A star is gone

Døden kan flamme som kornmo;
Klarere ser vi enn før
Hvert liv i dens hvite smerte:
Det er de beste som dør.
(Nordahl Grieg)

Some people touch the lives of others in very special ways. And then they leave.... Running and training with friends is great fun, and in every running group there are special people who are very good in sharing their wisdom, motivating others, and genuinely enjoying to help others achieve new goals. Still, some of these people stand out. Like Mats. So pure at heart, so full of love and kindness, so uniquely wonderful in giving and helping, so wise and knowledgeable, so curious and interested, and so much fun. And then he leaves...

Mats is best in everything. He is the complete athlete. First person from Bergen to reach the top of Mount Everest, super fast street runner, ultra marathoner, trail runner, mountain climber, skier, biker, swimmer, and a tough triathlete of extreme races, ... you name it. There is nothing he cannot do, nothing he is not good at. But what makes him unique and outstanding is not the list of all these achievements. It is his extreme kindness and how he gives so much of himself to lift others up. He volunteers to accompany youngsters in races, and to teach kids skiing. He takes the goals of those of his friends with much much more modest achievements as important as his, and helps them in every possible way. Countless people have been helped by Mats when he accompanied them through races to reach their finish goals. Even more have learned so much from him, have gotten invaluable advice and motivating pep talk through tough times. Including myself. But now Mats has left... I cannot bring myself to write these sentences in past tense. I cannot accept that he is not here anymore. Because he is. And he will always be.

This blog already contains several posts about Mats. Just look at the above picture. It says it all. During the long injury period of 2015, Stoltzekleiven Opp uphill race was the only thing I could train for, and reaching a new PB was really really important to me. Things simply did not go so well during training. But Mats was there with help, support, motivation, inspiration, cheering, and making me believe that I was doing all the right things, and it would all work out at the race. Which it did.

So many of us have our own memories with Mats, and we are grateful to him for so many different things. You might remember that I was struggling both with motivation and form during the winter that followed the Amsterdam marathon last year. During a 20 km run with friends, I felt exhausted already from the start and decided to go slower than the others. Mats, pushing the stroller with his little daughter inside, immediately slowed down and ran with me behind the others the whole way. During this run, we had one of our perhaps most interesting conversations. He taught me about veganism and the benefits of cutting out dairy. I was convinced right away! Since that day I have avoided milk, cheese, cream, yogurt, and I have been feeling so much better. Gradually, this has even grown on Frank. Now we don't at all buy milk or yogurt anymore, just the alternatives made of almonds and soy, which we have come to like even better than the dairy versions.

We also talked a lot about how to train correctly, keeping everything at heart rate zone 1 or lactate threshold. I have also been implementing that conscientiously since then, with very good effects. Everything started to get better since that run. This year I have broken my previous records in every race, have achieved a calmness and confidence about my training, and started to enjoy everything in a different way. So much thanks to Mats! There is one thing that makes me sad, though, about that conversation. Mats was so thrilled that I was so enthusiastic about the things he was telling me. Because these were not just things that he was telling from the top of his head. He had read a lot, watched a lot, and he had quite a bit of evidence for why it should work. Still he experienced that some people would be negative, even condescending, about what he was trying to explain to them. I find comfort in thinking that maybe I was able to cheer him up in that matter, telling him that people find it so difficult to change their habits that it is sometimes easier for them to dismiss the facts than to try to understand them.

There is so much I am grateful to Mats for. I miss him so much already. We all do. I must admit I am struggling to imagine how we will go on as a group without him. But hey! We are not without him! He is with us all the time. He will always be...

De øket det livet de gikk fra.
De spøker i nye menn.
På deres grav skal skrives:
De beste blir alltid igjen.
(Nordahl Grieg)

Slower the training, faster the race?

Embrace the break, break the record! 

Seasonal break, periodic training, alternating workouts,... all these highly recommended things sounded difficult to plan and fit into a busy life just a few weeks ago. But now suddenly they are all happening automatically!

I have been traveling a lot since Oxford Half. With the result that I have been feeling quite exhausted for the past few weeks. When the trips were being planned long time ago, I naively thought that they would give a good opportunity to recover from the race. However, it did not work out that way. I think I underestimated the effects of flying, sitting and walking a lot, little sleep, combined with more than normal alcohol consumption.

