Time to add new ingredients to weekly routine

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. (Mark Twain) 

Since I arrived in Istanbul, I have been running four days a week. What has stabilized itself as a routine by now is: 10-12 km at pace 5:30 Tuesday and Thursday mornings, 12-15 km on Saturdays, and up to 20 km on Sundays. The longer the run, the slower it is. Since things are going well, I feel that I can do more, but I want to keep Fridays and Mondays run-free to rest and to separate the long weekend runs from the harder efforts of the weekday mornings. I have been wondering whether I should run on Wednesdays, too. Perhaps just a slow and not so long recovery run, but I am cautious and I don't want to get tangled in a new injury due to overuse. To get the recovery benefits of a slow restitution run, without wearing out my legs, I started swimming instead. From now on Wednesdays are swim days!

I have for the first time tested my sports watch for indoor swimming, and it works surprisingly well. You enter the length of the pool (the one of my university is 33m) and then the watch keeps track of the distance, as it detects the change of direction every time you hit the end of the pool. I am a bit slower than I expected. It took me one hour to swim 2000 m. Last summer I swam 1500m in 33 minutes at Bergen Open Water competition, but that was with a wet suit, which really increases speed. And this time it was, after all, supposed to be recovery and not too fast. The first week of my swimming gave actually more swimming than expected. Yesterday I went swimming with Polen, a running friend who is a professional swimmer. She pinpointed a series of things that I can do to improve my swimming. There are several things I have been doing wrong all these years! As soon as she showed me, it all made perfect sense. But to actually put it into practice and coordinate all body parts to work as they should, will take quite a bit of time. So, now my swimming has even a more defined goal than before.

In addition to running and swimming, I am continuing three days of Pilates a week. I like the combination of strength training and stretching it gives. Already after one and a half months I feel that my back is more straight and my right side, which has been very tight and tense since the injury,  is looser and more relaxed. My core is at least as strong as before, as there is a lot of emphasis on the abs, but I might have lost strength at other places, since I am not lifting weights the same way as before. On the other hand, I make sure to get a session of HSR training once a week, to make sure that my injury stays away. The good news is that my hamstrings tendon does not hurt at all anymore when I do these exercises.

All in all, this gives nine workout sessions a week. I try to keep one day completely free of training, but it is not so easy. In fact I should also be doing intervals, but I don't know when. Perhaps I can exchange one of the weekly runs with an interval session. At least, the very earliness of the morning runs is a great benefit to be able to fit all these things into a weekly schedule on top of a full working week and quite a bit of social activities in the evenings and weekends.

It's a busy life...

Officially a triathlete: Os triathlon 2015

I have just completed Os triathlon! 750 meters swimming, 20 km cycling, and 5 km running. My finish time goal was 1:40. I finished in 1:37!

All right, be prepared, I will give you all the details! In particular, if you have never tried triathlon, but are interested, there are probably many things you are wondering about, to which you might find answers here. For triathlons and open water swimming in Norway, you normally need a wetsuit. I bought a Blueseventy Fusion a few weeks ago, which I have already tested out a few times. In addition to the wetsuit, one has a trisuit, which is a combined shorts and sleeveless t-shirt in one piece. You wear the trisuit under your wetsuit, and after completing the swimming part, you simply take off your wetsuit, and do your biking and running in the trisuit. The trisuit is made of stuff that resembles that of a bathing suit, so it is supposed to be tight and to dry very quickly. I tested my trisuit just once before today, during a test run of Os triathlon about three weeks ago. There are some issues about a trisuit, especially for women; should we have underwear beneath it or not? Asking friends and googling a bit gave the conclusion: no panties! However, when it comes to a bra, the opinions were divided. During the test run, I wore a bra, but I felt very wet and cold all the time during the biking. This time I decided to skip the bra, and it worked very well, especially since I wore a vest on top the trisuit after the swimming, as it was pretty windy today.

On Friday, I fetched my start numbers. There were a lot of them. Some to be placed on the bike, some on the helmet, and some on myself. I ended up buying a race belt also, as the number on myself had to be on the back during cycling, and in the front during running. No, it is not supposed to be easy... I made everything ready yesterday evening, so that all that remained for this morning was to put on the trisuit and some warmer clothes on top of it, and to have some breakfast. The competition was to start at 10:30, and I wanted to be there at around 9, to have enough time to figure out how the transition area works, where to place my bike and rest of my equipment. Normaly I like to eat about two hours before hard exercise, but that was exactly the time we needed to leave home to get there in time. So I ended up dividing my breakfast into two. I had some of it at 7:30 and some of it at 8:45 in the car on the way.

