8 weeks of great training

I have started the trainingyear with 8 weeks of very, very hard consistant training. I have adjusted those things that went wrong last year and the result is a training plan harder and more complete than ever before. It will be an interesting year…

of training. More and longer altitude stays. More demanding training. I take what I did in traning before my 2001 season (which was extremely hard) and develop it further. Therefore we take what worked good and try to make it even better. The last 8 weeks shows that this plan has worked perfect so far. To reach world class in running you have no time to rest. Simple as that. You cannot be afraid of doing the work neccessary because hundreds of others are willing to do it also. Margins are 1 –1.5 % from success to failure.

I am running less mileage this week and have had some very easy sessions compared to the hard weeks. Nice to recover. I have been here three weeks now and this easy period comes right in the middle of the heavy middle part of the altitude stay. I am expecting a new lift in fitness and subjective feeling by next week. It is good to know exactly how your rythms are at altitude. In that way you are not afraid to take it easy when you need it and work hard when you are ready for that.

I saw a comment on another running webpage the other day about the Kenyan cross country series and that the price money was “only” about 12000 US $. It might not seem like a whole lot…Well…..but this is Kenya. In TWO lifetimes the average earning is 12 000 US $ :)) I bet you any Kenyan would run hard to get his hands on that kind of money. To illustrate the costs to live down here : the other day I helped a Kenyan friend build a house. We got some timber, rented three (old) donkeys to transport it and five men to build it. Two days later and 100 US $ the house was ready. Point is : with the great climate and cheap food, you don’t need a whole lot to survive down here πŸ™‚

All is going well. I hear it is 2 inches of snow and –8 degrees in Oslo..

Marius