On Thursday I had the first indoor session of the year. Only some 200 meters but it was great to float around a real track again. The cinder track in Kenya is just not the same as feeling the tartan/indoor track under your feet 🙂 Your whole stride…
pattern seems so much more right on the track – especially for a runner who does the best running on hard surfaces like myself.
I will do a few more of those before I go back to Sandefjord for Christman break. A good, nice week of easy training before leaving for Kenya the 29th of December. Away from the freezing Norway..
All going well,
Marius
I am now going into a very good period after altitude that will consist of very hard work. Starting tomorrow, with a series of treadmill tests. I feel ready for it now. I like to run those tests on treadmills. It is a great way to control the…
factors around you and get the exact same conditions every time you do so.
Still very cold here. -12 degrees C today. I am sure I am ready for Kenya again in only a few more weeks 🙂 I cannot wait to go out in t-shirt and shorts down there… makes running so much easier.
Not much new other than that. More news when the hard training gets going again 🙂
Marius
I have (once again) been experiencing the rollercoaster feeling you get after the arrival to sea level post-altitude. Some days you feel great, some days you feel lousy. And to sum it up – you just know that you have to keep your head cool until…
your body is stable enough to absorb the training again. I have done so much good training so far this year and there is no need to push it through this period.
Even the Kenyans, even those who have lived at high altitude for all their lives get this down when they first go to Europe and sea level. Really strange. But you get a great lift after that. Where you feel that you can run hard every day, twice a day 🙂
Very easy session of intervalls on the treadmill this morning. Only 12 km total intervall distance at a comfortable pace. Low AT zone. I have to keep my legs going and get some breathing in there just to keep the system happy. Motto is to do as little as possible without losing condition.
All going well here in Norway !
Marius
I came back again to Oslo again on Wednesday after a five week long altitude stay in Eldoret.
Hard running conditions here. Ranging from 0 to -6 degrees C and snow. So you have to be really careful not to get injured or sick during this big…
change of temperature and surface.
I will take it very easy for the first few days and start the hard work on Monday. You should not challenge your body until you are ready to go again.
16 km run this morning around the soccer field by the Sognsvann lake 🙂
Marius
I got an email from coach Newton at York high school today and also another email that illustrated the many great coaches that have followed me throughout the career. I believe not many athletes have have been as lucky as I have ;
From age…
13-17 and 20-21(22) (13.22 5000m) Per Halle, 7th in the 72 Olympics, 13.27 5000 meter former 10000 meter Norw.rercord holder. Also coached another Olympic athlete from stratch.
From 17-18 Mr.Joe Newton, York High School USA. Incredible success in high school/US. USA Olympic Coach 1988 and one of my main inspirations in life and as a runner.
From 18-19 and as an important adviser since Mr.Peter Coe. Father of former World Record holder Sebastian Coe (WR 800/1000/mile) Structured, hard intervalls and all around running. No limits.
From 19-20 Coach Sam Bell at Indiana University. Coach of Bob Kennedy for many years before his 12.58 to be the first caucasian under 13 minutes in the 5000 meters. Helped me realize the possibilities.
From 21 (22)-24 Frank Evertsen. Doctorate work in lactate treshold training. Brought my training to a new level through the contact with Kenyan athletes and altitude training. Made me realize that special results needs special work.
From 24 Eystein Enoksen. Doctorate work in the coaching role. Great knowledge and personal abilities to bring my running to another level. Comes from the middle distances and will bring his special elements into the training regime.
I have been lucky on the way. Nice to think about when your body feels much less than lucky after 5 weeks of hard training down (up)here :)))
From Kenya,
Marius
Not many people are aware of it, but the Kenyans actually use altitude training quite systematic as well. Not only are they born at altitude, but they like to go higher (like I do) during much of the preparation period. Then, they leave from the…
Eldoret areas around 2000 moh (1800-2000m) and go to what they call ”high altitude” which is 2400 to 2600 meters. 90 % of the Kenya elite runners follow this pattern and leave there in late November (to “camp”) and stay until the spring before they go down again to either sea level or 1800-2000 meters (Eldoret/StMoritz/Nairobi etc)
The other day we met a 10000 meter runner at the Kipchoge Stadium and he was quite surprised to meet us there. He just commented : what are you doing in Eldoret ? Why are you not at ”high altitude” ? 🙂
I believe the Kenyans have understood two important things with distance running : you cannot reach your full potensial without altitude training and you should run hard, but controlled hard (anaerobic treshold training ) with lots of volume (high mileage). It is as easy as that. Add in some (very good) talent and there you go !
All is going well here. Great training session this morning with 2000 meter repeats !
From Eldoret,
Marius
There has been a series of newspaper articles in Norway lately around a TV program in the Norwegian Channel 2 on Wednesday. As I understand it they indirectly accused the Norwegian skiers to be involved with suspecious use of medicines/doping in the…
early 90s. Now it turns out that the accusations were plain wrongful and based on facts that were totally mixed up. This has been proven and the TV channel has apologized the program. But to illustrate what damage they have done:
They have hurt Norwegian skiing reputation badly. So badly that even in Kenya, the newspapers are writing about Norwegian winter athletes being accused for doping. The Daily Nation, one of three nationwide newspapers down here had an article about it. Imagine it : In a country that has never had snow. You can read these things. Even up in Eldoret, a remote place in Africa. Where skiing and even Norway are words that you would never find in the newspapers. And not only that ; they wrote about the scandal and doping yesterday. Today you don’t find a single line about the TV channel admitting the enourmous mistake. When you see that, you understand how impossible it is to take back the written word and ”make up” for the damage. I hope the people involved considered this before they aired the program..
All is still well here. Nice, short tracksession this morning. Just to get some tension in sore and tired legs at the end of a long altitude stay 🙂
Marius
I am working my way through the last part of the altitude stay now and I am very pleased with the progress so far. Lots of good quality mileage. I hope this long altitude stay early will bring me to a new level of training in January….
Usually I start the really hard training a bit later. But with the great atmosphere down here it is possible to do the fall training you need away from snow and rain back home. It gives you a jump start to the winter season.
Not much happening in Eldoret at the moment. Except the Somali peace conference which is right next to our hotel. 34 klans trying to solve the conflicts and wars that have been going on for years. Not very easy. We talked to one of the peaceleaders of the conference and he told us that 4 different people had already presented themselves as the President of Somalia 🙂
All well here!
Marius
After an easy long training run this morning we went out to Kapsabet and stayed there for the rest of the day. We have some Kenyan friends out there so they invited us for a real Kenyan Sunday dinner. They had built a special eating cabin in the…
garden, about one meter off the ground. From there you could see the valley and enjoy the nice breeze from outside. A great and relaxing evening and a nice change from breast of chicken steak and ugali from the hotel…
Which I needed….because tomorrow is the start of a hard training week again. I am tired from the weeks at altitude but I feel ready. I just have to work my way through and usually I start to feel really fresh by the middle of the hard week. I have to say – with the weather back in Norway now, it is much easier to do hard work down here.
Quote of the day : (taxi driver in huge jacket) “How do you handle the very cold weather here?” 🙂
All well,
Marius
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 🙂
All is going well. I hear it is 2 inches of snow and –8 degrees in Oslo..
Marius