Frank was, as usual, the driver, the photographer, the cheerleader, the full support team! As soon as we arrived and parked, we found several of our Melkesyre friends, and it was great to talk to them, to ask their advice, and get some pep talk, as all of them who where there today are already triathletes (even Ironmans!).

I also found my good friend Ingunn there, who got me into trying triathlon, and whom I had all three of my training sessions with.  After chatting and cheering each other up a bit, we went to find our places in the bike racks. The numbers were placed pretty tight, so it was important that neighboring bikes were facing opposite directions. However, there was complete confusion about which direction to place your bike. It was supposed to hang by the seat, but should it face you or the other way? After discussing with many people and finally finding an official who could give the correct answer, fortunately the way that was the most intuitive for me turned out to be the correct way. Bike facing me, so that I could hang my helmet with glasses inside on the one handle, and hang the race belt and the vest on the other handle. Place the shoes in front, with socks inside, so they are all ready to go.

For this occasion, several weeks ago I borrowed the bike of my good friend Irene, who has a faster bike than my hybrid. Hers has also click-on pedals, and as we have the same shoe size, I even borrowed her click-on shoes. However, during my training, I figured out that the time ahead for Os triathlon was too short for me to get used to the click-on shoes. I fell once and hurt my hand (it is still not well yet), and after that I decided to do this one without the click-on shoes. I would simply bike with my running shoes, which would also save time in the transition between biking and running. I tried this out at the trial run, and it worked fine, and this is exactly what I did today, too. After placing everything neatly into its place, it was time to put on the wetsuit.

I had to be careful so that the timing device, which had to be placed around the left ankle, did not get torn away. Wet socks first, then the wetsuit, find the goggles, the cap, and the ear plugs, and then I was ready to do some warm up.

At this point, it was already 9:50, and the briefing was to start at 10:00. So I was really happy that we got there as early as 9 o'clock, which also gave me the time to use the bathrooms (long queue!) before putting on the wetsuit. The briefing ended at 10:10, and after that we were not allowed into the transition area. I went to the water side, and went into the water to get my goggles adjusted and fog-free and to get a light swim warm up. Everything felt good, I went out again, and did some warm up on the land while waiting for the start sound. Then we heard the sound "Ready!", I found myself a place by the water, and then went the start horn. I took it easy, as I had planned, and started swimming. It felt good at first, but just a second later somebody was swimming on top of me. I lost my breath, took a short stop, and started again. Unfortunately this repeated several times. I tried to stay away from people, but they just "attacked" me from all sides. I got an elbow in my ear, I had people pushing me to pass by, and I even had somebody pulling my leg! At least it felt like that. So, this is the part I don't understand. Why are people so aggressive during swimming? The same people are extremely nice during the biking and the running! To me it seemed pretty easy to find a "lane" and try to avoid other people, but every time I thought I found a rhythm some person would bump into me and get me out of it. Well, so the swimming did not go that well. It took me 17 minutes, and I should have been able to do it in 15, especially since I managed twice the distance in 33 minutes last week. But then there were much fewer people and everything was a million times more peaceful. Anyway, "Just live with it!" as they told us during the test run; that's just the way it is. Up from the water, I immediately started to run to the transition area, at the same time pulling the zipper of my wetsuit and already getting out of it on the way.

The way to my bike turned out to be much longer than expected; we had to run around the whole transition area before entering it, but finally I was there in front of it, with my wetsuit down to my waist. I managed to take it off more quickly than before, but I did sit down to take the socks off and to put on running socks and running shoes. I also took some time to drink a sports gel, and to drink some water. I am such a sissy during biking that I don't dare to start fiddling with the drinking bottle, so I had to fill up beforehand. On with the helmet and the glasses, on with the vest and the race belt, and off I went. We had to run with the bikes until the top of a hill, and then we were allowed to mount them and ride.

The biking part went better than expected. I completed 20 km in 46 minutes which is a new record for me. The path has uphills and downhills, and I was pleased with myself that I did not hit the breaks as often as the last time. I was also able to pass several people, especially towards the end, which gave a very good feeling. One of my friends, Michal, was one of the people on duty, watching the entry to a bridge that I was dreading a lot, and it calmed me immensely to see him there exactly at the worst point for me. I am also really happy that I did the trial run; the bridge was much less scary this time than the last. It is a narrow hanging bridge, and I just don't like such bridges. So my instinct is to bike exactly in the middle of it, which is not very easy with all the other bikers, plus some cars! Anyway, everything went well, and I came back to the transition area to leave the bike, the helmet and the glasses, and just grab a bottle of water and run! As I started I managed to remember to turn the race belt so that my number was facing forward. The running went so much better than the trial run, and I did a couple of minutes better than expected. My goal was to do the running in less than 30 minutes. Normally I am able to race a 5 km street run in about 25 minutes, but that is without the swimming and the biking beforehand (and my last race was in January!). The running course is slightly uphill all the way to the turning point, so I managed to keep my spirit up thinking that it would be downhill the last part. Unfortunately the uphills seem much more uphills than they actually are, so on the way back the downhills did not seem that much downhills. Still I finished in 27 minutes, above all expectations, and very pleased with that, especially since I have not had any running training for months!

