thealillehov's page

About me

1977 I was born in Tönsberg, Norway. The first months of my life I spent in the south of Norway, but pretty soon we headed off towards my Dads home village and since I was four, Vallset in Hedmark has been my home. It is a beautiful place, lots of forests, fields, strawberry fields and some here and then a house or two. After a very short and not very good career in the local soccer team I started off doing orienteering. I was ten at the time and I still love the sport, so you could say I have been infected with the orienteering-virus for good. Back home in Norway my sport career took off with me joining the regional children’s- and Junior team, going on with being a pupil at the local orienteering high school and ending with a solid dose of overtraining. Then I took a longer break from orienteering and training and started off with my studies.

First the basic year of sport studies (made really fun, but I can still not play football..), then one year of “folkehögskole” (I haven’t got a English word for that one, but it is 10 months of school, without exams, really nice! www.ringebu.fhs.no) and then I headed off to Utrecht, Holland, to study physiotherapy (www.thim.nl). Except for 4 months of practical training in Gladbeck, Germany, I stayed in Utrecht for about four years.

When I had finished my final exams, I moved to Vienna, mostly because I have always been dreaming of living in Austria. I started working in a geriatric hospital, which was a rich experience because of the many sweet patients, but after about 18 months I wanted to do more out of my knowledge. I started to work part-time, first in a fitness studio (to learn more about strength-training) and later in a physiotherapy clinic and parallel to this I worked as a self-employee. Since November 2005 I work only self-employed in ats-physio (www.ats-physio.at), which make out my dream job and my dream-team! I work as a sport-physiotherapist and I am to be a manual therapist, at least in some years.

In those years in Holland I did some orienteering, but almost no training, and when I trained, it was just for fun. At the end of my education, I made some clinical training in the Dutch army. For the first time since years, I had time and motivation for training and I got back on the track. The first time in Austria I used to get back into a life including serious training and from 2003 onward I was back into real sport. I ran the University World Champs 2000-2002-2004, with a 22nd place on the middle distance in 2004 as the best result. Thanks to Martin Apolin for bringing me there!

2005 was an off-season, I had to remove a benign breast-tumour, and the rehabilitation took much longer time than we thought pre-op. But, autumn 2005 I started again and since then it has gone, with some ups and downs, more or less the right way. 2006 was a nice season, with lost of new experiences, with the World Champs in Denmark as the biggest one. Even if I did not qualify for the finals, I learned a lot. What drives me when it comes to orienteering is first of all the joy that I experience when I try to solve the orienteering problems in the best way. Second, since WOC 2006 I know for sure, that I really, really want to be able to run so fast und solve those challenging orienteering problems so good, that I end up in the top 25s.

The 2007-Season was a up and down season like I never experienced it before. Winter training went well, except from a major iron deficit, but even that got well again pretty fast. At the Austrian Champs Ultra long I made my first individual medal, silver, and I knew I was on the right way. At Tiomila I did a pretty good run, helping my Club Västerås SOK to a 26th place. In the spring I caught a cold, which made the Austrian sprint champs a night mare, but I recovered and ran really good at Jukola too. The world cup in Finland in the days prior to Jukola wasn't that good, but in total I was happy with the first part of the summer. At the qualifying for the world champ I did hop and drop, one extremely good run, two drops. Well, in the end it did not matter, since the Austrian Federation decided to not send any women to the WOC 2007. Well, that was quite a hit to the motivation.. After that I ran the World Cup in Sweden and was very happy to see my family there. For the first time since years they had the chance to come cheering for me and that was amazing!

After the WC I took 6 weeks off, moved to a new flat, which was a lot of work and still is;). I trained when I felt for, got a cold again and took gold in the Austrian team champs (Thanks Uschi and Jutta!) and bronze in the Austrian Middle Champs. Must say that gave a positive blow to my motivation! So since September I'm back on track, training with Franz Benda as a coach and I am looking forward to a lot of challenging competitions in 2009. Of course WOC in Olomouc is the major goal!