Category: News

in Africa) and days trips – including Scandinavian tours. The city transforms to being a very busy place packed with tourists buying things and going to the nice restaurants here.

Training is progressing well with a fresh period from day 6 and onwards. But how well is hard to say as the mysterious 1000 meter up here still remains unsolved ; it has been used for a few years now but I have argued it to be a bit short as my float speed seems to be slower in the 1000 m. I do not float above 3.05-10/km and up there I could do so slightly at a “slower speed”. So after too many discussions we finally decided to measure it : first with a cyclecomputer then with a GPS. 40 meters difference… After many,many more debates we finally decided to close the matter once and for all. Got a 5 meter measuring equipment and used it to measure up a 50 meter rope. Before going up there and walk through it all meter for meter. It did not look very smart but anything to close a heated debate.. Unfortunately it proved way too short to Bjornars major frustration and in desperation he decided to control measure the rope. And yes, the 50 m rope had actually stretched itself during the actual measuring with 1,7 meters. The debate now is how much it streched how soon in the measuring. Next time I am bringing a measuring wheel to finally bring some peace in the house:)

Other than that, quiet and peaceful days but hard training. Weather is still nice here, dipping over 25 C yesterday which meant good over 30 in the fresh altitude sun. A great way to get into the Norwegian spring.

All well,
Marius

Norwegians. 1000 meters (well, Africa 1000s, you never know how long it actually is..) right up by the train tracks 5 minutes jog from where we stay. Normally one would expect that some time is needed between the travel and the hard training but the travel down here is close to perfect ; leaving from Oslo at 19 (7 pm) and landing in South Africa the next morning at 8.50 am. So you can do two good training both the day of leaving and arriving. With some good sleep on the place that leaves you pretty fresh for immediate hard sessions. It “feels” long to travel here but going to Portugal was actually much more “tiring” with getting up very early and missing training going down + home.

On the way here I met the former coach of 04 Olympic rowing champ Olaf Tufte, who is up in Belfast – 20 minutes drive from here training. Interesting talk with him, who is now a coach for the Olympic team “Olympiatoppen”. He came directly from China where he had checked the Olympic places, through Frankfurt so felt like he had been travelling forever. The rowers have been very successful through the years and have adopted a very aerobic training regime (mixed with bouts of harder training) with a supercomp in the summer for maximum peaking.

Today is day three up here so a bit more heavy (those natural variations almost always hit it..) but fine for some longer repeats that I did this morning. Going up to the small town north of Dullstrom where most of the workers live pluss some on the side of the road where you have the same nice,soft “vulcanic” mud that you have other places in Africa.

For a fun story on Africa and racing up here, click on the article below written by Olli Pekka, the coach up here 🙂 He is the one organizing things here but has also been a very successfull distance coach – coahing Carsten Joergensen to 2750s in the 10000 and European cross gold medal.

From Dullstrom!
Marius

the Norwegians down there have been good so hopefully it will be another good period of winter training. I like the timing as the spring is coming in full at the moment in Norway but still not 100 % clear in the forest. So some altitude, higher temps and really soft surface allthrough will be helpful this time a year also.

Heading for South Africa,
Marius

again.

That stay will hopefully bring the last little lift in performance before the spring tune in. So lots of base running and high end endurance sessions to make sure I am right where I should going into May.

Just a very brief update from here 🙂 Got to enjoy the Norwegian spring the few days I can..

From sunny Oslo,

Marius

through some checkpoints both on asphalt and in the forest to get a good idea of the actual pace. I am still feeling fresh in my legs a good indication that the training period has been successful. Much due to the nice training atmosphere around here plus intensity control all through.

Looking forward to some treadmill sessions again now to really get an idea of the shape. Then lots of rest 🙂

Off to Oslo again,

Marius

I have said before I really like the surface you can run on here. It is very compact and hard while at the same time soft enough to run alot. I run much better on harder surfaces (with no rolling stones on top/where I can really float) and this is perfect for this. For the remaining of the stay, the main goal is to keep the intensity and frequency of the trainings up so that I can rest alot when arriving back home again.

Most of the time here is training, relaxing by the pool and more relaxing.. But very social also, as the club Vidar has a good number of athletes both on the male and female side that participate in the Eastern training camps. This year even the sprinters (last year we were only distance runners) from the club. It adds to the nice training atmosphere 🙂

Well, time for some evening rest

Marius

long run yesterday totally sunburned so got to be careful 🙂 The morning run at around eight and the evening at 4.30 when it has cooled off abit. Now that the full group is here, plenty of people out on the long runs in all kinds of paces so no problem if you wish to run hard or just an easy stroll.

Jack Waitz joined the quality session yesterday and made sure the lactate meters etc. stayed in place while we were running. Great to have an insightful person around like that when you do sessions, makes you just a little more focused because you know the kind of level of training he knows about. Important to focus now. Like I have said before, the Eastern training camp is sort of a push into the spring training, as my January training camp is so to the winter. Without those two specific training camps the winter feels sort of “incomplete” in terms of motivation and training stress. Tried it before and it felt like the winter just “went by” 🙂

Some of the others are leaving for Sevilla tomorrow for a day trip. The rest of us will stay here for some more quality work – got to push on while you can..

From Portugal,

Marius

solo, with a babyjogger in front of him with all his stuff like tent etc (!) Interesting to get his view on running, it is totally different than what I am used to – but at the same time very goal oriented. You have to admire someone like that, not only for the joy of running that we both have but also for the patience it takes for such long journeys.

Training hard today plus yesterday. A couple of the intervall runs have been run on asphalt since Henrik is getting ready for them marathon. Fine for me, I like to mix it up a bit as long as the majority of the session is on soft cinder/mud.

I still enjoy the softness in the training paths you get here, in the small forest around here. The forest is not extremely bitg but I actually got lost in it yesterday doing an intervall session and ended with three more runs. I was never very good at orienteering..

Well, time for dinner now. Got to fill up the body after the hard training 😉

Pressing on,
Marius

ps : link to photoes on previous post now activated

just keep on going 🙂

100 meters outside of the hotel we are staying, there is a forest reserve on both sides of the road providing perfect soft surfaces all through. A mix of cinder and hard packed mud makes it very soft on the legs. It sort of reminds me of Italy last year where we had similar great running conditions. There, I managed to put in probably one of the most consistant training camps in the last few years due to the surface and good training temperature. Hopefully this will be the case this year also.

A huge group of Scandinavian runners will be down here. Just in our hotel we will be over 150 (!) Then there are other hotels with Norwegians around here plus groups from other nations. So it should be close to 250 runners in total. Quite different than Kenya, when I sometimes was the only white man within miles. But is is nice with some change sometimes. Plus, as in South Afria, the living conditions here are excellent. Adds to the total atmosphere..

We will be doing the first quality session down here today. About 15-20 of our group have arrived already, but about ten more will come Monday.

From Monte Gordo, Portugal!

Marius
Photolink should be activated later today

period of training. Plenty of chance for a good training lift when you are in such great training environment.

Soft surfaces, sun, good mileage, rest and 20-25 degrees..

Marius