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.

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 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...

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 :-)

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...

Read, run, race

“I read a book and it changed my life.”

This is the opening sentence in a novel by Orhan Pamuk; and it is one of my favorite starts of a book. Recently, I've had a similar experience myself. I read a book and it changed my life. Well, not quite. But it has made me look at my life with new eyes. I have just read a book about running, and it has been like talking to a good friend with almost exactly the same experiences as myself when it comes to the topics that I am writing about in this blog.

The book is “What I talk about when I talk about running” by Haruki Murakami, several of whose books I had read before, although none of them made the same impression. I knew that, in addition to being a world famous author, he is also a pretty decent runner, but I did not know about this book, which is already from 2007. It was brought to my attention by the excellent literature blog of Tine, and the way she described the book was so appealing to me that I bought an electronic version immediately, and I started reading it right away.

It turns out that Murakami has taken a lot of notes when preparing for and right after his many competitions and other running experiences, and he then revised them and put them together in a book, almost like a novel. Why did the book speak to me so well? I think first of all it is because I recognized so well so many of the things I have experienced myself. And secondly, I learned so much from the experiences of Murakami, who has run many full marathons.

During the years when I was struggling with my weight, I had the bad habit of falling into negative thoughts, like how unfair it is that I put on weight so easily while others can eat as much as they like and stay thin. When I finally managed to do something about my weight and got into better training habits, it was partly because I managed to turn these unfair things into positive thoughts. “Just imagine that you are allergic. Allergic to sugar, fat, and too much carbs”. “If I were thin, I would never start running, exercising or eating healthy. So in a sense I am lucky that my metabolism forces me to be fit and healthy.” It turns out that Murakami had exactly the same experiences and exactly the same thoughts!

In addition to many marathons, Murakami has also done several triathlons. Incredibly enough, also his thoughts and experiences about various parts of a triathlon are exactly the same as mine. We have for example in common our uneasiness about biking. The speed in many places is only dependent on how unafraid you are and not how strong, which we both find demotivating. It turns out that he has also had the same experiences as I have had in the start of the swimming part of a triathlon. How people push, even kick, each other. This is something I will never understand, and it was such a relief to read Murakami's sentiments that were exactly the same as mine.

What really appeals to me in Murakami's book is that he is simply writing about his own experiences, and he is not trying to give advice or teach. This is also what I am striving for in my blog. Not tell others what to do; simply tell what I am doing. Perhaps recommend a few things that I have tried and liked. Like this book...

If you are a runner I think you will like it!

Relapse, recap, restart

"Throw me to the wolves and I will return leading the pack."

I read a training blog newly that started with "A completely wasted year". It was about a year of injury, and the person was set back in form to where she was a year ago. Exactly my situation! However, my feelings about the year 2015 are quite different. Alright, so 2014 was an amazing year of many completely new experiences... How could a year of injury and frustration match or exceed those accomplishments? Unexpectedly enough, in 2015 I challenged myself to try even more new things, I learned a lot more, and I made friendships for life, all thanks to my passion for competing, and some even thanks to my injury.

I think what I am most happy about 2015 is that Frank joined the Varegg/Melkesyre/Fjellgeitene family, and we now share almost all of our training and competing experiences. We have had more outdoor experiences together this year than the total of many years. In addition to training and competitions, we had many spectacular travels to some of the most famous mountains of Norway. We even explored the mountains of Italy, both competing and having fun. All these travels happened thanks to and together with our Melkesyre friends, and I am eternally grateful for these adventures.

Of other new experiences and highlights of 2015, the relay races in the spring, in particular the national Holmenkollen race, stand out as a lot of fun. Partly due to being injured, I also got more serious about open water swimming, and participated in my first official swimming race. I got to fulfill my dream from last year about training for triathlon, and finally participating in Os triathlon. This is something I definitely want to do more of. My new official best time at Stoltzekleiven is really what saved 2015, as it is the only real performance achievement of the year.

It would have been great to be able to conclude the year on a super positive note, but as I have learned so well this year, things do not always go as planned.  Just as I was finally back on track, on the way to full recovery and my old form, I had a relapse of my injury last week. It came unexpected. After the first shock and some panic, I calmed down surprisingly quickly, mainly thanks to my physiotherapist Ane. Although she was on holidays, she called me when I texted her, and she instructed me to completely rest for a week, to hopefully cool down and reverse the relapse quickly. Taking her advice this time has been so much easier than in the old days. Of course being surrounded by a lot of family due to the holidays, and the really bad weather outside has helped, too. I immediately started to make alternative plans for the coming months, just in case I might again have a longer period away from running. I have even started to look forward to those alternative activities.

