Don't cry for me Bergen City

The truth is I never left you....

So it's over. What was supposed to be one of the major racing events of this year for me passed by with me as a spectator and a cheerleader instead of a competitor. Bergen City Marathon took place yesterday. During a practice session in January I had run the half marathon course in exactly two hours, at pleasant pace and while chatting with my training buddy Roger all the way, and hence I was sure that I would have a great new personal best at the race. Well, that was before I had to change plans...

I am superstitious. I take care to try not to say "never" or "for sure". Because life can put you in situations you simply cannot imagine beforehand. But I made the mistake of ending one of my earliest blog entries (about half marathons) this way: "Next year? Bergen, for sure! Oslo, probably not." So I was asking for trouble... I have now learned that things out of my control might affect and slow down my plans, no matter how motivated I am and how hard I work for my goals. On the positive side, life is a continuous learning experience, and I truly believe that I am becoming a better person and a better runner through this experience. A few months ago, just imagining the possibility of having to cancel Bergen City half marathon was unbearable to me. Right now, though, it is OK, as I am completely slowing down to finally heal properly.

The key to keeping up the motivation and the joy for me in this situation is to keep in touch with my running network. I am lucky to have so many caring friends who continuously send me good advice and cheer me up with messages. Yesterday I was happy to cheer them on along the course while they were running marathons, half marathons, or relays during BCM.  Together with several of my friends from Melkesyre we formed a cheerleader gang and placed ourselves on one of the toughest parts of the course, where runners need the most help. Some of us had to cancel plans of participation due to injuries, and some of us just do not like long asphalt runs, but all of us were extremely enthusiastic on behalf of all the participants. It was touching to see how grateful the competitors were to see us; we got thousands of big smiles and hearts. Even if you cannot participate in a race, you can be there at the start and at the finish, meet your friends before and after, and then it is almost like having raced.  While cheering, I was surprised to see how many of the runners I knew! It was so cool to shout out the names of so many people. But even the ones I did not know felt like friends.

It is strange how sharing a passion like running makes you friends even with complete strangers. A few days before the race, I put up my start number for sale, and I got a message from a sweet young man who wanted to buy it. He was kind enough to come all the way to my house to pay in cash, and we ended up chatting for a long while about running, race goals, training, injuries, etc etc, and laughing a lot. After he left, my mom (who is visiting) said "I did not realize that it was a friend who wanted to buy your number". I told her that I did not know the person before he came. She was quite shocked that it was possible to have such a long and hearty conversation with a complete stranger. Well, that's what running does to people. It makes them connect in a completely different way than I knew before. Anders, who bought my number, and I have kept in touch, and he did great at the race! He finished in 1:29.

Another guy who did great at the race was Frank. He beat his time from last year with 9 minutes, and finished in 1:38! Frank let me coach him during the last weeks before the race, and he listened very carefully to all my advice about tapering, carb loading, resting, training scheme, and how to pace his race, something I am really proud of. I predicted that he would do better than 1:40, and although he was reluctant to believe it himself, it worked! In fact almost all of my friends had great records this year. Roger, mentioned above, did 1:36. Just imagine if I had been well enough to continue the training we started together in January! I think I could have managed around 1:50...

"Don't think back; think ahead!" That's what I keep telling myself... I am very motivated and impressed by the achievements of so many of my friends. Bjarte who ran a full marathon in 3:14 (how is that at all possible?), Øystein who brought his half marathon time down to 1:24 (has he found a formula for stopping time, both when it comes to aging and to racing times?), my guardian angel Mats who did 1:23 with an injured leg, my positivity bomb Irene who is 5 months pregnant and finished just in 2 hours, Filiz who ran for the first time in 2:06, and many many other wonderful performances. Cheering on Frank, my friends, and all other runners was great. But Bergen City Marathon was indeed crying. It was raining all the time, really heavily at times, which was a contrast to last year's amazingly sunny experience.

Next year? I hope I'm in...

Finally heading for the mountains again

I have mentioned earlier that I have grown more and more fond of uphill and trail running. Now that the snow is slowly disappearing from the mountains around Bergen, and the evenings are light, new opportunities for wonderful trail running adventures open.

