Back to 12 degrees Celcius

Be careful what you wish for 'cause you just might get it... (Eminem)

Four months ago, I had a blog entry with the title "Take me to 12 degrees Celcius".  At the time it was written, I was complaining about the cold running conditions in Scandinavia; I had a few runs in Stockholm and Bergen around Easter. It was so cold that my injury, which I thought had healed, started to bother me again. Going back to the much more pleasant running conditions in Istanbul after the Easter break felt wonderful. This time it's the opposite. The wonderful running conditions in Istanbul turned less wonderful in June and it started to become simply too hot. It got worse in July when I went to Bodrum  (further south) for the summer holidays. The last few runs in Bodrum were incredibly slow. Even intervals of 1 km were at a pace which I was able to keep for about 10 km in the spring. Still Frank and I managed to perform our scheduled training and the last run of the holidays was a new record for me: 28 km! Given the heat, I am hoping that it can count as 32 :-)

Then of course I started longing for the cool summer of Norway. Unfortunately Bergen has had the worst July in more than 46 years, with records of rain and low temperatures. However, as soon as we got home, we were lucky enough to get a nice afternoon of no rain and guess what: yes, exactly 12 degrees temperature! The running felt nice and easy, but not as fast as I hoped for. I was thinking that the heavy training conditions in the heat would result in speedy legs as soon as I hit the lower temperatures. But perhaps it still takes the body a little bit of time to get the speed up, although the form is OK. We will see. In the run of yesterday was also integrated a climb up Stoltzekleiven. Also the time up there was terrible for me. Frank is doing much better. I am wondering whether it is because he was running with me, at my pace, in Turkey for the past three weeks, except the intervals. Perhaps the really slow long runs, combined with intervals at the correct speed, gave him a form boost? This is what is written all over the place, 80% of your runs should be slow, even if you are an amateur and run only a few times a week.

Anyways, back home, I have now started to try to plan my training ahead. The big goal is of course Amsterdam Marathon, but there is also Os Triathlon in just 4 weeks, and then Stoltzekleiven Opp in a couple of weeks after that. I hope to manage a bike+swim session once a week until Os, and 2-3 Stoltzekleiven trainings a week. Is this wise? Should I be concentrating only on Amsterdam? I am not sure. I have started to feel some knee discomfort, so perhaps moving a little bit of my endurance training to biking is not a bad idea. And Stoltzekleiven gives leg strength and uphill training which should come in handy in Amsterdam. The trouble is the time. I have to find time for all this plus 2-3 strength training sessions per week.

I will try to continue my Istanbul routine of training early in the morning before going to work a few times a week. Perhaps park my car at work at 6 am, run to Sandviken along the fjord, go up Stoltzekleiven, and then run back to work, shower and be ready by 8:30. Then do my other runs and strength training in the afternoons. Will this work? Is it too ambitious? Time will show.

You won't succeed unless you dare to fail...