Top of the world

For those determined to fly, having no wings is just a detail...

In the middle of a period mostly characterized by injury and rehab, I am having the time of my life. I can hardly believe it myself. It turns out that it is possible to get back your full enthusiasm and runners' high without being able to run and compete as normal.  Miraculously, I am enjoying myself as much now as I was when I was running everyday and competing in every race, half a year ago. Of course the fact that my injury is getting better is helping a lot, but the improvement is extremely slow. It is so slow that I now think it will still take me several months to be able to start running properly. But it's not a problem! There are so many things I can do, and I can do them in increasing intensity and length. The good news is that the fall season is full of steep mountain races, which mainly involve fast walking and not much running, and I think I can participate in them as planned!


I wrote before that I think it is important to set alternative training goals to keep up your motivation and inspiration when you are injured. In fact, anything that gives a feeling of achievement and accomplishment has the same positive effect as setting running records. This weekend I went for something I was really uncertain whether I would be able to do or not: step on and walk to the edge of Trolltunga. This is a piece of rock hanging 700 hundred meters above the lake beneath it, and it is a very famous hiking destination in Norway. The trail to Trolltunga is 11 km long, with a 750 m elevation gain, and it takes about 3 hours to drive to the trail head from Bergen. Hence, if you want to do it in one day, you have to start out early, preferably do it during one of the longest days of summer. This past week Frank and I have been watching the weather report for Saturday, which was changing all the time, and as it started to look good on Friday we decided to go for it. Lucky or us, our Melkesyre friends as impulsive as ourselves, Laila, Ove, and Cathrine, joined on short notice, and together we hit the road to Odda where the trail head is located.

I had been checking the trail reports and knew that there was still quite a lot of snow on the path, so I was not expecting so many people there. It is, after all, quite a hike. All the pictures I had seen of Trolltunga showed only very few people on the rock, so I was thinking that this is a quite deserted spot. I could not have been more wrong! So many tourists!!! We were stopped at a parking lot 10 km before the trail head and informed that the upper parking lot was full, so we had to park at this spot and take a shuttle up to the trail head. This was all fine and we had a very pleasant chat with the shuttle driver who was very happy to be able to speak Norwegian for the first time that day. The trail starts very steep, pretty much like Stoltzekleiven for the first kilometer. Then it eases a bit, but it is still uphill for the next kilometer as well. From there on, it goes slight up and slight down, all in all quite pleasant walk for the next 9 km to Trolltunga. The views are unbelievably beautiful all the way, and we were extremely lucky with the weather, which turned out much better than predicted. The ground was covered with snow for almost all of the last 9 km, and fortunately for me, nobody in our group wanted to run. We went for a fast hike, and reached the rock in 2 hours and 45 minutes from the trailhead. We only ran past long lines of slow tourists, which there were hundreds of, every now and then, and I was extremely happy to be able to keep up with my group and not slow them down.

Although I had seen millions of pictures of Trolltunga and had high expectations, the view of it punched me in the stomach as soon as we reached it. Wow! I immediately wanted to close my eyes again; it was so disturbing to watch people balance at the edge of the rock. In real the rock is more spectacular than all pictures of it I had seen. I was prepared by the many cars in the parking lots and the lines of tourists on the path that there would be a lot of people, but I was still surprised to see how crowded it was. And then I understood how the pictures were taken with only very few people on the rock. It turns out that a very nice queue system has evolved: you have a friend standing at the plateau next to the rock to take your pictures, you enter the queue and wait for your turn, and then the rock is all yours until you are done and leave the scene for the next person in line. I have a strong anxiety for heights, and I was really not sure whether I would be able to go on the rock. I made Frank promise me beforehand that would force me if I refused. I was even considering the option of taking a small bottle of wine with me and drinking it just before :-). Standing in the queue turned out to be very good mental preparation; you get to see all the people get out there do all their crazy things (naked guys, turning wheels, jumping, dancing, etc), and you get more and more convinced that you can do it. When you are finally on the rock, it feels even safer; it is tilted slightly upward and it is quite broad, so you don’t see down (unless you go all the way to the edge), and you have a feeling of being on the same plateau as your photographer friend and the rest of the crowd. I would be very happy to just go out there, but I managed even to do several jumps, and the feeling of achievement was really wonderful. How anxious I had been I could see only afterwards, as I was really shaking all over and my heart rate was 138.

