Category: News

at least 14 trainings weekly 🙂

Everything fine,

Marius

over time. From the beginning until the end of the summer. As next years racing program will consist of races of importance early and late (Bislett Games the 11th of June) and the Olympics (very late in August)I need to find back to some of that. So I will follow that path and training philosophy even stricter. And when needed to, develop it further. It has been the way I have been working the last years also, but I still think there are elements that can be monitored and done even better in that particular process.

Some easy days of training now after a period of buildup. It is smart to throw in some micro-periodization even in this general buildup period. Point is ; adaption is the name of the game, no matter what part of the training year you are in. Just “going through the motions” every day will bring you results, but not optimal performances.

I had a very nice talk the other day with my former high school coach in the US, Mr.Joe Newton. A very charismatic, motivational coaching type that has been coaching high school running for over 40 years (!) Just an excellent coach. A prime example of a person that loves the sport and loves to work with the people involved in it. Just a few weeks ago, his team won the State Title (a big deal “over there”) once again, and they now have 23 titles I believe.

Many times I have more impressed with those kind of feats than of the super fast Kenyans I meet every winter in Kenya and in the Grand Prix races. Because many of those African runners have great genetic potential from the start of – and running is a part of making a living for the whole family ; survial really. In the US, you have a way different culture and just getting over 100 students from one single high school to run cross country every fall (and run tough work every day including weekends at 7 in the morning) is something special. I have not seen that kind of thing anywhere else. It is fun to see people who would NEVER have run around a track their whole life – run 25×400 meters and back-to-back hard workouts just because they are inspired to do so. Something to think about when people compain about how hard it is to motivate young Norwegians to start running : just give them a sense of meaning to it – the goals, team teams, the inspiration, the right kind of people and there is absolutely no reason why we cannot do the same here..

Marius

monitor very precisely how your body is progressing. The margines up there are much smaller, so if you need more rest, more endurance etc, you will get that idea much faster. Plus I have plenty of tests runs there and lots of people to train with.

The rest of the year is not planned yet. It will consist of altitude camps back-to-back of course but I am not sure when and where exectly yet. Either way, it will first be targeted for the Bislett Games that comes already the 11th of June. You have to be well prepared on home field.

Training runs have been going well lately. We have been blessed with a very mild fall here, so no snow yet ! Last year, we had the first heavy snow already in the middle-late October. So if it stays like this just another week or two I am more than happy. Tomorrow is another treadmill run. Some shorter intevalls but controlled intensity and progressive speeds. By “warming up” the system first you are sure not to build lactate acid this time a year. Later, once I am in good shape again, I will start at a speed much closer to ending speed. By that time your system will be 100 % ready for it 🙂

Marius

there – when the different events (middle and long distances for me) got together. As my former coach, Per Halle, was one of the quite good Norwegian runners in the 70s (running 13.27, and 7th at the 72 Olympics) I do know the training regime back then pretty well. In fact, the year before I ran 13.22 (dropping my personal best with huge margines very short time) a fair bit of inspiration and guidance came from Per himself plus his whole training diary from his career that I got into my hands at that time.

I do believe those runners back then did a great deal of good training. Proper mileage, proper intensity on most training and the right kind of attitude. So I enjoy listening to them. This weekend, one of them who has run 13.20 himself back in the 70s was at at the team gathering as a coach for one of the female athletes. He had some very good ideas and I like the stories from back then. Until I was once again reminded of the ignorance when it comes to running faster than the 13.20s……

Many runners in Norway (not to say the world, even without Africa) has run in the 13.20s in the 5000 meters. For myself also, I did so at the age of 21 on only a few months of correct long distance running. But if you look at between 13.10 and 13.20 you have very few in Norway (actually only myself and Are Nakkim at 13.19) and if you look at 13.00-13.10 there are not many on the list total outside of the African countries. The reason ? Because those seconds down from 13.20 – second by second is difficult to the extreme compared to those down to 13.20. Even dropping my Pr from 13.11 to 13.09 took a great deal of work, effort and clever training.

Then this runner from the great old school comes to his conclusion during parts of the discussion ; “If I only had the time to train, and recover like you have I am pretty sure I could have run 13.00….” That, only a few minutes after a speach on how he trained over 200 km weekly, even three times a day ! 🙂

Well, if I had only moved to Kenya at age 15 I am pretty sure I would have been a 12.40 runner as well..

Point is – it takes effort to run 13.20 but for a non-African to run faster, it is not enough to just have more time to rest and there you go. From 13.20 and downwards you have to challenge the whole system in a much greater way than what is normally possible by “just listening to your body and running 200 k weeks”. So many have tried that and so many have failed. Even though some probably had some of the physical talent to approach those times.

