Always Trust the Norwegian Weather Forecast

Thundering down Manhattan’s 1st Avenue was fabulous. Tip-toeing through Forêt domainale du Flavigny was amazing. Sweatily climbing Joua Baba Ali Jebel was absolutely breathtaking. But there is a certain something about running in familiar surroundings at home. A few days ago, Jakob picked me up at 07.00 and together we drove to Skatås in good old Göteborg. Last night the forecast on yr.no had promised several centimetres of snowfall for this morning, prompting Jakob to enthusiastically set an early wake-up call for today. But slowing the car down on the black, glistening asphalt of the parking lot by the Skatås gym, we were disappointed. Not a single speck of snow on the ground and not even a whiff of snow flakes in the air. Shrugging as if to say say that Norwegian websites are what they are, Jakob picked up his backpack and led the way down the wooden stairs to the huge digital clock where all of the trails start. I started my Suunto with a beep, and off we went along the lit 5k-trail, heading for the first turnoff of the 10k. Taking it deliberately slow and talking about this and that, we finally found the black-and-white diamond marking the 18k-trail in among the trees. I don’t know if I’ve told you, but I simply LOVE forest trails. I know I have. Told you, that is. Probably a thousand times. Well, you’ll be hearing it a lot more. This is our blog, after all.

It’s SNOWING!!!

Leaving the generously lit path of the 5k for the dark 18k trail, I reached up to the headlight parked on my forehead, turned the switch on and suddenly the impenetrable darkness melted away on each side of the penetrating cold light of the beam. And suddenly, out of the blue – well, out of the black – sky, it started snowing! Softly at first and then more heavily as we ran along. I caught myself, not for the first time, grinning like a fool. Joua Ali Baba Jebel indeed. I don’t suppose the trails deep within the woods had been warmed by plus degrees for many minutes during the last couple of weeks, and sure enough, on several of our climbs we had to slow to a walk in order to carefully step around small, frozen waterfalls of ice. Soon enough, though, everything was covered in a soft powder of newly fallen snow. It felt like the lamp post on the other side of the moth-eaten furs in the wardrobe would turn up at any minute, with the faun Tumnus by its side. It’s always a great pleasure running with Jakob. The topics are varying and endless, giving us as much training as intervals since both of us are normally babbling on incessantly. We covered everything from Thomas Aquinas and Saint Nicholas (the saint of the previous day, Jakob’s birthday) to a possible coach for UT du Mont Blanc.

Since I long ago had stopped paying proper attention to where my feet were landing, the slip caught me completely by surprise. Hidden beneath a soft coating of powdery snow a devilishly wet patch of ice had attacked me without warning and I’ll be honest with you, Donald Duck and Goofy would have been proud of the way both my feet swung high up in the air simultaneously leaving me no choice but to break the fall with my left elbow. Crack. Wonderful. It sure is lucky no annoying nerve ends run along the joint. The hard end of my elbow exploded in pain. Twisting it around and bending it, it didn’t seem broken. Still, all of my 72 kg had landed right on it. I pulled myself up by the birch sapling standing right next to me, and we started off again. The snowfall had increased and was lashing our faces as we emerged from the trail onto a wider gravel road. Ah, this is life, I remember I thought. We had turned off our lamps a while back, the snow on the ground and the increasingly stronger morning sun illuminating our way. Even so, fifteen minutes later I managed to miss an icy spot again and went all Goofy on it. This time my knee took the brunt of the fall, ripping a pretty little hole in the fabric of my borrowed running tights. Sorry dad! We set off again, but five minutes later it was Jakob’s turn. I don’t think I have ever seen Jakob’s feet so far above his head before. Not even when I saw him break his nose in a Bydalen skiing slope almost 20 years ago. He seriously looked like a U2 bomber coming in for landing, ending in a noisy crash between two tree roots by the trail. It looks hilarious when you’re an observer instead of an observee. Oh, I think I just made a word up. Observee? Does that even exist?

When we finally emerged from among the trees by the big digital clock, we were bruised and sore all over, but otherwise OK. There’s nothing like risking your life among the familiar trees of your backyard. And the breakfast? D-licious!

From black to white in two hours.

New York City Marathon 2013 – Race Report

A soft humming fills my ears.

Is there a chopper hovering nearby? I turn my head to the left, gazing south along East River and trying to establish exactly how far I have run since Staten Island. The view from Queensboro Bridge is one that brings classic movies to life. Everyone has a relationship with the New York skyline, regardless if they’ve been here or not and I can easily make out the Empire State Building in Midtown from here. I have only just left New York’s third borough Queens (as in the Queen’s Athletic Club) and am already passing above Roosevelt Island whose shiny read cable car I can see when I turn my head the other way, north and to the right.

The humming slowly grows stronger.

What is that sound? A swarm of mosquitoes? My head swivels forward again, just in time to catch the orange-colored 16-mile marker. 16 miles. Almost 26 k. How are the feet? Not too bad, really. My bluegreen Asics DS Racers have obviously been a solid choice for this race. I’ve never run this far on asphalt in shoes as light as this (224 g). I check my watch. 2 hours 17 minutes. Good. Very good. The bridge finally finishes its upward bend and starts arcing downward toward Manhattan and 1^st Avenue. My mind wanders off to this morning.

Race morning breakfast. No, really.

