Weekly update, week 6 – Double up

My biggest test ever is quickly coming up and I am getting nervous. Am I strong enough? Will I be able to complete it? I better double up. I guess I have managed to do more than I hoped, but I lack elevation gain. It is hard though to get all the running and training in when one have a busy work life as well and when most of my running is in the forest, extending the time it takes to get the miles logged. This week I planned to run 2 session every day and we’ll see how that goes.

Monday – Trek to Everest base camp and TNT

I have a fantastic training machine in my living room, a Nordictrack x22i. On this I’m currently hiking along a series where they aim to hike all the way to Everest base camp. I have a secret (not so secret anymore) dream to test a race on Everest when I turn 50 and it’s good to see how it looks there while being back at home, slowly getting the training miles and vertical gains logged. This first sessions gave me 4k, and most hikes add up to between 2-300 meters of elevation gain.

During the evening I joined a Team Nordic Trail session, where I coached a great – short interval – session. Its very icy out in the forest right now, but despite me running to the wrong location in the forest, I managed to find a nice ice free trail, where the members could push them self a bit extra. 2x2min, and then 4x30sec with 30sec rest between. This we repeated until we had to find our way home in a nice cool down jog.

Tuesday – The great mornings in the hill

Tuesday mornings I normally experience out in the hill. This week was the same. Together with just two other runners this week I took it really easy. Due to new snow falling, and lots of ice on the ground I had to really take it easy not to fall. It would feel so sad to fall just a few weeks ahead of my next race. I thought this would be the last time in Väsjöbacken before the race in March, but now at the time of writing this post; I’m thinking that I can run a few more days and will most likely end up in the hill tomorrow morning as well. The evening was once again spent on a slow run on the treadmill.

Wednesday – Treadmill and a trail run

Starting early, I got another short upp hill run on the treadmill. The ifit series Trek to Base Camp is soon coming to an end, and we are running into base camp shortly. During the evening I joined a friend on a relaxing trail run where I tried to get further elevation in by finding most of the hills in the forest.

Thursday – Tread mill and a reflective run

Reflective run… trying to both find the next trees with reflective tape, while I also run alone this evening on the nice trail loop in Silverdal and reflect about my running, work and life in general. Like in so many times before, everything felt better after this run. This second run of the day was cold, windy and slippery… The first run on this Tuesday was a morning run on the treadmill

Friday – Hill running in Haga with blood

The weekend came quickly this week, and I was able to start the Friday with a great hill running session in Haga park. The Haga hill running session is always good fun as we try to find new trails up and down every time and mix it with some nice trail loops. This morning was as most runs this week extremely slippery… I’m so tired of this ice now and can’t wait for the summer week in Gran Canaria that is soon coming up. Once the morning running sessions was completed, I poped over to take a quick blood test. This is the second year in a row I take a blood test to have Werlabs analyse the results. I want to ensure that I’m getting my levels checked just to ensure my B12, Iron levels etc are ok now when I’m eating plant based / vegan food.

To get a double session in this Friday I ended the work week with a short run on the treadmill.

Saturday – I broke the double session streak

I had planned to run a long and hilly run this Saturday, but when asked to join the Team Nordic Trail long run sessions as coached, I of course accepted. We had a beautiful day out on the trails in Ekerö. This specific day, we had some new members and it was great to see them overcoming their own previous records. Once I continued the day with some chores at home, the day passed quickly and I didn’t prioritise a second run – instead I headed to the pub to meet a friend.

Sunday – 1,000m verts and a 8k run to close the week

This Sunday morning I joined another trail running group (Arduua), or sky running group as they call them self, and participated in their hill run training session. A good mix of up hill and down hill training. Boy have I missed the down hill runs. The last two months have been very slippery and I don’t feel I have been able to push it down hill for weeks and months now.

Today I could speed up on the down hill. We practiced to run quickly down hill and the Hammarbybacken had a great road on the back side that was ice free and very runnable. Lots of fun and I got both a good down hill practice, and another further 1,000m verts added to the the weekly running log. To round up the running log, and close the week on 90k, I manage to get Pamela out for a nice jog in Ursvik which like normal nowadays was extremely slippery.