Careful what you wish for

Okay, maybe I didn't explicitly wish to get sick, but last week, in the throes of mental exhaustion, the thought might have crossed my mind that I was long overdue for the flu or something. Something that meant that I could let go of all the ”musts” in my life for a day or three and just watch reruns of Gilmore Girls in my pyjamas. I had a couple of minor infections at the end of last year, but they weren't bad enough to keep me home from work.

Yesterday, I dragged myself to work and regretted it almost immediately. I tried to brave it out but had to admit defeat and go home after lunch, with achy cheekbones. It looked like I had gotten what I'd wished for. I had a fever.

What followed were endless hours of boredom. Free time rocks – if you have a healthy body with which to enjoy it. Having to lie on the sofa because as soon as you get up you feel like you're going to pass out is not as much fun. And what is there to do on the sofa? Daytime TV is about as entertaining for me as a visit to the dentist. Reading a book is hard when your eyes are only half-open. That didn't leave me with a lot of other things to do.

Except think.

I thought about the evening's training session that I would miss, the final ”Round the bridges” test run. Then I thought about all the runs I will get to go for, all the races I want to do. I thought about the summer adventures we're planning and the Wednesday trail runs that are so hard but so, SO much fun. I missed my club mates, the friendly jabs and competitive spirit, the help and encouragement when it's tough. 

Yeah, yeah, carpe diem, I know. But it's hard to seize the day when your arms are too weak from fever to seize a second, let alone a whole day.

But it's ok. Sometimes, the body needs to rest and regain its strength, so it can come back even faster. And staying at home with nothing to do except dream about the future is maybe just what the mind needs to recuperate.

No good run goes unpunished

I had been waiting for this day for weeks. Some of my club mates wanted to extend the usual Saturday run into a three-hour session in preparation for a marathon they're running in May and asked me if I wanted to join them. Of course I did! Problem was, I have been putting in two quality sessions per week in addition to my long runs lately, which have been getting longer and longer. Now, I'm not an expert, but something tells me that increasing your speed and your weekly mileage is a recipe for disaster.

Cue my worries earlier this week.

Despite my legs itching to go for a longer run, I decided to keep a cool head and wait until this morning to see how my body felt. I had taken a couple of days off from training to let my legs recuperate but I had a thigh muscle that was tight and a moody respiratory system that didn't want to get out of bed in the mornings.

I woke up with a partially blocked nose. I rolled carefully to my side and looked at the clock. I found my pulse and started counting heartbeats. I counted a second time just to make sure. I was not liking the results so much, so I counted a third time and got a slightly better result. Five heartbeats over my normal fifty beats per minute. Not completely ok, but acceptable. There was probably an infection in my body but hopefully not a serious one. I would run up to our meeting place with AIK and see how my thigh felt.

My thigh still felt tight but it didn't hurt. The overall feeling in my body was great, better than it had been in weeks. The infection signals faded away the closer I got to my destination and soon disappeared completely.

We ran westwards and into the headwind that rushed to meet us. Time flew as we talked about upcoming races, injuries, shoes. Some 15 kilometres later we were back where we had started. My club mates asked me if I was going to join them in the extended run after all. Of course I was!

With the wind now on our backs, we ran eastwards. I sent an sms to J warning him that he might have to come and pick me up in the car, but then I did some calculations in my head and decided to turn back after 24 km to save him the trouble. Running home after that would bring me to an even 30 km, my dream goal this day. It's been over six months since I last ran that far.

What I had forgotten was that the way back meant a strong headwind. I almost had to lean into the wind to be able to move forward and my thigh started sending me ransom letters claiming it had taken my knee hostage. I tried running faster, lifting my knees more, anything to give my tired muscles a break. It seemed to pacify my disgruntled thigh.

I was surprisingly fresh when I got home, except for some light-headedness that I attributed to the wind. No good run goes unpunished, of course. So I am expecting I will be bedridden with a fever all day tomorrow.

Overtraining

Oh boy. You would not want to meet me in a dark alley the way I looked and felt yesterday. It's been a tough week at work, culminating in yesterday's record-breaking crapfest, which turned everything into a cause for irritation.

The sun was too bright.

The sun was not bright enough.

There were too many cheerful, inspirational quotes on my Facebook feed.

There were too many depressing articles on my Facebook feed.

My cats ran to the door to meet me when I got home.

My cats ran away when I felt like squeezing them.

SOMEONE PARKED THEIR BICYCLE AT MY SPOT. THEY TOOK MY SPOT.

And so on, and so forth. Everything was wrong. And I made sure the world knew it, by wearing the most pouty face I could contract my face muscles into and complaining loudly to anyone who would listen. I didn't get much sympathy for the bicycle spot outrage.

Running is the best therapy. My legs were heavy before the usual Wednesday run with the club, and – no happily-ever-after ending here – they were still heavy during and after the run too. But my mood got a lot better.

Yet, there was still a cloud of worry over my head. Why this irritation? Sure, my work week has been tough. Long hours, intense, unforgiving. But it is often like that. Why has this week in particular been so tough? And why were my legs so slow to recuperate after last Monday's run? I started dreading having to be at practice at a certain time. Not the training in itself, but having yet another item on my to-do list when I got home from work.

I suspected the worst. Overtraining and other psychological stress factors in tandem with each other, caught in a gravitational pull, spinning around each other forever in a sick co-dependant relationship.

Overtraining symptoms, according to Wikipedia, include:

Persistent muscle soreness (eh, not more than usual)

Persistent fatigue (mentally, yes. Physically, no)

Elevated resting heart rate (haven't checked in a couple of weeks)

Reduced heart rate variability (I don't even know what that means and I'm too fatigued to google it)

Increased susceptibility to infections (nope)

Increased incidence of injuries (I'm guessing there will be if I keep putting in 280km-months without rest periods)

Irritability (who the hell are you calling irritable?)