Wake up call at 04.45. Due to the change to winter-time during the night we had been awarded an extra hour of nervous sleep and thanks to our slight jetlag we were more than rested when we woke up. Dad and I donned our carefully prepared race gear, had a yoghurt and a chocolate for breakfast and headed down into the lobby where we met up with Per at 05.30. Together, we crossed Broadway and walked a block down to the Beacon where we boarded the buses that were bound for Staten Island and Fort Wadsworth. I love travelling through cities that aren’t fully awake yet. It makes you think that you have something really to do. And also, you can often relax all on your own. Passing through Manhattan we spotted several buses laden with eager runners heading for the marathon start and after emerging from the Holland tunnel we drove south through dark and sleeping neighbourhoods. Staten Island is New York’s least populous borough and has been the starting point of the NYCM since 1976 when it was suggested that the race run through all of New York’s five boroughs instead of running several loops around Central Park as it had done before. Stepping out of the bus, we were herded along to the gated marathon village by hundreds of uniformed police officers and volunteers. Never before have I seen men and women armed with fire weapons at the start of a marathon. But we live in dangerous times as the tragedy at this year’s Boston Marathon so tragically proved. And so all of us willingly gave up our plastic bags to be searched for weapons and explosives. After all, they were ultimately doing it for our safety. Runners this year were divided into three starting villages based on the number of their bibs. We headed for the green village that we’d been assigned. Since there were more than 50 000 starters this year, not only were we divided up in three differently coloured villages but also in different waves that would start at different intervals. The elite women were supposed to start at 09.20 leaving the elite men and the first and fastest wave of runners (with a projected time of less than 3:45) to start at 09.40. I would start in wave 1 whereas dad had been assigned to wave 2 starting 10.05 while poor Per would have to wait until 10.55 for the start of wave 4. Since we had been dropped off at the start just before 07.00, we had a fair amount of waiting ahead of us. Luckily, bagels, tea and coffee were generously distributed to all of us. Unfortunately though, I’m a freezer. Unless I’m running I’m always cold and especially when standing still at dawn in the freezing wind. This morning I thanked my lucky stars that I had stopped at Conway to buy big sweatpants and a thick, brown hoodie to keep me warm. Any items of clothing left at the start would be donated to the homeless by a charitable organisation. Conversation and toiletbreaks shortened our waiting time and suddenly a voice came on over the PA-system announcing that first wave-runners should start walking to the starting line. I hugged dad and Per, wished them luck and joined a swarm of people heading for the corrals. Not only were we divided up into three different colours and four different waves, but we were also further separated up into around 20 corrals per wave. A bit confusing at first, but easily managed by all the friendly volunteers at the start. Squeezing in a final pit stop at one of the 1 700 (!) toilets located at the start, I elbowed my way in among those that were to be my fellow runners for the next four hours. Everybody looked awfully fit and intimidating, sporting all manner of jerseys and tops with names of different runs and charities which made me feel a little out of place in my black shorts and black Icebreaker top to ward off the chill. In a moment of hubris – right now greatly regretted – I had written my final projected time at 3:30, which was almost half an hour faster than my current PB at 3:56. I was thinking that I’d rather be last in a long line of fast runners pulling me along than first in a long line being trampled down by eager marathoners trying to pass me. People started throwing their warm clothes by the side of the small curb where we were standing and with 20 minutes to go I pulled off my warm sweatpants in order not to waste time when the gun went off. I regretted it an instant later when an arctic gust of wind made goose bumps erupt all over my legs. People were fidgeting and shoving and moving their feet closer to the starting line in an attempt to get closer and not having to shove their way in front. A voice boomed over the crowd announcing mayor Bloomberg who wished us a good race, a children’s choir who sang the national anthem, several commercial announcements and finally: five minutes to go. Four. Three. Two. One. Go!

Is that an Alesia Trail-buff? Yeah!

Shuffling slowly forward it took almost a full two minutes before my corral crossed the starting line at the very western end of the Verrazano-Narrows bridge. I unzipped my hoodie, threw it alongside the pavement and started to run. Accompanying the thud from thousands of feet on the black tarmac of the bridge was the cheer from a few volunteers and spectators on the upper level. I was a bit bummed that the green wave would be running on the lower storey of the bridge while the blue and orange waves would be sharing the view from the upper storey. I glanced to the left where I could make out the outline of the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island. I set my sights on a blond girl with a Swedish blue-and-yellow jersey who looked as though she’d picked a good pace and simply tagged along around fifteen metres behind her. We passed one mile in a suprisingly short period of time and thundering down the end of the bridge we entered Brooklyn; New York’s second borough where we were to run almost half the race. After almost freezing my fingers off in the howling wind on the bridge it was a blessing to feel the sun warm my back as we turned north, twisting left and right before turning onto the small streets of Brooklyn. We hit 4^th Avenue after about 5,5 km and ran absolutely straight for 7,3 km before making a sharp right turn and continuing almost due east along Lafayette Avenue and then Bedford Avenue, Greenpoint Avenue and McGuinness Boulevard. When we crossed Pulaski Bridge into Queens, borough number three, we had run 21,5 km. Now, let me illustrate something for you. For almost the ENTIRE stretch of asphalt criss-crossing through Brooklyn there were people cheering us along, in a lot of places there were crowds five or six people deep lining the fences. Along some stretches, they were only one deep, but there was barely a spot by the fences and plastic banners that was unoccupied. I have never seen anything like this in any race I have ever run. I had never seen so many happy people cheering me on. The sun was shining, the temperature was between five and ten degrees – perfect for a long distance race – and the atmosphere was absolutely phenomenal. There were street bands at regular intervals, playing everything from rock n’ roll to pop and we were waved at by kids in strollers, old gentleman with walking aids, soccer moms and business men in suits, police officers and fire fighters. Side note: if you want a good view of NYCM, befriend a fire fighter. They had the best view of all, standing on the fire truck ladders extended perilously over the streets. Even the hasidic Jews in Williamsburg seemed interested. Mind you, they didn’t cheer or applause – well, their kids did – but the adults looked on with a morbid sort of fascination. We could tell that there was something special in the air. Maybe even more New Yorkers had shown up than usual, supporting us all the more for the fact that hurricane Sandy had cancelled last year’s race.

