Half marathon completed. It was a hard track, more slopes and many 90 and a few 180 degree turns than last year. But much more fun to run on Karl Johansgate, even though it was quite slippery. Picture on the left taken by Ellen Michelsen right after the finish line.

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
  

A great thanks to Ellen Michelsen for looking after Eric while I was running. Also a great thanks to Thon Hotel Stefan for letting us check out 4 hours later than usual so we get a shower after the race. Finally a great thanks to Glitnir and Sportsklubben Vidar for a fantastic event. Will definitively be back next year :-)

Getting ready for Oslo (half) Marathon. When I first started running again I got a pair of Mizuno Wave Runner. They felt fast, unfortunately they gave me huge blisters. They also felt quite hard when running, so wanted some softer shoes.

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.

Two weeks until Oslo Marathon, where I plan to run half marathon. Haven't done much running this summer, so it's about time to get some distance in the legs. Two weeks before a race is a good time to run the full distance, so today I ran around the Tromsø island. It's about 23 km and quite flat.

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.

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.