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Had to step in as swimming coach this weekend. Impressing to see how serious some of the kids are training, especially this early in the morning. 2 hours of swimming in the morning, and we're ready for 2 hours of climbing later today.

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via gettingreal.37signals.com

Ordered myself a copy of Getting Real. I love this book, and think about it every day. Even if it's free to read online, I still want a "hard" copy. Underdo your competition!

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My son is training swimming 5 times a week. 3 of those are morning sessions 06.30-07.30. I'm trying to do some work on the laptop. Yes, I have coffee.

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On May 1st the family went for this sesons last skiing trip. Going to the top of Kjølen (790 m.). Really impressed with the kids, Kenneth and Eric. Kenneth is only 6 years old, and walked the all the way on his own. Perfect weather and happy kids. Can't be better than that :-)

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Levi has 45 slopes and 27 lifts. In addition they have 230 km of xc skiing tracks, so you can get a little execise as well in the afternoon. I brought with me my xc skating skies and took a 20 km route around the mountain. Perfect conditions. Haven't been skating for a year, but was is much better shape than last year. Looks like all the swimming have actually made me a better skier. More muscles in the upper part of the body I guess. Levi is the perfect place if you need to get out of the chair. I'll be back next year!

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My goal was to get a time below 1:40. At the finish line the time showed 1:40:39. At first I was a bit disappointed, but I must not forget that it's still a new personal best for me by 36 seconds.

My son Eric also completed the 3 km at 17:27. That's a huge achievement. Really proud of him, as always. We celebrated at Oslo Hard Rock Cafe. A very nice and positive holiday for both of us.

The new DS Trainers worked perfectly. Got a few blisters, but nothing to worry about. They felt good all the way.

The details:

• ½ Maraton (21,097 km) 1:40:39 (4:47 min/km | 12.58 km/t)
• 10 km 0:48:01 (4:49 min/km | 12.50 km/t)
• Placement: 532 of 1515 men in total. 101 of 268 in M35-39.
• Avg hr: 163.3 (87% of max), Max hr: 177 (94% of max)
  
• Lap times (min/km): 4:43, 4:47, 4:48, 4:46, 4:56, 4:42, 4:41, 4:53, 4:45, 5:02, 4:58, 4:33, 4:47, 5:01, 4:37, 4:54, 4:52, 4:42, 4:40, 4:40, 4:31, 0:20
  

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For the last year I've been running in my Asics Kayano XII. I'm very satisfied with these shoes. They fit my feet perfectly, and they are as soft as I like them to be. But they are also quite heavy (355 gr). In cycling the weight at the wheels is quite important. What about the weight at your feet? Again, Google is your friend. By searching I found out that:

"The common rule of thumb is that you can expect to drop 1 second per mile, for every ounce you shed on your feet."

So I went to my friend Martin at Intersport and grabbed a pair of Asics DS Trainer 12. The DS Trainer is about 255 grams. This means that I will save 200 grams in total. So how much time should I be able to save? 200 grams is 7 ounces. Half marathon is 13.1 miles. Doing the math tells me I should be able to save about 1 minute and 32 seconds. Not much, but at least that should help me get below 1:40. Well in a few days we will know the answer.

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• Tour de Lax, was sick but tried anyway. Not a good race for me. Lets just forget about it.
  
• Tromsørittet, 2:45:00. New personal best with 5 min 06 secs. Great fun, but expected better results. Stayed to far back in the main field, and lost them when it got splintered before Brennsholmen.
  
• Tour de Andørja, 1:40:35. New personal best with 9 min and 53 secs. Things getting better in the hills, but got a hard time in the last hill.
  
• Lavka, 2:48:54. New personal best with 26 min 47 secs. A bit sick that day, but that didn't stop me.
  
• Tromskraftprøven, 4:14:09. New personal best with 21 min 01 secs. Managed to stay with the best.
  

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I started out easy in fat-burning pace at about 6 min/km and slowly increased to about 5:45 min/km for the rest of the run. Was a good exercise with a bit of suffering in the end. I always start to feel it after about 17 km, and today I had to switch the music to Sepultura in order to keep up the pace. Their Roots album is great to listen to while suffering. Anyway things feels quite good before Oslo, so now I will concentrate on speed intervals next week.

My personal best for half marathon is 1:41:15 (MSM 2007) and in order to beat the time I will have to run at a pace of 4:45/km or better.

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"On the flats, resistance (which slows you down) is primarily related to the resistance created by a rider's bike and body as they move through the air. Big riders, in a low racing position, have a frontal surface area that is quite similar to that of smaller riders. But big riders tend to generate more power thanks to their larger muscle mass. That's why time trials and sprints on flat or rolling terrain favor the bigger, muscular riders." (cycling performance tips)

When I attended races with more hills, the result was a very different story. Climbing is a power-to-weight activity. Kraftprøven this year was the first hilly race where I managed to keep up with the best. It took me 4 years with over 300 hours of exercise per year, and over 20 kg weight reduction in order to make it. But how much better did I perform this year at 79 kg compared to my 86 kg last time I did the race in 2005?

At the race I noticed that a lot of riders received food and bottles along the road. As for myself, I rode unsupported and brought all the food and bottles with me from start. How much easier would I be able to ride in the hills if I had also received support along the track? The total weight of the food and bottles were 2-3 kg. How much difference would it be?

And when you start to think about it, more questions arrive. How much easier would it be if my bike was 1 kg lighter? What if I was a few kg lighter myself? In 1994 at the age of 25 I was only 70 kg, so you could say that I still have 9 kg to go. How much better would I be if I was able to get back in 1994 shape?