The Swedish ponytail disappeared behind me after around 12-13 km and I latched on to another runner. And another. And another. And I felt really, really strong. My marathon dream time has always been 3.30 and I felt I had to rein myself in not to speed up even further. I passed 15 km in 1:13:40 meaning the pacing woman with the 3:30-sign was trailing me by 80 seconds. I forced myself to slow down a bit. This was going too fast. Turning north onto Bedford Avenue I waved at a group of Hasidic children sitting on the stone steps of a porch under the watchful eye of a stern lady. Just after the 13-mile marker (just ahead of the 21.1 km-sign, signifying the half marathon distance) I ducked into one of the liberally assigned port-a-loos and was out and running within 60 seconds. Very fast for me, but then again, I had a time to catch.

A camera man? Smile!

Crossing Pulaski bridge into borough number three, Queens, I had my first unobstructed view of the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Unfortunately we spent only about three km in Queens, turning up on 59^th Street Bridge, also known as Queensboro Bridge, before I’d had a proper chance to look around. Pity, but then again I had run around here with Jakob around five months ago and felt I recognized the streets passing by in a blur. Now here I had definitely been before. This was the moment I had been waiting for for so long. The bright red Roosevelt Island Tramway – looking suspiciously like the Aiguille du Midi cable car in Chamonix in the French alps – was slowly detaching itself from the station building on the island and looked as if it wanted to join us on our run crossing East River.

OK, he wasn’t able to run this year, but he HAS been to Queensboro Bridge.

The humming slowly grows stronger.

What is that sound? A swarm of mosquitoes? My head swivels forward again, just in time to catch the orange-colored 16-mile marker near the end of the bridge. 16 miles. Almost 26 km. How are the feet? Not too bad, really. And then we turn left down a loop that will bring us under the bridge and north onto 1^st Avenue on Manhattan. The humming slowly grows into a babbling brook. The babbling brook slowly grows into a loud river. The loud river slowly grows into a roaring waterfall. And then we turn down from the loop. And the roaring waterfall suddenly erupts into a thundering, deafening explosion of sound. In front of me stands the entire population of Sweden. And Norway. And Denmark. And all the countries of the world. They say that approximately two million new yorkers – TWO MILLION – crowd the streets on Marathon Sunday to cheer the runners on. The adrenaline rush I felt racing down my spine was something I have never experienced in a race before and probably never will again. The feeling was otherwordly. A huge grin cleaved my face in two and I heard myself laughing almost hysterically. At this point, do you think I slowed down and paced my sore and tired muscles for the 16 km to go, waving to the adulating crowds, drinking in their love and support? Well, I certainly did the latter. Regarding the first strategy, it was as far from my mind as… as… well, as slowing down! I accelerated past a grey-haired couple and I promise, my feet floated off the asphalt. I was flying. And I didn’t want to land. Ever.

There was a time when I couldn’t run without a 180 bpm soundtrack keeping my pace in a couple of headphones, and I used to bully my brother into mixing me music lists of his favourite house music in order to shut out the sound of my own ragged breathing. Anything to keep my mind off the actual pain of running. My first triathlon, on Tjörn, put a solid end to that audially challenged era when I, a mere three days before the race, chanced upon a remark in the official rules of the race that off-handedly forbade the use of headphones for reasons of security. There were a couple of paragraphs about road safety and other such nonsense and I seriously considered to withdraw from the competition, judging it barbaric. People who know me well know that I have a serious problem with authority. No race officials would tell ME that I wasn’t allowed to listen to my iPod! But of course, seeing reason after a few hours of eloquent cursing, I knew I had to stop my running music cold turkey. And I did. And what a different world I came to discover. I haven’t missed my head phones since and only use them at the gym to distract me from tedium during my long runs.

See? I’m FLYING!!!

I saw a few poor souls running with their ears plugged with white iPod phones during this heavenly stretch of road. And I pitied them. The ENTIRE length of 1^st Avenue – almost 5,5 km – was completely packed with crowds. Sure, there were a few small gaps where people were only one line deep, but for 95% of that stretch the hordes were five people deep. I lifted off from the asphalt under Queensboro bridge and I didn’t land again until my shoes hit Willis Avenue Bridge taking us for a short mile into the last borough of New York – the Bronx – before turning 180° bringing us due south onto 5^th Avenue. I payed the price for my lunatic pace, though. Just before the Bronx, I passed 30 km in 02:30:24, but the clock had ticked to 2:57:21 before I crossed the 35 km-line by Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem. I had lost almost two and a half minutes on my dream time and I was fighting not to slip down the ranks any further. But what did it matter? This was turning out to be the best marathon I had ever run! A few hundred metres into the Bronx, an older black woman -standing by the curb with a huge shopping bag in one hand and a chubby five-year-old hanging tightly to the other – let out a howl of encouragement and happily declared in a hoarse voice that would have made Barry White proud: “WELCOME TO THE BRONX, Y’ALL!!!” I couldn’t help smiling again, as evidenced by all the official marathon photos.

