Pow! Right in the kisser.

Sitting on a train right now that heads north to Bergen from Oslo. Went for a half hour run this morning around my hotel. Scandinavia, as with most cities in northern Europe, seems to be set up for cycling in a way that dwarfs the best efforts of North American cities, so it’s nice to be in an environment that puts us at a higher priority. I gotta say though, even on my run this morning, the structure of the city makes it super easy to “zone” which could be both a good and bad thing. Good because it allows you to push through pain easier and achieve distance at a perceived faster rate, but bad because according to the Darwin awards, if you “totally zone” when you train, you run the risk of just running off a cliff by mistake.

Another tasty breakfast this morning post run. Hard-boiled egg, slice of cheese, tomato, cucumber and an apple. Carbs this morning were all taken care of by a crepe. Nutrition fun fact: Nutella is available in tubes here. If the world worked the way I wanted it to, I would substitute toothpaste and just brush my teeth with that.

I bought a Runner’s World at the Airport to get myself psyched up to do all this cross training and it’s actually a pretty dope read for any endurance athlete. I’ve learnt that you have to be totally be totally nuts to enjoy “ultra-marathons” and that hill-training provides very similar benefits regardless of the transportation you decide to use. Also there is a wicked article about the pros and cons of using rate of perceived exertion as opposed to heartrate, power, and speed. The result in a nutshell according to most seems to be that training with gadgets is better for the most part but sometimes just going by feel is better to help you avoid overtraining. If you scout around in the interweb you might be able to find the whole article which is called “The exertion factor” and was featured in the June issue of Runner’s World. Lots more info in there too. Learned also that because we are all outside in the sun so much when we ride that on top of sunscreen we should be upping our consumption of brazil nuts. Selenium, which is an anti-oxidant found in brazil nuts and tuna can reduce the skin cancer risk by up to 60 percent.

Probably the most bizarre/intense fact learned this trip from misc running magazines is that Eddie Izzard ran 43 marathons in 51 days to raise awareness for the sport. Some things just aren’t meant to be understood, although you must develop pretty intense cal muscles from wearing heels for so long.

Just passing by a massive green field right now with a lightly graveled trail running through it, then up what looks as if its about a 15-20% grade hill, then off into the distance. I can see why Gunn-Rita ran away with so many wins with this as a training backyard. For the most part though its very reminiscent of Canada, which is probably why we have the fastest riders in the world (give it a few years, I won’t name names now but you’ll see).