Einmal die blöden Reeboks für ‘ne schnellere Einheit benutzt und schon wieder eine fette Blase unterm Fuß. Nächste Station Altkleidersammlung. :-(

Selbst kostenlos ist für diese Schuhe zu teuer…

I must say that I’m impressed with the iPhone. I basically have a computer in my pocket, and I can call with it, too.

One of the things the running nerd in me had to try out was the built-in GPS feature. There are loads of tracking applications for that purpose on the App Store, and my no 1 choice is Trails. However, it wasn’t an easy start: you need to set the tool up properly, and I failed at that in the beginning. Only now, after a couple of test runs, does it get intuitive.

Running to music continues to be out of the question. One test run convinced me of that.

During last year’s heel trouble, I underwent quite some thorough analysis of my running apparatus – legs, feet, knees, hips. As it turned out, I have quite some asymmetric pronation. My left foot pronates like hell while my right foot is pretty close to neutral. Looking back, it only seems logical that neutral shoes would cause trouble, and that it would have been on the left.

I’ve finally taken action and gone to an orthopaedist in order to get custom-made insoles. They arrived yesterday, so today’s training will be their premiere. This will be interesting, to say the least. Almost all my running buddies got some severe blisters in the beginning, so maybe I should pass by the pharmacy and get some band-aid as well…

There was only one issue left: until now, I’ve bought shoes with at least some built-in support. If I use the insoles in these shoes, I’ll flip into supination, which could be even worse since my feet definitely don’t support this way of running.

The solution: a new pair of shoes for those fast intervals and races. After the Sinister fiasco, I thought that I was cured from Saucony shoes, but I like them so much, I can’t keep away.

Which brings me to my final question: I’m a bit surprised that my Puma Tenos V have started showing some heavy wear-out signs after only about 550 km. Until about 2 months ago, they were arguably the most comfortable and agile heavy-duty runners I’ve ever had, but they have deteriorated quite badly since then. Right now, I get chafes every time I use them, so I’m considering throwing them away. Has anyone had any similar experiences with this shoe?

Whew! What a week… organizing a race is really a challenge. The “Tömilen”, or “Thaw Mile” if you translate it literally, is our annual autumn cross-country race. You can choose between a 5k and a 10k leg, which is basically one or two laps on the same track. Some steep inclines together with muddy tracks make for a nice challenge, but it’s not a course on which you’ll beat your personal best.

This year, there was no need for snow to thaw away. 10 degrees and some wind made it the warmest race in the history of the club. Anyway, at 11:30 AM last Saturday, we sent a record number of runners on their way in the 5k race, followed by the 10k race half an hour later. Here are the results. All in all it seems as if participants and officials were satisfied with the outcome. :)

Now I’m kind of back to normal, which means working, training and doing the occasional blog posting. To some extent, this also applies to the Stockholm weather – cloudy, 2-3 degrees and the lingering feeling of a winter that hasn’t arrived just yet. Or never will? You don’t really know… but I lost some of my basic runner’s gear (gloves, hat), so my hands suffer a little when I’m out right now. On the other hand, it’s always a good feeling when the numbness fades.

I’m in the fourth week of the new training season now, and the plan looks like this:

• Tuesday: progressive distance, from 6 to 14 km. Pace between 4:45 and 3:55 min/km
• Wednesday: free choice of training, but light or none at all
• Thursday: coordination and strength, exercises with focus on torso and legs + some fartlek
• Friday: circuit training (German: Zirkeltraining), or exercises at home
• Weekend: long slow distance, 75-90 minutes at around 5:00-5:20 min/km

Yesterday, I slightly switched the plan because I won’t be able to make it to today’s club training, so I embarked on the 14k progressive distance by myself. My track of choice was Solna’s Råstasjön with its 2.1k lap. Which meant no less than seven laps around it in a progressive pace.

I planned to start at 9:45 min/lap with a 15 second decrease for every following lap. The last lap would take me around 8:15 min, which translates to somewhere around 3:56 min/km. Definitely doable, but as it turned out, my internal speedometer was off. Instead of 9:45, i completed the first lap in 10:20. Increasing the tempo, I ended up at 9:36 instead of 9:30 on the second lap. Still off, but better.

At this point, my increase became too steep. Lap 3 ended after only 8:57, which was about 20 seconds too fast – and I guess that every runner knows what such an increase means. Lap 4 already became quite tough, but I couldn’t stop the downward spiral of progression, so I got even faster and completed the lap in 8:44.

But then came the sudden end. Not necessarily due to exhaustion (even though it would have been really hard to keep the same pace for another two laps), but due to a sudden pain in my right knee. On the last kilometer of the fifth lap I had to slow down, but still finished it – in 8:43. Interesting…

The knee pain faded on the way home, but returned when I woke up this morning. I’m guessing a light case of runner’s knee, so I’ll take it a bit easier for the rest of the week.

Ganz so dramatisch, wie der Titel es andeuten lässt, sah es in den vergangenen zwei Wochen zum Glück nicht aus, doch habe ich erst mal eine Auszeit vom Laufen genommen. Dazu stimmte in letzter Zeit einfach zu wenig, sowohl körperlich als auch mental.

Die Enttäuschung des Marathons hat mich anscheinend mehr mitgenommen, als ich es zunächst zugeben wollte. So einfach und zugleich hart kann das sein. In der Woche nach dem Lauf habe ich so gut wie normal weitertrainiert. Am darauffolgenden Wochenende bekam ich aber unerklärliche Muskelschmerzen, und meine ohnehin ein wenig gereizte Achillessehne muckte richtig auf.

Der Tiefpunkt kam schließlich letzten Dienstag. Schon beim Aufwärmen merkte ich, dass etwas nicht stimmte, entschloss mich aber, die Intervalle trotzdem zu laufen. Erst mal ein wenig langsamer als geplant und in der Hoffnung, dass der Knoten nach den ersten paar Intervallen schon platzen würde.

Pustekuchen. Nach dem dritten schmerzte die Sehne so sehr, dass mir nicht mehr übrigblieb, als das Training abzubrechen. Selbst den Trab nach Hause konnte ich nicht mehr machen. Zuhause dachte ich kurz daran, alle Laufklamotten in den Keller zu bringen und fortan aufs Laufen zu sch…en.

Das habe ich dann aber zum Glück sein lassen. Statt dessen bin ich mal wieder zum Fitnesstudio getigert, um mich auf andere Weisen zu erschöpfen. Tat gut und half, den Kopf wieder ein wenig klarzubekommen.

Gestern habe ich jedenfalls wieder ein paar vorsichtige Laufschritte gemacht. Wenn man bei 10 Bergintervallen à 60 Sekunden von “vorsichtig” sprechen kann… ;-) meine nächste Anschaffung sind aber ein paar gescheite Einlegesohlen. Pronation ist das Zauberwort…