Ambassador's mission

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going!

Trondheim marathon is less than two days away! For the last couple of months I have been wondering whether I would at all be able to participate in any of the distances, but I have just signed up for half marathon and I am really really looking forward to it!

Things haven't been going as planned this year. After an incredibly successful 2017, I was perhaps a bit too ambitious in the beginning of 2018, and wore myself down with just a bit too hard training over time. As a result, I had to skip Bergen City half marathon at the end of April. But May was good; the weather was wonderful; I kept to the mountains and terrain, and at the beginning of June I was surprised by my performance at Bergen Fjellmaraton. You might remember all my good excuses during Fjellmaraton, one of which was that I fell and hurt my knees badly towards the end.

Although the knees were sore and stiff for a while, only nine days after Fjellmaraton I participated in a 27 km run from the center of Bergen to Knarvik. This race deserves a post on its own, which I never found time to write. It was such a wonderful experience, thanks to my friend Annbjørg who guided me through it helping me all the way. The race traverses over quite a few mountains,  and I was again surprised by my performance there. I took this as a good sign for the coming goal of running full distance at Trondheim marathon, feeling happy that my knees seemed already to have recovered after the fall.

Then during the summer holidays, I started slowly to increase my running distance with Trondheim marathon in mind. I was building up really cautiously, running only every second day, only one long run during the week, and the length of the long run only slowly increasing. Still a few weeks into this scheme, towards the end of a 24 km run my left knee started to hurt really badly. And after that I was more or less unable to run throughout the summer. Whenever I tried, it started hurting after a few km, so I simply stopped. The nice weather continued, so again I kept to the mountains and the terrain, and the knee started to get better, albeit very slowly.

A couple of weeks ago I started street running again, just to discover that my running form was completely gone. I gave up the Trondheim project totally. There is of course no chance of being able to run a marathon, as the knee is still not 100% yet. And my form did not motivate me to try a half marathon either. At some point I was considering 10 km, but then I found that it started too late in the day to fit the schedule of the rest of the family. So I was simply planning to skip the race, and just cheer for the others from the side line. Aksel, Frank and Annbjørg are going for the full distance, whereas a bunch of other friends from Bergen are doing the half marathon, and I thought I could at perhaps keep the marathoners company through the last 10 km and then cheer the half marathoners to the finish.

But then a friend suggested that I could help her achieve a half marathon PB. And that changed everything! The desired pace seemed doable for me without pushing my knee too much, although it would by no means be easy, given the lost form. Suddenly I had a new goal for the race, meaningful and within reach, and the motivation came back immediately! I am so grateful to her for this suggestion, and quite surprised by its effect on me. Still I had a small hesitation about whether or not the knee would survive 21 km...

On Wednesday I went for a 10 km run in the aimed pace for the race, both to test the knee and to test the form. Both seemed to be up to the challenge, and right afterwards I signed up for the race. After that I received yet another request of pace holding with the same finish time, so now I feel like a real pace holder. I really really hope I will be able to guide and motivate my friends in the right pace throughout the race. I am surprised to find out that this is actually even more motivating, exciting and fun task than trying to achieve a PB myself. And it fits so well with being an ambassador for the race. In fact, I've always dreamed of being a pace holder. Now I get to try it out, and perhaps I can volunteer to be an official one another time.

It's all about finding the right motivation!

All the right excuses: Bergen Fjellmaraton 2018

A good race is all about the good excuses...

Many "unfortunate" things can happen before and during a 21 km terrain race with 1080 meters of elevation gain. But don't despair! Each of those things can be used as an explanation of not reaching your goal, or to make reaching your goal appear even more impressive. :-)

Bergen is bathing in sunshine and warm weather since the beginning of May. During my 31 years in this city, I cannot remember such a long and continuous period of warm, dry and sunny weather. The winter was unusually cold with excessive amounts of snow, and in early spring I was wondering whether all that snow would disappear early enough to start training for Bergen Fjellmaraton, which took place last Thursday evening. The snow did indeed disappear impressively fast, and the mountains of Bergen have been free of snow and during the entire month of May. So no good excuse there for not being able to train for the race.

