stay cool...

I did a one and a half hour of trail running yesterday, it was very very warm... I drank 1,4 litres of water during the run and still I felt very tired and banged up afterwards.

Might have been my incredibly well poised lunch (ice cream, strawberries, cake and coffee at my parents in law)... ;)

Today I'm doing a nice calm 5k recovery run late in the evening when it's nice an cool.

//jonas

Training and midsummer

Ahhh… the midsummer is here and a nice trip with our boat out on the Swedish archipelago together with the family is planed! We will be south of Möja at Njudholmen which means in the same water as the race, I’ll bring my wetsuit for some swimming. :-)

I’ll will update the blog with some picture afterward, have a really nice midsummer everybody!

//Pontus

Getting into the groove...

Things are flowing, doing nice long runs in the forests around my house. Haven't been swimming as much as needed though, got very bored in the pool the last time.

Not to worry, I'm looking to get my S3 this week (or at the very latest next week), then I will swim outdoors instead. No risk for crowds in the open water! ;)

Oh, I almost forgot, I'm on vacation/training camp all of July and August... ;)

And I am going for Vibram KSO Trek for the race (http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/products/products_kso_trek_m.cfm).

So far I have trained in "normal" KSO's but the sole is on the thin side and I need to be a bit more robust for the race. If you are able to control your environment normal KSO's are just fine, but since I will be very tired and probably not as sharp as I need to be I'm going for more protection. I would hate to have to end the race on some stupid injury...

//jonas 'the tortoise'

Equipment

We have started the process of find the best equipment and as we have said before, less is best! What I like from your Senior Island to Island competitioners is comments on our suggestion:

1. Wetsuit – Orca S3, Equip or Sonar and full length!


2. Shoes - Pontus will probably use adidas adizero xt mens. Jonas is still investigating, will it be some “Toe Shoe” look alike!?
   
   
3. Bag and fluid – GoLite Hydroswift (http://www.addnature.com/product.aspx?dept_id=0&pf_id=GOLITEHYDROSWIFT_S09)
   
   
4. Swimming cap – Something thicker?


5. Ears – Some type of earplug to avoid water in the ear which can cause nauseas.


6. Energy – Some type of bars or gel, which is best?

Have we missed something?

//Pontus

Divide it into four

When I am doing my distance runs or swim I try to divide the session into quarters. In example yesterday I did 20 x 200 meters in a 25 meters swimming pool, that’s a total of 4000 meters or 160 turns! I divided into 5 x 200 meter with 10-15 sec rest between the sets and then 1 minutes rest before next 5 x 200 meter. In this case it was only 4 times 1000 meter and that much easier to perform :-). For Island to Island which in our case will be ongoing for 12-13 hour I think we need to aim at the next station because if we see the entire course ahead we will never make it. What do you think?

//Pontus

Intensive weeks!

Puuhh… it has been some pretty intensive weeks but is there a light at the end of the tunnel over there? The last weeks has included, work, fever, training and some shopping. :-)



My Knees
After my Italian trip I caught some type of a virus which resulted in one week without training. I really hate when that happened, it make me so stressed! I also investigated my knees with ultrasound and the result came back with “No injures on the knee tendon, but with some small irregularity on the bone.” It means that I can trainee but to mitigate the risk to get it worse in the future a couple of new custom made sole for the foot. This is just the opposite too the “Toe Shoe philosophy” but it’s too close to the race for me to change philosophy now! :-)




Premiere outdoor swimming!
Yep, I had my premiere of outdoor swimming and used my Orca S2. It was nice to overcome the mental barrier of swimming in cold water. It was somewhere between 13-15 degrees and it wasn’t that cold! When I first entered the water I thought I was going to freeze to death but after a while it felt pretty good. I was just swimming for 25 minutes but that was enough to just prove to myself it is doable.



Shopping
One of many question is what to wear and what to bring. Jonas and I had some chats regarding tactics and my believe is the less the better. Another question is what to wear on your feet. I bought “Adidas Adizero XT mens” and they feel great. I have tried them a couple of times and yesterday I did a 130 minutes trail running almost no tracks and a lot of up and down hill. It’s so nice with some charleyhorse in my calfs today.


Here is a map on my last run:
http://www.funbeat.se/tracks/index.aspx?RouteID=415544


//Pontus

8K barefoot run

Just finished an 8K barefoot run! I try to run twice a week completely barefoot to strengthen my feet and muscles.

This week will be a 50K week, finishing of on Sunday with a 20k (10k on asphalt and 10k on a forest track).

We had a quick tactics talk today, the old unix motto "less is more" seems to prevail... ;)

//jonas