Race report - Part 2 (finishing the race)

This is the second part of my race report. If you have not read the first part, please scroll down and you find the first part below.

The first the stages of the race had left me with sore feet (I could definitely feel blisters coming on), and a very sore neck and left shoulder. At the third check point (CP3) me and Andy had been cooking some dried freeze food. I had chosen potatoes and bacon, mixed together with a package of noodles. The only lesson learned is to use an adequate amount of water. I had to eat my meal with most of the noodles cracking between my teeth, pretty much like eating uncooked pasta.

Stage 4
The meal made me feel much better and with head torch on we left the check point an hour after we arrived. Glow sticks on the markers showed the way, however at times they were were longer apart then what we could see, so at times we were still left unsure if we were walking the right way. The fact that the markers had bicycles on them seemed like a truly bad joke at this point! *smile* This together with the complete darkness made me feel very small.

Me and Andy walked together for the first hour, but then Andy pulled ahead and left me trailing. I didnt want to push to stay with him, since I knew that I had still some 50-55km to go. I was still feeling fairly good at this point and at times during the stage I started to jog again.


During the whole stage I was sticking to my energy intake of an energy bar or a gel every 45min or so, and mixing electrolyte drink with water. It was very interesting to learn how the taste of gels, water and electrolyte drink changed during the race. At times water tasted very bland and I was craving anything sweet (like the electrolyte drink) and at times I couldnt stand to put anything sweet in my mouth.

Eventually I reached CP4 and after taking off the backpack I started to cramp up. I took some time on my back, looking at the stars, drinking and eating an energy bar. Korbis and Amy was at the check point keeping me company and boosting moral. I was more exhausted then what I remember, since I completely forgot to document my stop at CP4 *smile*

Stage 5
I set off on the fifth stage feeling fairly good. The pain in the shoulder was gone and the only thing hurting was my feet. I had taken some pain killers at CP4 and they started to work and I could pick up the pace and jog again. After about 2h or so on my own I was in the absolute middle of nowhere. Suddenly I heard hooves on the ground and looked to my right. Two springboks ran past me less then 10m from me. My heart raced and I had to stop. The two springboks nearly gave me an heart attack!

I looked ahead and could see two eyes looking at me. I assumed it was one of the springboks looking at me so I started to walk against it. As I came closer it came into the outer range of my head torch. I could see it was not a springbok but a hyena! My hear raced again, but this time didnt slow down. What should I do now? I stood there waiting for it to attack and tried to figure out what I should do if it did. The hyena didnt move and I was unable to, so we stood there for what seemed to be an eternity. I decided that I would have to make the first move. So I went ahead and walked straight ahead. The Hyena didnt move at all and as long as I turned my head and looked back it was staring at me. It was later explained to me that it was probably a brown hyena and not a spotted one, so I was perfectly safe. One thing that the encounter did do was to boost my energy levels and I picked up a slow jog again.

Towards the end of stage 5 I was feeling very low. I guess this could be expected since I had been running for close to 100km after all. I had started to hallucinate at times and the glow sticks on the markers seemed to be moving around and flying in the air. Towards the end I saw a very strong moving light. I thought it might be the lantern of a ship since we were getting close to shore. It turned out to be Steve, the race director who had come out to meet me the last could of hundred meters. Again I took 20min to lie down and relax before I filled up water and was on my way again.

Stage 6
There is nothing good to tell you about stage 6. I was at the lowest point in the race, and I was not at any point during the stage certain that I would be able to finish the race. I was in such a poor state. At times I looked at my GPS and saw that I was moving in a pace of 3km / hour. Mentally and physically I was exhausted.

It felt as if I was going to a very, very dark place. A place in my mind I was not sure I wanted to see. I had pushed my body and mind to the edge and now I had to turn back, somehow gather strength to get back out of the misery. A car with some local fishermen stopped and asked what I was doing. When I told them I had been running since 9am last morning they shocked and wished me all the best. They really helped me to push up.