In fact, I did get a lot of opportunity to train for the race. The nice and hot weather inspired for mountain running much more than street running. Except for asphalt intervals once a week, all my training was in the terrain involving a lot of uphill during May. But I did of course also have a lot of good excuses all the way! :-)

The sudden loss of form in April: You might remember that I had to take it really really easy during the the whole month of April, after training a bit too intensively in the early spring. But May has been pretty good, although my heart rate has been higher and my speed lower than usual. Concentrating on simply having fun, and never pushing too hard, I ended up doing 250 km distance and 9500 m elevation gain during the month of May, according to Strava.

No previous races in 2018: Last year, when I achieved my PB in Bergen Fjellmaraton, I had already participated in two half marathons earlier that year, in addition to a couple of 10k races, with pretty good results. This year, all I have had so far is my worst 5k and my worst 10k ever, plus a half marathon which I quit after 9k in the beginning of April. All my training since then has been pretty easy, except the intervals, and I was thinking that pushing hard would feel very unfamiliar after such a long time.

My mind elsewhere: Perhaps enjoying life is closely related to mastering challenges all the time, and when new challenges emerge, old ones might loose their importance a little bit. I started a new job on the 1st of May, with responsibility for 150 colleagues and 500 students. I am enjoying it immensely; not a single day is like the previous day, with endless challenges, opportunities, duties and tasks. I notice that my mind is occupied with work related things most of the time, and training and competitions have perhaps come somewhat in the background.

With all these wonderful excuses, I was prepared to take it easy and just have a great time over the mountains on Thursday. In fact, after my PB last year, I was so eager to do an even better time that I had signed up in the race class for this year's race. But thanks to my excuses, I changed to an earlier start so that I could go with most of my friends who have comparable finish times as myself. When, in morning of the race, Annbjørg wrote to me suggesting that we should aim for a really enjoyable experience with 3:30 as the finish time, I felt wonderfully uplifted, and let my shoulders even further down, expecting nothing else than a great hike in the sunshine.

The race day itself had room for even more excuses, and actually some good ones, too!

Lack of sleep: Working long hours, sleeping too little, having been to a party the night before the race, where I was standing the whole evening, blah blah blah, yeah, the usual stuff. 

The heat: Despite what most of my friends think (since I am from "the south"), I actually don't take hot weather that well. I was pretty worried about the sunny and warm evening of the race. But in the end this didn't turn out that bad. And there was a wonderful breeze in the right direction once on top of Ulriken.

Almost drowned at 4 km: Wanted to take a sip of water, while breathing heavily, and got it in the wrong tube. Coughing heavily, I had to stop completely and in fact ask for help from my fellow competitors to hit me on the back. I definitely lost a minute there! Yeah, at least! :-)

Fell and got badly bruised at 16 km:  So happy to have managed to run pretty fast down all the technical parts, just in front of Brushytten, where it is completely flat and on gravel ground I fell badly with high speed. Cramps got my legs immediately, blood started pouring out of my both knees and hands, and many kind people stopped to get me back on my feet. After a quick assessment of the situation and wondering whether I would be able to continue, I decided to try. To my surprise, I was able to get back at normal speed and did not feel any discomfort from the wounds (until after the finish line). I lost at least another minute there. Yeah, right! :-)

Despite all these wonderful excuses, it actually went pretty well the whole thing! It was my most enjoyable Fjellmaraton ever. I felt like I was taking it easy, but the speed was good, and my times at various milestones kept surprising me. And it all went very quickly. I was like, "Oh, already 8 km!?", "Oh, already Rundemanen!?" all the time. I think the low shoulders and the easy start helped a lot for the rest.

Also a lot of fortunate things can happen in a race, and they did. In fact, the reason for the good experience was vastly thanks to wonderful friends! It was as always great to gather at the start line and give each other inspiration, and then gather again at the finish and celebrate together. But the help I got from some of them during the race was just invaluable!

Jan-Tore, Linda, Annbjørg, Vibeke, Cathrine, Ove, Leif, Mette, Solveig: Jan-Tore, the kindest and most enthusiastic guy on earth, is usually a lot faster than me (similar speed to that of Frank). But these days he is struggling with a groin strain and has to take it easy especially downhill. Still I was expecting him to be some 10-15 minutes faster than me, I was really surprised to catch him around half way. After that we kept more or less together all the way to finish, Jan-Tore taking pictures and talking to everybody and entertaining all the time. I cannot describe how uplifting it was to just once in my life be able compete with him. I wish you quick recovery Jan-Tore, but until then let's race together as much as possible! :-D Then there was Linda, also normally faster than me, and as expected she came from behind and passed me around 4-5 km, stopping to take pictures, shouting encouraging words and smiling her dazzling big smile. But then quite unexpectedly, I caught her after a few more km, and then she caught me, and then I caught her, and we went like that all the way to finish. Such surprises gave a sudden surge of energy and instantly everything felt a lot easier. And then the cheering gang: Vibeke at Vikinghytten half way, got an energizing hug, Cathrine and Ove just before the ascent to Rundemanen, got high fives and good pep talk, and then Leif, Mette and Solveig on top of Rundemanen, with cheering words and big smiles. After that only the easy part left!

