Author: Marius

responds.

I did another track session today. Still not into the great post-altitude feeling. Two or three more days and I hope I will be there. Frank came back from Bolivia a bit before me, and got that feeling a bit later also. Maybe it is because of the high altitude of Bolivia.

Give me another week and I will be right up there 🙂

Marius

me, and pushed me through the session when I wanted to quit midways through. I am into the transition period after altitude, and it is not only a physical thing, but also a mental thing. You just do not “feel” like running hard 🙂 Sort of in a daze. But a few more days and I will be right up there again. I know these things so well now, and nothing comes as a surprise.

It is nice to be back in Norway again. After a almost a month in Bolivia and high altitude, you are looking forward to running up small hills without feeling like you are climbing mountains…. or walking up stairs without breathing with your whole stomach. Downhill is fine at altitude, flat running you get acclimatized to, but hills/stairs at altitude…a totally different story.. I did one hill session in La Paz and was gone the rest of the evening 🙂 Not recommended.

Some long, relaxing repeats tomorrow.

Marius

clear of snow and ice. No problem at all to do intervall and long runs outside now. So hopefully not much more treadmill running this year :))

It is great to be back, but very different. That is what is nice about going back and forth to Bolivia. You get the best of Norway and the best of Bolivia without getting tired of it…

All well,

Marius

(probably after seeing me run in the Park last week). So I started knocking off 60-61 laps at the extreme altitude of the La Paz track. To their great amazement 🙂

Two hours later we received a phone call from the chief of the hotel we are staying at : the professor that coaches the athletes on the track wanted a meeting. So in the evening he came and explained how impressed he had been with the running and wanted to know if I could share some of the work I was doing.

Usually I am very careful with giving out specifics. But here in Bolivia I can see a great need for it. Because, even though they know about the functions of the body, the practical part of training is done with very little knowledge of what is needed to perform top class. So I had to pull out my computer and show him in details how my work was set up. Otherwise it would have been too abstract and not for much help. I never do this normally, but these people work very hard to bring Bolivian athletics to a higher level and the resources (in terms of materials and knowledge) is very little. So I had to make an exception. He really appreciated it, and explained what the Bolivian athletes were doing. They are running enough mileage, but the total system is not strong enough to bring the athletes to top level. But with some modifications and new principles in there, I believe the Bolivians can perform excellent results. They have both the small body frame, large lungs, altitude adapted muscular system, (lactate) and high blood values. Perfect for long distance runners. So we will see.

All is still well here. Training hard and preparing a little bit for the travel home. Only 4 more days until I reach Norway again.

From La Paz,
Marius 🙂

workouts that I gave coach Frank a really, really hard time during one of the recoveries when he tried to talk to me. I am extremely focused while running. Afterwards I told him I was sorry, but he just said : ” Sometimes I am just a rock” Good answer 🙂

We are down in La Paz again. In a few days Eastern break starts down here. It will be interesting to experience that in such a different country. In general Bolivia is an intersting place to experience. It is as different as Kenya, but I like the atmosphere better. It suits me with a laid back, relaxed, clean atmosphere. It is exotic without being too different. People are private, but nice. Very imporant when you spend so much time on such a place. We will hang out with some of the local athletes during Eastern break. They will take us around and we are looking forward to that. Locals know all the little things better then us.

We are hanging in there. Very well trained at the moment. As Henrik said when looking down today : “Even my feet have lost weight” :)))))

All well from Bolivia and South America,

Marius

then the first) I could taste blood in my mouth on the first part of the runs, only to the forced to speed up on the second one. I really, really hope this makes me a better runner :))

Another strange experience yesterday. Bolivia almost has no good runners, but what movie do they show on prime TV in the evening ? The movie “Pre” about the American distance runner Steve Prefontaine. Dubbed in Bolivian-Spanish. A good movie, but why in the world did they show it down here ? Strange, strange world.

Time for the evening session.

🙂 Marius

middle period of the altitude stay. Now we get the full stress from the first acclimatization period. I slept over 12 hours last night and woke up tired 🙂 But it only lasts for a few days, and then I will be fine.

Marius

roadrunners that are good for 31-32 minutes 10km in altiude and they actually have some good races up here in La Paz. So they were doing a good workout but were quite surprised when I came(running an extremely hard session) passing them. I could see it in their eyes : ” I hope that guy is not training for the same races as we are” :))) At the end I had 10 of them just standing there looking..

The workout was up and down on a cliffarea in La Paz. Nice cinder, but extreme up and downhills. I was absolutely dying uphill and floating downhill. A great, great workout for the whole system.

Then we went to the track for the afternoon workout. Now we are getting to know many of the athletes and coaches. Good to get tips about La Paz from them. Our vocabulary is growing daily, and we are picking up little things all the time. Plus some of the Bolivian athletes are high class and know ok English.

We are leaving back to our camp now. With a taxi. Whatever a Taxi means down here. Yesterday a guy approached us and had about 40 Taxi-signs in his hands and asked if we wanted to buy one :)) Now we realize why about every other taxi breaks down here….

All well from here 🙂

Marius

same muscluar, external stress as sea level plus all the extra internal stress because of the altitude. Add to that great running conditions (nice, soft cinder) and climate, so that you end up adding work to each session. You end up as a very, very tired runner 🙂

But it feels nice afterwards, because you know you are working and progressing. I have the ability to absorb training extremely well. It is my strength. Therefore, the extra altitude stress does not break me down as with some other athletes. It only makes me better for each single session.

We are ready for some more track workouts next week. Hopefully the times will drop as much there as for the off-track work. The altitude of the track is also a bit lower then our training base.

All well from Bolivia,

Marius

workouts for Bolivian standard. Our many hard runs at this altitude on the track with extremely short recoveries. Followed by high,high speed sprints. It looks hard and it feels even harder.. Apparently they had not seen anything like that before, because today Channel 3, the largest TV channel in Bolivia suddenly appeared on the stadium to watch and interview us. Really, really strange….. through a translater they made a full interview with me and took several running shots in front of about 70 young Bolivian athletes who wondered what was going on (even though I was probably the one looking the most confused..) I am kind of used to situations like this in Norway, but in Bolivia ? No,no,no :))) We are 19 hours of flying time away from home, knowing almost no Spanish and at high altitude in the Andes mountains. And by no means prepared for a TV interview. After the interview, the Chief of the track came running over to us and through the translater explained that from now on we could even work out outside of training hours. Just give a time and they will open the gates to the huge stadium for us. Anytime, except between 13 and 14.30 during the day, because that is when the Bolivian President works out….:) So suddenly we got all the respect and attention. Really, really, really strange down here….but it gave us a good laugh.

Then it took about one hour and Channel 8 showed up, the competing channel to Channel 3 (!) They also wanted interviews, now with both Frank and myself. It was such a weird situation and Henrik and I had to sneak away for a bit just to laugh of the whole thing. It is just like Staale Jan, my manager likes to say : Attention is not something that is just there, it is something that is made. Apparently the workouts had made the word go around, because with our now 20 words of Spanish it does not give us much of a chance to communicate.

If things continue like this we will be back in Norway in no time…

Marius