Holiday to Wallanderloppet - On Tour
Milan Fri 21.6 - Sun 23.6
Stayed in the northwest of Milan and did 2 runs of around 14km at 4.00\km pace around the local Parco Lambro. Went early in the morning, primarily to avoid the worst of the 30C heat and to fit in more tourism during the day. Fairly basic park, paved paths with a 3.8km (odd distance!) running route around it and a few artificial hills. Definitely a better option than running in the city, with plenty of obstacles, mainly dog walkers and street cafes than traffic. Sunday is definitely BBQ time at the park in summer - expect a few to be already running at 7.30am!
Val Gardena Sun 23.6-Sun 30.6
Running in the Dolomites: excellent views and some challenging terrain, very hard to quite get used to 5km (horizontal) in 45min! Favourite route was from the village of Ortisei (St. Ulrich) up trail route 15 to the cable car station on the Seiser Alm\Alpe di Susi (and back), an extremely steep and hard climb over 6-7km horizontal and 800-900m vertical taking around 45min. This was made even more difficult by unseasonable snow for the last 200m up; but that's what Scandinavian winter prepares you for! Excellent view over the Alpe di Susi from the top, which has a number of running trails used for altitude training (I only saw the marked Paul Tergat Trail).
I also ran a small ('zeroth edition') mountain half marathon - and my comeback over that distance - as part of the IVV Olympiad, starting in Selva Gardena (Wolkenstein) and running up and down the picturesque Val Valunga and back via a kamikaze descent to St Christina. With very little competition, it was a run solely against the clock and 1h36 was not too bad for 1800m altitude and lots of climb. Definitely one of the most spectacular landscapes I've ever raced through. Extra pleasing was that I only felt a soreness in my left ankle after such an effort, which faded quickly over a few days.
Overall only 3\4 runs (when not too tired from hiking) and little distance covered - but when running in mountains, distance and pace becomes somewhat irrelevant.
Venice 30.6-3.7
The city itself is possibly the single worst, hardest place to run in the world. Practically the only time to do it in the summer is as early in the morning as possible (before 7am) - there are far too many people during the day, even into the late evening. Other obstacles are the stifling heat and high humidity, combined with a good bit of air pollution from boats, A\C and people smoking in the narrow alleyways, plus the difficulty of navigation and the constant steps up and down the bridges.
The only decent route I found (from San Marco) was to follow the signs to St Marks Square through the street labyrinth and then along the lagoon-front of Castello, through the Bienniale Gardens, one of the few bits of greenery, to the naval base and football ground and back - around 7-8km. Be warned though, this route is suicidal after 7am as this is when the tour parties start to arrive - this runs right through tourist central!
Aarhus 3.7-7.7
Back to Denmark for some more regular training. Decided over holiday to return to marathon training, after the ankles had survived the hard workout of the mountains - meaning initially increasing weekly mileage.
Thurs 4.7 - 10.98km (43min, 3.55\km). Standard 'Tour de Risskov', round the forest and along the coast. Quite tired from flying back.
Fri 5.7 - 13.42km (53min, 3.57\km). Loop round Egå Engsø and back via Ris skov.
Sat 6.7 - 6.67kmx2 (25min, 3.45\km), 5km (17.35, 3.28\km). Run to Brabrand parkrun, 5km parkrun, run back. Good tempo session, very hot weather.
Sun 7.7- 34.22km (2h30, 4.21\km). Route along the coast down to Mosegard. Very. Hard. Work. Tired legs from the previous days, ok on the outward leg making the turn at Mosegard beach at 1h13 but started to struggle on the way back - the final climb back up from Bellvue beach was horrible. Much work required to get up to 42km.
Lund and Ystad 8.7-
Mon 8.7 - 9.81km in 43min (4.05\km). Easy-ish Mon run round Stadspark and a loop down through Klostergarden, back round to CIP for some warmdown work and stretches. Very tight and tired legs after prev workouts, stretching helped somewhat. Feeling the effects of hayfever again - welcome back to Sweden...
Tues 9.7 - Wallanderloppet, Ystad. 6km, 20.13 (~3.20\km). (Photo: Björn Tufvesson) Legs were far too tired to make a decent effort at this race, but it was such a nice evening that I decided on one final 'holiday' outing down to Ystad on the train to run the race in the motionist category as a tempo run, followed by a nice run along the coast to meet the train further along (in Svarte, around 8km from Ystad). Given my sore thigh muscles and tight hamstrings, I did a lot of stretching and warmup and I settled on 3.20\km pace as a good tempo (nice and easy to aim for 20min for 6k). The race itself involved a good number of tight, blind corners in the narrow streets of the old town, hence the few extra seconds - I imagined a child or car the other side and and instinctively slowed down each time! The tävlingsklass attracted a number of the good local runners and some impressively fast times - a few sub-19 - and a good number of spectators, plus a record number of entrants.
Afterwards, continued a good run around the town and into the sunset on the bike path along the coast by the very flat Baltic sea (13.08km, 52min, 3.58\km)- which also became a ~3.15\km race for the last 4km to make the 22.05 train back to Lund from Svarte! Overall a good evening out; I regretted missing this race last year and although I couldn't go full speed, it was good to manage 3.20s and still have desire for another 13km of running; v. promising for longer distance racing.