Until Bergen Fjellmaraton last June, the only long enough proper running trail I knew was the plateau between Ulriken and Fløyen mountains, which is called Vidden. However, often you want to be able to do a round trip so that you end up where you started. In this respect the closely connected Fløyen, Blåmanen, Rundemanen mountains (they actually rather form one single big mountain) are perfect. Before, I only knew the most basic paths in this area, and most mainstream paths are covered with quite hard packed gravel, so they do not really count as proper trails. The last part of Bergen Fjellmaraton from Rundemanen to finish contained many paths I had never been to that are really really wonderful. During last fall I also discovered many new paths thanks to the Blåmanen races. I have now started to combine several of these paths to make extremely pleasant long enough trail running courses. Let me describe one for you:

Start at the beginning of Fjellveien (close to Restaurant Bellevue) with a slow warm up run until the starting point of Stoltzekleiven. After this pleasant warm up, do the Stoltzekleiven as fast as you can. Take a short (and absolutely necessary!) break at the top.

From there continue up until the lake and then take to right.

At the first junction take to right again, towards Skredderdalen, but don't go down Skredderdalen. Instead, continue upwards towards Fløyen and arrive at Åsebu. Take to right and run around Åsebu until you hit the main path again.

On the main path, run down towards Fløyen until the last big (and steep) right turn before Fløyen. Take to left in the middle of the turn towards Fjellhytten (there is a sign there pointing to Skomakerdiket). Once you reach Skomakerdiket, continue on the upper side of the lake towards Fjellhytten (now the sign says Fjellhytten). Follow the signs to Fjellhytten until you reach it. Either continue on the backside straight ahead or take a short break to enjoy the view and then continue.

Where you want to end up is Rundemansveien. This trail, from the main Fløyen path until the main Rundemanen path is truly beautiful. Once you reach Rundemansveien turn left to go to Brushytten and then follow the main path back. I took to left to Skomakerdiket before reaching Fløyen, and then took to left again to go towards Svartediket/Isdalen.

 

This left path to Svartediket is quite pretty;  it is slightly downhill in the beginning, and you have a beautiful view of the city all the way. Then it goes steeply down to Svartediket.

 

Instead of going all the way to Svartediket, take the streets towards the city at the first opportunity to get back to exactly where you started.

The described course (you can find its gps details here) turned out to be exactly 14 km, however it can be made much longer as you wish. Once the snow is completely gone, I plan to take right at Rundemansveien and go to Blåmanen and then to Rundemanen and then down. Another opportunity is to go directly to Rundemanen taking to right in the middle of Rundemansveien, up a steep hill (this was a part of the Bergen Fjellmaraton which I really enjoyed) and then going to Blåmanen on the way back from Rundemanen. Further down, you can add another round at Åsebu. Other options include going straight ahead or to left from the top of Stoltzekleiven to reach Kvitebjørnen via Ankerhytten or via Munkebotn, and then go to Rundemanen. The possibilities are quite endless, and contain many parts I still have never tried yet.

I will get back to you with more suggestions as I try out new combinations!

Keeping up the form during winter: Vinterkarusellen and Fløyenkarusellen

Spring is here and everybody is out running. Those who have kept or improved their form during the winter are already achieving new personal best times.

I have been wondering and asking around about what the English translation of "karusell" is, in the meaning of a series of races. I have finally figured it out: circuit! A race circuit is a series of races on the same course, repeated at even intervals (typically three weeks), that last over a few months' duration. This winter, following the advice of my trainer Ketil, I participated in two such circuits: Vinterkarusellen and Fløyenkarusellen. Winter circuits like these give a great opportunity to keep and improve your form even outside of the season. The fact that you can do better and better times at each race in the same circuit provides great motivation and inspiration. And as you know by now: I simply love participating in races.

