The Night of Oslo Marathon

Well, I am up at 3:30 am... I have been feeling awful, I don´t know how I got the cold. I was feeling funny when I woke up after my short nap around 4:45 pm yesterday and my throat was itching and my nose was running. I could not believe it, I have been so careful with water, trying to eat carefully and keep myself warm. I think it was the change in weather yesterday, everything was great until around 12pm and then it started raining cats and dogs.

I am really worried about tomorrow but I am positive and I am going to smile even if I feeling miserable. I woke up because of a dream or rather more like a nightmare! I was late to the start of the marathon and I was struggling after the 3rd kilometer :( anyway, I should be sleeping and I just cannot go back to sleep.)

But the night before I ate
1. Plain Pasta
2. Grilled Chicken
3. Green Salad

The dinner was great, almost everyone part of the Glitnir Marathon team was there with our CEO and it was a lot of fun. We shared a lot of funny stories and the mood was very positive. I like Oslo a lot... we had dinner at Brasserie located in Aker Brygge. We were also very close to Glitnir's new Norwegian headquarters. It is a great location in Aker Brygge and we had tour of that by Bjorn Richard our managing director of Corporate Communication.

1 week before Oslo Marathon

I cannot wait for the Oslo Marathon, I am really excited to run again and feed on the energy that everyone will exude there.
Some numbers
1. Total distance run from 8/20 to 9/24 = 165.22
2. Average Pace = 5 min 45 sec per kilometer
3. Average Heart Rate = 159 bpm
4. Average Speed = 10.44 kilometer per hour
5. Total Calories burnt = 19,873
6. Max Heart Rate during training = 190
7. Total Run Time = 15 hours 26 min 20 sec

Dean & Sam's Weblogs... a true inspiration

I have been wondering why Dean Karnazes has not started blogging, but he has and here is Dean's Blog. I learnt about Sam Thompson while I was searching for training programs to help me prepare for the Oslo marathon and it was only 6 weeks after I finished my first marathon. I was inspired by what Sam was doing with regard to running 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states. Sam has finished running this schedule and he has brought a lot of awareness and media to the fate of people in New Orleans following Katrina.

I was happy to note that Dean ran with Sam and has written about Sam in his Weblog... thank Asgeir for bringing it to my attention.

1 and half size smaller and 13 kilos lighter...

I went to my tailor to alter all my suits... she had to take 4 to 6 inches off my pants and similar measures in my coats. She mentioned that it would have been great if it was her suits :) I thought that was a great compliment for my efforts so far.

Looking back it has been a very interesting journey... I have learnt soo much about myself with regard to exercise and diet. I have lost 13 kilos total and I don´t think I will ever go back to being as heavy as I was 6-8 months back.

I have not made any drastic changes to my diet but I run 4 to 6 times a week and I try to eat a lot of green vegetables and keep off of sugar and soda. It has worked wonders for me...

Increasing speed and endurance simultaneously!

I have started my training for the Oslo marathon... so far I have been doing around 10km and I did 12.7km on saturday. The strategy this time around is to do temp runs... this entails running 1/6 th of the distance at a slow pace and then run 2/3rd of the distance 10% faster than the marathon goal and try to maintain the pace for the entire distance and then run the last 1/6th at a normal pace.

I started out by trying to run the first half of my run slower than the last half. I have accomplised that goal in my last 4 outings... the interesting observation is that I have increased my average pace to 5 minutes and 16 seconds per km which is about 30 seconds faster than my marathon pace goal!! I guess I need to see how much more I can push my body... of course I am not trying to kill myself doing this :)