Starting new runner’s fashion: warm sweater around your hips. For 42,2 km.

The 23-mile marker just after the start of Central Park gave me new energy. Only around 5 km left. I could do this. From having stopped at every other or third water station, I had to take a quick break at every single mile for a sip of water or energy drink. Passing the Guggenheim to our left we turned into the beautiful park proper and I knew that I would make it. I willed my hurting feet to run faster and they responded. Kind of. Central Park is hillier than you might think and I almost expired permanently when I ran down the hill behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And this was where the crowds really came into their own. “Come ON!”, “You can do it!!”, “You are AWESOME!!!” And my personal favourite, shouted by an old grandmother by the road: “If it were EASY, I would do it!!!” We passed the pond to our right and exited the park, turning west on Central Park south, passing all the extravagant hotels facing the south end of the park where I always promise myself I will stay during my next visit before reality checking with my financial advisor (the missus). Waving to Columbus at the top of his perch at the Circle bearing his name I turned into the park again. And there it was. The home stretch. Lined with all the flags of the participating nations. And there was Slovakia. And Norway. And SWEDEN!!! The last 200 metres of the race are – I am not making this up – uphill. Cruel. So very, very cruel. And I almost felt sorry for the group of runners I passed during my jerky sprint to the finish line. They probably didn’t expect a black-clad maniac going bananas during the last stretch, bowling them over in an attempt at shaving a few precious seconds off his new Personal Best.

3:36:31

YEEEAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!

New P.B. with 20 minutes. Even smashing Jakob’s old record with 13 minutes. Try beating that. Hehe. Dad crossed the finish line in 5:14:12, creating his own P.B. He’s now an impressive veteran of TWO marathons: Athens and New York. A splendid achievement! And my father-in-law Per finished his first ever marathon in his running career in 5:49:43. Hands up for both of them! Incredible! In conclusion: if you have trouble motivating yourself to run in New York, I have only seven little words for you.

Most. Awesome. Marathon. In. The. World. Period.

Dad finishing his 60-year birthday present.

Proud marathoners with our coach (far left) post-race.

Celebratory dinner at Red Rooster. Lovely.

Yes. That is, in fact, a Marathon des Sables-buff.

Alone at Dawn by Delsjön

I hate climbing out of a warm bed into a cold bedroom and pulling on shorts, socks, shoes, top and a light running jacket before heading outdoors into the black of night. But I absolutely adore the feeling of being up before everybody else on a Sunday morning, running along with Jakob through the morning mists enveloping a lake. Feeling sorry for all the people still in their beds not getting a chance to bask in the early rays of the morning sun as it climbs above the treetops faintly trying to warm our faces. That’s when we smile.

When you reach the top, keep climbing.

And believe me, breakfast never tastes better than afterwards.

A few visual teasers from New York

One week after the race and I’m still sorting through all of the impressions and emotions that went through my head during the marathon. A detailed race report is in the works, but will have to wait for more pressing matters currently being planned, first and foremost our little Panda’s baptism. Last year’s enormous letdown with the cancellation of the race juxtaposed nicely with last Sunday’s run where almost every possible expectancy was emphatically fulfilled. Huddled together at dawn, sitting on a couple of Dunkin’ Donuts-caps on the cold asphalt of Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island, the three of us (dad, my father-in-law and I) were discussing race tactics. How tough would the bridges be? What could we expect from the legendary crowd support? How tight would it be running together with 50 000 other runners? Would we even be able to move without tripping over people for the first couple of miles? All of us favored a conservative approach, meaning that we each decided to aim for enjoyment of the race as our only goal.

Oh, I enjoyed the race alright. But all other plans and tactics went straight over the rail of the Verrazano-Narrows bridge as soon as I started running. The marathon ended as it began: in a huge endorphin-rush of pure joy. For anyone out there being ambivalent about running the New York City Marathon, please let me sum up the entire experience in a simple, single paragraph: TWO MILLION AWESOME SPECTATORS!

Second breakfast…

Expo entrance, American version

Finally: race numbers!!!

Star marks the spot

After-race chocolate dessert at Red Rooster’s

This flag was closest to the finish line. Honest.

The Anatomy of a Race

Six days left. Can’t wait. New York City Marathon is a very special race. Arguably the most well-known and certainly the most popular marathon in the world. Normally you have to apply for it a couple of years in advance (due to complicated application rules which I won’t delve into here, and since hurricane Sandy led to the last-minute cancellation of last year’s race we’ve literally been waiting for three years to have a go. The London marathon is probably the most famous marathon in Europe with almost 35 000 runners having completed the race this year, and the marathon in Berlin is well-known for its flat course suitable for PB’s. It’s also the marathon where most world records have been set (six times in all with the current WR being set this year at 2.03.23 by Wilson Kipsang Kiprotich). The biggest marathon in Europe, Paris, had almost 39 000 finishers this year. Athens marathon (which dad and I ran – geez – five years ago) is most emphatically one of the classics and the oldest annually held marathon (since 1897) in the world, Boston, is another. Finally, we have the races in Chicago and Tokyo which together with Boston, London, Berlin and New York City form the famous six Marathon Majors. But honestly, none of them can really hold a candle to New York, can it?

So, where exactly is the race run?

The run starts at the bottom of the map, on Staten Island, and will bring us through all of the five boroughs: Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx and Manhattan. We leave Staten Island almost immediately and run up the Verazzano-Narrows bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the world upon it’s completion in 1964. Entering Brooklyn, we might as well settle into a steady rhythm as almost half the race is run through its hip streets. The 25’th km will bring us due west across Queensboro bridge and above Roosevelt Island before we hit Manhattan for the very first time.

