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!

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.

Working on the uphill form

The Blåman races showed that my uphill form had declined a lot since last year. OK, so I was still in post marathon recovery period, but come on: for the last 11 months I had mainly been street running, most of it flat. When I resumed strength training after a break of about 6 weeks, it became also evident that I had lost quite a bit of strength in my legs.

But all that is going to be fixed now! First of all, fortunately the post marathon fatigue is finally gone and my energy is back! The Blåmann races inspired me to move most of my training to uphill running and walking. During the long training period towards Amsterdam, there were several spectacular mountain hikes during beautiful weekends that I could not join due to the 30+ km runs in our training schedule. I now realize how badly I had really missed the mountains. It feels wonderful to be in the low season and not to have to train towards a particular goal (yet!), so I simply pick the training sessions that I feel like participating, and these days the offered menu contains mainly uphills. 

One of the things I've been wanting to try all the way since last year is the long uphill intervals of Fjellgeitene on Thursdays. They are as long as 8 minutes! And there are six of them! Scary enough just the thought of it. It took me more than a year, and many conversations with and encouragement from Lars the chief goat,  to mentally get ready for these. Finally I tried them this week! Yey! And it was not even that scary! Between the 8 minute intervals are 2 minute breaks. In the breaks, the group jogs downwards. To compensate my slowness compared to the rest, I rather walked uphill during the breaks. In the end this worked out a bit too well; I got further than everybody, and followed Jonathan Albon (!!!) all the way to the top of Rundemanen. Next time, I think I can allow myself to either stop during the breaks or perhaps even slowly walk down.

Fjellgeitene also inspires in a very fun way when it comes to leg strength and plyometric training. I think we can call it the annual winter challenge. Last year, there was the daily toe raises challenge. How many toe raises can you do without a break? You stand on a step with your heels hanging on the outside. You lower yourself slowly, then raise yourself on your toes slowly, and repeat. This year's challenge is rope jumping. How many seconds can you rope jump without a break? It has to be done in a speed of about 100-120 jumps a minute, and the rope has to pass under your feet between every single jump (no double jumping). It is surprisingly tiring! So far my record is 60 seconds, but fortunately the challenge continues until February, so there is still time to improve.

All this is of course not enough to get my leg strength back. As promised, I have returned to my weekly personal training sessions with Ketil, and my goodness it was about time! After the first session I could neither sit down nor get up for several days; my legs were incredibly sore. The good news is that strength comes back pretty quickly. Also the running form is coming back. The best indicator for this is the Hordnes forest runs of Melkesyre every Monday. This course is pretty hilly, with a lot of ups and downs, so even the prescribed easy pace of 6:30 can feel challenging. At least it did two weeks after Amsterdam. It felt like a race. Since then it got better and better, and last Monday it was finally as easy as it should be.

But don't think that I have forgotten all about flat running. I have something new to test out. I will tell you next week :-)

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...

Marathon training I : Following a program

Come October!

I must admit I am getting a bit fed up with marathon training. Sometimes I wish the race was already in a couple of weeks. I had heard other people mention that it takes quite a bit of sacrifice to train for a marathon but I had not really understood. In the end, my friends and I are all running several times a week, so what is the big fuss about training for a longer distance? Well, it is exactly that: the long distance.

I have very big respect for the 42 km... The respect makes me disciplined about following my training program. Yes, there is actually a program. Although it may sound from my recent posts that my training towards Amsterdam is going somewhat ad hoc, there has been a program all the way since March. On one of his trips to Istanbul, Frank brought me a booklet prepared by Kondis for training towards Oslo marathon. The first part looks quite a lot like this.  As Oslo marathon is in September, while Amsterdam is in October, I started to follow this program one month behind. So in March, I started to look at what the program suggested for February. The suggestions fitted perfectly with what I was already doing at that time. Running three times a week, one medium length, one interval session, and one long run. Of course the length of the runs was very short then compared to now.