Depression (If there was increased incidence of injuries, you bet I'd get depressed)

Mental breakdown (not yet but give me a couple more days like yesterday and I'll get there)

So, not much in the symptom list applies in my case. I can probably breathe a sigh of relief. That's not to say that I'm indestructible. Therefore, I am playing truant from tonight's interval training and giving myself an extra rest day. Both mind and body are thanking me already.

The powerful human mind

”Round the bridges” training, part two last night. I felt tired beforehand, having waken up way too early in the morning, too early even for me who always wakes up early. It was also because it was going to be the last training session of a particularly heavy month, both distance- and speed-wise. I needed help to get around, a nice back to follow that kept a fast, yet not neckbreaking pace.

I found a couple of such nice backs to follow. The course was divided in two this week, with a 2-minute rest stop in the middle. Coming up the hill just before the rest stop, my speed dropped by 20-30 seconds and my heart raced. While I struggled upwards, I was convinced that I would never be able to return to the pace I had kept the first kilometre or so.

After resting for two minutes, we set off again, and now we had a little downwards slope ahead of us before the ground evened out again. The backs I was chasing increased the pace, but I was prepared to let them go. I went inside my head instead, and tried to remember what I had learned on my sports psychology course. I visualised. I saw myself running with a proud posture, imagined myself looking strong and shut out the tiredness signals. Because my shoulders have a tendency to tighten up and become tense, I pretended my arms were wet noodles. Instead of looking at my watch for speed guidance, I let my body decide what kind of pace felt comfortably fast. And I kept the backs within sight.

I ran to the finish line, very tired but not shattered. I was certain that the other half of the course had been much slower than the first one. But when I got home and looked at my times, I was in for a surprise. My min/km speed during the first and second half was exactly the same but for one second. Mind over body?

Flocktjärn long run

One of the many fine traditions AIK has is to run to Flocktjärn and back, a run that is approximately 24 km long. I woke up early this morning, as usual when I'm at home and in the company of a cat that craves my attention even when I'm asleep by, say, crawling under the bed and sharpening his claws on the underside of my matress. Strange dreams had plagued my sleep, nightmares where I had to go to work on a Saturday and miss the run.

Luckily for me, I didn't have to go to work when I woke up, and I did make it to training. It was a beautiful day, which might have been one of the reasons why we were as many as 20 runners – some of us in sunglasses and shorts, no less - that met up to run to Flocktjärn. 

The route is pretty hilly, and it didn't help that we had headwind for three quarters of the way. Three. Quarters. Of. The. Way. On a route that could best be described as a circle. Gothenburg, eat your heart out. I hereby nominate Skellefteå as Sweden's real Wind City.

The pace was low, so we didn't let hills or headwind deter us. We marched on with clenched teeth, eyes watering from the dust-carrying wind, struggling to keep upright on the icy roads. We were even approached by blood-thirsty wild animals, obviously hungry for human meat.

Do you see them? Do you see the blood dripping from their jaws?

</drama>

Okay, I may have exaggerated a little bit. The wind wasn't that bad, there were only scattered patches of ice and we spent most of our time chatting. The only animals we saw were three reindeer running away from us as fast as they could, and Anja, the long-distance running cocker spaniel, who belonged to one in the group and who probably wished she could run after the reindeer.

Time flies when you're having fun, and we were back where we started before we knew it. My legs were tired but they could still carry me, which I count as good enough, especially when you think about how tired they were before we started. Another long run in the pot. I haven't run many of them lately, and it's nice to know that the knee can behave itself so that I can run more of them.

What doesn't kill you makes you _______?

A. ….suffer.

B. ….wish it had.

C. …. want to take up stamp collecting instead.

With stiff legs, I joined AIK for Thursday's intervals on the indoor track. I say ”stiff” and not ”paralysed”, because I could, in fact, move them, albeit in a manner that suggested that I had a bullet lodged in each of my calves, or had my butt bitten by a rabid hyena.

I knew. I knew what was on schedule. I knew because a little bird had told me last Monday. 20 fifty second intervals, with 20 seconds jog in between. ”Short intervals, yey!”, I thought, and was completely convinced I loved the idea. 

It wasn't the first time my legs and I weren't in agreement. From the get go, my left thigh complained that I was asking it to work too hard. About half way, my stomach joined the whining chorus, because misery loves company and my thigh was very miserable indeed. I tried to ignore them, but they only whined louder. I gave up the fight slowly and reluctantly, and dropped my speed. Our coach shouted that we had to run at race pace or faster, but I just couldn't. Monday's tough session had taken its toll on me.

You can't say I didn't work hard

When the intervals were over, we had a chance to catch our breath. Then it was time for some relay training. In teams of three, we took turns sprinting 100 metres before handing over an imaginary baton to one of our team mates.

What a difference that made. Was it the knowledge that it was a shorter stretch? Was it the competition element? I don't know. But suddenly I was running tall, with long, controlled strides, and – as far as I could tell at that moment – fast. We each ran 4 such 100 metre intervals. Both I and my legs loved it.

Now I just hope every part of my body has recuperated enough before tomorrow's long run, when new adventures await.

Round the bridges

There is a race that takes place in Skellefteå every Tuesday for 7 weeks starting in April called ”Round the bridges”. As you can deduce from the title, there are bridges involved. Two bridges to be exact. And you run over them.

The race is 5 km long. Let me tell you why 5 km is not a good distance. Firstly, it's too short. It takes me 5 km just to get warmed up. Secondly, the shorter the distance, the faster you have to run.

Yes, yes, I know you don't have to run fast. There are other reasons why you'd want to participate in a 5 km race, as opposed to just going for an easy solo run. For example:

1. You've never run 5 km before and you want to see if you can do it.
2. You like running in a crowd.
3. You lost a bet.

I, on the other hand, am one of those strange people who want to do well at races. I haven't always been like that. In fact, only a year ago I belonged in the group of people who like to enter races for the shiny medal everyone gets at the end of a race. A collector. I ran at a comfortable pace, safe in the knowledge that no matter how lousy my time was, I'd be rewarded for it. Nothing wrong with that, especially if you're a beginner, because completing a race is an achievement worth rewarding. I'm still like that when it comes to longer races, like marathons and ultras.