Having a drink on Queensboro bridge.

Crossing the bridge, we’ll turn north onto First Avenue and run all the way through Harlem and over to the Bronx where we’ll only spend a little more than a mile before turning south towards Manhattan again. This is where it’ll get really nasty, hitting 33 k. The glycogen we’ve been working hard to store in our muscles prior to the race will start to reach bottom levels around here and if we haven’t been replenishing our energy reserves with gels and fluid, we’ll be down and out. Permanently. Finally heading south along Fifth Avenue and entering Central Park for the final 5 k will be breathtaking. Or so the legends go.

The northern end of Central Park with Illka and Jakob just before summer.

Six days left. Can’t wait.

Some weeks, the hours simply don’t add up

And I end up being extremely grumpy, testing the angelic patience of miss H. It’s strange the way my body feels jittery and anxious if I miss my weekly fix of training. OK, I know I’m supposed to be tapering again, this time for NYC Marathon in two weeks… I missed this week’s long run of 27k and realistically, I didn’t have a chance of fitting it into this week’s already bursting schedule. And reading updates on FB from other members of the 28th Berber doesn’t soothe my nerves one bit, although their attempts at PB’s (huge congrats to the Silver Fox who managed a sub-3h marathon yesterday!) in Växjö Marathons and Sörmland Ultras do inspire. Enormously. So what have I been doing this last week? Well, here are some pics from an enormously satisfying and entertaining week including instructing fellow doctors in Advanced Pediatric Life Support, being on call and spending time with little Panda’s uncle who came to visit

But no need to despair – I have an appointment at the gym first thing tomorrow morning! 14 days left to arguably the biggest, coolest and most awesome marathon in the world. Dare I set my sights on a PB? YES I CAN!!!

Squeezing in a short trip to the gym.

Don’t worry. They’re only dolls. And some leftover ketchup from lunch.

Out for a stroll in lovely Ekebergsparken.

Alesia Trail’s ultra race, the 51 km Vercingetorix

The most fulfilling dreams are always built on longterm planning. If you really wish to achieve something spectacular, you need to work your ass off. You need discipline, determination and dedication. This year marks five years since we finished our first marathons in Valletta and Athens respectively. That, in fact, were our first races ever. A year earlier I myself could hardly have run three km in a single set, much less a Swedish  mile (10 km). 2013 has seen Jakob & Jakob complete, together and separately, six (!) races with a seventh and final one to go in New York in November. As you know, next year’s big event will hopefully be the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, the classic and most famous European ultra where the competitors run around the Mont Blanc massif, starting in Chamonix and circling around the mountain counter-clockwise via Italy and Switzerland before returning to France. But in order to be eligible for the lottery to participate, you need seven qualification points. We were in possession of six points and meant to win our final point in France.

Cousin Dot (Bodka) and Mr Bocuse with their delightful daughters.

So it was that I found myself with Jakob and dad in a rented Mitsubishi heading north along the E25 towards Lausanne, Switzerland. After a lovely lunch with our friends the ballet dancer and her husband – nicknamed Gruyère – we drove away towards France once again and later that evening found ourselves in Leynes, a lovely little French hamlet in Bourgogne, where my cousin Dot, her friendly husband – let us call him Bocuse – and their delightful baby daughters live. Jakob knows the area well since he spent a couple of weeks here last summer in order to help with the region’s annual Vendange (the harvesting of wine grapes). Rumour has it that he managed to charm the only two girls in the local pub despite having the severe disadvantage of not speaking their native tongue. Figuratively speaking, of course. Literally, he managed their native tongues very well. Or so the rumour goes.

Contemplating early morning (after a bedtime of 01.30…) in Leynes

Mr Bocuse has the coolest job in the whole wide world. He’s in charge of wine bottle etiquettes in his uncle’s company. In Bourgogne. Can you imagine the wines he has access to? Suffice it to say that our filthy Slovak and Polish fingers were not allowed inside his private wine cellar at any moment during the evening, despite our best efforts at persuasion. Which isn’t to say we didn’t sample some truly exquisite wines and delicious food. I cannot for the life of me recall what we had for dinner, but the taste of the wines was carved into my memory in intricate detail. And I do remember that it was heavenly fare. Going to bed at 01.30 we were proud of our warm-up for our 51 km ultra race the day after next. When in France, well… do as the French do.

No visit to France is complete without a visit to the local Chèvre-maker.

The next day, we drove off towards Alise-Sainte-Reine after an exquisite lunch of duck. We had arranged to meet up with Jakob’s girlfriend miss M next to the statue of the Gaul chieftain Vercingetorix, where all the races of Alesia Trail would start the following morning and where we were supposed to pick up our starting numbers. This year’s Alesia Trail was the fourth of it’s kind, celebrating the great battle of Alesia where the combined Gaul army of Vercingetorix almost beat Julius Caesar’s Roman army in September 52 B.C., thus coming very close to changing the course of history. This year there were several races, first and foremost the mighty Vercingetorix – the ultra race of 51 km and 1800+ vertical metres which would give us our sorely needed qualification point for UTMB, should we manage to finish it within the time limit. There was also a 34 km race, a 24 km race and the final race l’Oppidum, a 16 km trail of 500+ vertical metres that I had convinced my dad to participate in.

