Bergen City, here I come!

To Be(rgen) or not to Be(rgen)

Bergen City half marathon is in 6 days. It's been one and a half years since my previous half marathon race. Just four months ago I was still wondering whether I would ever fully recover from my injury and be able to run a half marathon again. But then, since February I've had at least six 20 km runs. This is in fact about the same number of 20 km runs I had in total in 2014, including the three half marathons races I participated in. I believe that training in the mild winter of Istanbul since January is one of the main reasons I am able to run long distances again now.

Of course every place has its advantages and disadvantages. Istanbul provides perfect training conditions for the marathons and half marathons of the spring. But when it comes to the long races in the fall, the training conditions of Bergen are much better, offering cooler temperatures during the summer. I'm not sure Bergen wants me back, though. Since I arrived Friday afternoon, it has been playing games with me. First I had a quite extreme allergic reaction to pollen, almost immediately after landing. Itchy and watery eyes, clogged nose and a lot of sneezing. Then yesterday morning it started snowing! At least that cleared the air and helped the allergy, but all this started me wondering how on earth I am going to race next week without being able to breath and in this cold?

I'll find a way. Most importantly I want to enjoy the race, like the first time I participated. Hopefully I will be able to follow my plan of not starting out too hard, and rather increase speed gradually. At that first race, I was lucky to follow a pace holder who started out easy, and I was very happy with the outcome. Five months later, at Oslo half marathon, I knew so much more, and I wanted so much more. Unfortunately knowledge is not the same as wisdom. I started out with a pace I knew was too fast, and consequently the outcome was not as good as it could have been. This time, my plan is to watch my heart rate closely, and not go above my threshold until I've passed halfway. I don't even want to set a target race time goal. I'll simply go where my heart rate takes me.

It's a new experience to be this relaxed; it is one of the advantages of having been injured. The happiness over being able to participate outmatches everything. It will be so wonderful to race with a lot of my team mates from Varegg, Melkesyre, and Fjellgeitene, and a lot of fun at the big after-race party. On top of all this, my closest running buddy from Istanbul, Berna, is coming to Bergen to race with us, and I am looking so much forward to that. Berna is also racing in Madrid half marathon today; she's so cool and up to a challenge!

Now I'll simply rest my legs, eat my carbs, and cross my fingers...

Love your avocado

If it's ripe then it's right.

A few weeks ago I started eating an avocado everyday. The benefits of avocado are countless, and I've been experiencing many of them myself. I feel so good, my skin feels softer, my stomach works better, and I'm full for longer with less food. However, when I mention this to friends, I get to hear very often that they don't like avocado. To me this is pretty incomprehensible. I daresay if you don't like avocado, then you haven't eaten it in the right way.

First of all, you don't just eat it like a pear; you have to do something with it. Even more importantly, it has to be ripe. Ripe enough that you can squish it with a fork. It has to feel soft on the outside. Then you cut it in two. Take out the seed by stabbing it with a point knife and then just pulling it out. Then you simply use a spoon to scrape the avocado off its skin. Once you have it on a plate then you simply squish it with a fork until you get a paste. Now, this paste needs a little bit of salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon. And then you taste it. You will see that it tastes quite different now, and to this base you can add pretty much anything. Spring onions, fresh dill and mint, tomatoes, just mix it all lightly with the avocado and you have a wonderful blend which you can use as a side dish, as a dip, or as salad dressing. You can also just mix the base with garlic and sour cream, which is pretty much guacamole. For those who can read Turkish, my friend Özlem has a wonderful blog about love and avocado. She has lots of great recipes there.

In addition to avocado, I am eating much more nuts, seeds, whole grains, and non-meat protein sources like beans, compared to a few weeks ago. In fact I used to be very cautious about nuts and beans earlier, since these are heavy on calories. However, they keep you full so much longer that you actually end up eating less. When I started these changes I immediately started to feel much better. Before that, my diet was based mainly on salads, vegetables, and lean meat, with almost no carbohydrates outside of breakfast.  I felt hungry very often, and I still did not lose weight. I think my diet simply did not provide enough nutrition and recovery for the four runs, one swim, and three pilates sessions of the week. After the changes I started to feel incomparably more happy, full, and content all the time. On top of that for that last two weeks I even started to lose weight!