The road seemed to go on forever and the only thing I could think of was to take one more step. The only way to finish the race was to get to the end point so no point of resting or even sit down as this was what my body kept telling me.

Another car came up and it was Korbis and Steve. Their happy faces always helped throughout the race. Steve got out and said he would walk 20-30min with me to the last turn of the route. As we walked together the sun rose and light returned to our world. I felt a surge of energy from the company, the light and the knowledge that I was very close to the finish line. With 2km to go Steve left me and I started to jog. I ran the last 2km and I was feeling good. The blisters under my feet hurt with every step, but it was a good pain.

Finally I came to the tent and I could see people standing up, waiting for me, clapping their hands and taking photos. I couldnt believe it, I had done it. In 22 hours and 24minutes I had finished the race! I got my sleeping bag out and sat on a chair. That was the first time in 22h that I properly sat down. What a feeling. I was now truly an Namibian Viking!

Race report - Part 1

I will write the race reports in two parts, and here is the first part.

The day before the race we had to go through our race kit with the medic and race director to confirm we had all kit we needed for the run. The atmosphere in the camp started to build and there was a lot of anticipation in the air. Last session we needed to go through was with Fran, the guide. Fran is an ex-special forced in Namibia and a man of few words. He went through the maps we had been given covering each of the six 20km stages. Each map was a high-level satellite image of each stage where we could see the overall feature of terrain. I went to bed filled with anticipation and nerves.

I got up in the morning and made my final preparations. Bringing on the fully packed back-pack made me truly feel the weight on my shoulders in more way then one!

Stage1
At 9am local time we all lined up. Fran took out his Magnum 44 and with a shot in the air we were off. As promised to Ben I headed off strong and was leading the race (ok let's get real here, I led the race for about 50m before Tom overtook me and soon left me trailing in the dust). The first stage was a fairly easy terrain with low bushes on hard gravel. We had markers that we followed and half-way through the stage I was feeling very strong and went onto follow a road towards the first checkpoint, CP1. I was following my tactics of walking all hills and a slow jog in between. I averaged about 8km/h and reached CP1 in 2h 30min. I was the third person into the checkpoint and I was feeling strong.


Stage 2
After a very quick stop (I only had a quick bit of an energy bar and re-filled my water) I was off again. The heat of the day really started to take a toll and after about 1h into the second stage I started to feel that I could not keep running. I was starting to feel the first signs of heat stroke (head ache, difficulty to find saliva to spit and starting to feel a bit wobbly), and I was forced to start to walk rather then running. We entered a part of the second stage where we were running through a dry riverbed with high hills each side of the track. Andy had put his watch down on the ground and measured 46 degrees (115 Fahrenheit), so it was no chock I was feeling the heat. Towards the end of the stage I saw Andy and after about 45min trailing him I caught up with him just before CP2. At the checkpoint I drank lots of water and stayed in the shade to cool down and after about 20-30min break me and Andy hit the road together. At the start of stage 2 I started to really feel the weight of my backpack. The 12kg was heavier then what I was used to and my left shoulder started to hurt badly. Throughout the stage the pain was there and I tried to carry the backpack in any way possible.


Stage 3
Andy had problems with his bladder and although he wanted to he could not wee. Increasing pressure made him stand double at times and I tried to stay positive and tell him to look forward and we would do the stage together. The track took us to the Messem Crater. An absolutely beautiful landscape greeted us and we walked in silence for much of the way. Having said that I think that we both enjoyed the company after about 6 hours on our own.


We could see CP3 from miles and miles away. The day was coming to an end and just before we reached CP3 the sun went down behind the mountains and the darkness was coming quickly. At CP3 I took off my backpack and my body started to cramp. Stomach, calves, thighs etc, it all seem to cramp up as soon as I sat down. Me and Andy had kept together and we decided to cook a warm meal to get new energy into our bodies. We took our time to prepare for the dark stages of the race. After about 60min we were on our way again, and by this time we could not see anything ahead of us without our head-torches. As with the previous nights, the moon was not out and the darkness was very real.