As I passed the finish line, I heard that the speaker said my name and announced my time to be 1:37, at which point I gave a big shout and I was very very happy. The whole last week of August I was on travel and did not get to do any kind of training. This past week, I trained pretty hard on Tuesday (strength and uphill), but then I got sick, and I have been sick all the way until now. I am still a little bit reduced, but the best I have felt since Wednesday, so I don't think the sickness affected my performance that much. In fact, exactly as it was the case with Bergen City half marathon in 2014, perhaps being sick is the best preparation towards a race. It makes sure that you get enough rest!

After the finish, the Melkesyre racers found each other again, and it was time for a victory picture! Thank you all so much Freddy, Janne, Michal, Torunn, Ingunn, Wenche, and a couple of ladies whose names I don't know but who remembered me from the trial run and gave me thumbs up several times both before and during the race! The nicest part about the whole thing is that, as opposed to the trial run which felt very tough, the main experience today was FUN! It was indeed fun, and I was not expecting it. The distance of each exercise is not much, but put together it makes you think in a different way than when you are racing in only one of the disciplines. I must admit that I was looking forward to being done with Os triathlon, and I was not sure whether I wanted to continue with this. But right now, I am really motivated to try more. Short triathlons with the same distances as today but a lot more uphills involved would I think suit me well. Or longer distances but flat... perhaps an Ironman at some point?

Time will show.

The first swim competition: Bergen Open Water 2015

Sometimes things go better than expected...

Os Triathlon is just a week away! As part of my training towards it, I participated in the Bergen Open Water swimming competition yesterday. The suggestion about this came from Fredrik, one of my closest colleagues and oldest friends, as a comment to my blog post about open water swimming during the summer holidays. At that time I did not really consider it that seriously, but as the time for Os started to approach, I figured I needed the experience. The options at yesterday's race were 50, 400, 1500, or 5000 meters. Since the swim distance at Os is 750 meters, I signed up for 1500 m.

I came home late Friday night after a week abroad with long hours of work, late nights and little sleep, and I was still feeling pretty exhausted yesterday morning, even after 11 hours of sleep. It was hard to imagine how I would manage to race just in a few hours, but as I was considering Bergen Open Water only as a practice for Os Triathlon, my shoulders were down and my expectations super low. I was sure that I would be slower than everybody else and come in last in my heat. I had even thought of a funny title for today's blog post: Making a fool of yourself.

Frank, my biggest supporter and fan, volunteered to come along to cheer, take pictures and assist, although it coincided with the weekly Melkesyre uphill interval session. It was great comfort to have him with me. To have some warm up, we parked at Spelhaugen, which is 1.5 km away from the start of the race at Tennebekktjørna. Although the weather report was looking good, we quickly got caught up in a heavy rain shower. Oh well, I thought, I am going to get wet anyway. But poor Frank, who would just stand there and watch, would have a harder time in wet clothes.

It took us 15 minutes to walk the path through the forest, and I could feel my heart rate increase as we got closer to the lake. At the first sight of the lake, I felt a sudden rush of nerves, and I said to Frank "I hope at least that I will be able to finish". I participated in a trial run of Os Triathlon a couple of weeks ago, and there I had a hard time at the start of the swimming session. I ran fast into the water together with the others, and tried to get ahead of the breast swimmers, and in the struggle I lost my breathing rhythm. In fact I had to completely stop and regain breath, and reset my brain before continuing, which cost me several minutes. I wanted the experience at Bergen Open Water exactly to be able to cope with such situations, but I was a bit anxious that the same thing would happen again.