We spent quite a bit of time up there. Had our lunch, and went back on the rock one more time! As we headed back, it got sunnier and hotter. We were completely sunburnt by the time we were back at the trailhead after about two and a half hours. We had left Bergen at 8 am in the morning, and at 8 pm in the evening we were down by Hardangerfjord, in Odda, to have dinner. It was such a lovely evening, nice and warm, and we sat outside by the fjord during our meal. We left Odda at around 9 pm and reached home at around midnight; exhausted and happy. I am surprised that tourists seem to appreciate this place more than the locals; it is just a day’s trip; and the part of the trail after the first steep part seems really perfect for a run. I simply don’t understand why we did not do it before.

 

You would think this kind of excitement was enough for a week, but actually the past week had more to offer. In the middle of the week, before this hike, was the fantastically informal and fun race of Fjellgeitene from the Fløyen mountain to the Ulriken mountain in Bergen. My goodness I love these guys; they are so including in all their activities. The race was organized as “take your own time and report it afterwards”;  can it be simpler and more ingenious? I decided a while ago to participate, but not run, just walk. I am so fortunate that many of my friends in Varegg and Melkesyre appreciate the easier pace these days, and in the end we were quite a big group to start at Fløyen three hours before the planned finish time at Ulriken. I walked the first half, and ran the second half as it was pretty windy at the top and one needed to keep some speed to keep warm. Due to the easy start and the long warm up, I felt really good in the second half and I ended up running pretty decently. I even caught a few of my friends who had started running earlier. Lesson learned (again!): starting out easy always pays off in the end! On top of everything, when descending from Ulriken with Fjellgeitene, I learned a completely new path! After having this mountain in my backyard for almost 20 years, and having climbed it in various paths a million times, it still manages to surprise me. What can I say?

Count your blessings... and never grow up!

As good as it gets

It's been a busy week. On Monday I managed to squeeze in time to do both my rehab exercises and a close-to-record go at Stoltzekleiven. But then I was on travel from Tuesday to Friday, and I did not get to do any of my routine training. I had in fact very optimistically packed a whole mobile physiotherapy center with me, but the days consisted of late nights and very early mornings, and in the end I was just too tired to do anything else than sleep when I was in my hotel room.

 

I had had three consecutive days of hard exercise before leaving, and I thought at least that the rest would be good for me. However, sitting still for long hours for four days seemed to make everything worse. When I finally got home Friday evening I was feeling stiffer than ever, and the injury seemed to have worsened. I felt an urgent need to get moving. Fortunately, the weather report for Saturday was wonderful and I had already agreements with several friends for going to the top of Gullfjellet. On Saturday was the Gullfjellet Opp 2015 race, and I had decided several months ago to participate. Yesterday, instead of cancelling my plans, I participated in the class for fun, where your time is not registered. As the weather report turned nicer and nicer, more and more friends decided to join. Not all of them the race, but many of them the slow fun walk up. In the end we were many who took it easy, and it was such an incredibly nice day. We started early enough to get to the top just before the winners, so that we could cheer them into finish, and enjoy the excitement there.

Interesting enough, the topic of the conversation many times during the walk up was how important it is to rest and listen to your body, and how we are not really very good at it usually. We all enjoyed so much to take an easy pace walk up and just talk and lough all the way, and have time to stop and enjoy the views and take photos. And we kept asking: "Why don't we do this more often? Why do we always run?" I felt so lucky that I had so many friends who decided to do the easy walk this particular time rather than the race. Although the weather was sunny at the start, it got more and more cloudy as we ascended, but then it started to clear up more and more as we got closer to the top. Exactly at the moment when we reached there it became completely clear and sunny. Wow, could we have been more lucky?!

I very often find myself feeling lucky. On the other hand, I am sure that in reality I'm not more lucky than others, but somehow I spontaneously end up taking things to be my luck. If a nice coincidence happens I get so excited. In the middle of all injury and rehab at least I feel that I have been very lucky with circumstances around the competitions that I missed. Like on Saturday, I am sure it would have been much less fun to race, especially since more friends did the easy walk than those who raced. In Bergen City Marathon 2015 it was raining heavily, and Bergen Fjellmarathon 2015 was so muddy and slippery that improving my time from last year would probably not be so easy. So in a way I am not that sorry that I could not race in them. And I did participate in some sense, since I was there and cheering and having fun. Another piece of luck hit me last week when the Storehesten Opp 2015 race was cancelled due to too much snow. I have been to this peak once but not during competition. I was planning to participate this year, having my time registered, but not pushing it beyond my injury. This would have been fine, but you see I have a bet with my father-in-law, who sat a limit last year on how well he thought I could perform. I am sure to be able to beat that limit, but probably it would not have been possible this year. So the cancellation of the race suited me just perfectly!