We had been on our feet for about 10 hours, and we were now about to head out into the darkness. So far I was taken aback with the weight of my backpack and with the heat of the day. It was truly a monumental task we had ahead of us. I had covered 60km, but had still 60km to go. Maybe Ben was right, 60km in my legs, and 60km in my head. I just hoped that my head was strong enough *smile*.

What I didnt do

Before I tell you the full story of what I did do during the race in Namibia I thought I should tell you the few things that I didnt do, and also the result of some of them.

Heat of the desert
I didnt realise that the weather was going to be as tolling as it was. The day before the race we went out for a 4 hour walk to appreciate the heat of the sun during the middle of the day. I dont think I need to tell you that it was hot, but just how hot it was will be difficult to tell. I can say that it was so hot that none of the competitors in the run could run continuously after the first 4h or so. We suffered greatly in the 46 degree (115 Fahrenheit) sun.

Weight of the pack
I had been training with a backpack in the weeks leading up to the race. However I had been training with a pack that had a weight of about 6-8kilos. My pack during the race was closer to 12 kilos. In fact between kilometer 20 to 60 my left shoulder was my main concern and reason for pain.

Choice of shoes
I was using standard road trainers. The surface we were running on was a times very very rocky. I just didnt have the appreciation just how much landing on a rock could hurt the sole of my feet. The result of this was a painful blood filled blister on the sole of my foot. That was not the end of my blisters (as you can see on the photos). I also had blisters between my toes, under the pad of my foot and on my heals. The right choice of shoes would have been proper trail shoes with a protective hard layer in the sole to protect from the rocks underfoot.

Food and energy intake
I had been looking at total calories when I had accumulated what I intended to eat. However as it turned out I had should also have been looking at calories/gram. Items such as gels are great, but they are actually quite heavy. The same goes for energy bars. Items such as noodles actually gives much more calories per gram, and this resulted in a very heavy backpack. I also realised that I dont have to eat just quite as much as I thought. I had estimated to carry about 7,000 calories. In the end I only ate about 4,500 calories, and with that I was still among one of the persons eating the most.

I can at this point only say that for next race I am doing I have learned many thing, and hopefully wont make the same mistakes again. I'll try to get my first race report ready for later today.

Made it!!

Hi all,

Just a very very short post to say that I made the race!

It took me 22h and 24min to run the distance, and the last 20km I did in 4h 30min, so to say that I was in agony is a gross understatement!

But now it feels fantastic (except for my feet covered in a nice mix of normal blisters and blood blisters).

I'll write a full race report and upload photos this weekend.

Thank you all for your support, your words of encouragement really helped me through the dark bits during the night (no pun intended *smile*)

Greetings from Namibia!

and so I am off...

A very short last entry before heading off to the airport. I just finished packing my last stuff and had a nice lunch with Mo and Martin. I am almost a bit emotional when I am writing this. Over the last couple of days I have had great response from so many of you.

Martin and Mo gave some good last minute advice and also threat of never stop mentioning if I dont make the race, so I guess I better make it :-)

Thank you for all support and speak soon. Update to come next Friday.


Below you can see my race food lined up... Somewhere around 7,000 - 8,000 calories :-)

Think of me on Monday, I will sure have plenty of time to thing of all of you!

Monday 7 April at 8am UK time

The race is around the corner now! On Monday at 9am local time, or 8am UK time we set off. The environment that I am going to run through is certainly very harsh. As you can see from the satellite images below there seems to be little more than red sand, rocks and gravel…

I have my race strategy pretty much worked out. From the start of the race I will try to stick to the same rhythm. I will run 25minutes and then walk for 5, and then repeat this over, and over, and over again. This is a proven ultra marathon strategy and this combined with walking any uphill sections should mean that I limit the stress on my legs (if there is such a thing as limit the stress on my legs when I am talking about running 120km).

Every 20km there is a water station. Here I can fill up water and have a quick rest, should I want to. The water stations will also have fires so that if I want to cook food I can do that.