During the trips I did in total just three very slow runs. In between, I only had time to join a few of the scheduled Melkesyre training sessions, and other than that I again did mostly slow runs. I even did not have the energy to do much strength training. In the days just before and just after Oxford, I was planning to participate in a couple of 5k races this past and coming week, but I did not (and still do not) at all feel up to it. So all in all I have been taking it pretty easy, and there: automatically a period of serious cut in the training effort, almost a seasonal break!

During this time, somewhat to my surprise, I was not really stressed by the thought that I might be losing form. But I did find quite a lot of comfort in reading about smart training. We know it, but it still helps to read what all experts write: the slow runs are the most important. And they have to be really slow. There should be no more than 2-3 hard effort training sessions (intervals or tempo runs) in a week, and the rest should be all in zone 1. Anything in between is called "junk mileage" by many coaches. And you might as well just drop it. In fact, several coaches and athletes advocate that dropping it is actually better for your form.

I have found a lot of inspiration in reading about Deena Kastor recently. She is the US marathon record holder for women with 2:19 in 2005, and ten years after that in 2015 she broke the US masters marathon record with 2:27 at the age of 42. She explains that her continued success is probably due to cutting down on mileage and concentrating on quality. Her mileage now is about half of what she used to have 10 years ago, and this adjustment has enabled her to continue to be better than all her peers. Of course her current mileage is still way more than most of us, around 120 km a week, but hey after all we are talking about 2:27!

Another study I have read was comparing short and max intensity intervals to longer threshold intensity intervals. Tested on two groups of otherwise equivalent athletes, the study showed that intervals that lasted 5-10 minutes (rather than 1-4 min), and had a lesser intensity than those of the shorter intervals, enabled the athletes to race faster at the end of the test period. So no need for those short sprints!

Maybe it's all in my head, but reading all this, and getting finally enough sleep during the weekend, I feel like I am doing just the right things at this point in time. Ok, so I still don't feel like street racing, but do I really need to? There are no important street races coming up soon, whereas the uphill season is definitely here with two Blåmanen races in the coming two weeks, the Little Christmas Whisky race in December, and then the Fløyenkarusellen starting just after the new year. My training, except some of the really slow runs, has been mainly uphill in the past weeks, with a peak this last week with several uphill (short and long) intervals. They say periodicity in training should also involve doing different types of runs so that your body does not get used to the same thing which leads to stagnation of improvement. So there, with almost no effort suddenly I have also achieved variation between street running and uphill running in separate periods!

The most important thing is of course to have fun the entire time. And when having fun coincides with what seems to be the right way to train, it feels pretty good. Another thing that Deena Kastor strongly believes in for success is the power of positive thinking. In fact she has just written a book about this which will be out in April 2018. For example, she finds great comfort in reading her own training logs before a competition, seeing all that good training before her eyes, and having confidence that it will give her the results that she is after. So who knows, perhaps believing that you are training in just the right way is as powerful as actually training in the right way?

Listen to your body, and make your mind listen to you.

Chasing two rabbits II - Oxford Half 2017

The second rabbit is caught, too! 

What a wonderful experience Oxford was a couple of weekends ago! Not only because I actually achieved my goal of improving my half marathon time, but even more because it was a weekend shared with so many friends and so full of precious moments. We were a total of 37 people who traveled together; 33 runners from our club Varegg and 4 supporters. Like in Holmenkollen in 2015 and Amsterdam in 2016, traveling and running with friends is like being on a school trip, with so much laughter that your cheeks and your stomach ache the whole time!

The trip was incredibly well organized by our friend Karl-Magnus, and for the rest of us it was simply to follow his instructions. Most of us stayed in the same hotel, which was 200 meters from the start, full of history and charm, and perfectly convenient. We arrived late Friday night, and the race was on Sunday, so we had the whole Saturday free. We spent it sightseeing Oxford, relaxing and visiting the race village. My friends Mette, Marit and I were placed in start pen E, which read finish time 1:50 - 2:10. We found this a bit too slow for our goals, so we decided to change start numbers to pen D, for 1:45 - 2:00.

The start of the race was 9:30, and the start of the hotel breakfast was 7:30, which I found a little too late. Frank and I had instant oat meal in the hotel room already at about 7 am, and then we went down to breakfast to have coffee and meet the others. At around 8:30 we went out to warm up, around 9 we were back in the hotel to leave our jackets and so on. It is so convenient to have a hotel room so close to the start, exactly like we had in Trondheim. There was no need to leave a bag at the race village.

