Continuing on my bike in Österlen, Skåne and an Altra shoe test at home

More about the Altra shoe test below, but first a bit about the trail running in Österlen, Skåne. Now a few weeks ago, beginning of May, we were meant to travel to Lake District, England to run Silva 3 Great Lakeland, 3days. Unfortunately, like many other things this race was cancelled. This was the third time it was cancelled and we were prepared to travel over.

This time we couldn’t resist to stay away from running though, so we headed to south of Sweden (Österlen, Skåne) to enjoy a long weekend of running, camping and adventure. And wow, was it a great weekend. The “others” ran for 3 days, about 30-40K per day, as I can’t that far right now I joined them on my bike. In between all work, I’m trying to find the time to edit a movie from the trip. With drone clips and collective film clips from all, it’s going to be an epic movie, just like the trip.

Most of the time we ran different parts of Skåneleden (The Skåne trail) where the GAX ultra marathon goes. This for sure won’t be my first 100 miler, but a race I do want to complete one day. The Skåneleden was incredibly beautiful.

A trail run on Bogesund

A week after we got home, a few of us met up to run together again. This time home here in Stockholm. I was of course on the bike as normal. 😉 @Johan knows Bogesund well and had drawn a great loop where I could join. Check out his great post of Bogensundslandet and go out there for a run.

Can I come over to try some of your Altra shoes

@Jacob, a good friend from Trailrun4fun wanted to come over to try the latest Lone Peak. He’s been using the Lone Peak 4 earlier and thought it was time for an update and was sure he was going to like the new Altra Lone Peak 5. To his surprise, it’s not the shoe he chose to buy.

I’ve been using Altra Lone Peak since model 3. That means (Lone Peak 3, Lone Peak 3.5, Lone Peak 4, Lone Peak 4.5 and now Lone Peak 5) I’ve been using Altra Lone Peak for about the last 4 years. To my big surprise, the new latest Lone Peak feels different. In many ways it feels great, but its something that doesn’t feel the same. I’m not a particularly fan of the new back of the shoe and it feels wider over the top of the foot. We both debated what he should go for instead, and finally he ended up to buy the one trail running model from Altra that I don’t have. The Altra Timp.

Altra Timp 3, a shoe that with the new model 3 seems to be a mix between Altra Lone Peak and Altra Olympus. Slightly higher than Lone Peak, but still lighter in weight. I guess it was time for me to order that shoe as well. Will write a short review of the Altra Timp 3 when I get it. I did try the Altra Timp 2.5 but as I found it too small I sent it back and it was also too much like the Lone Peak that I already loved. Now when the Lone Peak feels different, perhaps the Timp 3 is my new favourite.

The latest Altra Olympus 4 feels fantastic as well, so I had to order another one of them as well but in a size smaller for the short runs. I normally use a size just too large for the shoes intended to use for a long time.

Other then my road and trail running shoes from Altra, I also have two casual shoes for every day use and I absolutely love them.

Training with Nordic Military Training

Now when I can’t run that far, it’s important that I still get the training done. Therefore I’ve chosen to join Team Nordic Trails “sister club”; Nordic Military Training (NMT). Nordic Military Training or NMT for short offer tough functional training. This means that we do some running, but mostly different kind of strength exercises. A great thing with NMT is the early morning sessions. Starting 6am 3days a week means I should have plenty of chance to become stronger.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure that this was something for me. I’m not strong, and I don’t enjoy strength exercise. But.. I think I have been wrong for years. The two sessions I’ve joined so far has been fun, challenging and really rewarding. With three different levels of seniority I quickly felt part of the team. Looking forward for many more sessions with Nordic Military Training.