I am also paying attention to make my diet more alkaline. I am not at all being strict about this, but with just little adjustments it seems possible to achieve a much better balance. Most vegetables and fruits are good for an alkaline diet, especially the green ones. I am eating much less meat nowadays, and I get more of my proteins from beans and seeds. I am also trying to eat more fish and eggs, instead of meat and chicken. There is some debate about whether or not alkaline diet can actually affect the pH balance of your body, but for sure it keeps your stomach much happier and calmer, and it contains only healthy and non-processed ingredients. If you want to learn more about alkaline diet, I can recommend my friend Aysegul's excellent blog about nutrition for athletes to those of you who can read Turkish.

The newest addition to my diet is a shot of wheat grass juice every morning. Oh I know what some of you are thinking: is this really necessary? Of course not. But I am curious, and I simply enjoy this a lot. Trying out new things also puts me in contact with interesting people all the time, and I love learning from them. You can simply google wheat grass juice to read about its benefits; they seem endless. I am lucky enough to have a provider that is literally next door, and I have already started to worry about how I will manage when I move back to Norway... If this all sounds like I have completely changed my diet, then be assured that it is not the case. I am simply taking the advice from several sources and combining them as they make sense to me. The best part: I get to drink a lot of coffee and a glass of wine daily. 

Do more of what makes you happy!

Numbers don't lie

Do the math, run your path.

One and a half years ago, just before the Oslo half marathon 2014, I took a fitness test to get my oxygen volume and lactate threshold values measured. It was an amazing experience, and it taught me so much about how our body works. I learned that my lactate threshold at that time was reached at heart rate 162, or at 11.4 km/h running flat. I was told that I could keep going at these values or below for a long time, but if I went above these values, I would most likely hit the lactate wall after about an hour. This did not fit my plans too well, because I really wanted to finish the half marathon in 1 hour and 50 minutes, which corresponds to an average speed of 11.5 km/h. Then I thought "So what? If I can do 11.4, then I can do 11.5 as well", and I went ahead and followed my own plan. It worked for 18 km, but then the last 3 km were so painful and slow that the overall time ended up being 1:55. If I had listened to the advice and kept 11.4 instead of 11.5, I would have finished in 1:52.

Of course, being quite inexperienced yet, I did several other mistakes as well. For example, at that time I did not really watch my heart rate. I did not wear a heart rate monitor, especially not during races. Nowadays I almost never train or race without a heart rate monitor.  I have been using the values I got from that first test ever since, but now I feel that it is soon time for a new test. First of all, I was injured and not running for so long that those values probably decreased a lot during that time. Now, however, I feel that I can run as fast as before, so it would really be good to see how the numbers match. On the other hand, for the first half marathon that is on my list this year (in Bergen in just three weeks!) I really want to go with the feeling and enjoy the race as much as I can. So perhaps I will wait with the test for a while still.

I think the biggest mistake one can make during a long race is to start out too fast. It is unfortunately the most common mistake as well, especially among new beginners. For the first half of a race, you feel so good, it feels like you can keep the speed going for the entire race, but when you reach the half, you already start getting exhausted, and then the end becomes really tough and painful. All experienced runners and on-line coaching sites advise negative split, which means that you run the first half of the race slower than the second half. For a new beginner, this is very counter-intuitive. It is so easy to think "Let me just get as far as I can as fast as I can while I have the energy, who knows what will happen in the end?" The problem is that the probability of something bad happening at the end increases a lot when you start out too fast. I have heard the advice that when you reach 2/3 of the distance, you should still have half of your energy and power left. Again, this is not so easy to measure for runners who are not yet that experienced, but I think it is safe to say that starting out not too fast is a good idea no matter what. If you know your threshold values, and you monitor your heart rate, it is easy to see how you are doing, and whether or not you are running too fast.

Also when training for a long race, most of us make the mistake of running too fast for too long during practice. Of course, running fast is good training, and it eventually decreases your heart rate for that speed. But it also wears out your body unnecessarily, and the effect can rather be achieved by shorter intervals. The biggest loss, though, when you always run fast is that you never get to run slow. Running slow, at heart rate zone 1, has countless benefits. It teaches your body to burn fat, and it initiates a tremendous flush of human growth hormone. It teaches your body eventually to run faster and faster at that low heart rate. It builds up your blood vessels, it strengthens your ligaments, joints and tendons, and it gives your brain the signal that long runs are not dangerous; in fact quite enjoyable. Such positive traces in your brain are said to be very important during a race, when things start getting tough.