Vinterkarusellen consisted of eight races between November 3 and March 23. Participation in at least five of the races entitled to a medal. Each time one had the option of participating in the 5k or the 10k course. My initial plan was to participate in the 5k races until the end of the year, and then participate in the 10k races in 2015. My hope was to be able to finish the 5k course (which is a tough one, with slight downhill first which you get as uphill on the way back) in less than 25 minutes before I moved on to 10k. I almost got there. Were it not for snow and ice during race number 3 and 4, I think I would have managed. (My personal record on 5k is 23:47 but that was at a track and field stadium.) During the first four races of the Vinterkarusell, I did 26:01 (on bare asphalt), 25:07 (on bare asphalt), 25:19 (on ice - running with spikes), and 25:12 (on ice and slush - running with spikes). I think the last one could easily become 24:30 were it on bare asphalt; I had a very good feeling and it was the easiest of all races up to that point. That was January 5 this year.

Then I started my experiments with various therapies, and ended up not participating in the next two races of the Vinterkarusellen. After a break of two months I participated at race number 7 on March 9 without any prior practice, which resulted in the worst time of the circuit. Given the situation, I did not let that weigh me down too much, and I was simply very happy to be able to race again. I was also planning to participate at the last race two weeks later, and hoping for a better time as I had gotten more practice since the last race. But a run the day before gave too much pain in my knees, and since I had already earned a medal, I did not participate. Instead I went to get my medal, met my Melkesyre friend Linda there who was also struggling with an injury, and ended up cheering the rest of my Melkesyre and Varegg friends into finish.

The course of this race is actually quite boring, along traffic and you go back and forth, instead of around a loop. Still I am very happy with the Vinterkarusellen experience. Especially when you do better and better at each race (I count it as better when the time slightly worsens as the ground conditions worsen dramatically), it is really perfect for self confidence and further motivation. Also, meeting your friends at the start and at the finish is always a great motivation. Last but not least, in circuits of this type so many people at so many different form levels participate that if you are a serious runner, you end up doing pretty well no matter what. I ended up being number three in my class (of typically 60-80 participants) in two of the four first races!

Fløyenkarusellen was an even better experience, especially since it is organized by Varegg and almost all my friends from Melkesyre and Varegg participated. Fløyenkarusellen is an uphill race, quite short of distance, only 2.4 km, but with more than 200 m of elevation gain. It consisted of five races between January 28 and March 25. I participated in the first and the last two races, and I was a volunteer at one of the others. My hope during this circuit was to manage under 17 minutes, but as it was the case with Vinterkarusellen, I only almost got there. My times during the races I participated were: 17:17, 17:10, and 17:02. Still, I was very happy with my improvement during the circuit. Especially since I did better and better in the last two races (which were both in March, after my not running period) than in the first one which was in January when my form was more or less at its top. Being able to improve my race time although I was struggling with injuries and pain gave me renewed motivation and hope. And reaching the finish line at these races was an incredible experience. I knew almost all of the participants, and it was like a party up at the top of mount Fløyen every single time. In particular, several of my Melkesyre friends who did not participate, showed up along the course and cheered us, which made us able to push ourselves a little bit more every time. At the last of the Fløyenkarusell races, also Frank participated, which added to the greatness of the event.

There are circuits like these all the time all around the year. Most of them have the format of offering 5k and 10k distances, and some of them even offer marathons and half marathons. They are all over the Bergen area, so everybody can find one close to where they live. I can really recommend such circuits, especially outside of the race season.

Don't just stand there; join the carousel!

Patience is a virtue (that I don't have)

I am slowly (very slowly!) learning to be patient and to shift my focus from short term to long term goals. I know that sticking blindly to a plan is not always a good thing; I know that both training and competition goals might need to be adjusted, according to form and injuries. However, knowing does not immediately imply applying in practice. It takes time, experience, and quite a bit of pain to change habits... As my former muscle therapist once told me:

Wisdom is knowledge put into practice.

I have had the knowledge for a long time, but I have not always been able to put it into practice. Hopefully this is changing now, and I am slowly getting wiser. One has to be flexible and must be able to adjust both everyday training plans and short term competition plans depending on form. For example, if it is your interval training day, you should listen to your body during warm up to assess whether or not you are up to tough training. If it feels right, go for it at maximum effort. If not, take it easy; it is OK to do intervals at moderate effort, too. If you push your body beyond what it is ready for, it will anyway not be able to benefit from the practice. One way of knowing whether you are up to tough practice on a particular day is to check your resting heart rate in the morning before you get up. In fact, this has now become a habit for me; I do it every morning. If your resting heart rate is where it should be (at its lowest), then you are ready for pushing yourself. It is is about 10% higher than normal, then it means that your body is still recovering from previous exercise, so you should take it easy that day. In fact you should not have more than two tough training sessions a week. The rest of your training (about 80%) should be at slow to moderate pace, to build endurance and strength, and to avoid wearing down your muscles.

