Enjoying the last few days here

Tomorrow will be the last full training day up here in Dullstrom, before returning to Norway for some useful rest after a period of very hard training.

I have done my best to get as many as possible high end quality sessions in here recently…

to ensure highest possible stress on the system before going home. Seems like it is working, it took me almost an hour to get out of bed this morning 🙂 That is how it should be at the end of these stays ; in control but ready for rest in the post-altitude period. Ask Henrik about those days in Kenya, when at the most extreme we could barely walk out of the door those last training days just waiting to rest on the plane and get home. Not from the very hard intensity (anaerobic work) but because of the total work load in a relative short period of time.

We still have great weather here 25-27 degrees C mid-day – cool in the morning, something that is nice but also important in terms of getting training done. Because the thunderstorms can be very dangerous up here. We had one a few days ago (in the evening only); you get the loud sirens going though the hills, warning people about going outside. Then, usually about half an hour later you can see thunder and lightening all over. Like the information paper we receive on arrival here says : “Please do not run outside during the thunderstorms. This is not a joke – it is not uncommon with deaths from lightening here”. Something a Norwegian orienteering athlete got en experience with a couple of weeks ago. Ignoring the sirens, just going for “a few more reps”, the thunderstorm came upon him suddenly and as he counted it coming closer, down from 4-3-2-1 seconds before lightening was all around him in the forest. So he dove down flat only to see lightening hit 20 meters in front of him. Better be careful 🙂

Nice weekend up here now – it is a typical weekend, holiday place so the streets are more crowded than usual with people arriving from the cities around. I can understand them, getting away from the hot, humid city areas up to cooler higher altitude with the fresh mountain air it can provide.

Well, time for another run 🙂

Marius