Very happy to find Fredrik among the starters, and a bit intimidated to learn that he would also swim 1500 m, and not 5000 as first planned, I registered, got my swim cap, used the bathroom, and finally put on my wet suit. I had decided beforehand that I would go out into the water before the competition started to get a small warm up, to adjust the goggles and to defog them. I did this, and I think it was very useful. When I afterwards stood at the start line, I felt much calmer and ready. Fredrik and I discussed finish times, and I really had no idea what to expect. In the summer, I could swim about 2000 meters in a little more than one hour. Now, with the fast effect of the wet suit, and since there are no waves in a lake, I was hoping that I could perhaps manage 1500 meters in 40 minutes in the best case. Fredrik assured me that 40 minutes would be a piece of cake for me, but I had hard time believing him.

Then the start shot went, and instead of rushing into the water like I did at the trial of Os Triathlon, I took it easy, to make sure that I would not lose breath. I calmly went into the water and started swimming pretty slowly, to make sure that I would not miss any of the markers and gates I had to swim through. After a while I felt that I found a good rhythm and I could start going a bit faster. I had the impression that I was behind everybody else, but I started to catch up and I passed several people. My goggles were fog-free and completely tight, and everything felt good. I had no idea of time and distance while swimming. I had configured my watch to give me a buzz every 500 meters, but either it did not do it or I did not feel it. It is very difficult to see the display during swimming and I did not even bother. I was all the time preparing myself that there was probably a loooooooong way to finish yet. It is pretty funny to race in a lake you have never swum in before, especially since you cannot see things clearly. "Oh my goodness, what is that big black wall out there? Oh, it's a dam", "Oops, I was a bit too close to land here and touched a big rock", "Eeeeww, grass and seeweed"...

Suddenly, I could see the beach where we had started from and I could not believe it. Finish so soon already? I increased my speed, reached land, and got up and ran to finish, as I had read that one should do. Then I looked at my watch... 33 minutes!!! My first thought was that I must have missed one of the markers and swum too short. When I looked up the first thing I saw was Frank's face with a big smile. I pointed to my watch and looked at him with the big question in my eyes - is the time correct? He was laughing and giving me a thumb up, at the same time as nodding. I was so surprised and happy at that moment that I could not do anything but laugh.

Several minutes later,  while I was changing, people (even men) were still finishing 1500 meters, so I was definitely not the last one in my heat! And I did get a medal, so I had not missed any markers, and was clearly not disqualified. I had so low expectations for this race, both when it comes to how I would perform and also when it comes to how much I would enjoy it. It exceeded my expectations in both terms; it was in fact a lot more fun that I had thought beforehand, and I am still astonished about the finish time, especially with so little swim practice after the summer holidays.

Although it was simply half an hour's effort, and it did not feel like hard work while it was going on, I felt really tired the rest of the afternoon and evening yesterday. Today I can feel that my shoulders, chest, upper back, and arms have been through tough work; even legs are telling me that they were working hard. And I, who was planning beforehand to do a Stoltzenkleiven session right after the swim competition... well, today is a new day with new opportunities. Stoltzekleiven Opp is still my number one race this year, the only one left on my A list, and I am not sure whether training for Os Triathlon is a good priority in the period where I should rather be training for Stoltzekleiven. But in the end the whole purpose of our training is to have fun, and in a period of injury and rehab where I could not run, it has been very motivating and energizing for me to try out and accomplish new things.

Wish me luck next Sunday at Os Triathlon!

Out of the comfort zone again: training for triathlon

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone...

Yes it is happening again. Trying out new things and stepping outside of my comfort zone... This time the seeds were planted already more than a year ago. After the summer holidays of 2014, I wanted to try a triathlon. I had been both running and swimming the whole summer, and all that remained was just a little practice of biking. Os sprint triathlon in September 2014 seemed to be the perfect choice for a first triathlon. However, as it was very close to Oslo half marathon which I was training hard for, Ketil and I decided that I postpone it. This year, already in March, before my rehabilitation therapy started and running stopped completely, my colleague and good friend Ingunn and I signed up for it. However, as it started to get closer, participation became unclear. After all, I had registered for many races this spring and summer, and in the end I had to cancel them all.

During the summer holidays, when I was swimming almost everyday, and at the same time reading about my friends Janne, Michal, Freddy and Caroline completing Ironman races or other demanding triathlons, I got inspired again for trying a triathlon. Swimming and biking would be fine for my injury, but running was still a big issue. Would Ane let me do it?

When I came back from the holidays I concentrated mainly on uphill training, keeping in mind the coming competitions Skåla Opp, Storehesten Opp, and not the least Stoltzekleiven Opp. My motivation for triathlon started decreasing, especially since all the preparations like buying a wet suit, getting hold of an appropriate bike, and finding time to train for all this, seemed to be impassable obstacles. But I had signed up and I did not want to be a quitter for no reason. If Ane did not allow it, it would be a perfect excuse for letting the whole thing wait until 2016. However, on our first session after the holidays, Ane declared that Os triathlon would simply be the perfect thing for me to try at this point. Well, so there is no escape now, is there?

