no surprise that they call it “hundewetter” in german. with this constant rain throughout the whole day, it’s just dog owners and their four legged dirt collectors out there. sand, mud and stuff from the streets up their legs until right below their snout. there’s a happy sofa owner when rover makes the direct leap from the front door onto the living room’s center piece.
went out with the stroller to show our little one the rough sides of life, running while getting soaking wet in 5 mins. she enjoyed it, looking mainly after the dogs and wondering why daddy looks like having a shower with all his clothes on. daddy himself was worryingly watching his new shoes turning from pure white over wet grey to dirty grey, that was it, the trial period’s over, the good new-shoe-feeling needs to be replaced with something else, or should i just clean them. hm, no, dirty running shoes are testimony of experience of many long km runs. no-one cleans his running shoes, the dirt just has to fall off.
the run itself was not great today. pushing and steering the stroller interferes a bit with running, especially when you try to stay clear of the majority of major rain puddles, but it’s ok on a shorter active rest run. all in all i’m damn satisfied having run at all.
the rough times have started, those when looking out of the office windows at 4pm results in a frown due to the rain drops that have dispersed themselves on the glass surface. sh…, it was supposed to be cloudy but not raining, the weather forecast let us down by a couple of hours, quiet inward swearing at the thought that it’s just a t-shirt in the running gear bag. will have to run faster to get and stay warm and to get back out of the rain again. or should we just call it off for today, could run more tomorrow. äh, no good idea, even more rain predicted for tomorrow. and after all it’s the beginning of september. if runs are cancelled because of some rain now, what will happen in november when it’s dark, around freezing and raining horizontally - definitely being called off then, so let’s have some more runs now. and off on the trail we are.
and see, see, yesterday’s lazyness paid off, good speed today. long stretches in sub 4:00 min/km speed, this is good, really good. and a lot of girls out there. hm, something to observe, i counted 22 female runners that came my way and only 14 male runners, could it be that the guys shun bad weather, and girls are just tougher? yes, yes, now remembering, there was something on the news about the military complaining that fewer and fewer young finnish males can do a proper cooper test (a 12 minute, go as far as you can test), hm, perhaps they should start recruiting girls soon. need to be further observed in the coming days and weeks.
tomorrow rather easy, 10-12k slow.
Tags: autumn rain, fast run
the second week was shorter than its plan, a bit of a short cut on sunday. there was quite a bit of fire wood lying around in the yard, had to be put in the shed. accidentially that replaced the long (>20km) run, huups. otherwise, the week went quite well. the 3×3km on monday were better than the last try 12 days ago, and the 8×1000m were close to the plan. next week they’re gonna be all 10.
week 3 is pretty much a copy of week 2 plan wise, the weather looks alright from wed onwards. should be alright. see you out there 
finally, it took quite a while to be able to run at marathon speed. if we break down the goal of the experiment, to run a marathon below 2:30, into nice and managable 1km segments, simple mathematics shows that each km needs to be run in 3:33 min. and finally that was achieved, today on the track during interval training. the first interval run in 3:25, the third in 3:33. the difference, during interval training you run it once and then have a 600m jog, during a marathon race you need to do it 42 times without any breaks. äsch, minor details, one shouldn’t get hung up on those…
the interval training went surprisingly well today, was it the sun and the mild 17 degrees celsius or a real improvement over last week? i like to think about it the latter way. but speed appears to be temperature dependent, or clothing dependent, or something. in the winter runs are slower. nja, ok that also could be because it’s damn dull to go out at 2 degrees with the rain blowing horizontally in your face, perhaps a contributing factor, too. but no prob this year, runner’s world has all the answers. ha, it’s just you who has to do ‘em.
tomorrow’s a nice day, 10k smooth and relaxed, yo, i dig it. i’m gonna drop the keyboard and leave at work at 4pm and catch some later afternoon sun, before rain showers draw over the finnish south coast. see ya out there.
bought new shoes a while ago, but didn’t find the right moment to start using them. it’s not so easy to switch shoes, there are switching cost involved, both emotional and rational. the old pair was serving me quite well and a bit of a harder sole just makes you run faster. but the top material gradually disappearing, revealing more and more of my socks to all fellow running buddies and the overall smell that can be mildly described as beyond muddy provided me with the subtle but inevitable indication to do the switch.