For the race my intention was to follow the 1:50 flag for as long as I could. It was so pleasant to start at an easier pace than what I usually do, and the first 10 km felt really easy. Around half way I started to struggle a bit, and I saw that my heart rate was a bit too high. At the same time, we caught up the 1:45 flag, which made me decide to slow down a bit. At the slowing down I made a mistake. I was watching my average pace thinking that it was my current pace, so I slowed down a bit too much and discovered it only after a km. After that I managed to get up my speed back to the intended pace, and managed to keep going more or less at steady pace until around 18 km. Until that point I could see my flag guy a couple of hundred meters ahead of me.

Then my stomach started acting up. I have never experienced this during a race before, but suddenly I had a very urgent feeling of having to use a toilet. I didn't know what to do. It was impossible to keep the speed, but could it actually pay off to stop? I calculated that if I took the time to use a toilet (or go behind a tree), I would lose my chance of a PB. But finally I actually stopped completely, and waited a few seconds. Fortunately the short stop helped a lot, and when I started running again the stomach did not bother me more. But now I had to really speed up to be able to go below 1:53, which was my goal. The last kilometer was tough, and I gave it all I had, and had to spend a little time on the ground to recover after the finish. The time read 1:52:22. About a minute better than my previous PB from Tromsø!

Fortunately the feeling of fatigue disappeared quickly, and then it was time to celebrate! Many of my friends got PBs, and some of them by several minutes! The course is very flat, surrounded by many historical buildings and interesting sights, so it is a very pleasant half marathon. Perhaps the best part was the race bags we got at the end. Free long sleeved t-shirts for everyone! They had separate bags for men and women, the t-shirts in men's and women's sizes, and the bags containing goodies, specially designed for men and for women. Really a very nice touch.

We were all impressed by the quality, the design and the functionality of the shirts. No commercials, just the race logo. I've already used mine a couple of times! I must make a comment on race t-shirts in general. Also in Trondheim the race t-shirts were very nice, with no commercials. They were not free, but really cheap when ordered at registration (75 NOK, about 8 EUR). As you might remember I rated Trondheim above Tromsø, I can also add that Tromsø race t-shirts cost 450 NOK (about 50 EUR)! Yet another reason to give thumbs up for Trondheim and Oxford.

Six half marathon races so far this year, which is more than ever before, PB in each of the courses, and overall half marathon PB twice.

2017 is turning out to be a good rabbit year :-)

Chasing two rabbits I - Stoltzekleiven Opp 2017

The first rabbit is caught!

The one who chases two rabbits catches none, says an old saying. Since after the summer holidays I have been chasing two very different rabbits: PB in both Stoltzekleiven Opp and Oxford half marathon. The races are just one week apart in time; the first one short and steep, the other one long and flat. I have been wondering whether it is possible to achieve both goals, or wise to train for two so different races at the same time. On the other hand, thanks to organized training sessions towards both races the training has been a lot of fun, and I have been enjoying it very much.

In 2014, I had decided not to participate in Stoltzekleiven Opp, because I was participating in Oslo half marathon just a week before. But during the training towards Oslo, I discovered to my big surprise that I was doing much better at Stoltzekleiven than earlier. So I raced anyway and got a new PB recorded. In 2015 when I was not able to run, I was doing only steep uphill races, and I put all my hopes into Stoltzekleiven Opp. That year, training towards this race was actually quite stressing. I felt like I really really had to achieve a PB, because otherwise there would be nothing to show for the whole year. Fortunately the PB came at the race, though I was nowhere close to it during the training sessions, struggling with negative thoughts along the way. Last year, the big goal was Amsterdam marathon, and I simply did not have the energy or the will to train for Stoltzekleiven.

This year, things have been going well since the start of the year, and training has been more fun and rewarding than ever before. In my fourth year as a "proper" runner and race participant, I finally seem to have figured out the right balance between the dedication and discipline that is required to achieve results and the fun and joy of simply playing with friends. I think it is because I have finally confidence that training will work and things will gradually improve. Typically, right after the summer holidays I would find Stoltzekleiven training very hard, and I would have thoughts like "This is my maximum effort, and I am so far behind my PB, how am I ever going to do better at the race?" This year it was rather "I know that every time I train, the next session will feel easier, and I will become faster without increasing my effort."