Vercingetorix and Julius Caesar, Asterix style

We met up with miss M in the little village of Alise-Sainte-Reine and continued up the hill towards the enormous statue of Vercingetorix right by the starting line. Serious and moustachioed, the seven-metre tall statue was commissioned by Napoleon III in 1865 and has an inscription attributed to Julius Caesar on it’s base:

Gaul united,

Forming a single nation

Animated by a common spirit,

Can defy the Universe.

Impressive words, and respectful. Dad joined the queue for the 16k-race and Jakob and I went right up to the lady sitting below the 51k-sign. As in Verdon, not a single one of the race officials spoke any English. And why should they? According to the official race statistics, we were the only participants from outside of the region (as well as a few from the immediate neighbouring countries Belgium, Luxemburg, Holland and Switzerland). After having picked up our starting numbers we drove in search of the little village where we were to stay for the night. The four of us had dinner in a small but friendly establishment off the main shopping lane, taking a care not to overindulge ourselves in the local vintages.

Picking up our starting numbers

After a night of fitful sleep and a hasty breakfast of bread with jam and croissants, we gave miss M a farewell hug as she had a plane to catch further south. Driving through the grey and impenetrable mist of early dawn, dad remarked that this race would be his second one. Ever. Not having run a single competition with a starting number since Athens marathon almost five years previously, dad was understandably a tad flustered. Nevertheless, he soon warmed to the occasion and was smiling with anticipation. It was his first trail race after all and with a height difference of 500+ m it wouldn’t be a walk in the park. Jakob and I donned our backpacks over our wind jackets and headed off towards the starting line where an enthusiastic Frenchman was seriously dispensing sage advice about the route. In French, of course. We caught the words “dangereux” and “attention”, but were otherwise blissfully unaware about the details of the dangerosities. Dad wished us luck and before we knew it, the countdown had finished and we were once again off, starting our third ever ultra. A veritable baby compared with Marathon des Sables and Trail du Verdon, but still.

Pre-race anticipation, flanked by dad and Jakob.

Soon enough we were thundering down a dewy wet and slippery grassy downhill that was so narrow that we scraped our shoulders against the barbed wire guarding the fields flanking the path. Reaching the misty bottom of the valley after a couple of kilometres we almost immediately turned upwards on the neighbouring knoll, diving in under the dark green canopy of birch trees and splotting down each other and our competitors with the brownish mud of the trail. After around 4k or so, Jakob abruptly stopped and started to darken the air with curses with a grimace on his face. Attached to the lateral side of his foot, a wasp was struggling feebly as it tried to dislodge itself from his sock. In the semi-glumness under the leafy trees Jakob didn’t see the wasp until it had stung his foot. Gingerly removing it, he took a few tentative steps and assured me that he was ready to go. In 7k we reached the first checkpoint where we gulped down a few mouthfuls of coke, took off our windjackets and continued on through the picturesque little medieval village of Flavigny-sur-Ozerain. Waving to one of the photographers we ran along a wall from where there was a beautiful view of the next valley. The sun started to warm our faces as we continued south along the next ridge, walking swiftly and purposefully uphill and trying to run on the flatter portions and downhill. France is a stunningly beautiful country with many different types of landscape, this race featuring rolling farmland divided by wooded hills and ridges, most of them pretty steep. Setting out during the first half-marathon we were wondering how on earth we would possibly accumulate 1800+ vertical metres but the way the trail was run, it soon dawned on us that it wouldn’t be a problem. The track was pleasantly drawn, in places pretty devilishly so, and our only issue with the race was the fact that although it was very well marked, signs of distance run (or, indeed, distance left) were sorely lacking. It wasn’t very clear if checkpoint 2 was supposed to be located at 18k (according to the map), at 20,5k (according to a handwritten sign next to the water table or 22k (according to my – which I later found out – faulty GPS). Leaving checkpoint 2 we sped past the curly-haired lady running in a dress and started one of the more vicious climbs so far. I have to say that the pisteur (the fellow that had laid down the markings) showed clear signs of genius. No only was he an expert in finding steep hillsides in the middle of flat pastures but he also had us running in the shade of huge green oaktrees and birches for the majority of the race, shielding us from the unseasonably hot sun. Running through the Forêt domainale de Flavigny was an absolute joy, jumping over rotting logs covered in emerald green moss lying over the trail and climbing down ropes strung along the steeper of the passages. And the small rivulets we splashed through only served to chill our aching feet from the repetitive lumbering along the forest trails and field tracks.

Running along the wall in Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, courtesy of race photographer Nicolas Goisque

Another great photo by Mr Goisque

At long last we reached the final checkpoint at 45,5k (we think…) and were served cookies and crackers as well as a choice of red or white wine. These lovely French races, I say! Jakob was a bit worse for wear and hadn’t provided me with a lot of conversational support during the last hour or so, and I could tell that he was knackered. I was still fully expecting him to change into his usual Terminator-mode during the final 5k and push us up to a furious sprint, but he thankfully very kindly refrained. The final 3k were an exercise in patience as we picked off three runners in a single long sprint up a steady incline back up to the statue of Vercingetorix. Emerging from under the canopy of leaves just 100 metres from the Gaul chieftain we spotted an septuagenarian whom we had been chasing ever since he passed us 5k ago and managed to pass him while giving him a well-deserved pat on the back. 50 m from the finish line we were trailing another hobbling runner who was moving towards the finish. I turned to Jakob and we nodded in mutual understanding as we started our final sprint to pick off this last runner before the finish line. He discovered us a fraction of a second to late and scrambled with his walking sticks in order to beat us to the tape. In the end, he wedged in between me and Jakob placing me in 100th place and Jakob in 102nd, divided by less than half a second.

