New Running Shoes… Happy Days :-)

Is there anything better than getting new gear… The look of them… The smell of them… The feel of them… All of ones senses are in action. And then you haven’t even started using them :-)

This time it was a new pair of running shoes which I hadn’t tried before and I wasn’t sure what to expect. The last 2½ years I have been running in Nike Vomero. This is cushioned neutral shoe which is super soft and very comfortable. I am a neutral runner and can actually have a tendency to underpronate a bit. I like my shoes to be very soft so I can better feel them and the ground as I move forward. I want them to give me some bounce and take some of the pressure away from the knees. I have a tender forefoot, and it can really destroy my run if the shoes are not soft enough. I run very much on my heel and I am definitely not a mid- or forefoot runner or just close to it. I have found the last two versions of the Vomero to have become too stabile and it has taken some of the comfort and softness out of them. It is still soft but I have appreciated the first versions more and I have therefore been looking to try something else.

The choice went on the new Nike Lunarglide. It is a light shoe weighing in at just 300 kilograms for a size US 9, which is not much if they should be able to handle longer distances. Design wise they are really among the very best in running shoes. I have very rare in the past enjoyed the design and colours of any running shoe, but these just makes me feel like the coolest looking runner ever! These are also built after Nike’s new Dynamic Support system, which should also make them suitable for mild overpronators.

Now to the verdict… ;-) On asphalt I don’t feel they are soft enough. Obviously I am used to run in a very soft cushioned shoe so anything will feel hard. But I definitely don’t feel any bounce from them. They make me move my first impact to the ground further to the front so I don’t land on my heel as much. So they make me run a bit differently. The fact that I am not in touch with the ground as long as I am used to obviously makes me run faster. I have almost been flying on some runs! So maybe it is just a question of me adapting to them. I found them harder on my calf and knee which I don’t enjoy and which makes me uncomfortable. The biggest problem with them is all though the very loose fitting. I have a low wrist and a narrow foot. I am use to tighten my shoes a lot for them to fit properly, but haven’t experience it to be a problem in the past. But in the forefoot they are strangely wide and for them to fit I really have to tighten them a lot so I almost do violence to them. That definitely takes some of the running experience out of them. They don’t have the same nice and comfy fitting like the Nike Free for instance. I don’t consider these to be an option on the longer distances like the Ironman. I have tried light weight shoes which feel softer than these. So I will use them in runs up to 15 km., and may increase that number until I get more used to them. But will stick to my Nike Vomero for now on the longer distances :-)

Check out this video with more details on the Dynamic Support. Actually quite informative.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfP7_O8tTJI

I have also purchased a pair of Nike Lunartrainer, but I haven’t tried them yet. The fit all though seems tighter and more comfy, which it also should in a light weight shoe, so my first impression of them is good, but we’ll see when they hit the asphalt… ;-)

Sign up for races and visualize!

I use visualization a lot in my training. Especially on the days where I am not feeling too good. On those days it can sometime be even more important to finish the training session which you initially had planned. That helps boost your mood, your motivation, your self confidence and improves the quality in the training and eventually improves your race performance. And on those days, visualizing your self in great moments can be a real motivation booster!

But getting thru a training session, where you just feel like crap, can be difficult in any sense. And if you feel poor or not motivated even before the start it can’t sometimes feel unmanageable to get it all together. Your pulse may be ridiculous. It may be jumping up and down. It may be way too high or you just can’t get it over 70%, but your body is still feeling like retirement would be the sane thing to do next. The latter I felt today. I have had three days where I have been slightly under the weather, which btw is very poor, and I have not been feeling anywhere near great since Sunday. But today I actually felt ok, when I got up at the crack of dawn in the darkness. I was scheduled to do two spinning hours at 8am. The first 30 minutes went fine. The pulse was reacting quite normal, and I felt I was back to level. But then it just started cracking and my legs went heavier and heavier. And then I started to feel dizzy and as soon as the first hour finished I found myself a bench to sit on. Shit! Obviously not quite feeling ok yet. Have had a lot of cramps in my feet the last 2 days and I think that I have had a virus of some sort which hopefully will leave by the end of the weekend.