To find the answer I started playing around with a nice tool called "Bicycle Speed and Power Calculator". I extracted the data from the major hills of the race. I also compared the results to 2005. In 2005 I was 86 kg, had a bike that were 9.4 kg. Now in 2007 I'm 79 kg and my bike 8.3 kg. For both bikes I add 300 gr. for pedals, 300 grams for accessories. I also add 2 kg for food and drink and 2 more kg for clothes, shoes, helmet etc. Totals for 2005: 10 kg for bike, 90 kg for rider. Totals for 2007: 8.9 kg for bike, 83 for rider.

Buktamoen/Olsborg:
The first hill of the race. It's about 60 meters climb, 1.8 km and average grade of 3.5%.

• In 2005 the hill took me 4:00 to climb, avg/max hr: 160/176 bpm, speed 27 km/h, estimated 442 watts (5.1 watts/kg)
  
• In 2007 the hill took me 3:39 to climb, avg/max hr: 165/174 bpm, speeed 30.1 km/h, estimated 494 watts (6.3 watts/kg)
  

• In 2005 the hill took me 10:45 to climb. avg/max hr: 165/175 bpm, speed 30.0 km/h, estimated 398 watts (4.6 watts/kg)
  
• In 2007 the hill took me 9:48 to climb. avg/max hr: 155/173 bpm, speed 31.1 km/h, estimated 402 watts (5.1 watts/kg)

After Heia:
The third hill is a 90 meters ascent over 2.6 km with an average grade of 3.6%.

• In 2005 the hill took me 7:15 to climb. avg/max hr: 163/170 bpm, speed 21.1 km/h, estimated 311 watts (3.6 watts/kg)
  
• In 2007 the hill took me 5:37 to climb. avg/max hr: 155/171 bpm, speed 26.4 km/h, estimated 404 watts (5.1 watts/kg)
  

• In 2005 the hill took me 6:00 to climb, avg/max hr: 159/166 bpm, 23.1 km/t, estimated 251 watts (3 watts/kg)
  
• In 2007 the hill took me 3:57 to climb, avg/max hr: 160/174, 27,6 km/h, estimated 320 watts (4.1 watts/kg)
  

In each of these hills one can estimate that 2 kg of bottles and food costs you 4-5 seconds extra time for each hill (except for the last where you don't have any food/drink left). The same goes for a lighter bike that will save you about 2 seconds for every kilo in each hill. You will also have to generate 4 more watts for every extra kg of weight you carry in order to maintain the speed in any of these hills.

Thus if you have problems keeping up with the rest in these hills, then having some friends give you food and bottles along the way in addition to a lighter bike, may be the difference between "to be or not to be". And even if you already manage to keep up with the best, then the effort you save by having less weight may be the difference you need in order to win the race in the end. For many it's really unfair to compete with people that have a bike that is 2 kg lighter and costs 5-10 times more than your own. Especially for young people that have limited income. If they also receive food/drink along the way, then one might say that they are actually competing in a different race/class than you are. With pro-tour teams is the same for everybody. They have equal bikes, they all receive support. So what can you do about it? Well you should save weight where you get the most out of it. If you are overweight like I was in 2005, then there is no bike in the world what will save you. If I had received bottles and food in 2005, I would probably have been able to keep up with the rest in the second hill, but I would definitely have been dropped in the next.

As for my 1994 shape. With equal cycling fitness, I should have been able to climb each hill between 10-20 seconds faster. That's a big difference, but will still not make me a world class rider :-) But I'm happy to see the improvement. The absolute wattage looks to have improved with about 50 watts over the last 2 years. According to Knut Anders Fostervold, an increase of 25 watts per year is regarded as very good for cyclists. 25 watts is equivalent to about 6 kilos of weight reduction (if you have any places you can save). Also the watt reduction over the 4 hours of the race has also gone down, which shows that the power lasts a bit longer than before.

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On monday there was an article about Kjell Harald Horn and I. The title is very wrong since "Styrkeprøven" is very different race. Anyway, Kjell Harald and I got to know each other after we lost the lead group in the same hill during Tromskraftprøven in 2005. I guess we had exactly the same ml/min/kg at that time. We had to work together for a long time to catch up the remains of the lead group. He's had good progress over the last years, and I'm happy to see that he and others have now started a bike club called "Senja Sykkelklubb".

We got the same result back in 2005 and we also got the same result last saturday. I'm sure I'll meet him next year as well.

I had commented on this, telling that the car drivers have to accept that the bikes owned the road for one single day in the year, and that there's no point in driving behind a bike race. Better to stop and take a cup of coffee. I would agree however that we could have announced the bike race better in the media telling car drivers to stay away from the roads at the particular time of the race. That might be a good idea for next year.

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Again the weather cleared up and I decided to leave the winter clothes behind. Even if the temperature was only 9 degrees Celsius, and would probably be about 6 degrees Celsius at the highest point of the route. I loaded the bike (and myself) with 2.5 liters of sports drink (600 kcal), 2 energy bars (440 kcal) and 2 gels (278 kcal). Thats a total of 1318 kcal. However I would estimate the enegry consumption for such a race to be about 5000 kcal.

So I'm very happy with the result, the weather and the race. Espen Amundsen from our cycling team won the race, so we're really proud of him and the rest of the team that helped him.

(picture taken by Roy Sørensen. It's me on the right. Not daring to look up to see how far and steep the hill really is)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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