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!

Ingrid's recipe

No, not for Christmas cookies :-)

Although my main focus for the time being is uphill running and leg strength training, I haven't forgotten all about flat running. Every now and then I like to do a long run, but there haven't been any short or fast runs recently.

Still I want to build a basis for the street races of next season, and I have stumbled upon some interesting advice from the Norwegian multi-distance world champion Ingrid Kristiansen. In her blog, she gives a winter treadmill schedule for setting a 10k PB in the spring. She indicates the speed of a progressive 50 min run, which should feel very easy at this point. But she will increase the speed as the winter proceeds. Her initial advice is for advanced runners who want to do 10 k below 40 minutes, and this is how it looks: start with pace 5:55. Every 5 minutes, decrease the pace 10 seconds. The last 5 minutes are at pace 4:25.

Now, my goal would rather be to manage 10k at 50 minutes or below, which means exactly 1 minute slower per kilometer. So, it is very easy to change the suggested paces to what I think fits for me: start at 6:55, and decrease 10 seconds every 5 minutes, ending at 5:25 for the last five minutes. Ingrid also gives a heart rate indication of how the pace should feel. Her heart rate at start is around 140 and at the end 160, well below her threshold.

To test this on the treadmill, I translated the pace (min/km) to speed (km/h) since this is how a treadmill works. I ended up with the following schedule, changing every five minutes: 8.7 - 8.9 - 9.2 - 9.5 - 9.8 - 10.1 - 10.3 - 10.6 - 10.9 - 11.1. It looked really easy compared to what I manage normally. So far so good. But I had forgotten how boring I find treadmill running, and how hot I get when I run indoors.... The heart rate started out even lower than what Ingrid suggested, but it ended up higher at the end.

In general, I do get a higher heart rate when I run indoors, which I think is due to the temperature. No matter where, I always find the indoor conditions too hot to run on the treadmill. I suppose a training studio holds at least 20 degrees C and of course there is no wind.... If I were to design a studio, I would keep a separate room for the treadmills, set the temperature at 14 degrees, and install some fans to simulate pleasant wind. In fact, perhaps every treadmill could be covered, like a glass bubble, and one could set the temperature as low as one wanted inside there, and the sound as high as one wanted and played one's own music without using ear plugs. I wonder if such mills exist. If not, perhaps I should apply for a patent... :-)

Anyway, so treadmill running is no fun, and I must admit that I am not sure I will be able to follow Ingrid's recipe after all. Perhaps I can rather do it outside, on a flat stretch. I found it very pleasing and motivating that it is such an easy workout, so I do want to follow it up in one way or the other.

What I do enjoy much more, are treadmill intervals at Barry's Bootcamp. I owe a lot to this kind of training, which brought me up to shape to run my first half marathons. But I haven't done it much after I got the taste of outdoors training. I do regularly go to Barry's Bootcamp still, but normally I have either personal training session with Ketil, or I do a pure strength training session, called double floor, which means that one skips the treadmill part of the class and stays on the floor throughout the entire session. This week, though, I joined two sessions with treadmill running. I had forgotten how fun it was! And I realized that I'd lost a lot of sprint speed compared to before. So I'll definitely do more of this through the winter.

The rope jump competition is also very useful for running form it turns out. I have read that many top athletes rope jump several times a week to keep their ankles strong, their tendons soft, and to increase their calf strength. I can now do 2:15 at a time. And I really feel the increased strength. It is so great to have friends who initiate such games to combine fun (there is a lot of incredibly funny discussion every single day), competition, and increased strength and form.

Play hard, win easy! .... or the opposite... whichever inspires and motivates you :-)

Back to 12 degrees Celcius

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

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

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

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

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

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

The heat is on

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

Istanbul has been really hot the past week. You might remember that I complained about the cold weather in Norway in some posts, and bragged about how pleasant the temperatures early in the morning in Istanbul are. In fact, even though spring started to turn into summer, early mornings kept cool, breezy, and pleasant. Two weeks ago I was running in the forest and it was 10 degrees C when we started at 6 am. But then everything changed suddenly. Yesterday the same spot at the same hour was 20 degrees...

Running along the sea on our usual IstRUNbul early route has required a lot more sweat this week than earlier, and longer weekend runs that continue until 8 or 9 am have started to feel like running in the desert. OK, I am exaggerating, but the weather got very quickly very hot. Much hotter than what is normal for June. On the positive side, the weather is preparing me for the south of Turkey, which is much warmer, where I am headed in a little more than a week. Another positive effect of too hot compared to too warm is that the muscles, joints, and tendons are warm and soft and relaxed and no such part complains about pain or injuries.

But effort-wise it is a lot tougher to run fast in the heat than in the cold. I already experienced a tough hot run during the mountain marathon in Bergen a few weeks ago, and I am now certain that when it comes to how fast you can run and how much you can push yourself, too cold, though not ideal, is better than too hot. I am running quite a bit slower now, in fact most of my friends are. All advice about running in hot weather says that you should not care about the speed, but rather watch your heart rate. Sometimes some of us get dizzy or a too high heart rate and start walking. My body has adjusted quickly and nowadays starts sweating already in the beginning of the run. In the end, all my clothes are completely drenched. Sweating is good; it means that the body is able to adjust and cool down, but it feels unpleasant. Everything becomes slippery, and gear starts gliding and sliding, resulting in sores at the usual places. I have stopped using the heart rate monitor; it is after all bikini season and I do not want too many blemishes all over my body.

I have started to take precautions against the loss of body liquid and salts during training. I am taking some supplements containing a blend of minerals that one looses when one sweats a lot. I have the impression that it works; I feel a lot less tired. After a run, instead of drinking plain water I drink mineral water. I also drink a lot more mineral water than usual also throughout the day. And of course I try to drink much more water than usual in general.

It is interesting how the weather of where we live affects our training for races. In Turkey, most runners prefer the spring races because they are able to train for them throughout the winter in pleasant temperatures though it might rain and even snow every now and then. Preparing for races in the fall is a lot tougher because of the hot summer. In Norway it is the opposite. The pleasant temperatures of the summer, after the cold of winter and spring, give perfect conditions and enough time to prepare for the fall races. This year I will have a mixture of both. Preparing for the fall race in Amsterdam, I still have more than a month of Turkish hot summer, but then come two months of cool and pleasant Norwegian early fall.

In the meanwhile, I am really looking forward to the rain...