The marathon season is here for full. Good luck everybody with your training and your races. And most importantly:

 Don't forget to have fun!!!

Take me to 12 degrees Celsius

Some like it hot....

I don't. However, it turns out that I don't like it cold, either. After two weeks in Bergen, I am on my way back to Istanbul. These two weeks in Bergen have made me reflect a lot about running performance. Already a couple of weeks ago I told you my suspicions about the effect of temperature both on running performance and for muscle health. I am now pretty convinced, and accordingly a bit worried about the future.

Until now, my experience with running in Turkey was limited to the summer months. Then it is simply too hot. Although we run early in the morning, it is still very hot and humid in the south of Turkey where we spend our summer holidays, and performance clearly decreases. During these summer runs, I have learned to watch heart rate rather than pace or speed. As long as you know your heart rate zones, you can simply keep to your normal schedule according to the heart rate, and mostly ignore the speed. Experts say that you will get the same training effect. What I did not realize until now is that also cold temperatures affect your running performance in a negative way. And as an additional negative effect, cold temperatures also make it easier to get injured, as it is not as easy to keep the muscles warm throughout a run.

I was lucky enough that I got to run the Bergen City Marathon's half marathon course twice as planned during these two weeks, under quite pleasant weather conditions. 5-7 degrees Celcius, no wind, a little bit of drizzle now and then, but mostly dry. 5-7 degrees worked perfectly for my muscles; no pain or discomfort what so ever, but my performance was not as good as I was expecting. Recently, I have been doing my morning 10k runs in pace 5:30 in Istanbul, 15k runs in pace 5:45, and 20k in 6:00, but even the 6:10 pace of the two half marathon practices in Bergen felt pretty tough. Oh well, I did not let that really get me down. But then the weather got colder...

There were two uphill interval practices that I was planning to join, but as uphill fast running is quite strenuous for my hamstrings, and the weather was so cold that I canceled those. On the one day, I rather did flat 1000 m intervals around a track field, after warming up properly for at least 2 km. Those worked better than I was fearing, and I had no pain in the end. But then I went for a simple run on a cold and windy day with hail showers, and that did not go so well. As the run was slow and short, just 7.5 km and 6:20 pace, I did not warm up. Everything was painful, and it felt rather like 5 in pace than 6:20. My heart rate was high and I had an aching butt and leg at the end.

I have asked Google, and the articles I found tell me that ideal running temperature varies between 10 degrees and 15 degrees Celsius. The longer the run, the lower the temperature. 15 degrees seems perfect for 500 meters, whereas 10 degrees for a full marathon. In Istanbul since January I have had temperatures between 5 and 15 degrees during my runs, which perhaps explains why everything has been going so well there. Now I understand better why many elite runners go to warmer places during the winter months. Or take a seasonal break...

I think I also understand better the mechanics beneath my injury of last winter. I had been struggling with some pain for a long time, but the injury culminated in the winter at its coldest. Until last year I did not really run that much outside during the winter but rather did indoor strength and interval training at Barry's Bootcamp. But last winter I really got the taste of running on snow and ice, using a head lamp whenever necessary, and I joined all the training sessions and races that were available. I enjoyed this immensely, but I now think that this played perhaps a role in worsening my injury. During these two weeks in Bergen, I have talked to several friends who are suddenly struggling with hamstrings injuries. I think the combination of cold weather and uphill fast running is in particular unfortunate for the hamstrings. This makes me wonder what I should do in the future, in the coming winters...

The good news is that, although I do get quite worried about my hamstrings every now and then, I am incomparably more relaxed now than last year. If the injury gets worse again and I cannot participate in the races I was planning to, well then I can do other things. I can swim, I can bike, I can walk up to Stoltzekleiven, Ulriken, Skåla.... I can concentrate on strength training, yoga, pilates, or try completely new things. And there is always another race and another opportunity. The most important thing is to be in general good health, both oneself and one's closest family and friends.

Every day for us, something new
Open mind for a different view
And nothing else matters
(Metallica)