A lovely descent in Forêt domainale du Flavigny

Now we finally have our seven qualification points for Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc! Three of them earned in Gorges du Verdon (108 km, 6700+) last summer, another three points won in Marathon des Sables (231 km) in April and the final one secured here in Alesia. Dad was waiting for us next to the finish with a hug and a smile, proud of his achievement of finishing his first trail race ever. And that in a pace better than our own, he was quick to add! Very well run, dad! After a far too short rest, we settled down in our Mitsubishi for the three-hour drive to Annecy where we would spend the night before flying home to our separate flights. The weekend was concluded in a fabulous way with a delicious dinner at a prime local establishment and celebrated with champagne and a bottle of red.

Next stop: New York City Marathon, 3 November 2013.

The steepest race in town

For the second time in less than a week dad accompanied me on one of my races. Not as a spectator but as a fellow athlete! How cool is that? After last weekend’s ultra race Alesia Trail in the Burgundy region of Eastern France – where dad opted for the shorter, but still very much respectable 16k version (500+ vertical metres) – we picked up the Mountain Queen on our way to the starting line in the middle of Sørkedalen on Saturday morning. Oslo’s Bratteste is literally Oslo’s steepest uphill race with 407 vertical metres in 2,7 km. And where do you find a steep enough hill where one can accomodate so many runners (3000+ this year, breaking the record for the fifth year in a row) at once? Well, you find a ski slope of course. Arriving at the bottom around an hour before start, I caught dad squinting curiously up the gravelly slope asking me how he should pace himself and what kind of strategy would be the wisest. “The careful one”, I answered. The hill starts with a deceptively low incline before you collide face-first with Helveteskneika – The Hump From Hell – where only first-timers try to run. The rest of us normally choose an easier pace, smiling smugly when we pass the amateurs a couple of hundred metres further up.

Team Queen’s AC with Team Baris by the starting line of O.B.

I can see that I sound like a grizzled oldtimer that has run the race all of it’s previous four incarnations. Not so. In fact, this is the first race I have ever run twice. Nordmarkstravern a month ago doesn’t actually count since I’ve run two different distances (15k last year and 30k this year), arguably two very different races. But I guess the floodgates have opened. This precedent means that I can safely apply to NY Marathon next year if I like. Or maybe even Marathon des Sables? OK, maybe not that desert race. Just yet.

Dad pushing a hard sprint finish.

The organizers had divided us up into groups depending on our projected finish time as well as letting the ladies and gents start in different corrals. Dad took off like a cannonball at 12.10 p.m., hoping to finish in under 40 minutes. Say what you will about my dad, but he has guts. When I first ran the race last year I had at least three of four training runs under my belt. Dad hadn’t even laid eyes on the slope before today. He even asked if the top he could see from the bottom was far from the finish line? “Dad, you won’t even be halfway there when you get to the top you can see over there…” “Oh, OK then. Maybe I should take it easy until I can actually see the finish line?” “Good idea, dad.” Twenty minutes later I took off in a slightly more ambitious group than last year’s (when I finished in 24.00), this time opting for the “18-23 min finishers”-starting group. Surely I wouldn’t be outrun by everybody in my group? To tell you the truth, the only thing that mattered was that the Mountain Queen didn’t overtake me just before the finish line, starting as she would at 12.40, ten minutes later.

The gun went off and patting me on the back, coach Stefan – whom I always run into at the coolest races of the season – passed me by in a cloud of neon orange. I started a careful pace up the Hump from Hell, shoving aside a spindly fourteen-year-old who stepped on my foot. I had great a great grip with my newly washing-machine-washed INOV8 Trailrocs and felt I had good control over the proceedings. The good thing about being in a starting group where you can barely manage the tempo is that you get pulled along by better runners. Which is why I always do my more serious hill training with the Mountain Queen. I reached the top of Wyller in a pretty OK condition and took off down towards the next lift station around 2,1k into the race where the final elevation starts up towards Tryvannstårnet, the 118 m tall broadcasting tower standing sentinel right by the tape. Last year, if you remember, conditions were muddy like hell and I had to fight and shove with some overambitious fellow runners to stay erect, but this year I pedalled down as fast as I dared before I turned upwards again. With 200 m to go (the last 100 m are a complete bitch – you feel like you are climbing a vertical wall, but if you start walking here, they’ll literally shoot you) my calves were burning painfully, just as they were supposed to. I crossed the finish line in a new PB of 22:58, shaving 1:02 off last year’s time and feeling pretty satisfied.

Character study 2

And you know what’s funny? Dad only had a single reason to run the race. The beanie I got in my goodiebag last year. He’s been gazing at it for almost year and finally got a chance to win his own one today. Impressively enough, dad didn’t even look winded when we met up after the steepest race in Oslo, this being his first ever uphill race! Miss H and Panda were, as is their custom, waiting by the fence, taking photos and being the best support team ever!

Anyone else up for winning a cool beanie of their own next year? You’re welcome to Oslo around the last weekend of September 2014 and we’ll make a race out of it. Loser buys dinner. And what about last weekend’s ultra Alesia Trail? Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about it and are preparing a thourough race report for your reading pleasure. But just for the record: Jakob & Jakob managed to snatch their final UTMB-point in France and are now in the possession of seven qualification points for Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc. In three months, we will be applying for UTMB 2014. We’ll know whether we have won a spot or not come January next year. So keep your fingers crossed!

The Mountain Queen in blue rounding it up!