The booklet has two types of programs, one for novices (first time marathoners) with running three times a week, and one for experienced runners with running five times a week. As time went, I placed myself in the middle, and kept a schedule of running four times a week. Always one interval, always one long, always one medium run, and then one more run depending on what my friends were doing. As the summer arrived, the lengths of the runs increased, and so did the air temperature and humidity. Even during the summer holidays I managed to keep the training schedule, albeit with much reduced speed.

After coming back to Bergen in August, I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to fit all the things that I wanted to do into my training program. In the end, I converged to eliminating all other bigger competitions and rather focusing more and more on specific marathon training. I have now advanced to the experienced runners' program with running five times a week, if my legs permit. I am still very cautious about injuries, and from time to time I take an extra day of rest if I feel exhausted or I feel pain in an ankle or a hip. Sometimes I have to skip the marathon training intervals and I can join Melkesyre uphill intervals instead, which is a wonderful bonus.

It is a great help to be in a group of several friends who have signed up for Amsterdam marathon. Without that kind of motivation I am not sure that I would be able to keep up. We have now a common program, very similar to my Kondis program, that we are following altogether:
Day 1: 10-14 km run
Day 2: Intervals
Day 3: 10-14 km run
Day 4: Intervals
Day 5: Long run (20-35 km)
I still adjust the rest of my week depending on the length of the long run, because I always need a day of rest both before and after a 30+ km run. I also get the programs of friends from Istanbul training with a coach, and I take ideas from their training. Having a common goal is a great way of keeping in touch from a distance. On the other hand, to spend time with local friends who are not going to Amsterdam, I do some of my moderate runs with them.

The Kondis booklet also recommends strength training at least a couple of times a week. As often as I can, I do my HSR exercises to keep my hamstrings strong and try to stay out of injury. I have also restarted squats with heavy weights. Studies have shown that runners who do this in addition to their running program, become faster than those who only do the same running program. During a long run, after 25 km, shoulders, arms and back start hurting, so I try to focus on these areas also during strength training, in addition to trying to never let my core get weaker.

It all takes a lot of time. All my time outside of work goes to training, and even that is not enough. I constantly feel behind schedule. I should definitely be doing more strength training and more sleeping...

Come October!!!

Routine slowly falling into place

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are cramps and how to avoid them

Cramps be gone!

I wrote last week that I learned a lot from Bergen Fjellmaraton due to interesting new experiences, like cramps. In fact, I learned even more afterwards, thanks to many useful comments from friends upon publishing the post. And I got so intrigued by what cramps are and how to avoid or get rid of them, that I read a lot about them this week.

Interestingly there seems to be no common agreement among doctors, scientists and trainers about what actually causes cramps during a race. However, many athletes swear that they are helped by immediately taking tablets containing minerals, especially salt, when the cramps occur. When we sweat a lot, in addition to losing water we also lose a lot of salt. Water and salt are essential for the signals from the brain to reach the muscles. So, it seems to be an easy explanation that if you lose a lot of water and salt, cramps might happen.

And boy did I lose a lot of water and salt during that race! I drank about 2.5 liters during the race, and I kept drinking the whole evening. I even got up during the night twice and drank half a liter each time. Still, when I got on the scale the morning after, I was 3 kg lighter than I was on the morning of the day before. So I must have sweated like 6 liters during the race! Is that at all possible? It turns out that it is; under hot and strenuous conditions a person can sweat 2-3 liters per hour. Since the race lasted about 3 hours, the math adds up.

It seems to depend from person to person how much salt you lose when you sweat, and an easy test is to taste your sweat. If it is salty and you get a crust of salt on your face afterwards,  then you lose a lot of salt when you sweat. Exactly what happens to me! So I was happy to have found the answer. I simply lost too much water and salt. I was also extremely happy to have received advice from friends about the remedy: it turns out that there are a lot of tablets and mixtures you can take before and during a race to prevent cramps! You can even take them as soon as the cramps start coming, and they will go away, as several friends experienced during Bergen Fjellmaraton.