Most of you Ironman Triathletes have probably signed up for your main race in 2010. You basically have too if you wish to do the biggest Hawaii qualification races. And it should be a very good thing in regards to each of our training. When I have a race, which I wish to do well in, it is always in the back of my mind in a positive way. That is the long term target. It may be many months into the future. But why not use that race in every positive sense? Why not really abuse it?

I visualize myself all the time in my training and not just during, but also prior to the actual session. If you are not sure that you want to train. You are just feeling bloody tired. Something is just not working, and every excuse in the book is popping up in your thoughts. Then think about why you are training. What are your reasons? What would be the good thing if you train? What do you wish to achieve with your training? Will it be wise then to train? Will it have poor effect on my future goals if I don’t train today?

There probably isn’t the bike route or the finish line in an Ironman race, which I haven’t visualized myself racing on at some point… When I am running, it is always nice to think ahead and see myself cross the finish line with the overall time on the scoreboard :-) which is off course always a sincere low one…

Sometimes maybe just a quick “one second thought” is enough to get me back on track. To get myself back on track to why I am training. To why I am doing this. What are my goals? What is my next race? Visualize it if necessary. And we all know the feeling after training. It is just a great feeling. Especially if it have been a successful one.

There is obviously also the advantage of being signed up for your races in good time ahead, that you’ll be more motivated to eat healthy and sensible. And especially during these winter times, where I think many of us will have a greater tendency to allow ourselves more cakes, candy, fat, sugar etc. But it definitely helps me when I am at the Supermarket that I have a race planned for the future. I am signed up. There is no excuse. When I am craving for something unhealthy I try to ask myself: “Will you actually feel better after you have eaten this”? And this answer is probably always NOPE. But I am for sure not fanatic about the foods I expose myself too. But I am improving. And every tool can be used to not fall into some bad habits. I have in many years tried to eat as organic as possible, but obviously even organic cinnamon buns with chocolate frosting also have calories in them…

Finally, besides plenty of others advantages, then I think we all have experienced, and perhaps even ourselves… can sometimes plan to do a certain race with all the right intentions. And tell people around us, that we will do this race and we really have all the right intentions in us, and we sincerely mean it. But we are not signed up for it… Why not? When should I sign up for the race? Sign up for it! If you are signed up, the risk of you loosing your motivation and find all the excuses in the book, is a lot higher, than if you have paid your start fee and everything is planned for you to perhaps even peak on this date.

Enjoy the Winter! I am ;-)

What is offseason?

Offseason for any athlete in an individual sport is very different. But especially in triathlon where we all have different goals and races to prepare for.

To me offseason is the time of year where I don’t have any race to prepare for. It is the period where I don’t have “to stress” about having to do some specific sessions. I can basically just train and do what I want and not necessarily what I need.

Offseason for me is right now and I have had offseason since Ostseeman the 3rd of August. But as offseason is very individually then it is off course also a definition matter. You may also call it Rest Weeks. To some people my training the last month and a half or so would be defined as base weeks. And maybe I would as well. Even though it has not really been my intention. So physically my training load since start September should probably be defined as Base Weeks. But mentally I still define this period as offseason. I have a plan for the training that I would like to do, but that is primarily due to practical reasons. I can change it any second I want and I just do the training which I feel like. It is all though the case that I love to train and the last four weeks the training load has been over 15 per week. So having days where I don’t train is very rare for me. I don’t believe in rest days. I believe in easy days, where I just train 45 minutes or so. But I don’t like days, where I don’t train at all. Then my body the day after needs an electrical shot to get going again. I have to admit that as I love to train and that is the reason why I do Triathlon then I very rarely do sessions which I don’t want to do. I usually always want to train, so this time a year I sometimes also have to tell myself that I must not train more today! No need to peak in January…

Next week my training will be more organized and I will move into my base training for next season. I also wish to be in a decent shape in week 49 and week 50. I will get back to the reason at a later stage.
My training load next week should look like this. But it will still be depending on how I feel physical as well as mentally, so the number of hours are at this moment a bit volatile.

