Every tuesday during the summer, we have a small competition called "Sykkelkarusellen" (The Bike Carousel). It's a good opportunity to get the blod flow going, one last time before the weekend event.

Tried to escape from the pack with Rune, but he was way to strong for me. So after about 9 minutes (6 minutes in zone 5) I had to give up and drop down to the rest. When it was time to climb the hill, I was still quite tired and had litte or nothing to give. A good training session at least.

The weather was awful with rain pouring down. I don't think I've ever been this wet before. My water proof gloves turned out to only get filled with cold water.

At home I only had half an hour break before going swimming with the Masters group. Slightly wetter, but much warmer than the bike race. Was quite tired after the race and had to take things easy.

Participated in the MSM Extreme Run. After many days of heavy rain, the weather finally cleared up. 13 degrees celcius actually felt quite hot today.

Expected a good finish time since I've done a lot of training since last year where I finished at 24:00. More strength training, more walks in the mountains. However, I haven't done much running this summer, but felt quite confident that I was going to crush the time from last year. However, one thing's for sure. The race is extremely painful. The track is only 2.7 km, but with 420 meters ascent the cardiovascular system needs to do most of the work. My average heart rate was 90% of max (170 bpm), and max heart rate at 96% (180 bpm).

Finished 8th in my class at 23:54. That's only 6 seconds better than last year. Looks like that time is encoded into my genes or something. But I'm still happy with the result, and also extremely proud of my son Eric (10 years) who also completed his first extreme run.

My good friend Mårten Blixt has released his climbing guide for Kvaløya called "Kvaløya - Selected Climbs". Somebody told me that they had seen photos of me in the book, so I had to get hold of a copy to check things out. There on page 83 I found a picture of me climbing the beautiful route "Psiloscin" graded 7/7+. The route is on the "crackwall" of a huge boulder called "Resekallen".

The next picture on page 294 is a route called "Buestrengen" graded 7-. The route is on the main wall of another huge boulder called "Resekjerringa".

These pictures were taken back in 93/94 I would guess. At that time I was super fit with a weight at about 70 kg. I can see from the pictures that my cycling legs are about 4 times heavier than back then.

At page 95 you will also find my very own route called "Dagdrøm" (Day dream), graded 7+. I remember that the crux was a single hard move, and my shoulder actually got dislocated on my first ascent back in 1994. I can still feel that injury when swimming butterfly today. I drilled the route myself, but I was a bit lazy at the time, and much more fond of climbing than drilling new routes.

The hardest route I ever managed to climb back then, was "Sjamanen" graded 8-. A tricky start, and a hard climb with no rest until half way up the route.

The book by Mårten is a solid piece of work, and is a must if you plan to do some climbing in the Tromsø area. My palms starts to sweat when I read the book, and I feel that I really want to go climbing again. Anyway, you can order the book from his webshop.

Although the cycling season isn't finished yet, I went with my friend Åge Kvalnes for the first workout with the Masters group in Tromsø Svømmeklubb. These people are pretty good at swimming and the workouts are very hard. With cycling, most people in good shape would have little or no problem participating on a training session. This is not the case with swimming. As expected, my butterfly technique wasn't any good, but at least it was better than last time. Still much work to be done ...

Participated in the record attempt by Tromsø Cykleklubb to break the cycling record between Finnsnes and Tromsø (156 km). The old record was 3:59:08. Early on I found out that my average heartrate (87 %) was way to high, and there was no way I was going to last for 4 hours.

I was also worried about the hills around Heia (240 msl). The hills turned out to be no problem, but I had big problems being able to eat and drink in an average speed of speed (41-42 km/h). So when we reached Nordkjosbotn I bonked and lost the pack on flat ground. Game over!

However the rest of the gang (10 out of 18) managed to break the record and the new record is now 3.55.06. I am really impressed by these people.

Looks like it's time to do more speed workouts!

Lavkarittet is always a tough MTB cycling challenge. Going over the mountain (750 meters high) and crossing rivers. I had trained well for the event, going on mountains and running up steep hills rolling my bike beside me. I also decided to put much less pressure into my tires this time. Last time I had about 70 psi. This time I decided to use 35 psi. Sadly I woke up sick on the morning of the event, but decided to go for it anyway. Was careful in the start, but found out that the body was working after all. Finished 8th in my class (M30-39) at the time of 2:48:54. This is an improvement of 26 minutes from earlier attempts. Looks like the good planning payed off after all. Overall, very happy with the result.