The ÖTILLÖ race in Åland was held for the first time in 2025. Ben and I decided to race together after our successful race in Engadin. We were both excited to go somewhere new and we felt like the route suited us with plenty of swimming and technical running.
Åland is an island in the Baltic sea between Sweden and Finland. It was my first trip to Finland and because the race was in the school holidays V was able to join me. We also raced in the Experience race on Sunday which made for a fun family weekend of racing.
In the World Series race, Ben and I decided to go with the leaders and follow the pace from the start gun. This worked well and we felt great in the swims especially as we were mostly following Alexis and Viktor with Alexis doing the hard work. In the runs we had to push more, but we were still able to stay in the lead as a group of two teams.
This lasted for about two hours until a very technical descent and a huge leap into the sea. On the jump both Ben and I lost our buoys and Alexis and Viktor pulled away from us. On the next run I fumbled my buoy and took far too long to get myself together which let the gap open up even more. We pushed the pace to try and catch up for another hour before agreeing to settle into our own rhythm.
As the race went on, I began to struggle. First in the swims where I couldn't stay on Ben's feet and later on the runs. Ben took over and pulled for both swims and runs in the last third of the race.
We managed to stay in second place in the men's category despite some mixed teams coming passed. At the finish line I was relieved to be done. The advantage of being in a teamand having Ben's strength to pull and encourage me was amazing. The only downside of the team work was a sense that I was letting us down through having a bad day. I'm slowly starting to learn how well being a team can work and racing with Ben is awesome. I'm also excited to train hard to contribute more in our coming races.
Åland was an incredible event, we finished on the podium, developed as a team, and had an excellent trip to somewhere new. I'm looking forward to going back and showing what I'm capable of on this route.
Race result
9 August 202548.7km (10.0km swim; 38.7km run)
356m
6:59:49
2nd
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