Posts from the ‘Träning’ Category

Dreaming about Norseman

Our hero, Lisa Nordén, did it again! On Sweden’s annual sport’s gala yesterday, she hit a trippel whammy winning The Performance of the Year, Best Female Athlete and the Jerringprize. The last prize is one of the most coveted athletic prizes in Sweden, being awarded by the Swedish people in a telephone vote over several weeks. Triathlon is once again, it seems, a hot topic. So much so actually, that one considers a comeback. Ah, to be swimming, cycling and running to exhaustion again…

Lisa, Lisa, Lisa!!!

Even though we’ve dreamt of Marathon des Sables for very long, we’ve been glancing over at Norseman almost as long. The world’s toughest triathlon. Why we want to race it? Take a look at this video.

The Treadmill

One of the main characters in one of my favourite book series owns a pub outside of London called The Treadmill. If ever I fancied to open a pub of my own, that would be the name I’d use myself. It brings to mind a water wheel spinning endlessly in a river flowing lazily along the English countryside. A treadmill is also one of the most evil torturing devices known to man. A rubber band where you can essentially run as fast as you like without moving an inch in any direction. Read more

The physics of planning training

And as quickly as that, the training year has started again! The old kicked out and the new welcomed in again. January is a splendid month to start up new habits properly, and this time we thought we’d put our back into it and stop skipping training days. Five days of running and one day of strength combined with a job that keeps very irregular hours is pretty demanding. Read more

Modern art, slippery slopes and a renewed spot

When one lives in exile, it’s always lovely to have visits from the motherland. Jakob is particularly diligent and frequently comes north to Oslo to see that I won’t languish up here. Also, it’s much more fun to go out and run if you have company. New year’s eve saw us hurriedly run intervals past the hospital for 35 minutes, before we had to head back home and dress for dinner over at miss Stabæk’s and her boyfriend Munich’s house. It was a wonderful evening with a gigantic turkey, champagne by the barrel and loads of kids running around, some of which, strictly speaking, I have seldom seen with dry noses.

Merry New Year’s!

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Bambi, anyone?

Winter is a challenging season for runners, at least for those of us who love the soft feeling of the forest trails beneath our soles and despise the hard and monotonous thud-thud of the treadmill. Luckily, there are other options. Cross country skiing is supposed to be one of the best forms of cross training for runners, training not only one’s feet and legs, but also the upper body. And, in some cases, the balance. Ever since a close friend’s older sister shoved me down from balancing on a wooden fence as a kid, I’ve worked hard on improving my balance. Read more

Merry Christmas!

Mom’s gesture at 7 am this morning through the kitchen window said it all. A smile and a gentle tap to her forehead with her index finger. You guys are lunatics. But we’d like to maintain that there’s no better way to start a Christmas morning than with an early run, in some places shuffling through ankle-deep and untouched snow, down Järkholmsvägen that passes by the sea. In an hour, it will be time to sing in Christmas with my old choir, Gothenburg’s Boys Choir, in Kristus Konungens Church. And then, the holidays will have really started. Merry Christmas!

Looneys

The frosty-faced runner

OK, so it’s been a pretty busy week. Only one night on call (tonight), but full workdays and last-minute-christmas shopping has taken it’s toll. Christmas eve at mom’s and dad’s will be a sorely welcome respite. So, what have we been up to? Well, planning next year, of course, and trying to get some running done in between work and sleep. Our Danish coach Christian has generously been piling up the kilometres for us in our training programme, but despite our best efforts we sometimes miss some scheduled runs due to, simply, life intervening. This week has seen me lace up my shoes only thrice, and today’s long run had to be scratched in order to take a breather after a full workweek and prior to a whole night of work at the neonatal intensive care unit. Read more

Skiing season premiere

Finally!!! The powder premiere of the winter season 2012/2013! This weekend is spent combining the best of all worlds: family, friends, snow, skiing, leg training and good food. The thermometer keeps dipping below -15, and the wind is simply merciless on the mountain tip. And the snow just keeps on falling. Wonderful!

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Afraid of the dark

“I’m afraid of the dark”, exclaimed Marcus Torgeby, a high calibre ultra runner, once a promising star in the Swedish National Youth Running squad. It’s a perplexing statement coming from a man who’s just explaining to a packed auditorium that he spent four years living in a lavvu in the deep, dark forests of Jämtland. You are excused if you don’t know what a lavvu is, as the Sami population around 100 years ago stopped living in this rather temporary tent-like structure when they discovered the benefits of housing. And for those unfamiliar with the Swedish geography and ecology, Jämtland is like Belgium – if you just remove the population and cover it in a dense forest of evergreens. Astonishing when experienced with friends in a warm and cozy cottage, horrifying when experienced alone in a tent, one hour away from your nearest neighbor. Read more