No matter how my injury behaves in the close future, I know that 2016 will be a year of even more new training experiences, as I will be spending the first half of the year in Istanbul, my city of birth. I am already in touch with possible new training buddies, with plans of running, strength training, biking, swimming, and other activities. I do have a humble new year's wish, though: that I will not be blogging about injuries in 2016...

"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

The meaning of life (is not Stoltzekleiven)

The Stoltzekleiven Opp race is approaching; it is on Saturday! During early spring, especially when I was trying various therapies and was advised to take it easy on running,  I walked up Stoltzekleiven frequently to keep up my conditioning and get enough cardio training. I reached my best recording ever in February when I managed to do it in 14 minutes and 25 seconds with the help of my friend Mats, who was with me and motivated and pushed me all the way. Although my injury worsened from then on, and I could not run at all after some time, my leg strength improved thanks to HSR exercises three times a week, in addition to strength training twice a week. Just before he summer holidays I was able to do 14:50 at Stoltzekleiven all by myself.

Unfortunately, the three weeks of summer holidays worsened my Stoltzekleiven form much more than I was expecting. After the summer holidays, walking up to Stolzekleiven was one of the first things I did, and for several weeks it was impossible to get below 16 minutes. I must admit that I got quite a lot stressed by this. After all, Stoltzekleiven was the only thing remaining on my A list, and during early spring I was pretty sure that I would manage to go below 14 at this year's race. Now however, even going below 15 seems to be tough...

After the summer holidays I did quite a bit of steep mountain fast walking, in Jotunheimen, at Gullfjellet, at Skåla, and at Storehesten, and I thought that would be good training for Stoltzekleiven. I also did some biking and swimming in connection with training for my first triathlon, and although this meant less training at Stoltzekleiven itself, I was hoping that it would give good varied improvement of my general form that would also be of help at Stoltzekleiven. This is exactly what happened last year. I was mainly training for Oslo half marathon through August and September, and not at all training at Stolzekleiven, except for participating at trial races. Still I improved my time by 48 seconds last year compared to the year before. So the half marathon training helped my Stoltzekleiven form a lot. Unfortunately the same side effect did not come this year from triathlon training and participating in uphill races.

While I was feeling quite depressed about the whole Stoltzekleiven thing, last week I received the very sad news that a very good and old friend of mine died. This news really took me off guard and shook me more than I could have imagined. Until now I have been blessed to be able to say that I have never regretted anything that I have done in life. But for the first time I regret something I have not done. I am so sorry that I did not have more contact with my friend during the past couple of years. We used to be very close, but our contact recently limited itself to email and message exchanges, and I regret so much not having called more often and not having asked more often how he was. His illness progressed suddenly very quickly at the end, so perhaps I would anyway not be able to catch him to say a final goodbye, but the bare thought that I was worried about running injuries and Stoltzekleiven while he was fighting for his life is quite unbearable. This is also why I am a few days late with last week's blog post. For a while none of the stuff I have been writing about seemed important or worth writing about anymore.

On the other hand, being reminded about how short and unpredictable life is made me appreciate even more how important it is to make the best of every single day of life. Being passionate about something, no matter what it is, makes us experience all the emotions that human beings are capable of. I decided to continue with my blog and to try harder at Stoltzekleiven for the memory of my friend, who loved running. At the same time, I was discussing my lacking improvement at Stoltzekleiven with my trainer Ketil, and he warned me that my negative and stressed attitude could be affecting my performance. I decided to let my shoulders down and not get stressed about the resulting time. Just try harder and do my best. With this background, on Thursday, I came closer to 15 minutes than in a long while, with 15:11.

Yesterday I participated in the last trial run of this year's Stoltzekleiven race, and my time worsened to 15:25. But I was just back from a wonderful weekend at Kjerag and Preikestolen (where the first and the last pictures are from), and I comforted myself that perhaps my legs were tired from the hikes of the weekend. This year, I have been so lucky to be able to do several of the most spectacular mountain hikes of Norway, like Trolltunga and Besseggen, and now Preikestolen. With the sudden loss of a dear friend reminding me how fragile life is, it feels good to have grabbed the opportunities of these adventures when they showed up. No matter how Stoltzekleiven 2015 goes, I will always have the wonderful memories of these trips. And there will hopefully be many more Stoltzekleiven races for me in the future.

“Life is short. Break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably. And never regret anything that made you smile.” (Mark Twain)

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.