This went on until last year, when my times started getting better. I suddenly got hungry. I wanted to know how good I could get. I wanted to earn that medal. Even if I placed at the bottom of the result list, I'd be happy as long as I knew I'd fought for it and given it my all.

So I've been training hard with AIK. I've made such progress as I never thought was possible for me. But 5K and shorter races are still my Achilles' heel. I just can't learn to like the panicky warning signals my brain sends me during such races when it thinks it's going to die: ”Abort! Abort! Code red! No, really! *Blaring WW2 air-raid siren* You are going to die! Do you hear me? You are GOING TO DIE!”

My survival instinct is too strong, I guess. Also, I don't like vomiting. And there is no medal at the end of these particular races.

Yesterday evening saw the beginning of the yearly ”Around the bridges”-specific training series with AIK. During the first such session, the race course is divided in three parts and we run each one, then rest for two minutes before we attack the next part.

First part was like:

fly fly fly posture light forward fast almost there

Then, it was like:

hill heart oxygen lactic acid lean forward posture almost there

And then, it was like:

pain pain pain forward posture? oh screw posture fight fight FIGHT

One thought remained constant throughout the session. I didn't want to run any of the "Round the bridges" races.

When the session was over, I felt light. I had no tension left anywhere in my body, because I had no energy left to fuel any tension in my body. People talked to me and it was like I saw and heard them through a haze. My mind was completely devoid of thoughts. It was a strange sort of transcendence, a neutral state of being where neither positive or negative feelings existed. I just was.

Then I jogged home and looked at my lap times and got hungry for new personal records. I will be running the races.

Why quit while you're ahead when you can crash and burn?

Flirting with disaster. It's something I excel in when it comes to running. It's exciting. It's fun. And without pushing your limits, how will you ever know how good you can become?

I haven't run further than 22 km in maybe 6 months. Long runs tend to make my knee unhappy, and since it's my knee that gets to decide if I can get out of bed in the morning, I do as it says. If the knee says I have to cut a run short, I cut it short. If the knee says I can keep running, I keep running.

So my runs have been shorter than I would have liked. For someone with ultra ambitions, I have run remarkably few long runs the last few months. My weekly mileage has understandably suffered, and I've been happy to put in 40 km per week, ecstatic if I've managed 50-55 without temporary left-side paralysis. As training has gotten harder and harder and my speed increased, though, I noticed that my knee got quieter and quieter. My theory is that my knee likes my running style better when I run fast (I'll just have to run ultras really, really fast). This resulted in 70 km last week, a week that was, coincidentally, the hardest in my life when it comes to quality runs.

Wise from past experience, I promised myself I would take it easy this week. That was Sunday evening. Have you experienced Sunday evening optimism? It's like with New Year's resolutions, or ”I'll start on my new diet on Monday”. It sounds fantastic in that moment, and maybe you truly believe that you'll make it, but when Monday or the new year arrives, the prospect of training at the gym 7 days per week or going cold turkey on chocolate chip cookies suddenly seems about as uplifting and exciting as spending Saturday night cleaning the cat litter box with your toothbrush.

Monday rolled in, evening came and with it the usual AIK interval session. The focus was on technique and not speed. ”Easy”, you're thinking, and it would have been, if I'd held back. ”Easy” was not how it went down. How it did go down was that I ran as fast as I could to see how close to the 3:30 min/km mark I could get, and also because there were others in front of me and I had to see if I could beat them. Because I was obviously dropped on my head as a child. Repeatedly.

Wednesday should have seen me run a shorter distance than my usual 17. I did 17,1.

Yey! Spring is here! Rejoice!

Thursday I skipped training, as I was at work all day. Instead, I went for what should have been a fun, easy, short run with my friend V on Friday. Fun and easy it was. But it was double as long as I had intended. Because it was so fun and easy I didn't want to go home.

Then Saturday. The AIK part of Saturday's training usually lasts for 1,5 hours, so I often run up to meet the group. That way I can get a couple of hours' worth of training. Today, our coach had planned a longer round that took us to a place I hadn't been before. At no point did it cross my mind to cut my run short. At no point did I remember that I have an evil dictator inhabiting my left knee. I followed the group almost the whole way back to the hockey arena, chatting away the kilometres and admiring the view, then fought off the soft, uneven snow that fell two days ago and which now covered all secondary roads on my way home.

Just kidding!

Tired, but not exhausted, I got there after the longest run in months, having brought this week's mileage total to 67 km. Easy week? Pfft. Why have an easy week and let your body rebuild itself when you can have a hard one and risk injury?

It wasn't my smartest move, but I got away with it. This time.

End of the week

I average between 50 and 60 km per week. I've tried to increase that over the years but my body has stubbornly refused to let me and gotten itself injured instead. So, after one of the hardest training weeks of my life, with three successful quality sessions (I count yesterday's 5 km-tempo segment in the middle of my long run with AIK as a quality session), I saw that my kilometre total for this week looked like this:

Well, we can't have that, can we. It looked so ugly, what with being so close to 70 km but not quite. My legs felt surprisingly fresh, the weather was beautiful, my stomach was full of pancake-and-maple-syrup fuel. What choice did I have but to go for a run? J and I took the car up to what used to be the ski track, before this freak winter crushed the dreams of a thousand skiers. Nothing remained but a powder covered ice rink. As luck would have it, we had spikes on our shoes.

Not that spikes helped much. It was so icy at some places that, even with the spikes on, I felt my feet sliding backwards a couple of centimetres with every step. We left the track and followed a trail into the woods. If heaven and hell had a baby, this is what it would look like:

Amazing, beautiful surroundings, warm winter light, cool, clean air. Ice, uneven ground, holes, and did I mention ice? But wow. What a feeling to be running trails again. Well worth the trouble.

