Author: Marius

rested for a while, before doing the last part of the workout up again. Even then it felt great, after building speed going downhill. I have found so many great places to run here now, that running becomes a nice, comfortable routine. Just what you need to conserve energy though train hard through a long winter of altitude training. I will definately go back here next year also.

Briefly from Kenya, Marius

George. It is extremely green and nice there, and the area in the background is perfect for hill workouts on soft grass. The other clip is from a workout at the Platue in Eldoret, where you see myself and Josphat Boit doing lactate acid testing with Frank in between 1000 meter intervalls.

Not much new here. I can hardly feel the altitude, and training sessions are brisk. The only thing I need now is to get on some good track work to get used to the tartan again. The cinder tracks here are quite good, but the feeling of a regular tartan track is slightly different. But I will have plenty of time for that when I get back to Norway . Hopefully the snow will have gone away then.

From Kenya, Marius

them. So for the next 5 minutes, I found myself running through the mud, extremely wet and to the laugh of all the Kenyans with their umbrellas. Guess the rainseason came back and the mzungo did not expect it 🙂

But in the morning today, most of it had dried up, and it was no problem to run. It was actually better, because the roads were nice and soft. They say it will rain again this evening again, so I will soon head for the Supermarket and train before it starts again. My concept of rain and being wet for some reason changed yesterday….

I am training well. Sessions are abit faster and shorter, but I keep my general training principles never too far away. I think the timing is perfect for an altitude stay now. When I get back to Norway again, I can finally run in the forest reserves there on the soft cinder. Excellent for resitutition.

All well – Marius

Tomorrow, they show the London Marathon here – with Paul Tergat making a debute at the distance, so I want to watch that.

Then I also need some muscle treatment to soften up hard worked running muscles. I have a Kenyan in Eldoret I use for that, who helps the Kenyan runners avoid injuries. He is actually quite good, throught many hours of doing it (no schooling).

I am well into training now, after a week down here. My breathing is just as at sea level, the only real difference is that the pace I can train at is just slightly slower. But is is getting so close to regular sea level speed that it really is marginal. That is what happens with a string of stays in altitude – you adapt almost fully to it.

Time to go downtown to get some food. Being one of very few whites here, it used to feel sort of strange to walk around downtown here – it is a very crowded, noicy place (only one main street in Eldoret, even though it lives 800 000 people here). But now it is fine – you get used to being a mzungo 🙂

Marius

by Frank, to give me muscle treatment and fix things in general. So it will be absolutely no problem at all.

On Monday we went to the Clique here in Eldoret, to watch the Boston Marathon. They have a big TV screen there (the only one in Eldoret), and showed the race. The Kenyans watching were certain a Kenyan would win the mens race……but when the South Korean winner and the Ecuadorian Guerra pulled away the whole place got dead silent. Until a Kenyan athlete burst out in shock : “What ?? Not a Kenyan winning ? It is not possible….and not even an Ethiopian beating them ? Where did these mzungos come from ? The Kenyans must be very, very injured today….” :))

The mb.com webpage has been updated for the 2001 season. Check out the new competition schedules/world statistics for 2001 etc.etc. And also there are links to future championships below “sportserver” and “news links” at the top of the page.

Gotta go run now. Running conditions are beautiful. For some reason, the rain season stopped, and is is perfect to run. Hope it will last for another 2 weeks 🙂

Marius

at altitude) is like at sea level.

I feared the rainy season a bit before coming here – it started in late March. But it turned out to be just fine – it rains during the night only, and the air is nice and fresh on the morning run, plus the surface is perfectly soft.

The rest of the group were here when I came down, and the same relaxing feeling I usually have down here, was there immediately. Things do so slow in the daily life here, and you just kind of follow along….nothing like back home…

I am spacing some of the hard sessions a bit more now, as the quality of the sessions is higher the closer I get to racing. I have to be careful, so that the adaption to (more) faster work goes easily. But I think the perfect place to do this adaption is down here – on red hard packed mud roads, in 30 degrees C and lots of rest between the training…..

So everything well with me in Eldoret,

Marius

not as warm as in Kenya, and not as high (Sandefjord is right by the sea at 7 meters altitude 🙂 ) Plus no runners to train with. So I guess going down there is just a thing to do. And I will only stay for 2 weeks now. Then I will continue the altitude stay somewhere in Europe. Is it more convenient, as the season gets closer. Then I need some track work, and in Kenya the only tracks are in Nairobi.

I will bring with me some work, so that this web page is ready and fixed for a new season. By the visiting numbers, I can see that the season is getting closer. We have a monthly growth of around 20 %, which is nice. So far this year, we have had around 1 million hits, but we are getting close to half a million every month now.

Frank Evertsen left for Kenya yesterday. He wanted to check with Susanne and Henrik (he is the coach of both) that everything is ok. It should be – in their second year with altitude training, and a good system of testing, they are hitting the right intensity on almost all intervalls in a session.

Time for me to go. Have to remember everything for tomorrow 🙂

Marius

in a workout or two, but it has to be the right kind of tiredness (from hard but “right” training)- not simply running on a flat battery because you feel like you “need” to.

I am back in Sandefjord, my “hometown”, for Eastern break. So I am running the same paths and routes like I have been doing since I was a little kid. Quite nice……and fun to run them faster every year 🙂 I just wonder how many miles and hours I have spent in the forest area here….it is quite small, but has nice variety, and I have my regular 8/12/16 km routes to go on.

I have also planned Kenya trip III…..I will leave on this coming Friday, and down to Eldoret once again. The first week I will have Norwegians around me (Frank, Susanne, Henrik, Anita and Frank/Anitas children) …..but the second week I will be all by myself….but it will be fine, I have so many good Kenyan friends down there. It will just give me some real time to plan training, write articles and relax. Then I will be back in Norway in time to prepare for the season. I just feel like I finished the 2000 season, and the 2001 is soon coming up ! Guess it is because the Olympics were so late.

All well with me.

Marius

with comments made by myself. Hopefully it will give you even more insight into the training of world class athletes. That is the intension of the training corner, anyways.

All is still well. I am enjoying fast times in practice, and at the same time looking forward to going back to Kenya again. It has been raining alot lately, and I can just feel my thoughts bringing me back to sunny, quiet Kenya 🙂 But only a bit over a week now, and I will be down there.

All well, Marius

drops by almost 10 seconds at the same intensity (in just a little over 24 hours) and my lactic acid curve becomes almost “flat”. It is kind of fascinating how my body responds that way – all the processes in my body working the same way time after time. That also reminds me of how important periodization between hard work and easy work in the training is – your body is like a sophisticated computer. If you know how to work with it, it will give you great benefits and results back….if not, you only get errors and are stuck at the same place.

Before I have been in bed with the flu after altitude for 5 days….or training hard almost every day until day 15…..still it is the same – it just hits in and you feel nothing but great. Your muscles, your breathing, your lactate acid, your will to push. It sort of all comes together. I have talked to many other elite athletes, and they all say the same – they have their “special days”. Studies show that most athletes (about 80 % according to Popov) perform their best from day 15 to 21 after altitude. Pretty interesting.

I will leave for Kenya again in either about a week, or in about two weeks. Depends on what feedback I get from my body. I have the freedom to do so, and Frank Evertsen is sort of “stand by” to go whenever I feel ready 🙂

From Oslo,

Marius