days to christmas-day, i've spended the evening baking some traditional swedish christmas candies! And that with some christmas songs and a few glances out through the window at the nice snowy views.
And now im off for christmas tree decoration!


I'm making Knäck

Winter has arrived

Now the winter has come to Girona too. Last week here was super nice, really warm, clear sky and sunny bikerides, and at one moment i spotted 22 degrees up on the hill side of Santa Grau. But slowly and sneaky the cold has finally made an entrance here.. So with a bit colder every day, another extra shirt or gloves for next days training, the termometer today showed 2degrees. But so far no rain or snow, and i've been able to make some really nice trainings here!
And in between trainings it's been busy (yes, still!) with geting the apartment in order. Stuff start to come together, furnitures and clothes on place and a coffe machine has now moved in too!

Today the morning started with a nice powertraining session at the gym and in the afternoon a good bikeride, where i got to be reminded of the extreme contrasts here. This summer in Girona it almost came to points where it was so warm i just wished for nothing else then snow and cold, and here i am, at the same roads, riding in full winter kit which i normally use at home in the swedish winter weather. Probably thats forgotten very quick when it's back to 40degress again in the summer...

So with some good training done and the remaining energy spended on house-fixing, i'm ready to go home to sweden on monday for some days of nice christmas atmosphere and celebration with the family. And finally i will meet my very longed-for best friends that also comes home to town during christmas!


A ride along the coastline

busy days

The past days here in Girona has been really busy, lots of things to do! Never could've guessed how much work it actually is to move..
So monday we arrived here in Spain, picked up the rental car, or lets call it van.. Agengy, key, load all stuff in the apartment, and we were off for some supermarket shopping. Filled a few carts with all from cleaningstuff to delicious salmon! And few hours later we could crash back in the apartment. Off for a late dinner real spanish style, we got our food at a quarter to twelve. And in the same move we got to introduce ourselves to the neighbours, by knocking on short after eleven to ask if they could open the door for us when we would get back from dinner.. Since we got didnt the key to the main entrance..
Next day up early to steer the car towards Barcelona and Ikea. Lets just say that was an even bigger day! With an empty apartment and a long list what we needed, the challenge could begin. And on top of that it was a public holiday here in spain so it was crowded. A few hungerflats later we finally got everything to the car, and could a couple of hour too late return the car again.
One thing i realized is how long it actually take to put an apartment in order. So much small stuff that needs to be fixed, so there is still stuff all over the floors, but we are geting there! And one thing is for sure, the apartment is so, so nice!

Yesterday we wrote us in to the gym here and tried that out, and also made a little ride around familiar and longed-for roads!
Today I had a nice 4+h ride in sunshine and great temperature, and the ride finished off with some nice tapas... What a diffrent but perfect december!


Preparations for ikea-shopping


After a hard day at Ikea...

C/ Barcelona, Girona

finally it's here, new adres, new apartment!
I'm packed and ready to go, but first real test was to fit in all stuff you want for daily life in baggage restrictions á la Ryan air..
The first two days now will be very exciting, supermarketshopping and a daytrip to Ikea in Badalona is the plans, and that will for sure be another challenge then the ones im meeting at the bike!
So, here we go, hasta luego!

Good news!

As i wrote about earlier, i've been at a selection for the swedish olympic committee, SOK.
And yesterday i got the good news, i made it into the program!!

We were 22 athletes at the final selection at Bosön, and now 5 of them made it in to SOK's talentprogram, and I'm one of them!
This is super exciting and such good news for me
First of all, it shows that people really believe in you, and your future in this sport, which is huge. As a bikerider im sure everybody has times, days or just for a minute they doubt about themselves and their ability, so this is great motivation to have this support which also in times you struggle a bit can lift you back on track when you remind yourself of that.
And second great thing is they will support me in my way trying to make it to the top in this sport, at those part's were things are missing, or i can make stuff better and by that improve and develop!

Here you find me and the other four

december sun!

December made a very nice entry to my town, with a clear blue sky and sunshine!
So i've been spinning my legs for a few hours on my bike today.
Pretty nice with a little bit more speed then on the skies..

Ski holiday

And now over to the other adventure!
As the headline is saying, i can almost call the last 10 days a holiday. It's been nothing else but perfect and beautiful!
Been looking forward since very long to be able to go skiing again, last two winters i haven't been home in time for it to be enough snow to ski on.
But 500km north from my town, in Bruksvallarna, Dennis and I found the snow again...
This little village is very popular for many skiing national teams to go for trainingcamps and such, since they have very much ski tracks and usually one of the first places where the snow stays!

So with a lot of good skiers to watch and get passed in the track from, we made some really nice days on the cross country skies! During the first half of our stay we got some more snow up there, and that put our knowledge in wax skies on a good test...
So, since we where at this place with good prepared tracks we thought we also should try skating (that idea might have got a little brighter the day we had 10cm snow stuck under the wax part on the skies...)