The sun warmed us up nicely after the run, as we sat on a bench by the car to cool down.

Oh, and this:

An easy week now awaits.

8x4

In running, eight times four equals much more than thirty two. You see, what happens when you run eight 4-minute intervals is that you break down your body. Afterwards, your body not only repairs itself; it also supercompensates by building even stronger muscles, so that it is better prepared for hard training next time. So eight times four is much more than thirty two minutes of nausea, sweat and teeth-grinding. It's laying down the building blocks that are the foundation of a strong body.

It is also a mental challenge. Running around a 200-metre indoor track provides few distractions from the physical exertion, few sights or sounds that can break the monotony. All that is available to you is your own brain, and your own brain doesn't want you to do this. Your brain wants you to stop and go lie down on the couch and feed it sugar. So when you're in your 16^th loop and you still have 16 more to go, you either need to shut down your brain and concentrate on how your body feels (which is less successful if your body is in pain, because then your brain will suddenly become very convincing that you need to go and read a book instead) or employ those areas of your brain that are mathematically inclined. Count loops backwards. Figure out what speed you're running at. Break down the total into smaller, more manageable chunks. Your brain needs to learn how to put up with hard work. Paradoxically, it is your own brain that needs to teach itself when to shut up.

Eight times four is about trust. Trust that your coach knows what he's doing, trust that the demands he makes of you are not unreasonable. You are putting your training into someone else's hands, but you also need to trust your own judgement, that you know your own body and trust yourself to listen to it if it starts sending you signals that you're pushing it too far.

But eight times four is not only about the hard work. It's also about the camaraderie of going through something with like-minded people. You and your club mates are all out there, fighting just as hard to complete this gruelling session. They inspire you to try harder with their own effort. They help you to keep running by providing you with a good back to follow. They encourage you with words and smiles. We are going to meet at a race somewhere and compete against each other, but on the indoor track we are a team and we help each other become better runners.

Eight times four equals so much more than thirty two.

Up before the sun

This is the scene that unfolds every single morning in the Shaman household:

4.42: Shaman lying in bed, sleeping.

4.47: Cat number one goes to the litter tray, poops, tries to cover up its poop, misses and ends up clawing the wall, the floor, the cardboard box that contains the tray. Everything but the sand in the tray. Produces a lot of noise.

4.48: Shaman covers head with pillow to drown out the noise. Feels blood pressure rising.

4.51: Cat is still digging on cardboard. Noise leaks in through the pillow.

4.52: Blood pressure gets dangerously high. Brain starts an automatic, subconscious effort to send Shaman back to sleep by flooding itself with thoughts.

4.53: Thoughts chosen by brain are not calm, happy thoughts, about summer meadows bathed in golden sunlight and birds chirping, a puppy licking my face or a walk through the woods. Thoughts chosen by brain are about what needs to be done at work on that particular day and the laundry that is piling up in the laundry basket. Something obviously wrong with brain.

4.54: Brain is far from asleep. Brain is more awake than ever. Shaman gives up, gets up to make some breakfast.

4.59:00: Shaman sits down with a cup of coffee and some delicious yoghurt, ready to enjoy the most peaceful moment of the day.

4.59:01: Cat number two goes to the litter tray.

Every. Single. Morning.

Sleeping in is an alien concept for me. I know babies who sleep in longer than me. I'm used to it, and let's face it, I am a morning person, so I don't usually suffer from it. Not that I don't need to sleep in sometimes. Having just recently increased the quality runs from one per week to two, my body needs the sleep to repair itself.

Last night, hill repeats were on the AIK schedule. 36 runners met up to run up and down a 700-metre long hill as fast as possible. I managed to do 4,5 repeats before the 30 minutes of effective training were up. It was hard work, especially while trying to keep all the contents of my stomach in my stomach. As with last Thursday's training, I paired up with a couple of runners I thought I was of pretty much equal ability to, which helped me to keep an even pace and make it to the top each time without drowning my thigh muscles in lactic acid. 

Trail. Soon.

The thing that amazes me the most is how quickly my body is adapting to different forms of training. Less than a year ago, during the first Wednesday trail run of the season (which includes many tough climbs), I had to walk up most of the hills. This year, I can't wait for the challenge. I know I will do better. Especially if my cats let me sleep longer in the mornings.

A big hard sun

I am so ridiculously sentimental sometimes. Put me in a pair of running shoes, point me in the direction of the blazing spring sun after a long, grey winter, play ”Into the wild” by Eddie Vedder for me and my lower lip might start quivering. On my way up to meet AIK for our Saturday long run, I leaned to the left to compensate for the strong gusts of wind over one of the river bridges. Right then, a tear might have rolled down my cheek. A tear of joy. Feeling invincible.

Few things fill me with such uncontrollable joy as having two healthy legs on a beautiful day. Partly because they're healthy and I get to enjoy them yet another day, partly because of the prospect of all the amazing trail runs that are ahead of me when the snow melts.

The moment didn't last. After approximately 12-13 kilometres, my left knee started acting up again, seemingly out of nowhere. I just about had time to wonder how I would ever build up my long run distances again if the knee starts complaining after only 12 kilometres. And how it was that my 15-km session at the beginning of the week didn't make my knee complain at all. And how it probably was because that day my speed varied between slow jog and bat out of hell. Then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over. I ran the rest of my planned half-marathon on legs that were tired but otherwise happy.

Maybe spring isn't here just yet.

On the indoor track, no one can hear your self-preservation mechanism scream

Thursday evening, seven thirty-ish, the 200-metre indoor track at the hockey arena. Time to run 4-minute intervals with AIK. Last week we did 4 such intervals, this week it is time to increase them to 6. A girl from the group asks me if I want to run the intervals with her, it can get boring to do them on your own. ”Sure”, I say, out of breath from our gradual acceleration warm-up, ”try” and it sounds like I'm daring her to try and keep up with me but what I mean, of course, in the shorthand way of talking I adopt when I don't want to waste precious oxygen on producing words when I can use it to keep my heart pumping instead, is that she can try and run with me without falling asleep while I try to catch up.