The only runner in Norway sporting an Alesia Trail-buff. Guaranteed.

And here are the BEANIES!!!

I hate this tapering business…

Tapering refers to the training phase right before a long distance event, typically a marathon, when a runner starts to cut back on his mileage. Preparing for marathons, runners typically start to taper 2-3 weeks before the race which gives them a chance to rest and recover, not to mention to mentally prepare for the competition.

That doesn’t mean that I have to like it. This last week I was supposed to run three short sessions of 10k or less, but I only managed two of them due to an overload of night shifts at work. Which has – quite literally – resulted in a cerebral meltdown. My legs are all jittery and I’m afraid I’ll take off like Bugs Bunny once the gun goes off next Sunday.

It’s one week to go before Vercingetorix, the 51 km (1800+) race of Alesia Trail Jakob and I will be participating in. Dad will join us for the slightly shorter, but still impressively challenging Oppidum where he will run 16 km (500+) on parts of the same course.

Oppidum is marked in green while Vercingetorix is marked in red (including all of the other colours as well), the course being run counter-clockwise.

We’ll be visiting our lovely relatives Nic and Maria and their pretty toddlers M and E who live a couple of hours from the starting line. It’s always a pleasure visiting France and Jakob and I have fantastic memories from the last time we were here, in June 2012, when we completed the 108 km (6700+) Trail du Verdon. During Alesia Trail, we’ll try to keep you updated on FB and my own account on Instagram (jakobklcovansky), so stay tuned!

I’ll leave you with an awesome video of last week’s race Nordmarkstravern filmed by the race’s main sponsor Helly Hansen. Coach Stefan and our friend Peter are glimpsed for a few seconds (13 seconds in), sitting down and chatting before the start of the race. Enjoy!

30 kilometres, emergency stops and a tiny badge

“COME OOON JAKOB!!! YOU HAVE 30 MORE SECONDS TO WIN THE BADGE!!!” I heard coach Stefan’s deafening roar from the finish line. I had been steadily accelerating my pace for the last 2 kilometres and now, with only around 100 metres to go, I found some more juice in my legs to increase my pace to a jerky kind of sprint. 30 trail kilometres on mostly gravel roads and small forest trails in 2.57.10 (303’rd place out of a total of 495 in the male category). Nordmarkstravern is one of those races where – if you manage to finish with a time no more than 50% longer than the winner’s time – you get a shiny, tiny badge to show for it. So thanks Stefan, for helping me grab the last straw and winning one of the badges!

The BADGE

As usual, I had missed to prebook a starting number and consequently found myself at Sognsvann at 8.15 am on Saturday morning in order to fix one. This settled, I climbed aboard one of the multiple race buses bound for the lake Stryken in the middle of Nordmarka. In the bus I found myself sitting next to coach Stefan and his pal Peter. Stefan and I had succesfully tried the shorter Halve Nordmarkstravern (15 km) last year and had decided to give the full version a try this year. The sun greeted us by Stryken when we arrived, promising us one of those last warm late-summer days of the season. I can keep pace with my coach on a good day and so when the starting gun went off I tagged along Peter and Stefan in a comfortable run trying to avoid the snags and stones on the gravel road, zig-zagging between the other 700 (!) runners out there today. There was quite a bit of shoving and pushing going on which for me is a bit unfathomable for such a long race and I found myself memorizing a particularly enthusiastic shover’s jersey in order to give him a good strong push when I’d be passing his ass in around 10k or so. As soon as we hit the forest trails, I relaxed a bit. I have probably mentioned this a thousand times, but I simply LOVE trail running! The better I get at it the more I feel like I am flying over those roots, mudholes and rocks. More and more I feel that my ankles, knees and overall balance is beginning to find a form of equilibrium where I feel confident running up steep inclines and down slippery slopes. As soon as I start running down a forest trail I start tip-toeing in my 3 mm drop trail shoes and I find it hard to land on the middle part of my foot when I return to the gravel roads or asphalt. It was interesting how much my speed suffered while on the roads with people passing me in a frustrating manner and how I picked them off one by one while in the forest. I really need to start working on my speed on the flats again. I’ve been neglecting the interval training during our summer vacation and it needs to be rectified before New York.

I’m FLYING!!!

Unfortunately what slowed me down even more were my two extremely unfortunate toiletbreaks. My tummy’s a bit sensitive and even though I’ve tried many a time to tame it to my will, it sometimes turns me down in the most humiliating fashion. Without going into details, suffice it to say that the middle part of the race (10 to 20 km) was painful with stomach cramps and panicky searching for deep and secluded parts of the forest. Despite all of this the race was extremely enjoyable; the support personell were all friendly and helpful and the route was challengingly drawn between beautiful lakes and up and down serpentine paths. I passed a couple of unfortunate guys hobbling down the steep parts and who had clearly twisted their ankles but other than that, people seemed to be enjoying themselves. After around 20 km our trail joined the course for Halve Nordmarkstravern and suddenly I recognized the roads and paths from the previous year which gave me new momentum as I glanced down at my watch. I had been hoping to clock in at under 3 hours but had been let down by my two lengthy toiletstops, but now I saw that I could maybe, maybe manage it if I put my mind to it. The final kilometre was easily my fastest during the entire course and I greedily sucked in the atmosphere around the school where I ran my final sprint to the cheers of Stefan.

My two greatest fans miss H and Panda were waiting for me at the finish line with kisses and hugs. I mean, what better way to end a beautiful race?

Niklas, Stefan och Jakob