But those seconds down are rewarding. Because it shows you how close you are to your maximum performance. Where details and general ideas of training must be mixed together to brings optimal results.

Hopefully next year will bring some of those 🙂

Marius

junior) and have heard all the visions, plans and goals. Problem has been, that most have never been actually followed and evaluated afterwards – but only been replaced by even more visions and goals. Very unprofessional. Hopefully now they will find a way that they will stick to. Norwegian athletics needs a lift after years of poor performance. And predictability and an understanding of the raw preparations/performances needed to succeed from the central organization would at least be a good start to that.

I am also hoping that some of the old “drive” will come back during/through the new path. We saw some of it in February on the first team meeting under the new sports director, Tømmernes. He was headhunted from outside of the athletics system, which was a great way to break with the old pattern. Something happened from 2000 when old stars like the two Olympic Champions Rodal and Hattestad left the track arena for good. Something about the whole mentality. But, like I said, things have started to slowly turn in the right direction under the new system and I hope that trend will continue. And that the willingness for results and extraordinary solutions also sits central in the administration now.

We will finish up on Sunday. A nice break from the normal training. Everything is fine there and the trainings are progressing very well.

Marius

will be much easier to lift further.

The recovery tests I use are actually quite interesting. It is a combination of the tests on the most expensive “Polar” heartrate watch – where you measure heart rate variability beat by beat in a special pattern and personal experience. The combination of these factors makes it very easy to tell almost exactly how your body is responding to the training. If you are building or breaking down. If you are healthy and sick. Quite interesting, as it is always difficult to tell your exact body from just your subjective feeling. The more objective you can get – and at the same time accurate, the better. I believe in a few years, most top athletes will use resting parameters to tell where they are in their training – and make training even more dynamic based on these variations. Important to be a small step in front 🙂

All well,

Marius

“resting” runs, and instead running only 15-20 minute runs with fast strides. I picked it up from some of the sprinters and it certainly worked well compared to what most others are doing. The endurance will come slowly and grudually as long as the muscular system is working well.

I am very careful not to burn the system at this time. Therefore, all sessions are closely monitored – which is easy as I run all my quality session on the great Woodway treadmills at the Top Athletics Center. Like I have said before, there is no better thing than the treadmill for building endurance. As I test the progress very carefully I can see that it is much more potent in terms of pure endurance building than running outside. I suspect it is because you can keep a higher frequency at a lower lactate level. So I will continue to use it throughout the fall and winter.

From Oslo,

Marius

altitude camp is.

Not much is ready in terms of the organization yet. I am lucky to have good people around me to help me with those things and my manager Ståle Jan is in charge of that so that I can concentrate on the training progress.

This weekend I went to the Norwegian Championships in marathon – to watch and do some work for my sponsor, Puma. A quite nice event. They asked me to jog a 5 km race that was there as well. 18.05 🙂

I also had an interesting talk with one of the people who was involved with the race – and also works in the organization for long distance runners “Kondis”. I never stop being surprised about how easy people think long distance running at a high level is…. he could not understand why I would not just run a few 10 km now in around 30 minutes on the road during the fall. Not realizing, of course, what an effort it takes regardless of level, to run 30 minutes in the 10 km after a period of rest. I remember watching Olympic Kenyan champions struggle with that in January after several weeks of good training after a longer lay-off. And I remember how I did 31-32 minute 10 km races during one of my years in the USA – when I was 20. How hard it was, even though I trained 14 sessions weekly. The next year I did 13.22 in the 5000 meters on proper training….

Point is ; TRAINING is what makes the really good times. And even elite runners need training. And the better you are, the higher the drop in performance will be after a lay off. But of course – the higher the peak will be. With correct training, it is possible to progress, progress and progress months and months away. And that is the real aim. So I let myself heal very nicely now – to get up to a much higher level eventually.

All well from here,

Marius

At the moment I am running every other day for about 20 minutes at a time. 20 times with strides in the middle to keep the muscular system going.

Really now much new from here. Enjoying the last days of “summer” in Oslo before the fall weather 🙂

Marius

only 13.52.

I have been aware of Bekele for a few years now, after racing him in 2001 in a 3000 meter. He ran 7.30 for a new World junior world record and I did 7.40 for the Norwegian record in Brussels.

If he runs the 5000 meter it will be a great race. I still believe Chebii is just slightly faster in the finish (believe it or not) if he is healthy, but he has been having problems with a calf injury recently. Either way, the level on the long distances are better this year than in some time…

I am training every other day now, just to keep my body going abit. Doing strides and easy runs 🙂

Marius