I ran the 2009 TjurRuset terrain race on Saturday and although my intention was to just have fun with the event, I wound up learning more about myself as a runner than I had in many years. 10 truly grueling kilometers of the annual run called “Tjur Ruset”, which literally translates into “The Bull Rush”. Essentially, the one-off design of the route  through forrest, marsh and boulders reduced most of us to appear as if we were indeed, a stampede of nervous bulls who were escaping from a slaughterhouse.

This year’s course was the toughest one in memory for anybody I interviewed. The event location doesn’t change, but the routes and *edit- changes every year, but kept secret until weeks before each start.-edit end* Additional obstacles are brilliantly arranged to be about as difficult to run as possible. Mother Nature decided to kick it all up a few notches with cold rain in an already wet Autumn. This year’s location was quite unique with sand dunes, rocky alpines and marshy quagmires, all in the same 5km radius. Add to that a few obstacle courses drawn right out of a Navy Seal bootcamp and you begin to get the picture. Most of the run was as fun as it was frustrating, save the 25% which we ran over slick, wet roots which I just didn’t have the right shoes for. (I ran in retired Asics Cumulus with no traction left)

The entire length of the course was a virtual roller-coaster of sick ascents and dangerous downhills with your eyes glued to the ground ahead. After an immediate climb of a 50m, steep and sandy dune, the route narrowed quickly into single-track trails, bottlenecked with cold and anxious runners jostling for any shot to jump ahead.

Advice was issued to all to take it easy in the beginning, which is usually sensible for any race of 10km or longer. However, it’s advice which I’ll blatantly ignore next year and here’s why: The more runners that get by you in the beginning, the more congestion you’ll see later on when the field bottlenecks with hundreds of runners. More than five times my efforts were helplessly reduced to a slow queue of hikers rather than runners. In the end, one’s finish time and placement would not be a result of their physical condition and fighting spirit alone. Lesson learned: Get and stay ahead early and hold on as long as your body can handle it. Those who had this strategy had run this before. Most of the top finishers, and both male and female winners, were orienteers.

The wrong strategy aside, I had magnificent fun sloughing through the mud. That said, I ended up with an embarrassing 1:04:58, just coming in in the top 1.500 of 5.000 terrain-trotters. With a little more conditioning, an aggressive strategy and proper orienteering shoes, I’ll be looking forward to doing this event again next year.

At the finish line.

**A special thanks goes out to my wife, Sanna, who made her debut appearance of support for me on my last event of the year. It wasn’t easy as she had our five month old daughter in the cold and rain for about two hours while waiting for me. Muahh!

*New* Added 20.10.2009…

Click here for an article by Torbjörn Sköldefors of Marathon.se covering this year’s event. (Swedish)

Click here for a photo gallery of TjurRuset 2009 by photographer Martin Ekequist.