Another thing we decided to try, was to make a hike up the mountian, to the top house. It was a really nice walk, pretty hard at parts, and after passing the tree limit it suddenly felt 15 degrees colder and also 50cm snow deeper. So, we never made it all the way up, but got some amazing views, and as the competition persons we both are, we ended up finding this very nice steep hill someone thought was perfect for doing some snowy lactat sprints in...
Except from the ski training, which in this super beautiful surroundings didn't feel like training, it was so much time to just relax and do nothing then feel good, since you are far away from big cities and must-do's at home.. Thats why it felt like one big holiday i already miss!
But back to the must do's, there is a few things you don't get from, like cooking dinners.. And since we didn't break any legs or so i thought i should visit the doctor today anyway, to establish the fact I have a small tendon sheath inflammation in my right hand.. from whipping sauce to the lasagne we made one night... (tasted veeery good)
But could have been a lot worse, now i almost brought the winter landscape feeling home, since my arm sounding like the crashing from wet snow!
It's just a small thing what will get better soon, so today i was back for some nice powertraining at the gym, so now with tired legs i can also tell the ski training, if nothing else, atleast made my back very tired! and hopefully stronger ;-)

First part of a fun adventure!

Got back home yesterday evening from a ten day long ski trip to Bruksvallarna, 500km north from my hometown!
But the adventure actually started one day earlier.. The 18th November i had a whole day at Bosön in stockholm, for the swedish olympic committee(SOK) since i was one of about 25 other athletes from diffrent sports nominated for a selection to their Top and talent program. The day was very exciting, we got some info about the olympic committees organisation, did some diffrent physical tests and personal conversations. Was very intretsting to meet such a mix of high class athletes from diffrent sports, and get ideas how their sport, racing and training runs!
So, this is a huge motivation to have been on this selection, but everybody is very talented and on a high level in their sports, so its gonna be super hard to make the program. Atleast I gave my best and will carry this with me as a super good experience!

guldklockan 2009

I woke up this morning by a textmessage from my grandmother, saying:
congratulations on your name-day and also for the nomination of Guldklockan.
Guldklockan (the goldwatch) is an award my county's newspaper arrange every year, which should go to the athlete that done the most remarkable perfomances during the year...

I'm very happy to be one of six nominated, mostly beacuse cycling is not a big sport around here! So it's always fun when people get up the eyes for what you achieved.


HERE is the page where you can vote on who ever you think deserve the award!

weekend

So, another week soon passed.. time flies and soon im standing at the startline in Qatar for the first race! okej maybe not that fast, luckily!
Anyway, it has been a good week, some nice training with bit of running, cycling outside on my crossbike and powertraining at the gym. I also experienced the first snow of the year while riding, and as usual for every winter, almost frose my fingers of my hands, but this time i was lucky having a saviour as in Dennis with me, so for next ride im sure i learnt to put warmer gloves on (or atleast i'm sure someone else reminds me...)

But for now, this evening we gonna get warm from the home-made pizza that is just coming out of the oven!

Some exciting things!

So, am back home after a nice stay in Girona, was great to be back there, but sure its a bit diffrent compared to hot summer there too!
Had some busy days walking around, visiting loads of diffrent agencies and looking, mostly, nice apartments!
In the end it all came out perfect, found the apartment i so fell in love with. So its ours from the first of december and it's so exciting to be able to build up a real home there!

Second exciting thing is that im nominated for Women road bikerider of the year, together with Emma Johansson and Susanne Ljungskog, two of the best women bikeriders in the world. So its surely a tough challenge but that makes it even more fun to be nominated among them two! And the winner will be presented at the Swedish bike gala the 21st of november.

Now im back in Sweden some weeks, with nice company from my boyfriend Dennis. And tomorow a day off at the plan, so we're heading to Stockholm over the day, this time to get tired from sightseeing and shopping!

a little trip back to Spain..

Its been a beautiful, sunny fall week here in Örebro. That is the town in Sweden were i've been living my whole life, until this summer. Then i decided it was time for something new, a little change, and for the season i rented an apartment together with two teammates down in Girona, Spain.
It was great! Beautiful nature, awsome new trainingroads, and a new country and lifestyle made me learn a lot and it affected me in a very good way, both on the bike and as person.
So the season ended, and our rent aswell... So therefor my little trip tomorow!
Im heading back to Girona for a few days, and the mission is to find a new apartment! As i said, i really liked living there and think thats the best for my progress, so im really excited about going back and try to find a real Home!

Except from exciting stuff like apartment hunting, im busy with having a little touch of musclepain..

with 2010 in sight!

First, welcome!
After a long season of racing this year, i had 3 well deserved weeks of rest, and what great weeks then!
Spended 2 of them with my boyfriend at Bali, just enjoying a normal holiday, beach, sun and relaxing! Straight from Bali to the southest part of Sweden visiting two of my closest friends, made it a perfect time of rest, fun and most important, my mind switched of from anything around the word bike. Only thing i must not have been tired of yet, is travelling around...
So with my mind fresh, holiday is over, and it's time to start going again!
With a in general great season this year, im really excited to see what 2010 can bring.
So this week i have started up slowly with my training for next year and since it's very much off-season i do some other stuff then just ride my bike.
Right now I just headed in from the first running session of the year and today i gonna play it smart! Time for some stretching...