Earlier that evening, during my warm-up jog to the hockey arena, several body parts are complaining. My calves are sore. My head hurts. And my stomach is convinced it's getting the stomach flu just because everyone else at work has it (duh, it's not like it's contagious. Oh, wait...). So, when it's time for the intervals, I'm feeling a little apprehensive but I try to look tough, like I am Usain Bolt's faster twin sister or something.

My thoughts during the session go something like this:

1^st interval: YEAH INTERVALS BRING THEM ON. It's hard work but not too hard. My calves are sore but I will beat them into submission. Because the best way to deal with strained muscles is to work them even harder.

2^nd interval: One lap around the track, two laps around the track...this is getting monotonous. Are we there yet?

3^rd interval: Why am I doing this? Oh, that's right, because I like doing well at races. I'll just hang in there, I just know I can do it!

4^th interval: I CAN'T DO THIS! Ok, let's count backwards. Only three intervals left. 4 laps, 3 laps, 2 laps, 1 lap...weren't the four minutes up three minutes ago?

5^th interval: Am I about to throw up because I'm getting the stomach flu or because I'm running too fast? Was I -gasp!- wrong in my assertion that my calves would like the tough love I'm showing them, seeing as they hurt even more now? And, seriously, why am I doing this? Is shaving a few seconds off my PR at my next race worth this?

6^th interval: Let's lower our ambitions from ”I want to keep a 4:25 min/km pace” to ”Dear God/Allah/Buddha/Flying Spaghetti Monster, I am not even religious but please let me survive this and I will sacrifice a cow worm mosquito (sorry, I'm vegetarian) half-dead cactus from my kitchen window in your honour”. Alright, just one more, just one more, just one m-- WHY AM I DOING THIS?

An hour or so later, when I'm home, after a warm shower:

This was the best interval run of my life. WE SHOULD DO THIS EVERY WEEK.

Miracle interval elixir

So maybe I have unconscious suicidal tendencies

Since moving to Skellefteå, my knowledge of ice has expanded considerably. Before, I thought there were only two ice modes: ice and no ice. Now, I know that there are a thousand different variations of ice. Ice that is slippery, ice that is porous, grey ice, white ice, slushy ice, treacherous ice with a thin layer of water on top. I'm sure Northern Swedes have 50 different words for ice.

Looking out the window it's difficult to know what the ice is like at that very moment. The ground may look ice-free or just wet, only to turn murderously glass-smooth the minute you've run far away from home to even consider running back to get your spikes. That minute for me is three metres from the front door. I can run 20 km, but walking back a few metres to get the spikes is too much work.

Also, I hate my spikes. They make my knees and feet hurt. Although, knees and feet, you know what else hurts? A BROKEN LEG. So suck it up.

This morning I took a chance and left the house without spikes. The road up to the hockey arena slash meeting place with AIK was fine, with only the occasional easily avoidable ice patch. But our coach had no intention of taking us to any of those boring safe dry roads. After a short warm-up in the neighbourhood, we headed towards the hills of Vitberget. We kept a manageable pace and even my sore calves seemed to slowly give in and enjoy it. It was particularly fun to chat with my running buddies and plan this summer's adventures. Ah, summer and trail running. Two of my favourite things.

The last bit of the road leading up to the top of the mountain was covered in ice (of the slippery variety).

Ice and uphill running don't mix.

For every step I took to move myself forward, I glided two steps back. The ones in the group with spikes on their shoes had better traction and got to the top about four hours before me, but to the top I got. Then it was time to run back down the hill again.

Ice and downhill running don't mix.

For every very careful step I took to move myself forward, I glided three meters in the same direction. If only there was a downhill three-metre long slope leading to my front door, I might even consider turning back to get my spikes. We got halfway down the hill with no casualties, but then our coach had a little surprise for us. We left the road and followed a well-trodden trail/snowmobile track into the woods. 

Oh how I've missed trail running. I slipped and slid on the ice, I threw my arms to the side to get some sort of balance, but it was all worth it just to be able to run in the woods again. Where the path was covered in snow and I could pick up the pace a little, I skipped and jumped. I loved every second of it.

When the AIK session was over and I left the group to run home, I once again found dry ground. But it felt kind of boring by comparison. We might have done with a helmet in the woods, but you can't say that it wasn't exciting.

Spring feelings

Winter in Skellefteå lasted exactly two days this year. At least if by ”winter” you mean snow and temperatures well below freezing. The rest of the time the weather has been playing a sadistic game whereupon it has teased us with a little snow only for the temperature to rise again the next day, so the only thing left on the ground is slush and ice. This sequence of events has been repeating itself every few days since December and it has been enough to drive most of the local population crazy. The three of them not driven to drinking by the weather are obviously not skiers.

Now, on the last day of February, it's 4 degrees warm and the sun is shining with a warm glow. Green grass is emerging from the melting snow triumphantly, birds sing every morning and hearts soar. As the days get longer, do we dare believe that this awful so-called winter is coming to an end? Do we dare dream of lazy summer evenings bathed in orange light? Or will our hopes be crushed by new snowfall?

These were the thoughts that went through my head as I walked home from work. It had been an intense week, but I finished early and was looking forward to going outside in the sunshine. J got off work early too, so we set out for a run. My calves were completely beat. I try to train with AIK on Thursdays whenever I can, when they run hard intervals on the indoors track by the hockey arena. Last night we started with some technique training and then ran fast 4 x 4 minutes with 1,5 minutes slow jogging after each interval. I had my New Balance Minimus Zero shoes on, which – as the name suggests- have zero drop and which my legs haven't had a chance to get used to yet. This kind of training is tough but doable (at least if you're not purposefully trying to induce vomiting) and afterwards I ran home feeling light and elated.

