Training Log Archive: stiands

Misjudged the distance to the head of the trail by a couple of minutes, but only because I had to start higher up to avoid a patch of snow that hasn’t melted yet.

Ran into the valley on dirt roads with less snow than yesterday after doing the warm up exercises and drills.

Felt alright this morning. Motivated and no pains/niggles. Seemed like my hips were less tight as well.

13 degrees, clear skies and no wind so I wore a t shirt and shorts for the first time this year. Pretty awesome! Backpack weighed a little over 2kg. Had filled water bottles in it.

8 x 3 mins (3 min recovery, «jog» back down)

First rep was definitely a 9+/10 effort from the go. The trail is constantly at a gradient between 50-60%. It’s a very technical trail by Norwegian standards. Considering how rocky it is, the only way it could be more technical is if the rocks were loose. If the rocks hadn’t been there I imagine I’d be down with my hands on the trail a lot, but they have the same effect steps would so it isn’t that bad.

Somehow I timed the going down perfectly so I basically never stood still. Always ended up with exactly 3 mins of recovery.

I knew that if I could replicate the pace and effort of the first rep eight times, this would have been an amazing session. I got the same distance the second and third rep, but to be honest, I didn’t think I’d make it to six reps after the third one. Because it was so steep and basically was like running up a stairwell with tall steps, my quads were really tired. I feared my effort level would be limited by how tired my legs became, but somehow I got through rep 4,5,6. Effort level was still 10/10.

7 and 8 were really painful. Didn’t get as far up this time. Was breathing fucking hard though and quads were on fire.

Found a secure spot to lay down after the last rep and stayed there for 5 minutes until I was ready to go back down again. Looking back it was a fun session. 3 minutes passed by really quickly. I know that I wont compete on a more technical trail ever so it kind of gives me confidence. Also, I’ll get fucking strong by getting beat up by this every once in a while.

Note that the distance for this session is going up 8 times and down 7 times, so I only ran about 150m each rep. Still climbed 600m though which says a lot.

Cut my leg at a rock and bled some, but didn’t notice until after the session was over so it can’t be that bad.

Ran back home. Felt a little sick, like I might puke. But it went away after 5 minutes. Same went for the pain in my quads. Only wished it was a little less hilly. Went at the easiest effort possible.