Swim: 3-4hrs
Bike: 7-12hrs
Run: 2½-5hrs

Enjoy your offseason ;-)

Race reports from Hawaii

It is fascinating to read race reports from Hawaii. Especially these two are great fun to read and a lot of interesting and useful details to take from them.

http://www.chrismccormack.com/blog/ironmanhawaii

http://www.rasmushenning.com/
(Click on “blog” at the top on the left side panel.)

Ironman Hawaii Night: The Top 10 Up’s and Down’s

Top 10 – Up’s:

1. Chris Lieto’s well deserved 2nd place after some brave bike riding. I have to admit that prior to Saturdays race I was not really a Lieto fan. Maybe due to his response to the initial and then reversed rule change of compression socks. But I respect athletes that are not afraid to go hard on the bike and who take chances. Respect.

2. Rasmus Henning’s 5th place just 17 days after he broke his hand. Ironman...

3. Chris McCormack’s 4th place. He really showed some serious heart on the run and showed that even though you are a former World Champion every place counts at Hawaii.

4. My dinner plate of 4 steaks, 1 kilo of French fries and 500ml of béarnaise sauce. Go on my son…

5. Bent Andersen’s win in Age Group 45-49 in 9:11 and 45th Overall. Wow.

6. Craig Alexander’s win. Amazing talent. Should be first here but was almost too expected.

7. The half of chocolate tarte with berries for dessert…

8. Andy Potts’ finishing run in 2:52 which gave him a 9th place.

9. Dirk Bockel from Luxembourg finished 7th in his debut.

10. Mirinda Carfrae’s run in 2:56

Top 10 – Down’s:

1. Where was my training the day after Hawaii… Tough night just to watch the race. I am still bloody beat.

2. Andy Potts’ bike split in 4:46.

3. The lack of candy on the table at 2am…

4. Eneke Llanos’s 14th place. Ran in 3:05. Not up to his standard.

5. Did Philip Graves went too hard on the bike… Finished the run in 3:37. But great stuff just to finish. Will do him good in the future.

6. Cameron Brown’s 22nd place. Dissapointing. Was expecting more.

7. Why am I watching this on the Internet… Could do with a race soon…

8. Charlotte Kolters had to withdraw because of blisters… Better luck at the 70.3 Worlds.

9. The 19 minute time difference between Chrissie Wellington and runner-up.

10. Jimmy Johnsen withdrew due to a mechanical on the bike which caused him to dehydrate… Better luck at the 70.3 Worlds. He will be doing IM Western Australia early December - not the 70.3 Worlds (changed 21/10/09)

Weighed in at 74.9 kilos…

The last 2½ weeks my training has been going ok. Not super, but that is expected. Some sessions I feel quite good, other sessions I feel like offseason should start again tomorrow and last a few years...

The training load the past two weeks has been 20 and 15 hours and this week I will probably hit around 16-17 hours. It may sound like a lot in off-season. And it is definitely in the high numbers of what I am used to train and should be defined as hard weeks. But it is not really hard sessions. Some easier bike sessions, swimming with main focus on my technique and short slow runs. I also have a hope that I will be tested in early December, so I better turn up in a condition better than crap… But I’ll get back to that at a later stage. The following weeks I will probably turn the intensity on the runs a notch or two up. In 2½ weeks I will hopefully do a short 10k test, to see what my level of performance is at a distance, which does not suit me at all. But it will be a good guidance point for reference in the winter period.

I weighed my self yesterday. Very rare I do that. You just loose focus if you do that too often instead of focusing on your overall condition. But lost about two kilos, so I am under my race weight. Maybe I should change my expectations to my race weight. I’m actually lighter than at both IM France and especially at Ostseeman. I am 191 cm., so 75 kilos seems like a ok weight. I expect to stay around that number in the future, as I will probably gain muscle weight and loose fat the next six months. That is at least my target.