Frank and I joined the Stoltzekleiven training sessions of Fjellgeitene as soon as we returned from the summer holidays this year. We also participated in all of the four trial races that come every two weeks before the real race itself. The training sessions were Mondays and Thursdays, and every session involved going up and down Stoltzekleiven at least three times. The Monday sessions were my favorite: first time up all at once fast pace, second time up four long intervals with a minute break in between, third time up 1-minute intervals with 30 seconds break in between. Although I know this might sound pretty extreme to many, it was actually surprisingly doable, since the rounds felt easier and easier due to the decreasing length of the intervals. And it was a lot of fun to do it together, with many interesting and funny conversations during the descents.

I could not complete a full training session immediately right after the summer holidays, though. Sometimes I would find my own variant, for example just taking half way one of the last rounds. But most times I would be helped by some of the sweetest Fjellgeit ladies, in particular Linda, Ann Eileen, and Siri. During the intervals, when all the guys and the really fast gals disappeared, we would stay together and push each other through the last intervals. Especially Linda was always incredibly good in coming up with an alternative plan if we felt like we could not take more rounds. Several times, when I did not have time to go to the organized training session, Linda would come with me to do an alternative session another day. The best part is that, although she is so fast that she races in the elite class, she always played along and made me feel like we were at the same level, both of us complaining about fatigue or heavy legs from other training.

This training schedule worked incredibly well. It felt like it worked automatically by simply just participating, without having to push very hard. The progress was clearly visible in the results of the four trial races: 15:38, 15:27, 15:08, and 14:27. The last one was actually a new PB last Monday. And then there was more than 20 seconds improvement again at the race, just five days after that. Either I was really lucky and the race came when my improvement was the biggest, or perhaps I could have done even better in a couple of weeks. In any case, I will try to start the Stoltzekleiven training a little bit earlier next year.

Now the question is whether these Stoltzekleiven sessions have been beneficial or not for the Oxford half marathon training. Personally I think they have complemented my flat running training well. Anyhow I cannot do too much fast and flat running before some injury starts acting up again, and I think Stoltzekleiven has kept me happy, occupied, healthy, and motivated. Of course two races so close are not ideal. First you have to taper for the one, and then for the other, and then you start wondering whether it is too much tapering all in all. Oh well, we will find out in just about six days!

Let's see if I can catch that other rabbit, too.

Another impulsive race: Trondheim half marathon

A truly spectacular course!

Three weeks ago, which was three weeks after the end of holidays, I got the opportunity to test how my form had survived through the summer. On an impulsive note, and just a couple of weeks before the race, Frank and I signed up for Trondheim half marathon. At the time of the race it would be a month since we had seen our son who lives in Trondheim, and we thought it would be a great occasion to spend time with him.

Trondheim showed its very best side that weekend, with incredible weather, clear blue skies and sunshine the whole time. There are several things about Trondheim half marathon which I appreciated compared to other city half marathons. First of all, the starting time is just perfect, especially for people traveling from far: 2 pm. With such a start, you can even arrive in the city the same morning. We arrived the evening before,  and it was great to have plenty of time in the morning. You get to sleep for as long as you want. You get to eat breakfast in peace and quiet. Your body gets working, you have time for your normal bathroom routine, and after all that, there is still time to go for a stroll, get warm, get a little bit hungry again and eat a little bit more, etc. And after the race there is still plenty of time for some rest and a nice dinner downtown. Just perfect from every aspect, in my opinion. The race was impressively well organized, with lots and lots of officials all through the course, lots of drink stations, and very clearly marked course. And the course was so pretty, so spectacular, and so pleasant to run, mainly on pedestrian paths along the sea or the river.

During the flight to Trondheim, we were studying the race course, and only then we realized that the half marathon runs through a 10.5 k course twice! I must admit I was very disturbed by this fact in the beginning. I find back-and-forth races quite demotivating. (As I approach the turning point, I see all the people who turned long before me, and it is like I never arrive there: "not there yet?", "not there YET?", "NOT there YET?!"... ) And I really like all-in-one-round races, like Bergen City, which is still the most beautiful course I know. So I thought I would find the two rounds challenging. But when it came to the point, it was actually much more enjoyable than I had imagined. The first round is easy as you are still full of energy, and I was mentally working with myself, like "when I pass this point the next time, there will be only 6 km left", etc. Then during the second round, I knew what was coming ahead, and it was good to be able to plan and portion the effort and the energy that was rapidly decreasing.