I finished only two minutes behind my PR from last year. One minute penalty for each of the kilos I have more now than this time last year. There! Yet another excuse which I forgot to mention! :-) And just imagine how it could have gone without the fall, the drinking incident and all the other wonderful excuses! :-D

Another terrain race next Thursday. Jan-Tore, are you in? 

(Photos courtesy of Jan-Tore and Cathrine.)

Total decline

Numbers don't lie...

I have been implementing threshold training in a quite disciplined way during winter. However, the values I have based my training on were from a test I took in August 2014, so I wasn't entirely sure that I was actually training at correct intensity. This week I took a new test and got my lactate threshold and VO2-max values measured. Unfortunately, all values had gone down since 2014.

Good news first. Among the values that had gone down were also weight and fat percentage! :-) 2 kg lighter and 5 points less percent body fat compared to 2014, on the very same scale. My VO2-max had not changed much, around 52, which is still better than that of 99.5% of women my age, and better than even that of 96% of 20 year-old women. And the best news of all is of course Dag Hilland, the conductor of the test. It was so nice to see him again, get loads of information, motivation and advice. No matter how the results come out, the test itself is an incredibly rewarding experience, thanks to Dag. Both Dag himself, and not the least his wife Rebecca, have improved their forms impressively during the last few years, and Dag says it is all due to very disciplined threshold and zone 1 training. So I have been doing the right thing, but with a little too high HR than I needed to.

Not so good news. My heart rate zones are now quite a bit lower than what I thought. My zone 1 is really slow, and my threshold heart rate is about 7 heart beats lower than before. This corresponds to about 0.2 km/h slower speed at this HR. Recall that threshold HR is the point where your body starts producing so much lactic acid that you cannot keep going more than about an hour at that level. So this will have quite a bit to say for my half marathon time. Interestingly, the speeds that I can keep at various heart beats are still the same as before, but my body starts producing lactic acid earlier now than before.

To be honest, I was expecting this. But perhaps still hoping for better results. At the end of 2014 I was in really good shape, and then almost the whole of 2015 was characterized by injuries. Although I did a lot of uphill training and had a new record at Stoltzekleiven in 2015, there was almost no running, so my running form must have declined quite a lot during that time. Then in 2016 there was a lot of running but without paying attention to HR zones at all. It would have been nice to know where I was just before Amsterdam Marathon in October 2016. After that I lost a lot of form, and it is first recently that I started to feel some improvement again.

On the positive side. No matter what, it is good to know the real values and train accordingly in a dedicated way. Anyway my recurring injury in the hamstrings does not really make fast running much fun these days, so the slower zones fit me much better now. My new threshold zone is actually what I thought was my sweet spot, and it is quite pleasant to run in that zone, even for pretty long intervals or tempo runs (up to 10k). My new zone 1 is so slow that I can do it even when hamstrings and legs are complaining, and I can transfer some of my zone 1 training to biking and swimming, making sure to have even lower (10-15 heart beats) lower HR then. So in a sense, the new values will make my training easier and even more pleasant than before.

Boosted dedication. I have been reading everything I come across about threshold training, but there has not been a very clear single advice. I have been applying what Ingrid Kristiansen advises: never above threshold during training, only at competition. Dag's advice is very in line with this. Never ever train above threshold, not even during short intervals or uphills. The advice was very clear: a lot of zone 1 training, as much as you can get done. Then 2-3 times a week, training at threshold, either in form of intervals or a not too long tempo run. I must admit that although I was very careful about not exceeding (what I thought was) my threshold, I had not been doing much zone 1. My runs outside of threshold intervals were somewhere in between, and I have now adjusted all those down to zone 1.