This morning I woke up with two very sore calves.

As J and I jogged on the slush-covered pavements, I felt how my calves slowly softened. We ran the last kilometre down by the river to avoid the worst of the Friday rush-hour traffic and marvelled at how little ice there was on the water. A fisherman was actually fishing from the shore, something you don't usually see here at the end of February. As we approached home, we were met with full-on, blinding sunlight. Despite the ice, despite the slush, this was a perfect moment. Spring is here. Even if it's only here to give us a sneak preview of things to come.

Reboot

This morning I woke up thinking that it would be a shame to lose all my old posts if Blogger went bankrupt, or an asteroid hit the Earth.

Because my biggest concern if the latter happened would be that I would lose all my old posts, of course. Right before I burned to a crisp.

It would be a shame, not because of the sharp wit and excellent writing I have been offering mankind through the years which would be gone forever (you're welcome, by the way); it would be a shame because this has been my diary, preserving my training-related memories for later (or, let's be honest, now) when my brain is rotten and I can't remember what I've been doing with my life.

And then I regretted that I have not been updating it the last few months. Things have kept on happening with my training, and I'd hate for them to disappear in some dark, spider-web covered corner of my mind. Out of reach forever.

So I decided to try and start blogging regularly again. I'm not doing this for any reason other than to save my memories and share them with anyone who might be interested (that is, my mum and dad), but if you're curious enough about how slow I am these days or how painful my latest injury is, I hope you'll find my whining amusing.

First, a short summary of my training the last few months, just to catch you up. My self-diagnosed runner's knee might not be a runner's knee after all. Whatever it is, it doesn't let me run more than 20-22 km without complaining. I've also had some minor infections that have caused me to miss a lot of interval training. I don't feel I'm in a great shape right now, but I'm not too bad, either. So I'm curious to see how I perform when race season begins around April.

This morning I joined AIK for a run. Saturdays are usually long run days, but Sweden was going for a medal in the 30km cross-country skiing Olympics, and I think most of us wanted to come home early so that we'd see that (unfortunately, that medal never came). So, after warming up, we ran fast for 4,5 km, ending with a long upward slope. It has been a bad winter up North, with little snow and a lot of ice, and I struggled to stay on my feet while running downhill. Uphill it was a mental challenge to push myself, but I was quite happy with my overall performance given the shape I've been in. I averaged 4:50 min/km, a pace that felt comfortable without making me puke.

I left the others and ran home afterwards at a faster pace than I would have kept during a normal long run so that I would make it to the start of the skiing competition. I ”only” logged 17 km today, but let me let you in on my plans for this year. I'm going for continuity. I want to average 50-60 km per week, to build a good, stable base for the future, without succumbing to injuries. I have already reached that goal this week, so I'm satisfied. I'm trying to focus on the big picture, looking at week and month totals instead of individual runs.

Tomorrow, I am hoping to be able to go skiing. I haven't skied in weeks, not least because there is so little snow and so much ice this year. I am also hoping that Sweden will do better at the men's 50 km cross-country competition.

2013

Just when you thought that the blog was abandoned and you could sleep easy, here I am, wreaking havoc in your holiday planning with a long post about my 2013. For those of you who are already stressed out after Christmas, returning the sweater Aunt Ginger bought you (two sizes too large, is she trying to tell you something?) and spending hours on the StepMaster trying to burn those stubborn praline calories off your butt, the summary is this: it was a really good year. Now you can stop reading and go back to your post-holiday exhaustion.

For those of you gifted with extraordinary stamina and/or nagging curiosity, here follows a long account of what the fuss is all about. I can't promise you it will be worth your while, but then again, you can't find out unless you read it. If you start reading now, you might even be finished before the year is out!

I like challenges. I find it refreshing to throw in a little challenge in my life and try something new once in a while. I don't always succeed (I'm looking at you, Japanese lessons of 2005) but it's mostly good fun and I learn a lot in the process. I don't do it for anyone else's benefit than my own and for no nobler reason than because I feel like it. It gives me something to stress about on the weekends.

One challenge I embarked upon this year was the half Cannonball read. Read 26 books within a year and review them. It was the second year in a row I participated in the CR, but this year I completed the challenge as early as August, and went on to read several more books after that, albeit without reviewing them. Most of the books I read were crap, but there were some real gems in there.

Challenge number two was to write a novel in November. NaNoWriMo takes place once a year. Its basic premise is that you have to write 50.000 words within one month. They don't have to be good. They are just meant to get your creative juices flowing. I completed the challenge. The immense exhilaration I felt upon completion took me by surprise. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. I was so proud. Then people started asking me if they could read the book, and I realised that this book would never be read by anyone else but me. In its present, unedited form it is shite, and I have no intention of going back to edit it, mainly because I'm a lazy muppet but also because I don't think it can ever be good enough. I am still proud of it, but it's not the story I wanted to tell, just a story I had to write. This experience has been great. It showed me that, if I ever decide to put my mind to it, I could write a proper book, one that I will share with anyone who's interested. I would really love to do that.

And now, for the moment you have all been waiting for, since this is a training blog and all: How was 2013 training wise?

It started off amazingly well. I had Lapland Ultra in my sights. I had a training schedule I followed for several weeks without a hitch, and I dared to hope that maybe this time my body would be on my side. Unfortunately, it wasn't, and I suffered my first injury early on in the year: a strange, intense pain on the back of my right knee. I could hardly walk, let alone run. I let my dream of Lapland Ultra go. It felt okay to do so.

When I got back on track, I watched instead how my times in different distances got better and better. My training with AIK had done wonders. In May, I got to stand on the podium to receive a medal after Luleå half marathon. In August, I got first place in a local track race. The rest of the races I ran saw me climbing to positions I had never before thought possible.