There were unusually many drink stations, and before the race I had planned to skip some of them. However, as the weather turned hotter than expected,  in the end all the drink stations came useful. In the second round they also handed out cold wet swamps, and they showered us with hoses, which was really helpful. I am not sure whether they had planned this in advance, or they took a quick decision due to the weather, but it was really appreciated! What I liked the most about the course is that only a tiny portion of it was on big roads. It contained mostly cozy inner city streets, pedestrian paths along the sea, pedestrian paths along the river, and a number of bridges. I must admit I don't enjoy racing on big asphalt roads, even if they are closed to traffic.

Many people ask me whether the Tromsø half marathon was more spectacular, but I would say no. Tromsø was more exotic due to he midnight sun, but the course itself contained most of the highway to the airport, and although it was along the sea, it is just not the same as running on a path surrounded with trees and greenery. Tromsø was flatter,  though, which I really liked. It was the only really flat half marathon I ever ran. Trondheim had a few peaks. In the elevation profile it didn't look so bad, but when you go through the course twice then there are twice as many peaks... But still Trondheim must be the perfect city for street running, with all those paths by the sea and along the river! Running next to water has an inexplicable relaxing and calming effect; it just makes your spirit higher. Towards the end of the weekend I even started to babble about moving to Trondheim! But then I remembered that there are no mountains there... Oh well.

I was pretty happy with my time, too: just about 45 seconds behind my PB from Tromsø. Given the heat and the peaks, I concluded that I had kept my form through the long summer holidays with non-optimal training conditions.

Trondheim marathon is Norway's oldest city marathon, and next year it will be organized for the 50th time. Give it a try?

A few kilos off

Hard to get them off; even harder to keep them away...

I have been wanting to write this post since March, but I waited until now to make sure the kilos would stay away. During January and February this winter I made a serious effort and lost 6 kilos. Several friends have asked for the recipe and I promised that it would come. You might remember that I have a history of overweight, and I have to constantly watch what I eat, although i train several hours per day, in average.

At the time I lost the big weight all those years ago, I was told that it would take the body a couple of years to get used to the new weight. During this time the body would all the time try to get back to the same high weight again, so one had to be extra careful. Unfortunately, new research indicates that this period is much longer than two years. In fact, if the overweight lasted over a longer time, the body might try to get back to that weigh for many years, perhaps the rest of its life... Many of my friends keep telling me that I could eat all I want since my training volume is quite high. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.

Although I found this pretty unfair in the beginning, I am now used to it. I know that I need to eat well to recover and to be able to train efficiently. I do actually eat a lot, but mainly vegetables, lean meats and whole grains. My one weakness is wine. I enjoy so much taking a glass of wine every now and then, but its effect on my weight is not good. It seems to block my system and make more trouble than the number of calories it contains. Still I manage to balance all these things with training, and for longer periods it all works pretty well. But a few hundred grams here and there might sneak in unnoticed every now and then, and suddenly in December discovered that I was about four kilos more than I was at the same time two years ago. Desperate that things would get worse during Christmas, and motivated by the fact that it was a low intensity time with respect to training and upcoming races, I decided to lose those four kilos and two more. And it worked! My goal was to lose 6 kilos until the end of February, and I made it just in time.

Losing a few kilos, when you are actually normal weight, is in some sense harder than to lose a lot of weigh when you are really overweight. First of all, you don't really need to lose that weight, so the motivation is naturally lower. For me, it was to be able to race faster. For others it might be to fit into some clothes that have become a bit too tight. Secondly, the first couple of kilos go pretty fast, and then you feel happy about yourself and relax and then everything goes back to start. Here are a few steps that helped me reach my goal:

 1. Do it with a friend. Both when I lost all that weight many years ago, and also this time, I did it together with friends in a similar situation. This time, one of my best friends who is also a runner, wanted to lose exactly the same number of kilos, and we were a great support for each other throughout the period. She also reached her goal at the same time, but on the way both of us would have down periods with lacking motivation. It was wonderful to be able to write to the other "I want to stop, I want to eat chocolate, I am hungry, I am fed up" etc, and get an uplifting, motivating feedback. Every Monday morning we would text each other with the weight of that day, and give each other kudos. We would also text many times during the week, especially when we were up to challenging situations.

In fact, for some reason most of us like to keep to ourselves about wanting to lose weight. But when you are open about it, you discover that you have many friends in the same situation, even surprisingly many men. I found out that a group of my male running friends also had a similar support group during the same time to lose approximately the same number of kilos. I exchanged with them experiences and challenges every time we met, and this helped me a lot to stay focused and motivated.