Why threshold and zone 1 training.  Dag and Ingrid say that training at threshold has the same effect on your form as training at maximum heart rate. You train your heart to be stronger by pushing its current limits. If you instead train at maximum intensity, then the impact on your form will be the same, but you will wear down your body much more and accumulate a lot of lactic acid. You will need much more time for recovery so your total training volume will decrease. Keeping your intensive training to 2-3 threshold sessions a week allows you to train every day, as long as all your other sessions are in zone 1. Zone 1 training seems to do wonderful stuff to your body, your cells, your blood vessels, and your mitochondria (some tiny stuff in your cells that convert calories to energy). It also helps to keep you out of injury.

So I now have a clear recipe to follow and a lot of renewed motivation. But things are unfortunately still not so straight forward. My legs won't let me run as much as I want these days, so I have to resort to swimming and biking. I have no idea how this will impact my running form, but in any case I need this kind of triathlon training. I have also started seeing my physiotherapist Ane the angel again. Within my body's limits, I think I am doing everything I can.

The rest, I leave in the hands of the universe ;-)

Something bit my butt

I should have bitten my tongue...

"If you are feeling great and completely out of pain, don't tell anyone",  a wise friend told me. Just a little too late... About three weeks ago I was feeling great, my form was steadily improving, and I remember telling several people during a training session that for the first time in almost three years I was completely free of pain, I didn't feel any discomfort what so ever in my legs.... And then just two days later my hamstrings started to complain... I have been struggling with them since then, but I have some hope that the situation is getting under control.

How did I get there in the first place? I honestly don't know what I did wrong. As I was writing in an earlier blog post, improved form is the foremost danger of injury. You start running faster and longer, and then one thing might lead to another. However, I was really being cautious, not running more than before, and not pushing for sprints or max HR. It could actually be that the triathlon weekend, although it gave varied training, was a bit too heavy with the kind of training I was not used to. Seven sessions of 90 minutes each, all within 48 hours. Hamstrings started complaining shortly after that, with a few really painful "lumps" in the muscles at the back of my thighs.

The worst part of starting to feel some pain that could be the start of an injury is not knowing what to do. "Shall I back off? Shall I stop running completely for a week? Shall I run short and slow runs? My form was so nicely improving; will everything be ruined if I have to stop for a while?" Once you decide what to do, then you relax and start focusing on your new plan. You have to decide wisely though. Loosing a week of running now could be so much better if you can stop the pain from developing into a consistent injury, which might make you loose several months of running later. I think I have managed to reverse the pain now; and this is how I went about it:

Backed off from running for about two weeks. I decided not to take any risks. I stopped running and weight training on the legs, to give them some rest. The triathlon weekend had made the threshold much lower to go to the swimming pool, so I swam several times a week during this time. I also had the opportunity to go cross country skiing, which worked perfectly in this period.

Compression and ice. I frequently applied ice on the hurting parts, and used compression around my thighs. Several days I wore both my tightest compression shorts and a compression band underneath my clothes. I still have two half liter bottles filled with water, in the freezer, and I take them out and place them under my butt when I am sitting, sometimes even when I go to bed.

Positive thoughts. Like: "Even if things get worse and I cannot run for a while, there are so many other things I can do. I can bike, I can swim, I can go to spinning classes, I can row, I can do more strength training, I can do Stoltzekleiven and Ulriken regularly, ...." Or: "If I cannot run Bergen City half marathon, then it was really fortunate that I signed up for Ironman in Haugesund. I can concentrate on the swimming and biking part of that, hoping that the legs will be in shape to start running a month or two before the race."

Massage. Poor Frank.... He massaged me (and still does) every day to loosen the lumps. Having tried all sorts of therapists during my previous injury period, I knew exactly where to press and how hard. I could of course go to a massage therapist again, but the very hard and painful pressure is not really working for my body. I did consider needling, though, because that works much better. But so far the massage has worked pretty well. The lumps are decreasing in size day by day and getting less and less painful.

Yin Yoga. Wow! Why did I not try this before? I think I know why. Probably because there is not enough workout in it. Actually there is no workout in it. Yin Yoga is simply about relaxing, stretching gently, holding the stretch for several minutes, letting go of all tension, and not pushing harder than what feels comfortable.  I have done this several times now, and it actually takes a few times before you realize how it works. At the first session you think that you are relaxing but actually you are not. There are so many small muscles all over the place that really need some practice to completely relax. It's just wonderful. I could never have imagined. I really really recommend it to all runners.