Still, I kept searching for more explanations. Some experts do not agree that loss of salt is the (single) explanation of muscle cramps during a race. A study on all athletes participating in an ultra-triathlon showed no significant differences in salt levels between athletes who experienced cramps and those who did not. This study concluded that muscle fatigue is the main reason for cramps. But how do you measure that? The problem about finding out what causes cramps is that they happen at a time when several things happen in the body simultaneously; muscles get tired, you lose water and salt, and even your brain gets tired. So it is not easy to know which of these things cause the cramps. For almost all athletes cramps seem to come during long races, and in the second half of such a race. This supports the muscle fatigue theory. I think common sense and my own experience, as well as most experts, suggest that it is a combination of both.

Recall that I had almost no terrain or mountain training in the months prior to the race. So my muscles were not prepared for that kind of race. All experts seem to agree that you should train in similar conditions of the race that you will participate in. What all experts also seem to agree on is the importance of plyometrics, or jump training, for runners. In Bergen I used to do quite a lot of jump training, both during my personal training sessions and also during our Monday sessions with Fjellgeitene, jumping a lot on stairs with both legs, single leg, several steps at a time, etc. I am definitely going back to this kind of training! To start preparing for my return to Norway, I have also taken up forest runs here in Istanbul.

And no matter how well I train and how prepared I might feel, I know what I will have in my pocket during Amsterdam Marathon: Crampfix!

Stay strong, stay hydrated, stay cramp-free.

The days are just packed

It is quite unbelievable that I've only been in Istanbul a little more than a week. It already feels like much longer, and I feel quite settled and "local". The most interesting is perhaps that some of my new running buddies already feel like old friends considering the level of trust and affection I sense in our relationship. I wonder how things would have been if I had not found and contacted Team Istrunbul. Of course I am very lucky to move to a place where I already have a lot of close friends and family, but come to think of it, I see my running buddies much more often than I can meet with my old friends and family. It was the same also in Bergen, and I am grateful for the experience and confidence that I got from Melksyre and Fjellgeitene, which I think enabled me to get in touch with Istrunbul so quickly. This weekend Frank is visiting, and also he joined the group and enjoyed very much the social running, and not the least the super cozy coffee gathering afterwards.

Let me give a brief summary of how the three most important things related to this blog are going at the end of the first week.

Running
Well, as you can conclude from the above, it is going wonderfully well. I am so pain-free that I cannot believe it myself. I try to understand the reason, but I have no clue. Is it that my body actually prefers asphalt running to uphills and terrain? No matter the reason, I am regaining speed more quickly than I could have hoped for. In Bergen, I felt that I was stuck in slow running, and now suddenly everything seems to have opened up. Perhaps it is all in the mind, and a physical change of environment gave the necessary change of mind and inner motivation to run faster. I am now working on increasing my weekly mileage.

Eating
This is a big issue, and considering my goal of losing a few kilos this year, I am in the wrong place. This country offers (arguably) the best food in the whole world. And it is so easily accessible; my neighborhood is packed with restaurants of all sorts, and home delivery of whatever you might wish is only a phone call away. As long as I am alone, though, I have been behaving really well.  For breakfast, cereal or oatmeal, just like at home in Bergen. For lunch, my work offers a large variety of hot dishes everyday for a very reasonable price, and there are several different vegetable dishes and salads, and lean meats in the menu every day. I have been strong enough to stay away from bread and deserts, and I am very content with how the lunches are working so far. For dinner, I usually just make a salad or a quick wok, and also try to stay away from bread/pasta/potatoes there. Of course, my wonderful regime has fallen apart very badly now that Frank is visiting, and there is no limit to the variety of things we have been eating and drinking. I am taking this as an opportunity to just taste once the things that I have missed so much (mezes, kebaps, deserts, boza, sahlep, ...), and afterwards I hope I will continue to be able to keep away from them.