Milan Fri 21.6 - Sun 23.6
Stayed in the northwest of Milan and did 2 runs of around 14km at 4.00\km pace around the local Parco Lambro. Went early in the morning, primarily to avoid the worst of the 30C heat and to fit in more tourism during the day. Fairly basic park, paved paths with a 3.8km (odd distance!) running route around it and a few artificial hills. Definitely a better option than running in the city, with plenty of obstacles, mainly dog walkers and street cafes than traffic. Sunday is definitely BBQ time at the park in summer - expect a few to be already running at 7.30am!
Val Gardena Sun 23.6-Sun 30.6
Running in the Dolomites: excellent views and some challenging terrain, very hard to quite get used to 5km (horizontal) in 45min! Favourite route was from the village of Ortisei (St. Ulrich) up trail route 15 to the cable car station on the Seiser Alm\Alpe di Susi (and back), an extremely steep and hard climb over 6-7km horizontal and 800-900m vertical taking around 45min. This was made even more difficult by unseasonable snow for the last 200m up; but that's what Scandinavian winter prepares you for! Excellent view over the Alpe di Susi from the top, which has a number of running trails used for altitude training (I only saw the marked Paul Tergat Trail).
I also ran a small ('zeroth edition') mountain half marathon - and my comeback over that distance - as part of the IVV Olympiad, starting in Selva Gardena (Wolkenstein) and running up and down the picturesque Val Valunga and back via a kamikaze descent to St Christina. With very little competition, it was a run solely against the clock and 1h36 was not too bad for 1800m altitude and lots of climb. Definitely one of the most spectacular landscapes I've ever raced through. Extra pleasing was that I only felt a soreness in my left ankle after such an effort, which faded quickly over a few days.
Overall only 3\4 runs (when not too tired from hiking) and little distance covered - but when running in mountains, distance and pace becomes somewhat irrelevant.
Venice 30.6-3.7
The city itself is possibly the single worst, hardest place to run in the world. Practically the only time to do it in the summer is as early in the morning as possible (before 7am) - there are far too many people during the day, even into the late evening. Other obstacles are the stifling heat and high humidity, combined with a good bit of air pollution from boats, A\C and people smoking in the narrow alleyways, plus the difficulty of navigation and the constant steps up and down the bridges.
The only decent route I found (from San Marco) was to follow the signs to St Marks Square through the street labyrinth and then along the lagoon-front of Castello, through the Bienniale Gardens, one of the few bits of greenery, to the naval base and football ground and back - around 7-8km. Be warned though, this route is suicidal after 7am as this is when the tour parties start to arrive - this runs right through tourist central!
Aarhus 3.7-7.7
Back to Denmark for some more regular training. Decided over holiday to return to marathon training, after the ankles had survived the hard workout of the mountains - meaning initially increasing weekly mileage.
Thurs 4.7 - 10.98km (43min, 3.55\km). Standard 'Tour de Risskov', round the forest and along the coast. Quite tired from flying back.
Fri 5.7 - 13.42km (53min, 3.57\km). Loop round Egå Engsø and back via Ris skov.
Sat 6.7 - 6.67kmx2 (25min, 3.45\km), 5km (17.35, 3.28\km). Run to Brabrand parkrun, 5km parkrun, run back. Good tempo session, very hot weather.
Sun 7.7- 34.22km (2h30, 4.21\km). Route along the coast down to Mosegard. Very. Hard. Work. Tired legs from the previous days, ok on the outward leg making the turn at Mosegard beach at 1h13 but started to struggle on the way back - the final climb back up from Bellvue beach was horrible. Much work required to get up to 42km.
Lund and Ystad 8.7-
Mon 8.7 - 9.81km in 43min (4.05\km). Easy-ish Mon run round Stadspark and a loop down through Klostergarden, back round to CIP for some warmdown work and stretches. Very tight and tired legs after prev workouts, stretching helped somewhat. Feeling the effects of hayfever again - welcome back to Sweden...
Tues 9.7 - Wallanderloppet, Ystad. 6km, 20.13 (~3.20\km). (Photo: Björn Tufvesson) Legs were far too tired to make a decent effort at this race, but it was such a nice evening that I decided on one final 'holiday' outing down to Ystad on the train to run the race in the motionist category as a tempo run, followed by a nice run along the coast to meet the train further along (in Svarte, around 8km from Ystad). Given my sore thigh muscles and tight hamstrings, I did a lot of stretching and warmup and I settled on 3.20\km pace as a good tempo (nice and easy to aim for 20min for 6k). The race itself involved a good number of tight, blind corners in the narrow streets of the old town, hence the few extra seconds - I imagined a child or car the other side and and instinctively slowed down each time! The tävlingsklass attracted a number of the good local runners and some impressively fast times - a few sub-19 - and a good number of spectators, plus a record number of entrants.
Afterwards, continued a good run around the town and into the sunset on the bike path along the coast by the very flat Baltic sea (13.08km, 52min, 3.58\km)- which also became a ~3.15\km race for the last 4km to make the 22.05 train back to Lund from Svarte! Overall a good evening out; I regretted missing this race last year and although I couldn't go full speed, it was good to manage 3.20s and still have desire for another 13km of running; v. promising for longer distance racing.
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