Heavy slow resistance training.  Although it is my constant intention never to stop with these exercises, I had been neglecting them recently. After giving the legs a few days of rest, I took up HSR training regularly, and I immediately started to notice improvement. These are the remedy to every injury! There are HSR exercises designated for every part of the body. And there is the added bonus of getting stronger by doing them.

Back to running. But not too fast and not too cold. I decided to try and see what worked. Flat fast running brought back the lumps, whereas uphill running worked much better. So the concentration is on the uphills these days, and the flat running happens mostly indoors on the treadmill. My legs work best when the surroundings are warm, and I try to avoid icy conditions.

Bike roller. After every run I sit on the bike for about 15 minutes and roll easily to loosen the legs. This actually seems to work wonders.

What's the plan ahead? Simple. Just keep doing the things that work and stop doing the things that don't. Keep the positive thoughts, although I did notice a slight worsening of the form. My HR is a little higher now,  and it is easy to fall into negative thoughts like "but things were going sooo well, why did this have to happen now?" Then I tell myself to stop whining and remind myself of all the much worse things many people are struggling with everyday. This is in fact nothing in comparison!

Set your priorities right, keep you spirit high, enjoy life in every way that you are able to.

Spreading the joy or going for everything at once?

Tri or not tri; that's the question.

Last weekend I participated in a triathlon training weekend for ladies. Most of the other participants were experienced triathletes, with several iron(wo)men 140.6, but I managed to hang in there. Perhaps a bit too well, as I have been experiencing some hamstrings pain since then, so I might have pushed it too much. But hey, what happened to "variation is good"? And there was variation all right!

It started with swimming Friday evening. And mind you not just regular swimming, very interesting swimming drills. I have never been to a swim training before. Inexplicably, I have been able to swim freestyle naturally since I was a kid, so I have simply stuck to that, and grabbed a few tips on the way here and there from swimmer friends. But swim training turned out to be quite different than what I expected. Swim with one arm ahead and one arm on the side of your body (like Superman) using only your legs. Then swim both arms on the side of your body, rotating from side to side every 6 kicks. Then the most difficult: swim with one arm ahead, and one arm in the air perpendicular to your body. Mind you, you must also breath every now and then, and do it right, without falling on your back. At the end of the evening, I had a lot of neck pain. I must learn to keep my head straight.

Saturday started also with swimming. For warmups we had to do various swim styles, back, chest, and something I had never tried before: butterfly! A lot of fun. Then there were intervals, and there was breathing every 5 strokes and then every 7 strokes. And then there was breathing where only one of your goggles shows. I didn't know that there was so much more you could do in the swimming pool than just regular swimming. And it turns out that simply regular swimming is actually what you should not do. You should do drills and intervals every single time. And it is better to go to the pool three times a week 30 min each, rather than once 90 minutes. I must admit this became a bit too overwhelming to me. How to find time for this, when you also want to continue with your other activities?

Anyway, then there was the spinning, and I think this is where I might have pushed too hard. My legs are not used to biking a lot, and we did some pretty serious intervals, which I thought went pretty well. But I think I might have exhausted my hamstrings and noticed it only when I started running. The running training was fun but the advice was a bit frustrating. I have heard it many times before: You have to run with a frequency of 180 steps or more per minute. I find this very difficult. Still I did stick to it during the running training of the weekend, but I could already feel my hamstrings complaining about this frequency. During the healing of my hamstrings injury in 2015, my physiotherapist advised me to use the "whole movement" of the leg, i.e, push your leg all the way to the back. But with high frequency, the steps get shorter and the movement not so "smooth". When my body works in a different way than the expert advice, I get a bit demotivated, and start worrying too much about what to do.

Then there was more swimming and more running on Sunday, and there was a lot of fun. So many wonderful women, and I was very lucky to have my friends Irene, Wenche, and Torunn there with me. So many interesting stories, and so inspiring to see that ironwomen bodies come in all sizes and shapes. I also got some very interesting tips that I had never heard before: For long races, we were advised to try the 9-1 running to improve our race time. Run 9 minutes, walk 1 minute, run 9 minutes, walk 1 minute, from start to end. I have been calculating and calculating every since, whether this could make sense for me. It was said that this is the way to go for everybody who is slower than 3:15 in a marathon. I will try it at the first opportunity and let you know how it goes.

