Holmenkollen Ski Marathon

Saturday it was time for Holmenkollen Ski Maraton, a 42k classic from Hakadal to the famous Holmenkollen Ski Arena. Althoug this year it was going to finish at Frognerseteren cause of recontructing of the arena before next years 2011 FIS Nordic Ski World Championships. Woke up to -19C in the morning and at the start it was bellow -20C. BRRRRR! Got my startnumber and decided to stay inside as long as possible. But the 3999 other racers also wanted that, so the smal scool hall got very overcrowded. At one point I actually got scared of not getting out of there to make it to my heat 1 9am race start:-)

After a short "cold" warm up I got my warmup chlotes of and headed to start. Got well away, but it was basically just to stay in line until the first aid station at about 10k. From there it opened up and I could start racing my own pace. My skiis was not as fast as I had hoped, but guess that was the same for almost everybody in -20C. From 10k to 20k I lost some places, but thats pretty normal in easy parts of the course for me. My upper body is not big enough:-)

When the sun got out and warmed up the tracks I had some trouble in a few upphils to get the skiis to stick, but I felt strong the whole way and had some energy left for the last 10k. The course change was brutal! Instead of gliding into the Holmenkollen arena, we did a sharp right turn and the last km was steep, steep uphill. And to make it worse it was in the sun and on produced snow. That meant it was like skiing in clean sugar, and no way to get the skiis to stick. A bit frustraiting cause I had energy left to really sprint, but there was no way I could use it. Just had to run outside the tracks or pull myself up on my weak arms. But I got there in 2h 40min and 45sec. It was an ok race, and good training for the upcomming 90km Vasaloppet.

Results here:

http://www.skiforeningen.no/

Another skirace

We have spent the evening at Heistadmoen on XC ski race. Both Stine and Ida enjoyed it. Ida did a approx 400m loop, and Stine did a whole km. And dad did 4,3km classic. Got 9th and has scrimped the timeloss to the best guys severly in 4 weeks. I`m happy and really looking forward to Holmenkollen Skimaraton on saturday.

Results here:
www.ilskrim.no

My new team!

It has taken A LOT of work but we finally made it! My club BK Triathlon is setting up an elite triathlon team for 2010. The team is called Team BK Triathlon - Ridley.

We are so lucky to be sponsored by http://www.racingdepot.no/ who are importing lots of great cycling and triathlongear to Norway. They are the largest on cycling in Norway, sp we are very happy to be working with them. The team wil ride, as I have told before, Ridley Dean bikes with Fast Forward wheels and Oval aerobars. We wil use Santini chlotes in our own team design. bothe triathlon chlotes and cycling chlotes. We will use Limar helmets.

The local Volvo/Ford/Mazda dealer ar suplying us with cars to use to camps and races, http://www.bilspiten.no/

Aquaman, via norwegian distributor, http://www.trishop.no/ , wil provide us with the fastes wetsiuts in the world.

I`m really looking forward to beeing a part of a team the coming seasons! It`s going to be a very fun 2010! We have our first short camp this coming sunday. And we will soon have a website running for the team.

The Worlds Fastest Bike

Here is my ride for 2010!

Ridley Dean with Shimano Ultegra 6700, Oval Concept aerobar and Fast Forward Wheels. Watch out for more news, cause I will not be the only norwegian triathlete on this bike in 2010 and 2011 ;-)

Ski races are hard!

In Kongsberg we have a 4 race ski tournament called Kongsbergkarusellen. First race was yesterday, and we got rid of the wirst cold just in time. After several days with temperatures lover than -20C last night was great with -8C and great prepeared tracks.

Kongsbergkarusellen is for everyone between 2 and 100yrs. So I brought my to girls and they had a great time. Ida(2,5yrs) did her first ski race ever. We cut the 1k course a bit short. 1k is long for a 2,5yr old! Stine(5) left from the gun in a hurry, but got a lithle lost on the course. She was saved by her grandfather, and when me and Ida finished she wantet to do one more lap. So we did:-)

Then it was time for the old man. 5,5k 2 loop classic race. It was hard! I did not know the course, but it gave no rest. with a small cold it was getting a bit hard to breathe the last lap. And my lower back started to spasm. But what can you expect when its the first hard skiworkout of the winter. Great training! My time was 18.24 and it got me 11th place in the menn senior cat.

Next race in 2 weeks. Skating:-)
Results here:
http://www.ilbevern.no/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=561:resultater-fra-forste-lop-i-skikarusellen&catid=114:langrenn-0910&Itemid=81

From local newspaper:
http://laagendalsposten.no/article/20100112/SPORT/701139997/1113

Happy New Year Swim!

Todays workout was inspired by HillaryBiscay, http://hillarybiscay.wordpress.com/ thougest IronChick out there. She uses this as a birthday set to herself and everyone else around here it seems. so it just had to be done. In late 90`s my club BK had a tradition of swimming 10.000 meters new year morning. So the now growing triathlon part (me!) of the club decided it was time to take it up again. Inspired by ms Biscay!

Program was like this, taken from Hillary`s blog: (except start times, they will make her laugh:-)

10x100 warm up (75free, 25back)

20x100 swim @ 1.55

20x100 swim hard @ 1.55

40x100 pull w/paddles and bouy @ 1.45

10x100 swim (25sprint,75easy)

5 of us started the show, 1 triathlete (me!) and 4 swimmers. Swimmers set out on starttime 1.45 from the gun. 2 of them blew big time after 40, and DNF`ed after 50:-)

We had booked the pool from 7am to 10am. It was pretty clear early I needed more time. Actually found the 100`s from 30 to 50 the hardest. It felt I was way over my head. But starting the pull set it all went buy fast. Had 90 in my belt after 3h, and the staff said the 3 of us still swimming could finish. So we did, in 3h 20min. The to youngsters og 13 and 15 yrs finished impressive 300m in front of me. Well done!

This was my longest swim ever. Previous record was 8000m. So going into 2010 optimistic. 3800m in the Hardanger fjord will be a sprint after this!

Thanks Hillary! And happy new year everybody!

Program

Halfway

3 finishers

Essential gear

OK week ended with Big trainer day

Week 49 2009 is in the books. A good training week that looked somewhat like this:

Monday: 40min morning run on treadmill + 1h master swim with 3x10x50 @ 55sec. Puked when finished
Tuesday: Off
Wednesday: 1h 15min with LT intervalls on spin bike + 30min brick treadmill run with 3x5min LT intervalls on 6% elevation.
Thursday: 1h master swim with 11x200pull @ 3.10
Friday: Early (0530) 1h trainer ride with 5x6min LT intervalls.
Saturday: 1h 20min master swim
Sunday: 3h trainer ride like this:
Hour One - warming up15 minute warm up (180 watts)
15 minute Single Leg Drill (1 minute left leg, 1 minute right leg, 1 minute both, repeat)
15 minute steady riding (180 watts)15 minute tempo riding (200 watts)
Hour Two - big gear, low cadence work4x (10 minutes of big ring, low cadence, 5 minute recovery)
Hour Three - 2x through:(1 minute easy, 1 minute hard, 2 minutes easy, 2 minutes hard, 3 minutes easy, 3 minutes hard, 4 minutes easy, 4 minutes hard, 5 minutes easy, 5 minutes hard).

Have also worked a bit on our team this week. We are getting closer to something, and hope to present a BK Elite Team for 2010 and 2011. Hopefully everything is in place before we enter 2010.

Train safe!