Österlen Spring Trail 2025 - Duo Trail

This weekend I ran Österlen Spring Trail 2025 in Sweden - more specifically the Duo Trail race. In the south eastern part of Sweden 🇸🇪, in Scania (Da: Skåne).

The race that I run (Duo Trail) was actually a relay race composed of 2-person teams: female, male or mixed. The objective was to complete a 60K Ultra Trail race together in a relay form. Effectively making it two times ~30K subraces. In my case I was on a team with by good friend Bo Nyholm Sørensen. It was even his action that lead us to be there to begin with: I received this race as a birthday gift from Bo last year for my 46 year old birthday 🥳.

The race started Saturday. We fetched our race bibs at the finish line at Christinehof Castle. I was runner 1 and Bo was runner 2.

Since Bo were to start later (at the midway point) he then took his car back home to the rented vacation house we shared with my family (wife, dog and children). And I boarded the bus to get to the starting line in Simrishamn.

The starting line was a mix of Duo Trail and the “real” ultra runners taking the entire 60K distance in one go. I placed myself near the front of the field as I planned to run OK hard. The race (for me) started with some good beach segments. Not too bad though - pretty runnable 🤩.

The boulder stone passing you see there was pretty much the only one of it’s kind (IIRC 🙃). Besides this it was some really nice mixed trail running scenery (so luckily not only sand). And I got to run with some really fast runners I think; at times we ran on runnable trails and roads in a sub 4:30 /min pace. It really helped me that I had someone to run behind - to kind of pull me.

Due to the same fact (pushing my effort a lot) I did not have capacity to stop and take a lot of beautiful photos. Lot’s of missed opportunities there; the trails were lovely. Woods, single-track trails - a lot of different small obstacles to pass while navigating grassy fields etc. Sorry but you have to imagine it.

Around the 20K mark or so Bo and my family were waiting at the road and got a few photos of me in action (running downhill … road. Really dramatic pace 😆):

It re-powered me to give it a go for the remaining 10-14K 🤩. So fast forward to some really tired legs … here’s where I reached the midway point. The part where Bo took over his relay segment to complete the Ultra for us as a Duo team:

That was my race. After that I went home with my family to take a bath and rest a bit. We barely made it back to see Bo reach and successfully cross the finish line! Luckily we did:

Bo ran super well. I bet he surprised himself positively a bit (although he said that after the 20K ish … it got signficantly harder to keep on the hard effort). Afterwards he was tired - as was I (still) 🤣. Luckily, at the finish line, we got to relax a bit with a free non-alcoholic beer. And a cup-cake 🧁. And coffee ☕️. Wonderful 😆.

But now comes the best thing. We actually ran so good that we ended up on the podium. Well to be fair we ended up on a 4th place of all the Duo Trail teams. However, a ceremony was held for each of the 3 categories: females, males and mixed. And for the male teams we got a nice 3rd place. So podium time it was (and this was my first one 🤩 … I was and am still really proud 😎).

And will you look at that. Firstly the medals we received were half; one for each relay runner. And they fit together … to become whole, just like the combined effort of us lead to the successful completion of the 60K Ultra trail distance. Pretty nice concept 👍🏻. Then also, we received a delicious package of pasta (I already ate mine with my family: delicous 🤤) and a nice pair of running socks 🥳.

Thank you Sweden 🇸🇪 - it was a blast being there. And thank you Bo, for this perfect birthday gift. I could hardly dream of a better gift - you truly know me 😆.

Recommended?

Yes! Absolutely - highly recommended.

The Österlen Spring Trail is really a nice and varied trail. It offers everything you can dream of in a trail race. And the volunteers at the aidstation and finishline were really nice and helpful. The relay model here is fun and kind of unique in a trail running context from my perspective at least: I like it and it is fun to share a challenge with another runner. Try it 👍🏻

The only downside - if I may say so - is that the relays are not even. The race Web site says “share with a friend” and hints that it is 30K/30K ish … and if you read more closely it says 32K/28K. But in fact it was more 34K for the first leg and 26K for the second one. So that was a little bit surprising. But that said: wonderful trails for both participants.

This race gets an almost top of the line 4-star rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️