Contrary to what I was expecting, the triathlon weekend did not really boost my enthusiasm for triathlon. Perhaps because I realized how much serious swimming and biking training is involved. By serious I mean that it is not "just" swimming and biking, but drills, intervals, hills, etc. Frank and I have been considering seriously the Ironman 70.3 in Haugesund in July this year. This is exactly why we bought new bikes a couple of months ago. I was thinking that all I need to do is to start swimming once a week in the beginning of June, and get the biking under control. Biking (with locked pedals) is the thing I am the most worried about, and I thought simply feeling safe would be enough. Well, I think it is still "enough" in the sense that I would be able to finish within the cut-off times of each of the disciplines. But the question is whether I should hurry and do it this year, or I should use the summer season to get better at biking, and then rather save Haugesund for next year?

Since I have been experiencing a nice form improvement, I am having a lot of fun already with getting new PBs in the local races around Bergen. So I could just concentrate on this for this year, and I could start on new challenges next year. I could still do the shorter triathlons, like Os and Strilamann this year, but not let triathlon become the main goal of the year. Last year, marathon was a new challenge. Do I need new challenges every year, or should I spread the joy over a longer time period? I still haven't made up my mind. I have an invitation to join Haugesund at a reduced price. The offer expires on March 1, and then it will be 1000 NOK more expensive to sign up.

I have three days to decide; what do you think?

Marathon training III : Keeping up the motivation until the end

Through pain and frustration. Through rain and wind...

Thursday evening Frank and I went for a 14 km tempo run. There was a storm outside. We waited as long as we could for the rain to stop, but it simply got worse and worse, and in the end we just went. We got really soaked, the wind was against us no matter which direction we ran, and despite the high effort, we were pretty cold the whole time.

What gives the motivation to go ahead with such a session? For me, it was the fact that I had not run the day before, and practice for the rest of the week was tightly scheduled due to work and family obligations. So if I skipped that run, there would be no chance to do it another day and I would loose one more practice before Amsterdam. These days I am loosing a lot practices compared to my program already, so I simply could not afford to miss that run.

I cannot train as much as would like to, as various parts of my body (yes, there are more now than just the hamstrings) let me know very clearly when they advise me to skip a day of running. And having learned the hard way, I do listen to these body parts, and take it easy when things start acting up. I try to calm them down with ice and compression, and after a day or two, I try to catch up with the training when they let me.

It is quite demotivating be unable to train to be at your best. On the other hand, perhaps my body can never take marathon training more than this level, and in that sense this is as good as I can get. Although my lungs and muscles would have managed more, my tendons are holding back. From time to time, I do really want to give up the whole idea of running a marathon. It happens that I am so worried about possible injuries and lacking performance that  I have trouble sleeping at night, which again affects training performance. Doing bad at training adds to the stress about the race, and it all becomes a vicious cycle....

But then comes a good practice where I feel fast and strong, and it wipes away all the frustration, and I feel wonderful again. So, how do I manage to pull myself up and get going again so that the good practice actually happens? I don't know, to be honest. I think it is a bit like how I motivate myself to finish a long run. Just think one small portion at a time, concentrate on the next task, adjust myself to the situation, and go on as best as I can.

Because this is exactly how it is during a long run. Some friends ask me how it is possible to do these long runs of 30 km or more once a week. I must admit I find it hard. The first time I had a run that was longer than a half marathon was in Istanbul in June. I ran 24 km all alone. It was hot, but I had planned the whole thing very carefully in my head. I would reward myself at some milestones. I knew that there was a gas station at 6 km and at 12 km, so I promised myself to stop and have a cold drink at 6, 12, and 18 km, as well as a big breakfast at the end. Then, during the run, I only needed to concentrate and motivate myself until the next stop. It worked pretty well, and since then I applied it to all the longer and longer runs.

Of course running with a group of friends helps a lot. But my friends whom I am training for the marathon with are all faster than me, and although Frank always runs back and forth to never leave me all alone, I end up running half the distance by myself. (Which is good practice actually, as I will be on my own during the race as well.)  So I still look forward to the stops. There are always three stops: after 1/4 of the distance, then at half, and then at 3/4. I only think until the next stop and try to ignore rest of the distance. Before every stop I feel exhausted, but after taking a gel and some water I am good to go for another round. I hope this will help me during the race itself as well. I will try to concentrate on one water station at a time.