In July, J and I spent a week in Hemavan. I was sorely untrained for the demanding terrain but still managed to log a very respectable total of 120 km running and hiking. The only downside to it all was an injured foot: I had managed to twist it during a trail run earlier that summer and it wouldn't heal for months. In fact, I am not sure it is healed even now. As long as I stay away from trails, it's fine. Hemavan was, of course, nothing but trails. My foot was a constant reminder of how easily things could go wrong.

And speaking of trails, one of the best experiences of 2013, hell, of my life, was Salomon trail Ultra in Umeå last September. The promised 48 km was ”only” 45,6, but the finish line was a sight for sore eyes. I had gotten myself a runner's knee somewhere around the 20^th kilometre but still stubbornly refused to drop out of the race and get my first DNF. It took me almost 6 hours, but I got to that finish line.

Achy knees have been my constant companion since then. Thankfully, I haven't had to take a complete break from running, but my long runs have suffered cutbacks. That is to say, I haven't run any long runs since the race. Maybe because of this, or maybe because of the terrible, grey, icy, snow-free winter we've been having up here, my motivation to get out and run has been non-existent (as evidenced by the extra couple of kilos that magically appeared on my thighs). Maybe I am just winding down for this year, basking in the good feeling of everything I have achieved.

And next year? The older I get, and the more experience from running I gather, the humbler I get and the more realistic my goals are. I become better and better aware of what my body can and cannot do. I become better at being patient. My focus next year will be to put down the foundations I will build upon in 2015. I will strive for continuity in my training, rather than progression towards a goal. I will strive for strength and variation. I hope that this strategy will keep me injury-free. It's about time I had an injury-free year, don't you think?

Salomon trail ultra in Umeå

Here I was, a few days ago, contemplating giving up on this blog entirely, because I felt I didn't have a story to tell any more. And then I went and entered an ultra race and found myself with a story to tell.

A lot of my training the last few months has been about speed. I have improved my times immensely, even climbing up to top-ten spots in local races. I did a few longer runs during the summer, but I didn't seem to have the same focus and motivation to run really far as I used to. Then I half-decided I would try to do Umemarathon in October.

That's when a couple of running buddies from the club asked me if I wanted to join them on a 48 km trail race in Umeå. ”No way!” I replied. ”I haven't trained for that”. ”Neither have we”, they said, and explained that this was to be an adventure, a day out in beautiful surroundings.

Despite my initial hesitation, a couple of days later my name was on the participants list and my stomach was so full of butterflies, I had to force my carbohydrate-rich food down.

On the day of the race I woke up at 03.20 and was unable to go back to sleep. My fellow adventurers picked me up around 6, and we drove on country roads bathed in a golden September morning light. Hunters were stationed by the road at places, holding their rifles in their lap and waiting for an unlucky moose to walk past, but the only moose we saw were the couple we almost ran over with the car. 

We gathered at what looked like a conference lodge, professional-looking, compression socks and buff-clad runners picking up their bibs and chatting. We got some information from the race organisers and then it was time to head down to the beach by lake Tavelsjö. That's where the start was. Excited and apprehensive at the same time, I tried to keep up with the long, snake-like line of runners rapidly disappearing before me but I knew I'd have to take it easy and save my strength. There were some nasty hills ahead. Not to mention several hours' worth of running.

Taking pictures while running can be hazardous to your health

The race took place mainly on the 39 km-long Tavelsjö trail, through birch and pine forest, first climbing up a few kilometres and then rolling down gently towards Umeå - although we all agreed that it certainly didn't feel like we were running downhill. The view over Tavelsjö was astounding and I was glad I had entered a race where I could take it easy and enjoy the scenery.

The trail was littered with large stones and roots at many places, and I countered that by running like a cat in a puddle of water. This put a lot of pressure on my left knee, which responded by sending me runner's knee signals. I got worried. I had only run about 20 km at this point. Was I going to have my first DNF? I walked a few steps, stretched and could continue without pain.

My knee kept on sending me signals whenever the trail got too technical or I had to run down a hill, but kept quiet otherwise. This gave me hope that I would be able to complete the race. I was getting really tired, though. I walked up hills and ran on the flat parts, chatting with my friends at times and keeping to myself at other times.

We noticed early on that the aid stations seemed to show up earlier than expected, and soon enough it was confirmed that the race was going to be shorter than 48 km. I didn't mind. After all, I wasn't trained for this, and with my knee playing up I'd only be too happy to let it rest a bit earlier. We reached the last aid station with only 9 km to go. We ate some chips and drank some Enervit before we continued. Our little group split up soon after that and it became a race to see which one among us would get to the finish line first (spoiler: it wasn't me).

Some of us ran elegantly and seemingly unhindered by fatigue. Others (me) had to struggle to keep upright and not start crawling. With 4 km to go, I did what I had successfully avoided doing during the first 42 km of the race: I set my foot down in an angle that made my old injury flare up again. There was even an ominous cracking sound. I limped up the slope, trying to shake it off. After a few minutes, I was good to go. I should really have someone look at that, I thought for the umpteenth time.

I had now entered Umeå and ran among houses and parks. Even here the organisers had (impressively enough) found real trail to run on, even if it meant running on a grass slope outside the cemetery. I could hear the speaker announcing that yet another runner had made it to the finish line, and I could hear the crowd applauding, but I was surrounded by trees I couldn't see past. The last kilometre was fuelled by sheer will power, since I seemed to have run out of carbohydrates long before that.

The finish line was now visible but there was one last hurdle: an upward slope. I forced my legs to keep moving and they responded well. This was not the part they had trouble with. After running upwards, I had to run downwards again towards the finish line, and my knee wasn't too happy about that. I ran in a zig-zag manner, which kind of seemed to work. I stumbled the last few steps to finish in just under 6 hours. Happy.

We celebrated later that evening with pizza and beer. I even managed to walk to the pizzeria without pain. I woke up this morning with sore muscles, but it wasn't too bad. I couldn't feel the 45,6 km, in other words. I had a blood blister on one toe but -other than that it did nothing to make my feet look prettier- it doesn't bother me.

