Author: Marius

report is great weather and great training..

I have not been in the US since 2001 so I am looking forward to that. In 2001 I was over there, first in Utah then in Chicago, in the preparations for the 2001 World Championships. Before that I had a brief trip to the University of Indiana in 1999 to visit my college team over there.

Having spent two years of my (running 😉 ) life in the US coming back there is always something special. They say track/cross country is nothing compared to the big sports in the US in terms of popularity. But consider this ; the stats show almost 300.000 cross country runners in the US just from the age 14-18! Even with a country of 270 million or so, that is alot. Much, much higher ratio then in Norway and at least much higher than Kenya and Etiopia. So running has its own culture over there, the high school dual meets, state meets, the college leagues etc.

We have had milder weather recently so I have managed to log the mileage needed before going over there. But 25 degrees and sun will do it anyways..

Last update from Norway,

Marius

running quite easily on the treadmill today. Good to see that I am where I should the 1st of January. Very important break in training for me, now it is time to go to absolute maximum level of performance in the time to come!

Some photoes are out from the work, click below.

From Oslo, first test of 05

Marius

and the results showed clearly. The fall in one thing, what matters is if you manage to balance the highest possible training load plus the best rest possible from January until the season comes around. That is ; if you are in good enough shape in January to take the load you need at that time. You will never regret the work you manage to put down then. Things go automatic from April on onwards but in the winter (especially in Norway) you have to keep the focus all the time. I like to always stay one week behind during the winter training, just to keep the chase going..

Running conditions now are fair in Oslo. Nothing great, snow came down in loads again last week but you can run on the sidewalks. And we always have the treadmills 🙂 They even got a pair of new Woodways now at the top athletics center so that is nice. For a while now they were out of order so I had to run in the lab like you could see on some of the previous photoes.

Happy new year from Oslo!
Marius

no ice. So I did a faster steady run on one of the first days down here and a hill workout the other day. Quite nice after weeks on the treadmill. Then today the snow came down heavily again plus the temperature dropping below -5 C. Brr, time to go way south again soon!

The race calendar for next year is out now and it looks interesting. The Bislett Games will be as late as the 29th of July which is right before the World Champs in Helsinki. I am very happy with that, it means one peak of the year only. I cannot wait running on the new stadium. I have linked below to a site where you can see the progress of the work. They started tearing down the stadium this summer and are well underway already. I passed there very late at night right before Christmas and they were even working night shifts. I spoke to some of the workers and they were quite happy with the mild weather we have had recently plus ensured that the stadium would be ready on time..

Time for a very short run on/in the snow!

Marius

they have seen me run so many sessions throughout the years and know what to look for in my running. Below you find some photoes of it.

The rain has cleared the Sogsvann lake for snow now and this morning I did an easy run around there with a friend. Very nice to run on soft surfaces again after lots of icy asphalt running! Perfect timing, a period with those conditions will lift the shape further before the first training camp in January.

Pressing on!

Marius

have them watch the training. Maybe even my former coach Frank will show up if he is able to, it has been ages since last time he saw me run a session 🙂

All well from here,

Marius

Norway base training load on number of hours trained monthly while we runners base it on km weekly. So it was diffucult to answer the questions, other than the fact that in a year I cover the total distance from Norway to Beijing and a bit of the return trip also :))

I always wonder, though, why the focus is only on km and/or hours trained. It is no problem to do alot of either, it is just to do tons of alternative training and count long recoveries/warmups. What I aim for though, is to achieve the maximum tolerable load of the training seemingly optimal for the best racing performances. This, in turn, give you not only a challenge of counting the work done but also challenging your use of that particular time.

Now, this does mean training lots and lots of volume of running.. But it also mean high priorities of how you do this. And the more able you are making those right priorities the more you can train without getting injured plus the better results you will get both from the makup of the training itself and the continuity you get from staying injury free.

Looking forward to January and onwards when those things become top priority in my daily training !

Off for some classes,

Marius

later. Good with some variation.

The snow is melting around here now, making running conditions easier. So I have had some nice, longer runs recently to get some more km after a period of difficult, icy surfaces on the distance runs. But I will still stick to the treadmill abit.

My experience is that when you are not training at very top volume and intensity it does not matter that much with the variation of surface, location, speed (within reason). It is when you start hitting it hard you need a good variation between outside, inside, tradmill, road, long-short intervalls and periodization within and over the weeks. That is when you really have to show what you know about your own body and its reaction.

So for now, a treadmill session this evening 🙂

Marius

lactate meters. Plus, even with lactate meters athletes struggle with getting it right.

One of the main reasons for this (even if you have a lactate meter) is that when you go to a lab to take a “lactate profile test” your system is probably already working very early on the anaerobic system and the values you will get for the AT, will normally be anywhere from 3.5-5 mmol/l (the Germans use 4.0 almost exclusively for their athletes)

Problem is, at least from the experience I have made with it, that if you continue to train at this lactate intensity given to you in the lab you will continue to be stuck using the very low end aneerobic system instead of switching to using the aerobic on a higher end. So the point is, in order to get where you want to be you need to first dp training much lower than your measured lab AT, THEN the AT lactate on the next tests will adjust down to where you will continue to be over the next years.

You can see this clearly on my own tests also. The first test I did, as a 14 year old, my AT was well over 4.5 (and Vo2 max 63) Then it stayed right around 4.0 for six years all the way until I started adjusting everything down to where it “would be in three months”. On the next test I was over 1.0 mmol (Vo2 87) lower and have stayed there ever since.

For most, this pace will be around (in the wintertime, outside of the track) about 10 km pace plus 10 %. So that is a good way to start building it if access to lactate testing is limited..

Training is going well. I will be right where I want to be 01.Jan when I really start picking it up (or actually around the 10th this year, as I have exams to take care of first) The shape is not racing but good enough to deal with the hard training of January and onwards. I cannot wait!!! It is about time soon and I get more and more ready as time passes 🙂

Treadmill today. Henrik tried to get convince me to run at Frognerkilen but I feel for some indoor training.

Good training 🙂
Marius

“alot of athletes start training hard too soon after the season, before they are mentally ready”.

I could not agree more. There are two important points to this 1) the mental aspect. Even if you are hungry all year along, the attitude you get when you are always chasing new times (because you will be on a steady climb all prime training months along, instead of just as good shape in the autumn/fall as in the spring) cannot be relaced by the steady hard work. If you want exceptional results, you need an exceptional attitude – every single day of your prime training period.

Then you have the physical aspect. Training is really a matter of proper adaption. a) Proper, because you need to do things the most specific as possible. That means even within the running specific frame you need to make wise choices of that is proper. It may “feel” right on your muscular system to train alot at race pace – because you need to “get used to running on this kind of pace”, but on performance it can be a disaster because you do not get the proper internal adaption you need to really perform (like eg threshold running would on 5000 performance) b) Adaption because this is what brings your body to the next level of performance. If you are able to adapt, both mentally and physically all year that would have been great. But it is extremely difficult because you then tend to pleatue too early in the season and do not get the late winter “rush” you need to perform well in the spring transition going into the summer peaks. I like to always “feel like I am behind of the training scheduele, but not more than a week” 😉 That kind of attitude never lets of rest..

Training is going nice and steady at the moment. Because it has been very hard to run good sessions outside recently I have stayed at the treadmill at the top athletics center. Running a mix of longer and shorter intervalls nice and controlled. A little over a month and I will be going south for warm weather training again :))

From Oslo,
Marius