Run 1:27:00 [3] 17.0 km (5:07 / km) +610m 4:20 / km
A pretty solid afternoon's work on the tracks on the west side of Holmenkollen - certainly jumped in at the deep end by climbing to the top of the Olympic slalom course in the first 20 minutes. I don't think I've done a hill as long as that since Asheville, although I wasn't running in snow this time (still a few lingering patches on north-facing slopes though). The rest of it wasn't exactly flat either, and as expected in Norway the single-track bits were pretty rough - not much mud but some very rocky bits.
Suffered a bit early through taking on a big hill before being properly warmed up, but otherwise a pretty good effort. Feeling it a bit at the end, probably as much from the descents as the climbs. Will go back into the terrain tomorrow.
Saw a 1999 quote from George W. Bush today in which he described his perfect day as involving running, fishing, watching sport on TV, followed by dinner with a few friends with Van Morrison in the background and in bed by 10. It's a bit scary that I have a greater than 50% overlap with this (delete the fishing, substitute intelligent and stimulating conversation for Van Morrison, and push the 10 out to 10.30).
Interested to see that the Australian athletics team's decision to come in from Hong Kong at the last minute is attracting some controversy. I've known about it for a while and think Hong Kong isn't a bad choice on climatic grounds (for temperature/humidity, a normal July day in Hong Kong is a bad one in Beijing), although I'd probably have gone for southern Japan myself because Hong Kong wouldn't be the easiest of places to train (lots of great runs but most very steep, which probably isn't what an Olympic aspirant in the final pre-competition phase is looking for). I would, however, dispute that there's 'nowhere to run' in Beijing - I found that it had more options than Seoul (although the one option in Seoul is a good one) and was less hair-raising than Hanoi.
(I've previously put together some material on Beijing's climate for the AOC, but didn't have any involvement in the choice of Hong Kong).