this new pair gets me quite excited, i run faster in them at least 10 sec per km, just by looking at them! all the other runners on the cycling pathways between helsinki and espoo will be blended of the bright white rays of light reflections while i swoosh by. actually the model is exactly the same, the adidas response, to be precise the adidas response 16, the current model is no 17, i guess, this is then last year’s model. whatever, the shoe price/value relation was alright, it has all the necessities a decent running shoe needs, good suspension in the back, solid material on the sole, some form of front and back foot division (here the torsion system), it’s not too heavy, looks ok and most important of all enough support and guidance for the foot. good to go for the next 2000 … 3000 or 4000 km. how long does a shoe actually last?
by the way, be aware that buying running shoes is quite an individual thing, you want to know a bit about your foot type, any pronation or other special requirements and you want to try them on. running shoes is an area where most expensive does not go in line with best shoe for you. i got always in trouble with nike shoes, too soft, too little support and guidance for the foot after a while, too much focus on the looks of their products.
and as proof point, we did quite well together today, the new shoes and me. a 3×3km fartlek was on the program today, intended in 11:30min each. they went in 11:20, 11:30 and 11:34min, decent stuff, although the polar footpod still most probably needs to be re-calibrated, one of the rational switching costs. i panted like a locomotive, but a friend who accidentally saw one of the efforts said it looked alight. puh, good, the looks are what matters.
Tags: adidas response 16, fartlek, new shoes, polar footpod
the olympics went away and micke-midlife appeared on the international running scene. away with all the clinical clean and analytically cool world record performances and hello to the sweaty flesh and blood training sessions squeezed in after work and before family time.
thinking about it, what were those olympic games in beijing anyway? they’re far from the original olympic idea, which is manifested in the link between sport and peace. originally there were no war activities allowed during the month of the olympic games. russia just rendered that aspect a joke when tanks moved in into georgia. the link between peace and sports also clearly connects sports and politics in the olympic games, the very core of this event that china several times stated that it wouldn’t exist and all participants should please only pay attention to the sports aspect. if you don’t the local police will “correct your behavior”.
moving on the to olympic creed, “the most important thing in the olympic games is not to win but to take part…”, lol (laughing out loud for all non-IM’er) there’s no time for anything else but the winner. do you still remember anyone second placed in beijing? the games just 6 days gone and top athletes already continued competing in major events - golden league, madison square garden, finland vs. sweden (eh, not so major) - and you really need to dig into the international press archives to remember.
some time ago the olympic commitee did away with the requirement that athletes need to be amateurs and not pros. when it all comes around this is irrelevant, it’s more relevant to rethink the selection of diciplines. let’s face it, the olympics are from a mainstream viewer point of view except for swimming and athletics either to some extent a freak show or second class. on the one hand there’s shooting with pistols and rifles or archery in zillion different flavors … or even better horse dressage … and then on the other side there’s football, boxing, baseball, basketball where the best of the best are nowhere to be seen, since the money keeps them in their respective leagues. the committee needs to do real strategy work and decide what they want to go for, either “mass market me too” or “even more freak show”. the latter would ensure sports innovation and ingenuity.
but the olympic committee most probably would need to be rejuvinated for such a move. meanwhile we see jacques rogge preferably looking after the athlete’s behavior post finish line and ordering them to behave correctly (see his comments after usain bolts 100m victory), who does mr rogge think he is. he definitely had too much of that chinese rice liquor with his committee buddies there.
most intimidating and actually in the end quite boring was the announced series of victories of super athletes such as the grinning fish mr. phelps. with clock work precision he swims from world record to world record without any other outcome than predicted, no surprises. if phelps had been a country, it would have come ranked 10th in the overall medal table.
finally doping, a topic that was a bit under the radar screen while the olympics were on. but no reports or no mass incidents doesn’t mean that it’s not there anymore. assume a leap advancement in the usage and substances and non-tracebility with laggarding methods would be the logicala consequence for a while. don’t know whether doping’s good or not for the sports, but the basic premise is and remains: there where’s (too) much at stake, there will always be methods used outside the rules.
nah, the credible real life heroes don’t seem to be those on TV anymore, too distant and unrealistic. it is more those who run around laajalahti between helsinki and espoo in the early autumn rain, the shorter ones with crooked legs, the longer beanlike ones with red noses, those who run out their stress or frustration from work and those who just want to catch some fresh air and a moment in their thoughts before turing home to their families.
one week down, 56 to go. with 88.5km overall distance this week has been a pretty good start into this episode one. the tough parts of the training program still turn out to be a wee bit challenging (the intervals marked in red above) , but over time we’ll get there. week two looks equally exciting.
