21.67 km today and a training tip!

I have been feeling quit @#$% the last week, have not been running regularly. I am getting frustrated that I am not making efforts to learn Icelandic and work has been hectic! However, last evening, left work at 4:20pm and ran inside the gym for about 30 minutes at less than 5 min/km pace... while I was doing that I decided that I will do a long run on Saturday morning. So headed out at 9:15am (wanted to start earlier but was too tired to wake before 8am), while I was running I met with Asgeir and he was running on the opposite direction, he turned around and wanted to know how long I was going to run and he felt that it might be too long for him! I was like "Asgeir! no distance is long for you!" The man ran 23.5 km the weekend before with me and Joi, did a bike ride on the same evening and the next day went and climbed Esja, the mountain just outside Reykjavik!

Anyway, he ran most of the distance with me and I learnt something very interesting from Asgeri that I should try to do atleast one run during the week with my heart rate less than 160 and when I do that my body learns to burns fat for energy instead of Carbohydrates! That was a very valuable advice for me given that I am always running at 175 bpm or above during my runs!

Ok... today was the toughest training run!

I ran 23.5 km in one of the worst conditions here in Iceland. The day was beautiful, absolutely clear and still... I cannot say the same to the trail that we were running. It is called the Heidmork trail, It was a lot of uphills and we had snow upto 30 cm and the temperature was close to -18.
The trail was the most beautiful that I have run so far, we could see the entire city of Reykjavik when we we almost to the top and it was literally no-one except the 3 of us and it was only 15 mintues from the city.
By the time we finished my face was covered in Ice formed from my sweat... it was quite dramatic! My running partners Asgeir and Joi were in better shape than I was so it was less tougher for them. I have updated my london marathon running log

London training runs so far...

Hardest workout session ever!

I ran 19.76km yesterday (Jan 13,'07) in -5 degrees celius and 10 to 12 inches of snow! It was my hardest workout ever and I was extremely glad when it was over :) but my running group was maybe 15 minutes faster than I was and they completed the same distance sooner. I don't want to make excuses so I thought I could have done better until I saw my heart monitor my max heart rate was close to 205 bpm which is the highest that I have recorded so far so I guess net net I pushed myself quite hard and I am quite happy about it.

It was extremely nice to spend some time in the spa after such a tough workout, we spent maybe 15 mintues in the hottest sauna, then dipped our legs to the hip in ice-cold water for about 5 minutes and rested in a lazy-boy sofa for another 15 minutes.

To top off the day, my bank had our New Year Gala party for customers in the evening and I can say that it was the party of the year yet!! Hats off to the Events Team of Glitnir Marketing!!!