Training Logs

Books | Films | Marrakech Training

1 December 2021 - Adetswil

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The plans in these training logs of mine never seem to work out quite the way I plan. Like the injury in the Hilton Head marathon meant I've only been biking the past couple weeks and now that I've started running again I'm definitely not going to hit 40 km this week. Looking backward in time at previous training logs...

Beat the Blerch 2015 - This was to be my first marathon ever. It was in Seattle and put on by The Oatmeal. My plans ended when I slipped and fell in the San Juan River in Pagosa Springs in July on our summer roadtrip. I broke two toes and had to scale back my training. This was before Jacque convinced me to start using Strava and I was also not so great a recording all my runs. Failure was a learning experience!

Rock 'n Roll 2016 - Looking back it seems like I barely ran at all for this one. There are so many weeks with zeros! And yet at the end of it all I managed to finish the marathon in Nashville. It took me over 6 hours, but I finished. It's enjoyable to look back at pictures of races I did with with Robbie beforehand though. It's a shame we moved in opposite directions after Sizzle broke up. I did get to do a run with him on a trip out to LA a couple years ago though.

Rock 'n Roll 2017 - This was an epic training year, where my goal was a trio of marathons in Nashville, Seattle, and Savannah. Still some goose eggs for training weeks and I gave up on tracking my weight after moving to Norway. Along the way to Savannah I hit races in Michigan, Alabama, Colorado, Washington, Ohio, Norway and Greece. Sadly the picture of Zinny and I at the Canine Biathlon was on Cara's instagram account so it's since been deleted. In the end I had a marathon PR time under 5 hours that I still haven't been able to beat.

Spitsbergen 2018 - I started this one right after I finished the marathon in Savannah. This was a crazy destination to try and run a marathon in, so I couldn't resist. It's sad to think back to all the freedom we used to have before the pandemic to plan trips months ahead. The training for this one was pretty inconsistent, and I ended up dropping out of the marathon halfway through because I was pissing blood. It was surely not the greatest disappointment of the year though.

Gdańsk 2018 - I scaled back to just doing a half in the Fall of 2018 after the DNF in Spitsbergen. This is also where I finally switched to kilometers like a good European. And there are no zeros for the first time, probably because running kept me going when Cara moved out. Maxwell joined me for the 5K and I set a new half marathon PR.

Berlin 2019 - Another successful training program and another half marathon PR. This one I ran with Axel and it was the last time I saw Susan before she died of cancer. They were good friends from my Nebraska years and I've sadly lost touch with Axel.

Ultra Training 2019 - After two success rounds of training I set my sights on another insane goal: the Half Marathon de Sables, which is not a half marathon but a four day desert race over 100km. Along the way I planned to run my first two ultramarathons. In June I ran 46 km in beautiful Chianti through the vineyards of Italy, and then for my 40th birthday I ran 50km through the Wasatch Mountains outside Salt Lake City. It was rewarding to do both of those races, but along the way I also learned that my end goal was really too far of a stretch.

2020 Training - Most races were cancelled and I started playing baseball for the Wet Sox. I also started mixing in biking to the training regime to mix things up. The exercise I think kept me sane during the coronavirus pandemic as the world closed down and international travel seemed to become a thing of the past. I did finally manage to run a marathon on Karmøy in November, but the time was unremarkable and the year seemed fairly goalless.

Grindelwald 2021 - It was good to get back to having a goal race for the year, although up until the week before it was uncertain if they would even run it. There are some zeros in the weeks on this log, and some weeks where skiing or rollerblading came in. All the baseball games during this period were cancelled, pushing our season into a squished Fall. In the end they held the race and I ran it to the end and the trip to Switzerland was truly lifechanging.

Looking back at these it seems rather obvious that I should probably try to downgrade my Marrakech registration to the half marathon rather than the full. Unrealistic goalsetting never seems to end with the goal achieved, but with my foot being stupid maybe even a half on the road is too much. And who knows if I will even be able to travel that weekend? In a world full of uncertainty at least I have running. Whenever my legs give out I'm going to be in trouble...