Ready, steady...?

How are the prospects just two days before Oslo marathon?

Against:

* Last weekends beer-drinking and wurst-eating in Germany.
* Aching body - hopefully just my angst, not anything physically.
* This time of the month.
* Never done it before.


Pro:

* I have actually been training 2-3 a week for the last five months. So if I am not 100 percent prepared, I am so prepared that I fully believe that I can manage this.

No longer crisis

Just before I was going to the Post office to ship my Polar watch away, I found out that maybe I should read the booklet that followed to see if it said anything about why the watch just stopped. Well..it did.

It didn´t say why the watch suddenly stopped, but obviously it happens (since they write a paragraph about it). So I just had to push all the buttons at the same time (not just one at a time which I had tried a few times), and reset. Voila!

Black Forest

Startet a little bit too late yesterday (how on earth does people manage to have long workouts earlier than 8pm? I need to eat before a long session, and I need to prepare my dinner and then wait at least one hour before I start. So in total it usually take 3 hours from when I go from work, until I am ready to go outside again).

Anyway - went up to Sognsvann, did 3 loops (approx. 10 K) and then ran home (approx. 5 K). Was nice to run without the watch, even though I approx 20 times wondered how much time I had spent.

Had one banana after those first 10 K, and that did good. Didn´t get tired or hungry or anything like that.

But - after a little while it got really dark. I had trouble to see where I was running, and that stopped me from going on a 4th loop. I saw a few people that had headlights, but I´m not sure if it is any comfort in running with that.

Watch-crisis

My Polar-watch retired on my Sognsvann-jog on Wednesday. It just stopped at 20 minutes, 21 seconds. I have realised now that I am a HR-watch-junkie: I am totally addicted to it.

So maybe it´s a good thing that it´s crashed, but still, I think I have to fix it before the race.

Northern run

Are in Tromsø for the weekend, and tried a little bit of the Midnight Sun Marathon - route. Maybe I should come here next June to have a go?

Well, we´ll first see how the half marathon in Oslo goes. Maybe I´ll just go back to my normal jogging-routine (max 30 minutes).

What else about Tromsø: The air is fresh, the mountains surrounding the little town is amazing and the sea breeze is wonderful.

In the dark

Suddenly is the autumn here, and when I went out at 8pm it was already getting dark. It was my last "long" run before the half marathon (17 K), and I should feel prepared now. I do think that I will manage the distance, but I still have a lot to go about the speed. Anyway - if I´ll do the half marathon in 2,5 hours, I´ll be happy.

When you run for two hours, your mind have a lot of time to wander. This is what I love about running, you can think of anything else but what you actually are doing. Although I have to admit that sometimes I get a little bit sweaty, tired or aching, so I start to think about running per se. Today I also got a little bit worried that I´ll get my period at October 1, which will make the event slighly more of a hassle. (Not to mention the pain). But as a girl with an optimistic mind, I soon thought of much nicer things.

Food, for example.

(And I realised that I was very hungry at least two times during my 2-hour-run. Once at 1 hour 10 minutes, and then again at 1 hour 45 minutes.)

In the valley

OK - two beers and two cigarettes and just 5 hours of sleep was probably not the best preparation for Sørkedalsløpet today. But what can a girl do?

It was sunny, kinda crowded and the valley showed it´s best side, so the best I could do was to stay cool and not run too fast. The forest trail was a little bit muddy, but the forest itself smelled and looked good.

And of course I ran too fast. My time was definately not of the best, but I know now that I can run with a high HR for quite some time. My max HR was 187 (96 percent) and my average at 177 (91 percent).

Shorty

Just a quick one to sort out my sore muscles after yesterday´s 14 K-mountain walk. Return Carl Berner along Ring 2. 24 minutes, 3,6 K, max 180, average 162. Nice temperature outside, but heartrates around 180 can´t happen on a longer run. That is just too much, and too tiring.

Fear of hights

I have been working too much this week (from 8.30 am to 12 pm) which makes it impossible to work out! It doesn´t give me much time with my friends either...so when a friend invited me to a cabin in the mountain this weekend, I gladly accepted.

We left Oslo Friday late afternoon, and drove for 2,5 hours. On Saturday morning we got up and drove to Gjendevatn. Then on the boat for 20 minutes to Memurubu, before climbing the mountain Besseggen.

It was quite a challenge given my fear of heights, but when I am able to focus solely on the mountain and climbing it without looking down at the same time - and down here means a few hundred meters straight down), it was a really nice trip.

We spent 6 hours, including probably one hour break and a few stops because of queing.

Today it´s time for a easy jog, just to be sure that Tuesday´s run won´t be any problem.