Running one of these races means that it quickly becomes scientific when it comes to energy intake. I expect to use about 1,000 calories every hour, so if I finish in 16 hours I will use up about 16,000 calories. At the start of the race I will have about 4,000 calories stored up, so somehow I have to cover the 12,000 calories that remains.

I don’t think I will be able to do that, but I aim to eat 500 calories an hour. I will cook twice, using the fires at the water stations, and a tin that I bring. I will do this after 40km and after 80km.

Apart from this I will get energy from energy gels, energy bars, energy drinks (powder that I mix with water) and raisins and Apricots.

Does that seem like a plan?

In less then 5 days time I will know if I made the right choices!
I CANNOT WAIT *smile*

Can I ask you for some help?

When Ben sponsored me he wrote "60k is in your legs, 60k is in your head!"; and I think that he actually might be right. I have considered what thoughts I should keep with me during the run. I have thought of writing down some of my friends thoughts sent to me. Below I have summarised some of the thoughts that you have sent through.

I would like to have some more though, could I ask for you to send through some more? Either on the comment field below, or to my email. Hopefully it could keep me going a few extra steps when needed!

6 days, 8 hours and 30 minutes to race start *smile*

--- RUN Joakim Run! WW Khoo
--- Courage is the most beautiful kind of madness - Paul Murray
--- 60k is in your legs, 60k is in your head! Ben
--- 60k is in your legs, 60k is in your bed! Tom
--- Nar det borjar svartna for ogonen: Tank pa att man alltid kan ge lite till.... Pana & Peter
--- "It always seems impossible until its done." -Nelson Mandela (and Asa)
--- Each step is one less to endure and brings you closer to the finish line! Caro and Andy

Less then a week to go. I am feeling scared!

This time next week I will have been running for about 9hours. The race starts at 9am local time, which is 8am GMT. It is a very daunting thought, and I must admit that I am a little bit apprehensive. But at the same time, very very excited!

I had a call with Anna, the lifestyle / nutrition coach that has helped me to plan my race from an energy intake point of view. It turns out to be quite a science, and I am happy that I had the 90km cross-country ski race (Vasaloppet) behind me, where I took some of her ideas into practise.

This is what I am trying to do:

Stage one – empty energy reserves in my muscles
7 – 5 days ahead of the race I am going more then normal exercise. I will not be doing anything too crazy and nothing strenuous, just longer then normal. Today I will run home from work and then do 1h or so on the bike, and the same tomorrow. At the same time I am not eating lots, so my body will have to use up the inbuilt energy reserves in the muscles.

Stage two - fill up with new energy
4 – 2 days ahead of the race I am will not do any exercise. Instead I will try to eat as many complex carbohydrates as possible. I will eat at least double the amount I would normally eat. At this point I will have no energy stored in the muscles, so I will be able to put new energy into the “muscle’s storage”. The result will be that I will feel heavy, but this is part of the process.

Stage three - final preparations
2 – 1 day ahead of the event I will go back to eat normal amount of food again. I’ll focus on complex carbohydrates (brown rice, brown pasta etc), but I don’t want to eat more then normal, since then my body will end up feeling sluggish and heavy.

Hopefully this method will land me on Monday morning, 7 April, feeling very energised and ready for the race.

What do you think, could this be a winning strategy *smile*.

Not many days left to go!!!

Men (boys) and our toys…

One thing about the race in Namibia is that it has given me the opportunity to justify buying all kinds of equipment that I might (or most probably – might not) need. For those of you who know me well know that I like my gear and equipment… No matter if it is for climbing, downhill mountain biking, photography etc. I always like to look into and then buy the latest equipment available *smile*

So far, this is the kit list for Namibia :
Anti-venom pump – great for making interesting round patterns on your skin *smile*
Compass – it was a very long time ago I got lost during our orienteering course in school
GPS – much more to my liking, extra plus for being very gadgetry
Signalling mirror – kind of cool, low tech, but certainly has a high “adventure ratio”
Buff – not that fun and almost a bit girly; but the thought of being without one if a sandstorm comes in is not really pleasant
Desert hat – white with neck protection, legion d’etrange!
Raidlight backpack – heaven for a bag collector like me. Only weigh 690grams!
Skin-tight running top – Under Armour is just great!
Fleece for the night – sleeveless, but with arm protection in the collar (got to be seen to be understood)
Therma-rest – to lie on
Dry-freeze food rations – plan to properly cook food twice during the run
Tin – for heating water and cooking
Pocket camera – Leica, gorgeous and one of the few pocket cameras that can take Raw images
Fold-up spoon/knife/fork – camping, here I come!