Mexican food as dinner on the day of the Worlds in Hawaii… Is that acceptable… Well, as my brother is half Mexican and is believed to be the long expected unknown brother of Michael Rasmussen, then I think I’ll just accept this quietly… Mexican food it is on Saturday eve…

Happy Days… Well, not quite yet… But Saturday is coming closer…

On Saturday the 10th of October most Danes will be watching the local derby against the Swedes, where we can qualify for the World Championships next year. My brother and I will also be watching the match. But definitely not as closely as we normally would do. We, together with the rest of the triathlon world, will have a firm eye on Hawaii from 18:45CET.
We will have one tele showing the football match, but the biggest tele will be showing the live video from Hawaii. And off course we will have a laptop each to be on top on all the splits coming in on the live coverage.
It will be a great evening and night which probably won’t end until 4am at the earliest. But no matter what the final result will be, it will for sure be worth it.
The biggest problem to solve for us before Saturday is to decide what to have for dinner… On a day like that we will allow ourselves something delicious and full on carbs… Or maybe two of those… But what to choose… What to choose… When you can pick anything from a huge number of nice dishes, which you normally try to keep your hands off, then it is very difficult. Can anything leave up to the expectations... So it will probably end up being a healthy green dinner and fruit for the rest of evening…;-) All though right now a very large steak with French fries and béarnaise sauce seems very attractive. But tomorrow it will for sure be something else… We’ll see :-)

Give it some violence…

The British’s have something with words and expressions. I saw the first half of Arsenal vs. Blackburn yesterday (not a fan of either btw…), and the co-commentator kept saying: “Give it some violence”. For instance when Vermaelen scored a goal with a great hard shot. What a great expression. It really illustrates a situation.

I can’t wait to give my training load some violence… My running load is increasing slowly. Went for a run as the sun came down tonight. 45 min. at a violent speed. Nice to see that my running condition is not too bad, even though this was my longest run in two months.
Haven’t been able to swim since Wednesday. Mainly due to practical reasons which will be sorted out this week. Really looking forward to swim the next four days. Swimming is just a great cardio workout.

Challenge Barcelona on Sunday

The first edition of Challenge Barcelona on the Ironman distance is tomorrow and I have a few Danes I want to follow so I am hoping to find a live update some where, even though it seems like the official does not plan to provide me with one.
I had really considered very hard to do this race but after the second Ironman in 5 weeks in early August then I felt like giving my body a bit of rest. I also would like to be able to do Ironman races for the next 10 years at least so better not use all my attempts at such a early stage. But the Challenge Barcelona almost seems like a race that you must do before you die. It is not raced in Barcelona, but up the coast at Maresma. It has a great fast bike course along the coast where you need to do two laps of 90 km. on a out and back flat course. That seems like a race for me. Put you head down and hammer away. I think we’ll see some very quick bike splits tomorrow.
Obviously the race collides with Hawaii which is the only down side about the event. But a great new interesting race at the Ironman circuit and in the Challenge Series.
Now I have to admit that I find the official site a bit confusing. I have been checking the site since spring and especially their list of participants seems to have a default of some sort. So I am not sure which Pro’s will be at the starting line. But none the less the huge favorite seems to be Marcel Zamora. He is a local so should know the course and the conditions well. I saw him at the Ironman France where he posted a new course record in his third consecutive win. His final run is at the highest level and it is bit sad not to see him instead next week at Hawaii. The hot conditions suits him well and he has been competing in Hawaii before. I hope we’ll see what he can do next year. And maybe because I raced against him in Nice he is one of my favorites. And check of the picture below. Marcel Zamora, the winner, and my bike side by side. Fucking hell… Looks damn good :-) When I came to collect my bike in the transition zone after the race, his bike was next to mine. Proud moment. I came to T2 in 15th spot so he was 11 positions ahead me. But maybe the volunteers thought the two most beautiful bikes should be next to each other. I am sure that it was not a coincidence… ;-)
I am actually also still at the firm conviction that if I had started the bike ride with Zamora, he would not have been in the T2 before me. Even though I had a bit of a shit day in Nice that day. But I got it together and I actually consider my physical and mentally performance that day to be of a higher level than my 3rd place at Ostseeman in 8:45hrs. The experience from that day in Nice will be with me for several years. And I certainly used my experience from a very hard day in Nice to “almost” have a easy day at the Ostseeman. Nothing could be harder than Nice and the cramps and digestion problems I had to overtake from the first minute of the race. Experience is for sure essential on the Ironman distance.