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!