Strength training
I have started Pilates! I liked it immediately, and everything my Pilates trainer told me already at the first lesson made perfect sense to me. First of all, it is serious strength training, and as I asked to be pushed hard, things got pretty tough. The idea of Pilates, though, is that there is a balance between strength training and extensive stretching. And the stretching part in particular I think will do me well. (Just look at the picture above; how stiff I am!) As I had noticed myself already, and my Pilates trainer saw immediately as he studied my posture, I am very strong (and too tight) in the muscles on the front side of my body but not as strong in the ones on the back side. So now we will try to balance the strength, which means for example extensive stretching of my chest muscles, and perhaps losing a bit strength there. This is very hard for me of course, agreeing to lose a bit strength at some places, but I am willing to give it a try. In the end, if things don't work out, I'll simply let Ketil fix me up after going back to Bergen. :-) Joking aside, I do truly believe that I can get stronger and more flexible during these six months. The type of Pilates I will be doing has several interesting "machines" to do it on, which mainly give instability in many different ways so that you have to use your own strength to stabilize your body. I am sure there will be reports with pretty funny pictures in the sequel.

Stay strong and balanced.

Moving to a new place (without falling behind on training)

If you change nothing, nothing will change...

I'm moving to Istanbul for half a year. It's nothing dramatic; just an opportunity that I got in connection with my work, and I grabbed it since it will offer reunion with my friends and family there, in addition to exciting work challenges.

When you go on holiday or when you go for a work stay of shorter period, there is no need to make big plans for training. Some running opportunity will always be there, and in the worst case, taking it easy for a couple of weeks might actually even be beneficial for your form. But when you're moving to a new place where you will stay for a longer time, and you will be living alone most of the time, some more serious preparations might be in order. At least this is how I felt as the time of my departure started to approach.

I'm really lucky. The location of the university where I will be working is really great. It is situated on a hill by the Bosphorus strait, and I have rented an apartment just below the hill, by the seaside, at walking distance from work. The seaside along Bosphorus is many kilometers long, with wide pavements, and it offers great opportunities for running and walking, with many people using it for this purpose, as well as recreational fishermen. And the hill from where I will live to where I will work can be quite perfect for some uphill intervals during the weekends, as well as providing a pleasant heartbeat increase on the way to work every morning.

Although everything sounds great, I still felt the need to find training buddies, since I now know how beneficial and how much fun it is to train with others. This is where Facebook comes extremely handy. Although it is much scolded at from time to time, thanks to this fantastic tool, I knew exactly which of my old friends were into running and training. As a wonderful surprise it turned out that one of my friends is in a running group that has three weekly running sessions, starting literally just outside of my front door! The drawback is that they run 6 am in the morning.... they run for an hour until 7, and then there is coffee at a café nearby from 7 to 7:30 (No hard work without a pleasant reward afterwards for Istanbul people; they really know how to enjoy life), before everyone goes home to shower and then off to work. On the positive side, my working hours will be so flexible that I think I might take a nap after showering and before going to work. Here is a picture from that exact same café, taken a few years back when I was there again for work. (No, I'm not sponsored by the brand :-)

So the running part is under control. I am so excited to hopefully be able to join the first practice there already on Saturday (even on Saturdays it's 6 am...) But what about strength training? I don't want to let my muscles down, and I know by experience that strength training on my own at home might not work too well. Another friend of mine is into serious Pilates, which looks both really impressive and a lot of fun. So I also made plans to join this Pilates club, and go there at least a couple of times a week, to keep and hopefully even increase my strength. In addition, the university has sports facilities that include a swimming pool, a training hall with machines, and an athletic field, which staff can use at a very reasonable price. I want to continue with my HSR exercises at least once a week, so I will check out whether the appropriate machines are present. If not, I might sign up at a regular gym which has them. I have been doing these exercises every second day since my injury relapsed, and now it is almost gone again. These exercises work miracles, I'm telling you.

As a preparation for my Istanbul stay and my goals/hopes for 2016, I have cut down on uphill running on smooth ground. Uphill fast walking, climbing or running on terrain works fine, and this has been very helpful for recovering from the relapse, but excessive uphill running on asphalt or gravel seems to trigger my injury.  Now I am concentrating basically on forward movement, with hour-long sweet spot runs and two-hour-long slower runs. The plan is to have three of the first and at least one of the last every week. Initially I will not run more often than every other day, but I hope I can increase if everything goes well. The intention is that the distance (hence speed) will eventually increase under these conditions, with the same heart rate and the same duration. At least this is the plan. We will see if my legs will let me see it through. Fingers crossed!!

"If you fail to plan, you're planning to fail." (Benjamin Franklin)