Sometimes I wonder whether I started to prepare this training a little too early. Who knows? Just a month ago, I was painfree and feeling wonderful and excited about the race and about my performance possibilities. So if I had started my marathon training a month later than I did, perhaps I would be at my best now? We cannot know. Some of my much faster and more experienced friends got injured during taper time just before a race, after completing a their training program successfully. Whereas others are training hard, getting better, and having a great time looking forward to the next race. There is no correct answer that fits all. The most important thing is to not compare oneself with others.

Although it is a race, it is not a competition with anyone else than myself.

Marathon training II : Improving form and avoiding injury

It is a delicate and frustrating balance...

The ultimate paradox of running and other endurance training is that as one's form improves, the danger of getting injured increases. Just when everything was going better than ever, I started to feel pain in my hamstrings again, and this week I had to back off from running. On the positive side, it has been a week of unusually nice and warm weather, so I could enjoy hiking and just relaxing in the sun, in addition to strength training and swimming. But the fear that the pain might not go away is extremely disturbing.

It is so typical! As our form improves, we are able to endure more and more training, but as the distance and intensity increase, so does the danger of injuries. Muscles can endure a lot, the lung capacity gets better and better, but the joints and the tendons are fragile, especially the older we are. I mentioned it once in an earlier blog entry, but I want to share it again: the story of Tom Goom, who is a physiotherapist in addition to being an experienced marathoner. It is a textbook example of what NOT to do.

First things first: maybe I focused too much on the negative sides of marathon training last week. There is a lot of satisfaction and feeling of achievement involved with following such a program and seeing the results. When I came back from holidays, it took me about two weeks to get to the speed that should correspond to my training level. I had been running quite a bit slower during the hot summer in Turkey, and coming back to the cool summer of Norway did not give the immediate speed effect that I was expecting. Just three days after coming back, I did my worst 5k race ever. Two weeks after that, I did one of my best 10k races. A week later, I had a 20k tempo run which was considerably faster than my planned marathon pace, and it went all nice and easy. In addition to all this, the real long runs, 30k or more, which felt really painful in the beginning, started to feel much easier and go faster and faster.

So everything was going just perfect. In the first few weeks after coming home and starting to follow the marathon training program more conscientiously, I was often quite exhausted, and could only do four of the five planned running sessions. As my form improved, though, I was able to endure more training, and I started to do all five running sessions of the week. I felt better and better; both form-wise and with respect to how little tired I was.

I have been all the time taking extra caution with respect to injuries, doing my leg strength and HSR training exercises regularly, and taking a lot of dietary supplements to stay healthy and keep strong tendons. I am a bit embarrassed to share the following picture, but this is in fact what I take every morning, hoping that they will keep me away from injuries. I am not sure whether they are of help, but I am pretty convinced that at least they don't hurt.

But in the end, although I've been cautious and listening to my body,  you see that things may still go wrong. Hopefully not terribly wrong... At least there is no acute injury that happened during a run. I had a nice 34 k run last Sunday. I rested on Monday. I had leg strength training Tuesday morning, and a zone 1 15 k run Tuesday evening.  In fact the 15 k was supposed to be 19 k, 13 of which would go in marathon pace, but I felt like taking it easy. So far so good. But Wednesday morning I woke up feeling pain in both upper hamstrings tendons. I was really in doubt about what to do. I had planned to participate in a 10 k race on Thursday, but I canceled it to be on the safe side, and went for an easy hike instead. That turned extremely spectacular and gave me the chance to catch up with friends I had not seen in a while. So there has been no running since Tuesday, which is perhaps a good rest for my legs in any case. Today I hope that I am ready to run again.

Fingers crossed. Only four weeks now...

Always look on the bright side: Bergen Fjellmaraton 2016

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going...

Bergen mountain half marathon.... when I participated in this race in 2014, I finished in 2 hours and 53 minutes, and I wrote that it was one of the best race experiences I'd ever had. Well, let me put it this way: the 2014 version of this race is still one of my best race experiences.... This year things turned out a little different.

This 21 km long evening race has a total elevation gain of 1080 meters; it is a spectacular course, starting from a spot very close to the center of town and ending in a spot even closer. But as soon as you start, and up until a kilometer before finish, you are in the wilderness and forget the city completely. The terrain is tough; there are no gravel roads or wide paths, except a few hundred meters at start and a couple of kilometers before finish. There are lot of stony parts, and you have to watch where you place your foot.