I thought I should try to rate the kit I have bought, so I looked at three parameters:
Adventure ratio, ie how much will the piece of kit make me feel like I am on my way to an adventure.
Technical ratio, ie how technically advanced a product is, and just for the records, a backpack can be incredibly technical in the innovations in design
Usability after the event, ie how likely it is for me to ever use this piece of kit again.

As you can see by the table above, here is the rated kit list:
GPS
Raidlight backpack
Dry sack
Pocket camera
Therma-rest
Anti-venom pump
Compass
Fleece for the night
Desert hat
Fold-up spoon/knife/fork
Signalling mirror
Skin-tight running top
Dry-freeze food rations
Tin
Buff

I am a little bit surprised that the Anti-venom pump is scoring so high, but I guess it does make me feel like a true adventurer! The GPS and the backpack is understandably high up on the list. Other surprises are that the dry sack beats off the camera, don’t know how that happened.

What do you think, do you agree with my rating of the kit list, and maybe more importantly, have I forgotten anything do you think?

The race day is coming at me at a phenomenal pace… It is just around the corner!!!

Easter action (lack of...)

Easter has been fairly slow on the exercise front. I have only been out running twice. A slow 10km on Friday and another 15km on Saturday with a slightly higher pace. The GPS I bought came in handy and I now know exactly what pace I am going in and how far.

When I wear a backpack a pace around 5min 30sec per km is a very comfortable pace that I know I can hold for several hours. Without backpack 4min30sec seems to be my natural pace.

However how much that will help me in Namibia I dont know :-)


It is less then two weeks to the race now and I must say that I start to feel a little bit nervous and maybe even scared! 120km start to seem like a very very long way to go. The work I have done to prepare myself for the race I have done now, and what is left is to try to stay healthy and avoid injuries.

Time for the normal week to start and for me to do my last minutes preparations. On Friday I got my new backpack that I will be using for the race. 690grams, is all it weigh, you have got to love Raidlight's Evolution2

Just a gentle Sunday session

I have officially started to let the running take over my life a bit. Yesterday I turned down to go and watch rugby and have drinks at Twickenham so I instead could stay in, eat lots of pasta and go to bed at about 10pm on a Saturday!

Well, to my defense I can say that I was due to go up at 5.15am, and so I did. Ben and his brother Will came to my house at 6am and we went out running together. Full Namibia gear on with the backpack, the bottle belt and the pouch loaded with energy gels I headed out. It was perfect running weather, 10-15 degrees and a light rain. We ran to the river and then followed the Thames to Richmond park. Rather then turning back and running in the same tracks we crossed the park and ran through Wimbledon common, back to Wandsworth town and then up to Wandsworth Common and home.

In total we were out for about 3h 30min or so. Unfortunately the batteries of my newly purchased GPS died on the way, so we never got an exact distance, but it should we somewhere around 40km or so, just short of a marathon.

Once home I had an "ice-bath" to try to reduce the impact of the run on my legs. The ice-bath is one thing that I cannot really get used to, and I got out after a couple of minutes when my body was shaking uncontrollably. I dont think there will be any ice-baths at the end of the run in Namiba *smile*

An interesting thing with the run was Will's idea of how to keep energy levels up by eating jelly babies throughout the run. Not sure it is the best way of giving the body the energy it needs to run for hours on end, and he will have to carry many bags to keep himself going for the Fellsman. The Fellsman is a race we are doing in Yorkshire in May. 100km through mountains, with an expected finishing time of about the same as in Namibia ( Click here to learn more about the Fellsman) . During the run we climb more then 11,000 feet in total, so that will be a very very tough race.

