Category: News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

treshold workouts I do – and I only do them at altitude and when I am fresh in my legs. After 60 minutes he dropped out and I finished by myself. But today, on a similar workout he was with me the whole way. So he is getting quickly used to the work.

He still has to build some more running muscles though. He is now 1.80 tall and 56 kg 🙂 I asked about his diet and it consisted of the following : breakfast tea with sugar, lunch ugali (packed maize) with some milk if avaliable, dinner ugali…. try that and run three workouts during the same day 🙂

I am now midway through the altitude stay and I am still feeling fine. I have had two really tough weeks here and will go easy the next one. I need it now to keep the system in balance. In the easy week I will focus more on speed, plyos and strength before going back to the hard distance work again.

You find some strange running examples here sometimes. The guard outside the hotel is one example. He works from 7 in the morning until 6 in the evening. He stands outside the hotel the whole day on his feet and have very little to eat and drink. His workout schedule ? Very simple : 32 km in the morning as hard as he can. 32 km in the evening as hard as he can. Every day… We have given him some guidance now so hopefully he will improve a bit. You need a LITTLE more system than that 🙂 Aneasy day or two for example…. or maybe some more speed work.. but it still says alot about the mental attitude. Go out and run. Simple as that.

Very easy workouts this evening in great weather here in Eldoret,

Marius

champ), Richard Limo (WC 2001), Moses Kiptanui, Benjamin Limo, Leah Malot etc. watching the races.

An interesting observation struck me as I watched the large field of Kenyans race the different races. Much more so than in for example college or high school races in the US you can see the how the difference in running economy determines the racers performance. In the Kenyan field, it seemed like almost the only difference between nr.10-20-30-40 etc was how he ran…Their bodies seemed to be made the same – with almost the same internal abilities, but the strides made all the difference between the runners. These similar internal abilities (blood oxygen transport/muscle fibres/lungs/light skeletal buildup) seems to me to be much more similar in the Kenyans than any other (mostly) homogenous group. So if you have a Kenyan with a great running stride, he will almost automatically run fast. That is not the way with mzungos…

All is going well here. Some days with beautiful, warm weather and great runs on the Platue above the city of Eldoret… :))

Marius