I think it is important to pay attention to the good things that happen and register them as good luck. I am afraid too many people rather pay attention to the not so good things, and just register those as bad luck, without observing the good things. How can you ever be happy if you do that? If you feel sorry for yourself, especially if you think your bad luck is the fault of others. Of course we must allow ourselves to feel sad; after all what is life if you don't experience the whole range of feelings? But try not to get buried in sadness or despair for too long. And please don't misunderstand, I am not talking about real life crises or serious illnesses; I know that not everything is possible to get over just thinking positively. But for a normal average everyday life, where not much extraordinary is happening, I think having the ability to get excited about the little good things and ignore the not so good things, is a step towards happiness. Fortunately physical exercise makes you able to do exactly that! With endorphins running in your body all the time, all you see are birds, flowers, and the sun. I read an article last weekend which I found very interesting. A famous Norwegian psychiatrist says that we should all have 0.5 per-mille alcohol in our body constantly. I agree completely! :-) But you can indeed achieve the same or even better effect with physical exercise.

Today Frank and I repeated last weekend's discovery, the path from Munkebotn, via Dræggehytten, to Rundemanen. I just like this path more and more. This time I was even able to run parts of it, my first running steps in a long long while. The weather was even nicer than last weekend, and although we were a bit too late for the regular Sunday meeting of Melkesyre at Brushytten, guess what: yes more luck, they were still there when we got there!

Every single day offers many options. Make sure to choose those that will make you happy!

The rise of the Phoenix

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning. (Louis L'amour)

Sometimes I think that my injury and rehab period is the best thing that could have happened to my running career. Well, perhaps this is a bit of an exaggeration, but I have come to appreciate this period more and more, especially now that things are going well, I am optimistic and full of motivation again. Whereas 2014 was a year-long extremely joyful rally with exclusively positive experiences, 2015 has so far been more of a roller coaster, with sky-high ups and bottomless pits. There have been great moments of new achievements, like records at Stoltzekleiven, and wonderful new experiences, like the relay races with Varegg, and especially the trip to Holmenkollstafetten. But the period has mainly been characterized by injuries and my attempts to get rid of them, and in fact not much running. In 2014 I learned to push myself, believe in myself, and I discovered that I had it in me; the never ending motivation and the willpower to go on and on. 2015 is teaching me different things. Quite the opposite of what I thought, I discovered that I am in fact quite patient, or perhaps I have learned to become it. I have experienced moments of despair and deep sadness, but I have also discovered that I have the ability to draw myself out of such moments and get back into a positive track. Of course you know that I have been blessed with a whole army of angels, who have continuously offered support, comfort and help;  my husband Frank, my friends from Melkesyre and Varegg, my trainer Ketil, my friends Filiz and Anne Chatrine, and my physiotherapist Ane. (Note to self: I must write more about Ane later; she is like no other therapist I have tried, or rather she has the expertise of all those therapists gathered in one single person!)

2015 has taught me to think long-term rather than the next race. I think this is extremely useful wisdom for a runner. When I first realized in 2014 that I could reach physical goals that I before thought were impossible, I became quite eager and impatient to show both myself and everyone else how good I could actually become. Now I have a much longer perspective, and I am confident and patient enough to wait for some of my goals to come later and not all at once. Since I love running, perhaps an analogy is appropriate. Could it be that 2014 was when I fell in love with running, whereas now is the period when the infatuation is turning into true love? Like, when you first fall in love and you cannot see clear, and you just want more and more and more, and nothing else matters? But then you discover new sides of your chosen one that you were first too blind to see, and you learn to understand, accept and like even these sides, and you realize that you have to work to make this relationship last life long? Perhaps so. In addition, many new friendships that were established in 2014 are strengthening and deepening now, which I think fits well with the analogy.

Why did I have to become injured to reach this wisdom? There is a lot of literature, presentations, and media posts about motivation, inspiration, pushing your limits, reaching your potential, achieving the impossible, and so on. This is all wonderful, and I have found great support in reading and listening to such. However, for people who are easily motivated, have the will power and the ability to push themselves, there is no easily accessible input on how to stay injury free. Of course "rest more, run less" is an obvious advice that I have got many times, but this is not what I am talking about. I want to find out how to continue to run and compete as much as I want and still stay injury free. Quite counterintuitively, injuries happen most often when you are making great progress in your form. You experience better and better times at competitions, your resting heart rate is lower than ever, you feel great and ready to practice even more than before, but your muscles, tendons or joints are not able to follow this. How to train smarter? There are ways. I am learning, and I will let you know.