2. Write down everything you put into your mouth. This is actually the most important point. In my experience there is no other way to make it work. Since I was used to Grete Roede from my previous experience, I used their tools also this time. It works perfectly in Norway. They have almost everything that is available in the supermarkets in their web tool, you can choose from an easy menu, the calories come up automatically. The page also suggests a daily calorie intake for you, distributed to various meals, and calculates for you how well you are doing in different food categories. I know that there are many other similar pages. Many of them are free of charge and work perfectly. Just choose whatever works well for you.

3. Report your weight to some 'authority'. This works magics for me! During a Grete Roede course, you go on a scale once a week while the course instructor watches you. This time, I made a deal with Ketil, my dear friend and world's best personal trainer, that I would go on the Barry's Bootcamp scale every Tuesday morning at 8 am, just before our PT session. I made clear my goal for him, and the fact that I did not want to disappoint him made me more rigorous in my efforts, I think.

4. Be prepared that it will take time. Even if it's a few kilos, don't try to get them off quickly. If they go off quickly, then they will for sure come back soon enough. You don't need a quick diet and then you can go on on as before. You need to either change your habits, or remind yourself of your old good habits and get back into them. There are a few boosters that you might want to try, though. Like fasting (juicing). This is so healthy in so many other ways than just to lose weight, that I think it can be recommended. I did it twice during these 9-10 weeks, and both times it helped a lot both for motivation and to get things going again. It also teaches you to deal with hunger, and you realize after a couple of days that you can actually endure going a bit hungry every now an then.

5. Do regular strength training when you are losing weight so that you don't lose muscles, just fat.

So what about the end of the story? Did the 6 kilos stay away? Well most of them did. Two of them came back, so now I am back to where I was at the end of 2014 when I was pretty happy about my weight. After the holidays, though, I might still make an effort to get rid off those two again. In the end:

No matter what my weight is, there are always two kilos that I want to lose :-D

How to avoid loss of form during the holidays

Unfortunately I am not able to give you the answer :-)

It’s the middle of holiday time, and my news feed is full of articles on how to avoid losing your form during the holidays. These articles usually have headings like “Holiday doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to give up on your race goal” etc, but the message inside tends to be more negative than the sound of the heading, encouraging you to run more and harder than what you probably would like to if you are at a hot place. Of course if your holiday is just one week or two long, there is nothing to worry about. I am pretty sure that such a break is fine, no matter how little or easy you choose to run. But my holiday is almost four weeks long at a place where running fast turns pretty impossible due to hot and humid weather, even at very early hours of the day.

This year, I should perhaps be worried about losing my form more than ever before. Although a fitness test I took in March suggested that my running form had declined since my previous test three years ago, 2017 has actually worked out pretty well so far. My goal has been to catch up with my form of 2014 and improve it, and I managed to beat Pinar of 2014 in every race that I participated this year.

Despite this, I am not that worried bout losing my form during the holidays. In fact, this is perhaps the most relaxed holidays I am having since 2014. It doesn’t mean that I am training or running less than in the previous three holidays. It’s just that I don’t think about it that much; it comes more natural, and it doesn’t cost that big an effort. Both in 2015 and 2016, I had signed up at a gym to do my strength training and to do some treadmill running during the holidays. This year, I am keeping it simple:  running in the very early morning about 4 times a week, swimming in the middle of the day 5-6 times a week, and doing a 30 min strength training session on the bedroom floor 5-6 times a week. I have also tried aqua running a few times; I find it pretty slow and boring, but I am hoping that it has at least the same effect as recovery runs.

But of course my running form will decline. I know it by experience. No matter how hard I try, it is not possible to keep up the volume and the speed in the heat. Previous years, I would try too hard sometimes, and still I would see no results. This year, I am simply applying my new rule: all running happens at either heart rate zone 1 or at lactate threshold heart rate. The holiday runs are pretty varied: intervals, slow runs, longer tempo runs, always starting out at zone 1, and never exceeding threshold heart rate (in fact nothing in between). The result is that my speed is much less here than at home. But still, I have so big confidence in this rule that I have high hopes of getting up my speed within a few weeks after the holidays. We will see; I will let you know.

