Author: Marius

Kenya, the running paths of Bolivia (plus the hills there) and the living standard of St Moritz. So I like it so far 🙂

There are plenty of other athletes here also. Among them five other Norwegians and Finnish+Swedish athletes.

This evening is a longer run. Probably stretching up a bit higher. I like the first part of stays at new places, when you can explore and find all the new running routes. I already know where to run my intervalls (did one yesterday) and am now just finding out the different other possibilities.

Yesterdays session was going quite well. I could push allthroughout the session and the heartrate and lactate matched like it should. A very important indicator that everything is going well. So I came back again very, very tired but in a good way 🙂 Those sessions is what you strive for as an athlete. When the muscular chemestry is working so well that you are able to push really, really hard but still keep going….

Time for lunch,

Marius

very laid back. A really great change from Norway :))

Most of the training is done on the endless grass paths and fields around. In many ways it reminds me of my time in the US. The weather (hot and humid), the city structure (houses, streets looks alot like the US) and the campus where I do my runs (part of Univ.of Pretoria). So I get these flashbacks to the wonderful time in particular while training in high school in the Chicago area. A good motivation 🙂

I had a hard training this morning and will do another one this evening. Same as two days ago. Then I was doing a hard AT session in the morning and a training with shorter intervalls with the 400 m sprinters in the evening. They have these grass 400 m. tracks here, so I was running in lane 4-5 while they were doing it in lane 1 and 2. When they get very short recoveries (they were doing it for endurance and muscle recovery) then it works very nicely to run it together.

From South Africa !

Marius

Pretoria,

All well 🙂

Marius

fast evening sessions down by “Frognerkilen”, a 2-3 km long stretch by the Oslo harbour for some variation. If you have snow and ice other places, this place may still be nice to run on. I will try and combine those sessions with the trainings of the club Vidar, where my friend Henrik is training.

I cannot wait to get to a warmer place now. Even though the stay will be somewhat shorter than I normally would stay. They say that Pretoria will be hot this time a year – but so will Athens :))) No problem. Since spending hours running hard in 35-40 degrees C in Chicago and Indiana as a young runner heat has never bothered me much. Plus the training stays in Kenya has helped too. Sort of like altitude – once your body gets a hang of it, it is fine for the next times also 🙂

Time for the morning training,

Marius

bit outside for the rest. In Pretoria, there will be a good group of sprinters (John Ertzgaard 20.47 200m etc) that I know well from before. Plus their coach, Leif Olav Alnes will be there – and he has been very helpful with training ideas and methods that has also influenced my training since the 2000 season. I am really looking forward to it – they have a strong and tough training mentality. Hard, intelligent work all through. Which brings the right kind of atmosphere during such a camp.

Training conditions have been a bit up and down here recently because of snow on top of ice. Combined with around zero degrees celsius.. hard to run moderatly fast even on the longer runs. So I am sticking to the treadmill even more now. It is good for both frequency and intensity so no problem at all.

Tomorrow is an easy day of training before going hard again on Sunday. Because it is post-altitude training I am very careful to run the training sessions on particular days/periods so the training week (in terms of day/quality sessions) vary quite a bit.

All well from here !

Marius

temperatures, the hills and the quitness for recovery made it possible to work just that bit harder on each workout.

In the future when I go to Kenya this will probably be my training base. After staying for almost a year of my life in Eldoret, it is good with some change :))

The rest of this training week will be easy before going into a hard period of training after that. When things are on the way up, it is important to use that feeling to build endurance as much as possible this time a year. So that will be the main focus – hard, hard treadmill sessions – with short recoveries and variation of distance. Hopefully this will give another lift, as the stimuli will be different than in Kenya at altitude. Your body adapts very good and quickly to new things, and the change both in weather, running surface and altitude brings you into a totally different “zone of training” even though the aim is the same. Then, going back again to altitude after some time gives you another lift etc. It is very close to what I did in 2001, after spending 2000 working on the ideas together with my former coach Frank. We definately were on the right track and I hope to develop this even further this year. And so far it looks like its working 🙂

From Oslo and the Norwegian winter,

Marius

satisfied with the results so the quietness and atmosphere up there must have worked positively. Plenty of rest, plenty of good people to train with and in general just plenty of good, old Kenya…

“Mzungo, mzungo!”

Marius

signals for the remaining part also – that your body is ready now. All the factors added together, such as times, recovery, sleep and general well being put together gives you a good view of the situation 🙂

I hear we have some snow in Norway now. So I just managed to get out of the country in time. Just like last year, but then it was already in October.

All well from Kenya !

Marius

it is higher in altitude than I normally stay in Kenya.

from Oslo airport,

Marius

know exactly how to do it – based on the last years experience with altitude and Kenya in particular. Most will be based on the training principles put together in 2000-2001, but also expanded with some new elements that I look forward to trying.

I will be met in Nairobi by one of my Kenya friends, Philemon. Then we will stay overnight there, do a couple of training session before flying up to Eldoret. Where I will probably be one of very few mzungos around, as we do not travel as a big group of runners this year. But that will be fine, I like training and hanging out with the Kenyans.

A happy new year to all of you !

Marius