I have become much better at listening to my body when it comes to the intensity of the training, but it is not always easy when you are training with friends. For example zone 1 training is typically hard to do with others, even with friends who have comparable training zones. Somehow I always end up going to a higher zone when I am not running alone, so I have to be more disciplined about this.

What I have not been so good at so far is to listen to my body when it comes to deciding what kind of training to do. The pain dictates that I should avoid long flat runs and rather concentrate on uphills, as the latter feels much better. However, as long as I have had the goal of participating at Bergen City half marathon at the end of April, I could not leave long flat run practices alone. After a long period of not running, I started out with three consecutive days of long flat runs, with the result that the pain is now worse than ever. In hindsight it is easy to see how stupid I was; I could at least start out with 5 km runs, right? No, of course it had to be 10, 10, and 15. During the first nine days, I did 85 km.... I am almost too embarrassed to write it down. Please don't ever make the same mistake. Start out cautiously and listen very carefully to your body after a break from running. I do understand the reason of my stupidity, though, and I have now done something about it: I have decided not to participate at Bergen City half marathon. It is simply not worth destroying my body for, although it was the first thing on my A list this year, and I have been so much looking forward to it. My first intention was to wait and see until the race day and decide there and then whether to participate or not. The problem is that the possibility of participation has been stressing me to take wrong decisions. Although long flat runs are painful, I keep doing them every now and then since I need this kind of practice for the half marathon... So I have taken this hard decision already now not to participate (which I am actually quite proud of!). Because of the Bergen City half marathon, I had on my training plan two races of 5 km each next week, to get some speed training. These are also cancelled now. Only uphills for me for me for a while! I am learning.... albeit very slowly...

Changing training plans is one thing, but changing competition plans in this way is really hard. Competing is a major part of the fun for me, and competitions have always inspired me and given me incredible boost of energy and self confidence. In the beginning, my race goals were adjusted in the way that I added more and more races on my plan, as things were going so incredibly well. Now, until I have recovered, I might have to do the opposite and cancel participation from races. As one of my experienced running friends Eva said: there is always another competition, and it is better to be able to run some than not to be able to run at all. Listen to her advice, and learn from my experiences. If you start feeling pain somewhere, take it easy for a while. It does not mean stop running; just take slower or shorter distances, or another type of running, uphill instead of flat or the opposite, depending how the pain incurred.

A while ago I read the following quote which was credited to Buddha. I was in the middle of letting go of something that really meant a lot to me, and the quote made perfect sense at that point, although I found it really sad. Now, as I was letting go of Bergen City 2015, I remembered it again:

In the end, what really matters is how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things that were not meant for you.

I thought that I might never be able to run a half marathon again, and it really made me sad. Fortunately I am an incurable optimist, so I think I will be able to do it again sometime. I just hope that running altogether is not one of the things I have to let go.... But this again is just too negative, and actually experience showed me that the quote should rather be interpreted like this:

In the end, what really matters is how passionate you were about the ingredients of your life, how kind and generous you were to others, and how wisely you were able to adjust your path as you went.

In fact, you never have to completely let go of something that is important to you. You can simply change the way that thing is a part of your life. Bergen City half marathon, we are not parting for ever. Perhaps in 2016 or later I might join you again. Even if not, I will always be your friend, and I will be there to cheer the others to finish! In the meanwhile, there is a huge number of uphill races in May and June, and as long as I do not do stupid things I hope that I will be able to train for them and participate in most of them. Yesterday, with the new wisdom, my old friend Stoltzekleiven embraced me and welcomed me back to uphill training. This afternoon, I might pay my back yard mountain Ulriken a visit or simply rest. I have to keep in mind all the time: moderation, patience, and caution (not at all my strong sides). I have to make sure to keep the pain under control and not get carried away. Perhaps records will have to wait a bit longer than I was hoping for, but I have time.

I'll be back!