In the meanwhile, my first priority is recovering from injury. It is going slowly but forward. When I was hung up on short-term thinking, I could become so sad about the time of training I have lost since January and how good I could have become now if I could have continued undisturbed. But the new long-term-thinking me has completely stopped thinking about such things, and I concentrate only on the now and the future, the emphasis being on enjoying the moment. Channelizing my focus into activities that I actually can and am allowed to, enjoying and becoming good at these, are nice ways of keeping the motivation and the level of happiness up. Here are some examples of what keeps me going these days, which might be helpful for others in the same situation:

1. I am doing intervals and fast walks up Stoltzekleiven and Ulriken, pushing my time further and further down. My form is surprisingly good after having lost so much time with immobility, and I am doing my best to keep and improve it.  My time up Stoltzekleiven is back to where it was around the time when I had my records, and you can imagine how great a motivation this is.

2. I am setting new strength training goals, like a certain number of kilos I want to be able to lift or push, or certain exercises I want to be able to perform. This week, for the first time ever, I was able to do clapping push-ups during my PT session with Ketil. It starts as a regular push-up, but on the way up you clap your hands before you set them on the floor again on your way down. Such small games and new achievements provide a lot of fun and entertainment, as well as help me keep on a positive track. The rehabilitation exercises that I do at the physiotherapy center have considerably increased my leg strength, and I think this is one of the reasons why things are going so well at Stoltzekleiven. After all, PT sessions and rehab sessions altogether amount to an hour of strength training five days a week, and the difference is noticeable.

3. I am concentrating on longer and longer uphill fast walks, and really enjoying these immensely as I can increase the mileage of them. I am back to discovering new paths on the mountains around Bergen, and I am loving the surprising variety this wonderful nature so close to me is offering. This weekend Frank and I tried two variants of a course that I had heard of several times before but never tried. Walk up Stoltzekleiven, jog down to Munkebotn, and just below the lake there take the path up to Kvitebjørnen. My goodness, this must be one of the nicest paths in Bergen. It is steep up all the way to the top, with stairs of wood, stone and metal, and incredible views. Once you hit the top, it is more or less flat all to way to Rundemanen offering great views all the way. Or you can shortcut by walking down to Sandvikshytten and back to the top of Stoltzekleiven. There are so many cabins on these paths! And these are all so well kept and nice to pass by. I will for sure write about various combinations involving Kvitebjørnen later; for now I give you here the gps details of the part starting from the top of Stoltzekleiven, going to Rundemanen and down to Skredderdalen.

Another thing I have learned during this period is that I can participate in races just for the fun of it or for the training, and do not always have to push to perform my best. I am considering Gullfjellet Opp next weekend. I had dismissed it, but now I am thinking about participating in the class where time is not registered. I am also considering Storehesten Opp. These are minor races that might enter my B list. On my A list already two races are lost, but I am hoping to be able to participate in the remaining two: Skåla Opp and Stoltzekleiven. For the first, I will probably change my class from competition to no timing. For the second I hope that I can race properly and improve my recorded race time. When I can start running normally again? I don't know. And I am not asking this question anymore. I am cherishing the improvement, enjoying the things that I can, and looking forward to all the uphill races of the fall. But first, hopefully a lot of swimming during the summer holidays and some spectacular mountain hikes that have been life-long dreams.

Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up! (Dean Karnazes)

Report from rehab - II : HSR training

We shall overcome...

I have not been running since April 22. You'd think that I would be going mad at this point, but actually it is going surprisingly well. The first four weeks, where I was not allowed to do any kind of activity with my legs, no strength training or biking or even extensive walking, were pretty hard. I almost lost my motivation to recover and ever start running again. These first weeks were necessary to give the injury a complete rest so that the swelling and the irritation could calm down. After that the active rehabilitation phase started, with heavy slow resistance (HSR) training three times a week, in addition to regular strength training twice a week, and gradually increasing hiking/walking activity. Still no running for quite a while yet, but you can imagine how much I enjoy and cherish my uphill walks to Stoltzekleiven and Ulriken these days!

The injury that I have been struggling with for a long while is an irritation around the upper hamstrings tendons. At the back of our thighs we have three muscles stretching from the knee to the hip. These muscles each have their separate names, but they are altogether referred to as the hamstrings muscles. These muscles are attached to our knees and our hips with tendons. The tendons around the hip and the butt are called the upper or origin hamstrings tendons. My current injury is at and around the tendon attahed to the sitting bone and the surrounding bursa (small fluid filled bags that we have many of in our body, usually around the joints). The condition is probably a variant of so-called proximal hamstrings tendinopathy combined with pain from the ischiogluteal bursa. According to recent research, the most commonly accepted best way to deal with any kind of tendinopathy seems to be HSR training.

