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