My knee was, unfortunately, very stiff. Getting J to massage my thigh with the rolling pin hurt, which is yet another sign that this might be runner's knee. I will rest and stretch it and then try a shorter run towards the end of the week. Hope it goes well.

It's strange. Even if this is runner's knee, I don't regret running this race. It was such a wonderful experience, such a great adventure in the woods, the icing on the cake of a great running year.

Cannonball Read #26: The Ocean at the End of the Lake by Neil Gaiman

The Ocean at the End of the Lake was the last book I read to complete my half Cannonball Read, and I couldn't have picked a better book. But boy, is it ever a hard book to write a review of.

Let's get these two facts out of the way first: I don't usually enjoy Gaiman's work (heathen!). And: I loved this book. Was it a literary masterpiece? Was its plot original, more developed, deeper, more fascinating than all the other books I read these past few months? It's not important. Not right now, when I'm writing this review just a few minutes after I finished the book. What matters is this feeling.

Our narrator is a middle-aged man, heading back to his childhood home after a funeral without knowing why. While there, memories long forgotten start coming back to him. Difficult memories. Yet, beautiful in their own way. The lonely, friendless seven-year old version of our narrator goes through terrible loss, and he deals with it with some help from the neighbours down the lane, the Hempstocks: Old lady Hempstock (the grandmother), Ginnie (the mother) and Lettie (the eleven-year old daughter).

I don't want to reveal too much about the plot, because it is a short book and revealing more than the above would be spoiling the whole story. And it is frustrating, because I need to talk and think more about this book. Gaiman tackles some pretty serious issues, and he does it through the innocent eyes of a child, not a precocious child but a believable child, a frightened, vulnerable child. I found it refreshing to have a smart child that's not older than his years at the centre of a story. These serious issues could break anyone, let alone a little boy, but if you're a lonely boy with an over-active imagination you just might find a way to cope, and our narrator does.

The writing was beautiful and reminded me of a couple of my favourite authors at times, Stephen King (ca The Body/ Stand by me) and Terry Pratchett. Gaiman's descriptions of the environment were so vivid in detail, as honest as a childhood memory, and I nodded my head in recognition, remembering similar adventures I had embarked on as a child. Magic was at the core of the story. Magic in the descriptions, magic in childhood, magic in the way a desperate child thinks he or she can change the world if only he or she can wish it hard enough.

This book had so much heart, so much sorrow and sweetness. It is a book I will be revisiting and thinking about often.

Cannonball Read #25: The Dinner by Herman Koch

Disjointed. Unlikeable characters. Badly written.

So, Shaman, tell us what you really think about The Dinner by Herman Koch!

Two brothers and their wives meet up at a fancy restaurant to discuss a very important matter that has to do with their children. The narrator, one of the brothers, recounts the events that led up to this evening. These events are presented in a detached way, without emotion. Explanations are given, yet nobody is held accountable, let alone takes responsibility willingly. Still, every single person around that table should be stepping up to the plate.

The book is divided into sections named after the course the two couples are currently eating. This I found an annoying gimmick, especially because the dishes – otherwise completely irrelevant to the story – are presented in detail (something that has made me skip whole paragraphs when reading Game of Thrones). Maybe this was done on purpose, to irritate the reader and bring him or her closer to the state of mind of Paul, our narrator. By all appearances in a constant state of irritation and with a dangerously short fuse, he makes for a character that's hard to empathise with. His beliefs are at such odds with mine that I almost shuddered with distaste every time he talked about them. I suppose that, if there is one thing Koch succeeds in is to prove that, if you're not careful, you become the monster you detest.

Writing-wise I found the language too simplistic, although that might have depended on the translation. It was difficult at times to understand when the events described were taking place, as the story jumped from ”now” to ”two hours ago” to ”some months ago” to ”many years ago” in a disjointed, confusing manner. Some of the narrator's recollections seem to do little to add to the story except further irritate the reader.

The Dinner was a quick read and it did make me think, so it wasn't a complete waste of my time. But I enjoyed watching Carnage, a film with a similar premise, much more than this.

Cannonball Read #24: Señor Peregrino by Cecilia Samartin

A colleague lent me this book. It's important to write that, because it's not the kind of book I would have otherwise chosen to read. But, for me, the Cannonball Read has been an opportunity to try new genres. Broaden my literary horizons, so to speak.

Señor Peregrino is the story of Jamilet, a young Mexican woman carrying a secret. She was born with a birthmark over almost half her body, from her neck down to her knees. Jamilet is convinced that American doctors can perform miracles and remove the birthmark, so she takes herself over the border illegally and makes it to Los Angeles. There, she moves in with her aunt and soon enough she finds a job at a mental hospital, taking care of an older man (the titular Señor Peregrino) who refuses to leave his room. After a while, he starts telling her his story.

It's a common plot device. The archetypal old man tells a story so deep that it makes his captive audience go through a personal transformation. I kept trying to remember what film or what book it reminded me of. There's probably loads of them out there. As I turned the pages, I waited for some transformation to happen, something to explain what message this book was trying to convey, some pearls of wisdom. Unfortunately, unless I completely missed the point, this aha-moment never came.

Jamilet is an interesting character, at least to begin with. The burden she carries should be an excellent tool in the hands of the writer, her plight a chance for personal development and perhaps for rising above all fixation with appearances. Instead, we're led onto a different path, that of Señor Peregrino, and his fixation with beauty, with just a dash of desperate love. I found myself confused. I felt like there was supposed to be a meaning with the telling of his story, but the book read more like two separate stories that were only connected by a tentative professional relationship between Jamilet and Señor Peregrino. The word ”miracle” appears often, so perhaps we're meant to think that a miracle has occurred by the end of the novel, yet it is an underwhelming miracle, the personal transformation almost non-existent.

Señor Peregrino was not a bad book. It just left me wishing it had packed more of a punch.