Unfortunately nobody told me this until I met my current physiotherapist Ane. I had an MRI examination already in May 2014, and the findings there should clearly be interpreted as an early stage of the injury that I am describing there. Although I showed the MRI results to every therapist I have been to, as my condition worsened, nobody was able to suggest the correct cure. My previous therapists were all into treating me with their various methods, whereas with HSR training I have to do the job myself. Ane examined my hamstrings with ultrasound, and combined with the old MRI result, she concluded tendinopathy and immediately and very firmly put me on the described rehab scheme.

 

So what is HSR training? It is a series of strength exercises for the legs and the butt, performed on various weight machines at the gym, with so heavy weights that you can barely manage 8 repetitions. These 8 repetitions are done on each leg separately, and then the whole set is repeated 3 times. Strength training on machines is not necessary for normal functional training, but in therapy the machines make sure that you put the effort on exactly the right spot and the right muscle. The idea of HSR training is that the muscle uses its own strength around the tendon both to contract and to stretch, all very slowly. I am doing a series of nine strength exercises three times a week, increasing the weights whenever I can. In addition I have a series of two active stretch exercises which I do twice a day. I do leg press, toe press, leg curl, leg extension, hip abduction, etc etc. The exercise that really goes right into the heart of my injury is the leg curl:

It is important to do it without flexing your foot. The foot should be completely relaxed, and then you pull the weight with your leg until your lower leg has a 90 degree angle with your thigh. When you don't flex your foot, you are not at all using your lower leg muscles and the hamstrings are doing all the job. My goodness was this painful the first time I tried it! I had no chance of doing it even with the lightest weight, even if I flexed my foot and helped with my other foot. In fact, even without a weight I could not lift my leg without flexing my foot! Remember that the first time I tried it was after four weeks of no running or leg training, so the fact that it was so painful at that point was really depressing. However, you cannot imagine how fast it has become how much better when I started the HSR training! Now I can lift the lightest weight completely correctly with my injured leg, no flexing of the foot and no help from the other leg. Next week I plan to move to a higher weight! It is still painful, but it is a kind of pain I can work through, as opposed to in the beginning when it felt like a sharp knife was being inserted into my tendon. I think, when I am able to do this exercise completely pain free, I will be able to start running.

Here is another test that I have to take before starting to run: single foot back plank. Lie on your back. Raise yourself on your elbows with your body straight, so that you are touching the ground on elbows and heels only. Then lift one foot off the ground. It may be hard, but it should not involve any pain. If you cannot do it because of pain in either thigh, then you should not run until the pain is gone. I am determined not to start running too soon, and I am also very careful in not getting carried away with my uphill hikes. I am allowed to do them fast and hard, but if something does not feel right, I slow down and take one or two days' break before the next uphill adventure. I also make sure to do at most two fast ones a week, and the others in moderate pace. Next step is to do longer hikes in the mountains avoiding the temptation to run. Wow, I feel so patient and wise! :-)

The nice thing about being in this phase of my rehab period, which I called determination,  is that I can do increasingly heavy activities and all the time I notice improvement. My injury is healing and activity feels better and better, albeit extremely slowly. I suppose the first four weeks of inactivity were necessary, but interestingly I felt no improvement whatsoever in the injury. As soon as I started HSR training, I could very quickly notice improvement. It is small, it is slow, but it happens all the time! It is so rewarding. If you are avoiding running due to an injury, please check the HSR training exercises that are recommended for your injury. For knees, ankles, heels, there are targeted exercises, and the healing will be much faster than just avoiding activity.

In my regular strength training I can now resume almost all my regular exercises, except those that target explosiveness of the legs. Ketil continues to add fun to my days with various games during our PT sessions. It feels so great when he tries new ideas on me and I can do them! He escalates the excitement by setting up the game from the start of the session so that I know that some new experiment will happen but I don't know what it will be. You might remember the push ups on the balls; they have by now become a regular weekly exercise. This week, we played building blocks. While holding an exercise ball in the air all the time with both legs. The important part is that you have to take every block with both hands and place it in the other pile also with both hands (it is much easier if you take with one hand and pass it to the other hand - yes I tried to cheat).

(There is a video here, but I am afraid it does not play on some mobile phones and tablets.)

Yesterday one piece of news made me very optimistic and gave me new inspiration. My friends Hege and Elisabeth, who both had long periods of not being able to run due to injuries, are back stronger and faster than ever. This weekend they both became number 2 in each their class in an uphill (from 0 to 1500 m) half marathon! As Elisabeth recited from a well known quote: 

What defines us is how well we rise after falling.