Watching his older brother win the World Orienteering Championships at eight years old Marten Bostrom dreamed he would follow in his older sibling’s footsteps; a silver medal in Budapest Hungary at the World Junior Championships in 2001 showed promise, as well as a Finnish junior record for his marathon debut of 2:25 at nineteen years old. His attendance at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff provided the perfect community to sharpen his track and cross-country skills while studying geology and cartography.
This “Flying Finn” narrowly missed the Olympic marathon over two Olympic periods in 2008 and 2012, the latter miss due to bilateral Achilles tendon injury sustained while training in Kenya’s Rift Valley. Undeterred, Marten returned to orienteering with renewed motivation as the world championships were to be contested in his home country of Finland in 2013. He would go on to fulfill a lifelong dream, winning gold in the 2013 World Orienteering Championships. He prefers the forest, mountains, and rugged terrain of trails, and enjoys his career of mapping new roads for his orienteering and outdoor community. He holds both bachelor's and master’s degrees in Geographical Information Science from Northern Arizona University and the University of Helsinki—where he is completing his doctoral studies. He can be found burning up the trail marathon world, always looking forward to his next goal – such as his recent victory in the Nuuksio Classic trail marathon - while enjoying what’s around the next turn.
Marten has clocked personal bests of 2:18:51 in the marathon and has won the Copenhagen Marathon, Transgrancanaria 30k twice, as well as the 2013 World Orienteering Championships. Catching up with Marten transported me back to our time training together in Flagstaff and I am overjoyed to host Marten in this episode of Intrinsic Drive ® .
Intrinsic Drive ® is produced by Ellen Strickler and Phil Wharton. Special thanks to Andrew Hollingworth, our sound engineer and technical editor. For more information on this and other episodes visit us at www.whartonhealth.com/intrinsicdrive. Follow us on socials (links below) including Instagram @intrinsicdrivelive
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