Frank, I and a few other friends had signed up for the early start at 18:30 this year. The regular start is at 20:00, but it is a lot of fun to reach the finish before the winners and cheer them on, so we like the early start. This year it turned out a bit unfortunate. On Thursday, the day of the race, the weather was really hot with no wind. When we were about to start, it was about 26 degrees. The first kilometer is the same as for the Ulriken race (short version), so I had that part freshly in mind. I kept an easy pace and my heart rate under control, and had a good feeling. The part from there until 2.5 km was really tough; this is where we gain about 400 meters of elevation. The sun was right on us with no wind, I was sweating a lot, and I had to work a lot with my brain to keep my spirit high. Many people around me stopped completely to get a break and recover a bit, especially the ones who had started out a bit too hard.

When I reached the 3 km point, the course flattened a bit, and I took my first energy gel and some drink. Very quickly afterwards I started feeling much better. I picked up pace, I felt that I regained control, and running felt fast and easy. To my surprise, I reached and passed many people who had passed me quite a while ago, and that gave a boost of energy and confidence. Until half way, everything went quite perfectly. I caught up and kept company with a couple of friends, and much sooner than I was expecting, we reached the single drink station at the Viking hut at 10.5 km. I stopped a little longer than my friends. Drank like a liter of water, and refilled my bottles.

Then with renewed energy I set out to catch my friends again. However, almost immediately I started to feel signs of cramps in my lower legs. We were going downhill, and I had to watch how I stretched my foot downward to keep the cramps away. When we reached the bottom of that hill, running flat for a while felt OK but I had to be careful. Then, on the even surface of the swings up to Rundemanen I did not feel the cramps at all. I managed to walk very fast, and I could see my friends just a little bit ahead of me, as I was steadily closing the gap between us. At this point, I thought the cramps were gone, and I had high hopes of being able to run fast on the downhills ahead and finishing around 2:50. Once I threw myself at the path that goes down from the top of Rundemanen, the cramps started coming back. This part is very uneven with small ups and downs, and going fast here became really painful. At some point, when the cramps started to creep all the way to my inner thighs, I wondered whether I should simply break the race. I did not want to get injured, and having never experienced such cramps before, I wondered whether they could be something else.

Things got a bit better when the surface got more even again as we reached the lower parts of Rundemanen and then Fløyen. However, the stride had to be short, the cadence low, and the movements very even, if I were to continue. My heart rate was low, I had a lot of power and energy, but moving the legs faster immediately ignited the cramps again. There and then I realized that I had no chance of beating my time of 2:53 with this pace. Still I tried to run as fast as the cramps allowed, but it was too slow, and when there were about 5 km to finish, I also lost the hope of sub 3:00. At that point I decided to stop pushing. I simply jogged the rest at easy pace and enjoyed the beautiful views. As a nice side effect, the 5-9 last km were like a post-race recovery run, and I was not at all exhausted when I reached finish. And after finish I had no cramps at all! Usually this is exactly when I start experiencing cramps.

My time ended up being 3:11. Wow! OK, I knew I was going slow, but still I was a bit shocked. 18 minutes worse than last time!? Almost a minute slower per km... Or considering where the cramps started, about 2 min slower per km for the last 9 km.... Well, well. I was surprised how it did not at all make me feel sad. It was, in a sense, not my fault. My form is good, I did everything right with respect to speed for the first half, but was completely taken aback by the cramps. Why did they come? Many people, who are not used to cramps, experienced them during this race, so perhaps it was due to the heat and dehydration? Did I drink too much at the drink station and change the liquid/salt balance too quickly? Or perhaps it was because my legs are not used to terrain for the last few months? Or a combination of all? In any case, I was just so happy to finish, so happy that my real injury did not at all bother me during the race, and so happy that one more of the hopes that I set at the beginning of the year came true.

Looking on the bright side, I learned a lot from this race and can benefit from it. I now know what cramps during a race are; they don't need to stop you, but slow you down. This was my first run that lasted for more than 3 hours, so it is perfect marathon training for Amsterdam. Since I went so slow at the end, I am not tired, and I won't need that long a rest before I can train again. Wanting to stop so many times, and still continuing despite the pain, was very good mental exercise. And for the first time ever after a race, I was not at all interested in checking the results! :-) As soon as we got home, the race was over in my head, and I very quickly moved on to thinking about completely different things.

To my consolation, even Frank went a bit slower this year than last, although he was still faster than most, and several friends who are fast marathon runners could not beat my time 2:53 from last time.

What does not kill you makes you stronger...