The bugs are bugging me...

Training is going great! Some small obstacles on the way though. The other night when I was out on a short'n'fast 5K run I was "attacked" by bugs. Seriously I have never seen that much stuff in the air (where I live), and I had to run with my mouth closed for most of the way...

Still, I ate quite a few... (nasty)

Picking up my new shoes today, it's a pair of vibram five-fingers KSO, KSO stands for Keep Stuff Out and is basically the basic shoe with cover over the top of the foot.

My toe-shoe running adventure is continuing and I must say it is working great! Who knew that all you needed was protection from the ruff surfaces... But if you think about it it's quite obvious, 1.8 million years of evolution did a good job.

//Jonas (the tortoise)

Italia!

Last week I was in Italy on a conference and that was nice. I did some running but I was 30 degrees which made it pretty tuff! I start to feel some pain in my left knee and have an appointment for an ultrasound this week and I really hope for the best. I will take “the opportunity” to do a lot of swimming instead. It still pretty cold in the water outside but maybe in a couple of week the out-door premier will take place!

//Pontus

Intensive periods and rest periods

Intensive

The last weeks have been pretty intensive for me and I did a 30 km run to finalize it. Last week was a soft week with just two training sessions, one 12 km running and one 53 km on the bike. This week will also be a calm one and that is because I start to feel some pain in my left knee.

The importance of rest!

I quote:
“
When we are training for an endurance event (marathon, half marathon, ultra marathon) we often think the main thing we need to do for training is RUN. After all, it makes sense. We're going to be running for a very long time so we should probably focus mainly on running for our training. We often believe that more is more; the more we run, the more prepared we will be for our races.
While we definitely need to run to prepare for our races, rest is as essential a component in our training as running is. In fact, our rest days may be the most important training days in our week. Experienced runners can get away with less rest because they don't damage their muscles as much when they are running. In fact, Paula Radcliffe (world record holder, Women's Marathon), takes one full rest day every ten days. When you consider that she has a personal massage therapist, Physical Therapist, and has to focus solely on her running, it shows you how important rest is even to elite athletes.
“

It’s ok!
I just love to train but it’s hard for me to say to myself, it’s Ok to rest. I think many of you have the same problem but just remember, if you get hurt you will end up with a long period of physical therapy instead.

Train hard but train smart!

//Pontus

crazy run in toe-shoes

Wow, I just did my first run in toe-shoes (5,5k on 30 minutes)...

Toe-shoes you wonder, well I have been reading up on shoes and the facts behind different shoes. Or rather the lack of facts to support anything other then barefoot is probably the best way to run (as evolution has provided us with the tools).

And since toe-shoes are basically soles and nothing more they also have a side-effect of being very light, and they don't carry any water at all. In short the perfect shoe for the race.

Well, I will keep you posted on my toe-shoe adventure! (I'm not ready to toss my old shoes away just yet).

Here is a good article if you are interested.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1170253/The-painful-truth-trainers-Are-expensive-running-shoes-waste-money.html

//jonas

Tactics...

Jonas and I had a short discussion regarding the tactics for this competition. The questions we need to straight out is:

• Flippers?
• Paddles for your hands?
• How long should the wetsuit be?
• Running pace – 7 min/km?
• How much should we drink and eat?
• ….
  

Everything has its Pros and Cons of course the question is what’s the best. You need to save your legs for the running but to swim open-water there is a big advantage to use flippers. To be able to keep the pace the biggest challenge will be to start slow and keep that pace and not run off and hit the wall after 6 hours. Should we during the training keep a slow tempo, today I run between 4:30 and 5 minutes per km is that too fast?

What do you think?

//Pontus

the tortoise is back on track

Yeah! Back after beeing struck by lightning (or a cold actually...). Didn't do any training for almost a week so I restarted with a 5k run on friday, 10k on saterday and finished the weekend with a 4,5 easy run.

This week am back on my "normal" schedule;

mon: rest
tue: 10k run
wed: 1hour swin
thu: 7,5k run
fri: rest
sat: 1hour swim
sun: 15-25k run (doing 20k on sunday)

Jonas (aka the tortoise)

No I am not sponsored by Scott! :-)

Bought some new cycle cloth but I am not sponsored by Scott, it’s more I am sponsoring them ;). Went for two shorter bike runs but hey… The best training is the training that is performed. If you plan for 100 km on the bike but you only got time for 30 it is still better to do the 30 then nothing! Went on a 24 km on Friday and a 30 km on Saturday, have not be able to keep up the pace to over 30 km/h yet but I hope to be there soon.

You might wonder why I put time on the bike when there is no bike on Island to Island. Well, there are some Triathlon races I like to do and also it’s pretty nice to ride the bike. Training should be fun and if you like to walk, run, swim, play squash or whatever do it like Nike say, Just Do it!

Have a nice one…. Time for some running now!

//Pontus