fortsetzung folgt…
Tags: olympic creed, olympic games, rogge
damn, in this third week of harder training - yes, I started the training a bit earlier in order to think about this experiment and whether it makes sense at all (now having committed to it and one week later, i’m not quite sure it does) - the performance goes the other way than i’d like it to go. a couple of weeks back, i was able to run a whole 16,5 km in 4:05 min/km, now the 8km speedier part of the 14km run didn’t even go as fast and were on a 4:07 min/km average. the thighs still keep me remembering the 21km run on thursday.
runner’s world recommends in this case to slow down and rest… ha, they have not counted with the dedication and determination of our micke-midlife, no, no rest, yet, and hey, the girl on the picture in their article looks so eighties anyway. anyone could think the training theory might stem from the same times, too! update the pictures and we might start believing you again!
i sure can say, i don’t like it, at least not right now, interval training… it’s the killer for all john does who
suddenly mean serious running business. it’s the stuff that separates the wheat from the chaff, the real wolf from the disguised lambs, the tough guy from the mollycoddle…
the plan said today 10 x 1000m in 3:35min, actually it said it for yesterday. already when i spotted this on my weekly schedule i felt my lungs burst, my legs hurt, my mouth dry, had to get a beer from the fridge. fortunately work was busy yesterday and there was a slight opportunity of procrastination without too much bad conscience, so i clinged to it at once, didn’t need second thoughts.
the consequences today, already in the morning while opening the eyes, the whiteboard as cruel as ever still showing in big fat letters what was left out the day before. and as if the weather gods new, they wanted to provide their lesson too, rain over finland’s capital region. didn’t help but to go out and show them all what real john does are made of. the session went as anticipated, with all the above described implications. is it called torture as well when you do it to yourself?
after six runs it was over, the stomach, starting to turn itself upside-down in run 5 and 6 from about 800 m to the finish, indicated that a lot of coffee and a bottle of enery drink does not replace hours of sleep. although admiring girls as audience on the side of the track, standing there in awe and glaring at me everytime i sweep past-by dynamically like a tiger in one swoooosh, got me almost persuaded to continue. but after all 6 out of 10 is not bad and there should be some room to improve next time - the Jelena Issinbajewa principle. and then there appeared mums and dads and picked up their 7 - 10 year olds from their soccer training and I was pretty alone on the track…
what a better start for a running blog to write about beer and it’s consumption in the first episode. but, think about it, this is damn important. or not? so, try to live without it for a month…
beer is good for you, isn't it?
i did the 16k today always knowing that later in the evening there will be gratification, a nice cold oat soda, cerveza, barley pop, boredom-be-gone, loudmouth soup, real man’s zima, homer Juice, beeeeeer! whatever you want to call it. but then a thought struck me, like a first cloud on a sunny afternoon and you know there might be more beyond the horizong coming your way, “what about those calories?” yes, what about those? the brewery don’t mention them on the label, hm, they might know why… but on the other hand who would care about them in the moment of purchase?
looking at calorie tables we can guess that a 0.33l or just below 12floz bottle of beer has somewhere between 100 and 150 calories. with buring about 900 calories today in 70 minutes this translates into almost 8 minutes of a basic run. i can definitely handle that.
when googling sports and beer (in english), you mostly find links to non-alcoholic stuff or then to the term sports beer itself. when googling it in german, you get at least a popular-scientific reasoning why beer is a good sports drink. googling it in finnish… better don’t do it. tons of scientific research abstracts, helsinki university and such, that tell you how bad beer and alcohol in general is for the athlete. this seems to tell more about consumption habits than the actual effects of one bottle of beer a the end of the long and hard training day.
in the end the 6-pack might last a bit longer, or once in a while it’ll be a shandy (radler, alsterwasser) which is a mix of 50% beer and 50% sprite or 7-up, that’ll be diet sprite of course! but i think i won’t give up on beer completely.
training otherwise was good today, a basic run of 12 or more km, my standard loop (click on the picture to the right) is slightly more. weather conditions nearly perfect, 17-18 degrees celsius, cloudy, but no rain. now after the helsinki city marathon there are only few runners out there, ja, ja, only the tough ones continue into the fall and our micke-midlife definitely wants to be counted to those. had to hold me back several times not to over do it today, not to go too fast. the tough session is tomorrow.
fortsetzung folgt…
Tags: beer, beer and sports, calories, non-alcoholic beer, running
400 days is the time this running experiment is gonna last, starting from the 25.08.2008. It shouldn’t be life changing, but let’s see…
Tags: experiment, life changing, running blog