But lets not get ahead of oneself. First I have Namiba to do.

Today it is exactly 20 days left to the race!

GBP £452!!

Thank you so much... Thank you Anna for arranging the drinks, thank you all that came, and thank you Franco, Vasco and Anouk for your kind contribution through you different companies.

In total we managed to almost use a whole deck of cards. I have 8 cards left, and we managed to raise GBP £452 (I know that doesnt add up, but I think there were some extra contributions last night). That is a fantastic sum and I am really really happy that you all helped. I will make sure I keep my blog up to date, and as I promised some of you tonight, there will be a follow up session when I have (hopefully) completed the race in Namibia in April.

I have added the £452 to the money raised, and it will be listed on my fund raising website in a day or two (have a look at the link to the right).

Once again, thank you all so much for turning up in such great numbers tonight!!

Also, please take some time to think if you could use either (or all) of our sponsors:
Vasco from Fruitful Office ( Click here to visit Fruitful office’s website) if you want your office to have a healthier snacks then your ordinary bag of crisps.

Anouk and the Biostarlight ( Click here to visit Biostarlight’s website) if you want to have a healing session where you help you body to heal itself from stress, asthma artheritis any many more things that seems to affect us these days.

Franco and Natoora ( Click here to visit Natoora’s website ) if you want to have really fresh, good produce when you cook at home. Natoora can deliver to your doorstep.

7kg of extra body fat between now and Namibia??

I took a few days off to recover from Vasaloppet. I am surprised how well I have been coping with the race. It feels almost wrong to say that the only evidence I have that I actually did the race are a couple of blisters in my right hand!

On Saturday morning Ben and I had planned to go running. Being a newborn dad and having little time on his hands meant an early start on Saturday morning was our only choice. I went up at 5.30am and ten to six i was out of the door on my bike on my way to Ben.

We had set out to do a two hour run, Ben (being week and from up North) didnt carry anything extra, but I had my full running pack on. It starts to be comfortable to run with now, and through the run it felt good to reach back for the bottle behind my back or down front for energy gels. I guess the downside is the fact that I do wear a pouch (or fanny-pack for the americans out there *smile*), but I dont think there will be anyone in Namibia that will take notice.

After the run I rode back on my bike, had a quick bite and Martin and I run 4km to Anna's tennis club where we did an hour of tennis the three of us. It was a nice to relax a bit in the sauna afterwards before we headed back home.

Today I cancelled my run with Paul since I could feel my run from yesterday in the tendons of my right foot. A bit worrying that my right foot still occasionally gives me some pain. I might try to go to a foot specialist to see if I move my foot the wrong way whilst running, if not, I will just have to push through the pain in Namibia.

I saw a great program on Discovery channel tonight on the human body, covering how the body can get incredible strength in special situations. Part of the program was a guy who swam the English Channel who had purposely gained 7kg in body fat prior to the race. I guess I should be doing the same for Namibia, but I might be too vain for that! *laughing*

Vasaloppet summed up

The images below sums up our days in Salen, in northern Sweden. We had 3 days to prepare for the race (and for all Swedes reading this, remember I am from Skane, so appologise for calling Salen northern Sweden *smile*).


On Thursday and Friday we had great weather and great snow. We enjoyed being back on our skis and we very much enjoyed our lesson with Gunnar that I mentioned in previous posts. Having said that, it was not all about cross country skiing. We had time for a night out and also enjoy afterski on the Saturday (it is your guess who had the beer and who had the hot chocolate).

The day of the Vasaloppet we went up at 4.20am, had breakfast and was at the start at about 5.30 in the morning. Thousands and thousands of people lined up and as the sun went up we started to realise the magnitude of the task ahead. We were in the last start group of about 15,500 participants. Aerobic teachers helped us to warm up and soon were were on our way. Snow kept falling down and according to the commentators on TV this years race was amongst the toughest races ever recorded.