I definitely owe much of the form improvement of 2017 to heart rate zone training. You might remember that I was complaining about a big loss of form after Amsterdam marathon. It took me so long to start feeling up to training hard again. Thanks to valuable advice from experienced friends I found the ingredients that could finally get me up and back on track. Dedicated heart zone training, a few kilos off, dairy-free diet, and supplements in preparation for the menopause are some the components behind my improvement in 2017. I have also participated in more competitions so far this year than before. I ran three half marathon street races in the first six months of 2017, which is the same number as I ran in total before 2017. And I ran several 10 km races, which I never did before. Keeping the training at a manageable pace (never above threshold), and rather concentrating the hard efforts around competitions, is an advice that I have tried to follow conscientiously, and I think it has worked out for me.

Mind you, my improvements are not that spectacular. To give an idea on my 2017 PRs: 30 seconds in the Fløyenkarusellen 2.5 km uphill race, 1 minute at the Fana 10 km street race, 2 minutes at half marathon, 4 minutes at mountain half marathon, etc. As a comparison, my friends are improving by far more minutes than me. But after a year of injury (2015), and a year (2016) of frustration of not being able to get back to my 2014 form (although I had some really nice achievements in 2016, like competing a full marathon in a decent time), it feels great to finally start getting better than before again.

Have I found the perfect training scheme? No. There are so many more things that I want to do, which I find hard to find time or motivation for. I want to get better (read: feel safer) in biking. After the holidays, I have two important races coming up: Stoltzekleiven at the end of September and Oxford half marathon in the beginning of October. It will be tough find time to train in such a way that I can get a new PR in both. And, if I manage to do so, I cannot imagine that there will be much time for biking. But hey! The reason for all this is to have fun, I remind myself! So, do the training that gives you the best pleasure and that you find the most motivating and rewarding at the time. There will be time for the other stuff at some point. When form in one discipline improves, it is nice to push it. When improvement gets hard to obtain for some reason, it could be motivating to try something new.

Enjoy your holidays, take it easy, and don't forget to have fun!

A midsummer night's dream: Tromsø midnight sun marathon

I had to cross the arctic circle to achieve a new half marathon PB.

An impulsive story with a happy ending:

June 3: One of my running buddies, Ina, tells me that she is going to Tromsø to participate in the half marathon course of the Midnight Sun Marathon on June 17, combining it with a few days' vacation. This is a race I always thought would be cool to participate in, and I immediately want to join her. Later that evening, I check flights and I check with Ina whether she would like company. She is so enthusiastic that I now want to go even more, but I still cannot make up my mind.

June 4: Frank says I should go. I check flights once more. There was only one reasonably priced ticket left for the return. I say that if that ticket is still there, I will take it as a sign and go. It is still there! I buy the tickets and text Ina. Ina is so happy that I get even happier. She says I can stay in her room. I sign up for the race.

June 12: Ina and I have both been very busy, so this is the first time we get to meet before the race. During the weekly Melkesyre run in Hordnesskogen we make plans for the coming weekend. For the past week we were both in recovery after participating in the Bergen Fjellmarathon (mountain half marathon) rail race on June 1. We both had new PBs at that race, by several minutes each, so we both feel that we are on a good trend. On the other hand, we are both worried that we had almost no asphalt running since the end of April. After participating in the Bergen City Marathon, the half marathon course, we have both been preparing for the mountain half marathon so almost all our running has been in terrain and uphill. After the mountain half marathon, we have mainly been taking it easy, so it suddenly hits us that we are not at all prepared for a long distance street race! On the other hand, although the Hordnesskogen run is quite a bit faster than normal, we are able to keep chatting all the way, and we feel strong, so we think we will be fine. The plan is to simply rest until the race after today's run.

June 17: I leave Bergen at 10 am on a small Widerøe propeller plane going directly to Tromsø. Ina arrived in Tromsø already the day before, and she is at the airport to meet me. She is so nice! In fact, we do not at all know each other that well, so this is an interesting experiment in several ways. The weather is cloudy and chilly as we approach the city center. Will there actually be a midnight sun? As we promenade downtown Tromsø looking for a place to have lunch, the sun comes out! And we are the first ones to take an outdoor table in front of a cafe by the harbour. The sun becomes stronger and stronger and in a short while the whole place is full of people and no more tables are available! We sit there enjoying the sun, and looking at the local mountain top Fløya. We both want to go there, but we don't want to tire our legs unnecessarily, and anyway there is not enough time before the race. Being equally impulsive, we suddenly decide to go there and take the cable car up. Up we go with the one car, enjoy the views as the weather is at its most beautiful, and down with the next car. Then we go to her room to rest a little bit. It feels very calming that we seem to agree on everything and decisions are taken so smoothly and easily.

