Routine slowly falling into place

“Life is 10 percent what you make it and 90 percent how you take it.” (Irving Berlin)

Planning, planing, planning, adjusting the plans, doubting all the time "Am I training too much, too hard, not enough, not correctly?", trying to make it all fit within a heavy load at work that hit me like a wall as soon as I got back, feeling behind, short of time and exhausted, grabbing the opportunities of fun, trying to let my shoulders down, getting a lot of wonderful feedback from friends, and finally slowly settling into a routine.... This is how it has been during the first two weeks back in Bergen.
First of all, my plans of trying to go for runs in the morning before work did not happen. Turning this into a routine without having anybody to run with turned out to be difficult. I have, however, managed to go to weight training classes in the morning before work, so I decided to simply switch those. Weights in the morning, running in the afternoon. Not everyday of course, and weight training not as often as I would have liked to.

And then there is training for Os Triathlon which is in just two weeks. I have quickly come to realize that I cannot set big goals for this race, as the most important thing ahead is the Amsterdam Marathon. Still, training for triathlon is a lot of fun, and participating will be great fun, too. So I have been practicing for it once a week. The first time it was only 9 degrees C in the air, and I think it was the coldest swim I've had so far. The second time, though, the weather was great, I made new friends, and we even had a swim without the wet suits after practice.

It is important to keep the fun elements in the training routine, but it takes a day of running away from my weekly schedule. Is it wise? Fortunately my much more experienced running friends assure me that it is indeed a good idea. Swimming and biking instead of running once a week, can indeed give the same training effect and in addition save the legs.

Another plan was to incorporate a lot of Stoltzekleiven sessions into my practice. That has not been happening either; so far I have only been up there three times... A strange and unexpected thing has been happening slowly over time: Amsterdam Marathon, which merely used to be a distant hope, is becoming a realistic goal as I have increased the length of my long runs to 30 km. At the same time, Stoltzekleiven, which used to be one of the main goals of this year, is slowly diminishing in importance in the shadow of Amsterdam. After all, I can always do Stoltzekleiven next year. However, if I do manage to run a full marathon, I am not sure that I will want to do it again.

So, if my general training scheme with some biking, some uphills, regular intervals, some trail runs with integrated Stoltzekleiven, and a lot of mileage in running can give me a good finish time at Stoltzekleiven, I will take it. If not, I will be perfectly fine with that, too. How interesting... Last year, achieving a new PB at Stoltzekleiven became almost a matter of life and death, and  now suddenly it is not so important anymore.

Having friends with the same goals, in particular Frank, is also playing a big role here. There are a few of us who are trying to follow very similar programs, and exchanging training schedules and experiences has been most valuable. Frank and I are doing almost all our runs together, and we are trying to gather with friends as often as we can make our program fit that. We are also entering a few races, 5k and 10k, just to get some speed training. But like with Os Triathlon, there is no way we can put big goals into these races, as we cannot afford to take time off to rest before them.

Training for marathon, in addition to having a life outside of running, does require quite a bit of stubbornness and sacrifice indeed. Most of the time it is fun, but sometimes, especially towards the end of some long runs, I cannot but fall into negative thoughts... "Why???? Why on earth am I doing this????" And then you hit the shower, and as the hot water meets your body, all the blisters and bruises start burning.... Oh well. No matter how it all goes, this kind of training has in fact already made me achieve my biggest all time goal already. I wanted to be in such a shape that I could enter any race at short notice. I am more or less there now. Give me anything, and a few days' rest before it, and I will do it! Seriously.

But not Aurland Extreme.... I will never do that. I promise.... I think :-)