The first task was to get a wet suit. My friend Janne, who is an experienced triathlete and impressed me immensely by completing an Ironman this summer, had lots of good advice. I read over and over her blog post about open water swimming, and she gave me a lot of private advice in addition. I ended up with a Blueseventy Fusion wet suit in women's size medium. Wet suits for swimming are pretty expensive, but an Internet shop based in Oslo had the 2014 version of this model much cheaper than the normal price. So I ordered online and started waiting, really anxious to see whether it would fit. It arrived on Thursday and I tried it on, and you can see the result on the picture above. A wet suit has to fit very firmly so that the water is locked between the suit and the skin to give warmth, and there should not be any new water flowing through the suit while you are swimming. Janne had told me that it should be very difficult to put on. I found my suit difficult, but not very difficult to put on. Was it too big? On the other hand, it was extremely difficult to take off! So perhaps it was after all the correct size? It felt uncomfortable, but not so uncomfortable that you cannot stand to have it on another minute. This was the description of correct size that I had read on another web page, so I decided that it was most probably the correct size.

By coincidence Ingunn also bought her first wet suit the same day as I received mine, on August 6, exactly one month before Os triathlon on September 6, which we thought was a good sign. And then of course we wanted to test out our suits as soon as possible, and we agreed for a combined biking and swimming practice Friday evening. I was pretty nervous about swimming in a cold lake. Until now I have only swum in pools or in warm seas with white sand bottoms and crystal clear waters where you can see everything. I was afraid that I would panic when I saw all the plants and the rocks at the bottom of a lake. In fact I was so nervous about the whole thing that I did not at all sleep the night between Thursday and Friday... Friday evening, Ingunn and I met in Paradis, close to where we both live, and we biked to the Munkebotn lake.

When we arrived at the lake, I was sweaty due to the uphills at the end, and the suit was even harder to put on then than on a dry body. Laughing a lot at ourselves and our lacking routine, after some stumbling we were ready to hit the water.... My goodness! I had been afraid that I would be panicking about the vegetation??? There was nothing to see! It was completely black. It was like swimming in coffee, or rather Coke (due the bubbles my arms were making), I could see nothing; just absolute, thick, immense black void. Wow, I panicked in a completely different way than I had imagined. The darkness was so massive; I started choking and coughing, and the neck of my suit started feeling very tight. For a moment I was sure I was drowning. It took me a while to regain control, and I had to keep my head above the water all the way to the other side. Fortunately, after a short break on the other side, I quickly got used to the blackness and started enjoying the swim. To my pleasant surprise the suit felt comfortable and warm, very flexible, and even more convenient to swim than without a suit. Eventually I got into good rhythm, and started swimming swiftly, and clearly faster than without a suit! A very unexpected experience.

Both Ingunn and I are extremely relieved to have survived the first swim with our wet suits. It went better and faster then we had expected, and at least we now know how to do this. We do need to practice a few more times, though, in particular putting on and off our suits!

So how will the other disciplines of triathlon go for me? I have not at all been running for the past months, and I have to run 5 km at the end of this race. Will I at all manage? The good thing is that being injured enables me let my shoulders down and have low expectations. In the worst case I can just do a slow jog...  In fact the most challenging part for me is perhaps the biking. Not because I am not in shape for it, but I am a sissy when it comes to speed. In this sense biking is very different from running and swimming. In the latter two, my form and strength limit my speed. But in biking I cannot go as fast as my form and strength would allow; I hit the breaks all the time! This is also why I don't think I can ever become a competitive biker or triathlete, but I can complete a race. In the future, I might have the goal of completing much tougher races, not focusing too much on the biking time. Still I want to do things properly, and as my triathlete friends have kept telling me, my beautiful hybrid bike is not good enough for racing. My good friend Irene, the strongest and fastest pregnant woman ever, is for obvious reasons not going to bike for a while, and she generously lent me her faster bike. It has click-on pedals which I am really afraid to try, and for Friday's practice I used my own bike to be on the safe side.

My homework for today is to do a 3 km run and to test Irene's bike without falling, both by Svartediket.  I might also do an evening go at Stoltzekleiven, since yesterday was a day of complete rest. The first homework is in fact given by Ane! Roles have changed; she is encouraging me to start running while I am reluctant. I am concentrating on my uphill fast walks that are going really well, and running is not yet tempting... On the other hand:

A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.