The race is to start at 10:30 pm, so we go to bed at 7 pm and try to sleep for about 1 hour. It is not so easy to fall asleep but at least it feels very good to rest. We are both a bit worried about how our bodies will react to running so late, especially when we both have had pretty little sleep during the last days. Around 8:30 pm we eat a little bit. In fact I end up eating a little too much. I have been carb loading for the last few days, so I really feel heavy and I am worried that I won't be able to run fast at all. We go to the start area at 9:30 pm, leave our bags and start warming up a little. We both feel terrible at the warm up. So high heart rate at so low speed! How are we at all going to run 21 km?? My stomach feels like a balloon, but I keep moving, and I am praying that keeping warmed up  until the race will get as much air as possible out of my body.

At 10:15 pm we both feel much better, while we are participating in the organized warm up. I still don't feel like racing. A few days ago I was even playing with the idea that I could perhaps get a new PB at this race, but just before start I am thinking that I will be happy if I simply manage to finish in less than two hours. At 10:30 pm the gun shot starts the race and there we go! We end up running side by side for the first 3 km, and I feel good, so I keep running with Ina although  I see that our pace is worryingly fast. After the first 3 km, though, I don't dare to keep that pace anymore, although I still feel good. I see that my HR is way above where it should be, so I slow down to something that is closer to what I had planned as my average pace for this race.

The course is pretty flat, with slight downhills immediately following the slight uphills, so it is very easy to keep the pace. The weather is not as nice as earlier in the day, but it is even more spectacular in a way. At around 7 km, we have the sun shining right on our faces, we have a little bit drizzle on our backs, and we have a huge rainbow to our left. Everything feels good, and I am still very surprised that I am able to keep this pace with so little effort.  The course goes to Tromsø airport and then turns back. I always find these turning points troublesome. I get so impatient towards the turning point: are we not there yet? where is it? where IS it????? The whole island where the inner city of Tromsø is placed is 23 km in circumference. So it would be pretty easy to make a full round instead of back on forth on the one side. Perhaps something for the organizers to consider for the future?

June 17: As we pass midnight, I start looking more and more forward to the end. The fast start has started to punish me, and I have to really concentrate to keep the pace. For every km that passes, I am really happy to see the pace of the past km and pretty surprised that also this one went well. Then I quickly recalculate what my finish time will be in the worst case, if I have to drop all the way closer to 6 min / km. And then I manage every km way better than that. I start wondering how my body works. Perhaps a lot of eating before a race is the key? And little sleep?

I arrive at the finish at 00:23, completing the race in 1 hour and 53 minutes. It is 2 minutes faster than my previous best time, which was all the way back in Oslo in 2014. Ina is already at the finish and greets me as I arrive. It turns out that she also had a new PB by more than 2 minutes, and she is 5 minutes faster than me. It is so nice that this turned out so well for both of us! Having the same kind of experience before, during, and after the race, makes the whole thing even more enjoyable for both of us.

After changing into dry and warm clothes, we want to have a glass of wine. As we were enjoying the sun the day before, we were really craving for wine, but we did not want to risk our race performance, so we said we would do it afterwards. But there is no wine to be had.... All restaurants are closed, and there are long queues in front of the bars and the pubs. The few places without queues will not let us in due to our outfit. We regret that we did not think of buying a bottle of wine during the day and placing it in the fridge in the room. Despite the fact that it starts raining and there is no wine, we are in incredibly good mood, and we think that the walking around is good cool down for our achy legs. We get hungry, we buy huge döner kebabs, and stroll back to Ina's room eating those.

We go to bed at 3:30 am, and we set the alarm to 9 am. Ina is so incredibly sweet and kind, she gives me her bed while she takes the sleeping bag on the floor. At 6:30 am we are both wide awake and start chatting. No point in trying to sleep more. We get up, have waffles for breakfast, Ina drives me to the airport, before she continues her vacation in Kvaløya and Senja.

Snipp snapp snute and then we all live happily ever after :-)

PS. Pictures not taken by Ina or me are from Kristina Schröder Photography, and the Facebook or Instagram pages of Midnight Sun Marathon.