The 13,5km or the 18,5km route? That was the question. When digging out the car out of the snow and ice at the airport car park last night at 11pm with -20 degrees outside - the fingers and toes freezing, cause the shoes and gloves that worked in Germany didn’t work in Finland - I opted in my mind for the shorter route. Today with the sun out and considerably warmer (-15 degrees) weather, it felt alright to go for the longer one. The snow crunching below the soles of the trail running shoes, the sweat turing to ice on the surface of the active wear running clothing. Below the BH-504 headset whole layers of ice formed gradually an icicle. I was hoping the headset won’t give up with all the sweat and ice under the hat, Rammstein provided a good beat. Fortunately it didn’t. Will be interesting to see how long it’ll last.
With all the calm surroundings, the snow nicely damping all noises, except of the Rammstein tune of course, it’s easy to let the thoughts go their own route. Already a while I was wondering, training in rather flat terrain on sea level, is there an inbuilt constraint to how good you can get? Every now and then I have a look at the altitude graph of the Polar training reports. As soon as I run somewhere else, the graph easily shows 50m, 80m or when in a really hilly area such as Arthur’s seat near Edinburgh, Scottland, 200m. But around here it’s a just above 30m altitude difference when intendedly doing hill runs, otherwise it’s barely 20m or so. There’s a lot of training happening during the normal basic runs, about 70 - 80% I’d say.
Then the other thing, when does altitude make a difference? Spend the week after Christmas in Ansbach, Germany. The place is almost 450m above sea level. I was totally worn out after two days of running. The fartlek with Stefano on the third was a total bummer. On the 6 min effort he showed me his back after 2 mins and showed me how it looks from a distance a minute later. Could it have to do with the fact that running on sea level just makes you lame?
Hm, for 2010, different running environments, just to get a good mix. There’s a new year’s resolution.
To all of you: of course the same, good running moments and that it brings you balance and works with your life style.
Tags: winter pictures
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