Martin took an early lead in the very first uphill section. The angel of the slope was worthy any downhill race. However as we started to ski properly I caught up with him and never looked back after that point. 9h and 2 min later, at 5.02pm in the afternoon I passed the finishing line. With me from the event I take the following experiences:

- I can do a solid 9 hour hard workout.
- I was ok with only eating energy gel and drinking the carb drink from Vitargo. I didnt feel the need to have any food with more substance.
- I need to improve my technique if I am ever going to do Vasaloppet again! I cant stand that women and men in my parents' age flew past me in the uphill section (since I had no grip on my skis).

The last few photos on the image above you can see a beautiful Swedish winter landscape. I can see why people love this part of the year and want to spend time up North in Sweden.

All in all, we have had a fantastic long weekend up in Salen, and I would definitely do the Vasaloppet again! Anyone out there that want to sign up for next year?

I made it! (in9h 2min)

I'll write a longer race report in the next couple of days, but I had some photos I wanted put up here straight away.

Both Martin and I managed to finish the Vasaloppet yesterday. 90 very hard kilometers on cross-country skis. The weather was described as "one of the worst for the Vasalopp race in history", and today we certainly are aware of that, with muscles aching badly.

With the circumstances we are very happy to just finish the race. I finished the race in 9 hours and 2 minutes and Martin in 10 hours 18 minutes. Here is a photo just after I passed the finish line.

The Vasaloppet is a great Swedish tradition. The story says that it was the Swedish to-be king Gustav Vasa who was up in Dalarna (Swedish county) and tried to gather support to throw out the Danes that ruled Sweden at the time. He came to Mora but was turned away. When he had left the people in Mora changed their mind. They sent out their two fastest skiers to catch Vasa. In the end they caught up with him in Salen and from there he went on to throw out the Danes and become King of Sweden. The race traces the 90km between Mora and Salen.

Thank you very much for all of you who sent text messages during the race. I heard the messages beeping when they came through and it surely helped with motivation and to keep pushing harder!

You can see my progress report over the race here:
Click here for Joakim's race report

and Martin's here:
Click here for Martin's race report

On our way home we stayed on Malugn, a small, beautiful village not too far from where Vasaloppet finish in the town of Mora. The stream along the village was absolutely stunning and as you can see we were two very happy guys having finished the race with such deep tradition in the Swedish history.

Meeting Gunnar - what a hero!

We woke up to a sunny day in the Swedish mountains, we couldn't have asked for more. We even managed to book a training session last minute. We booked a two-hour session with a personal instructor. We met Gunnar and it was instantly clear that we had struck gold. Gunnar was 70 years old and had completed 16 Vasalopp! He started with talking about some general tactics, some of which I of course forgot to take usage of during the race, and that in hindsight would have helped me to improve my time significantly.

Gunnar's 70 years could not be seen when we were skiing with him. He flew away from us and it was a bit worrying thinking about the race when someone of his age was so much faster than us. He focused the training on a couple of technical aspects of the basic techniques. Quite quickly it became apparent that me and Martin had different strengths (which I guess we already knew); Martin is better at skiing "diagonally" and I am better when we just training on pushing ourself forward with brute force. I guess that it says something about our two personalities *smile*


We spent the evening in the local bar (best way to relax and take our mind off what was ahead). The next day we took it very easy and only went out for a brief check that our professionally waxed skis were OK, we had left them with the local ski shop to be prepared for the race. We were a bit worried that we seemed to have lost all grip, but put it down to the fact that on the race day it would be different weather then on the Saturday. We didnt do anything about our concerns and didnt go back to the shop - something that we later had to pay the price for. I put it down to pure inexperience and not really knowing what it should feel like to ski cross country.

Vasaloppet - Training day 1 (Thursday 28 Feb)

After a night's pit-stop at Martin's brother in Stockholm we drove up to Salen. We were a bit worried when there were no snow and we only had about 50km to go to the finish line of the race (Mora), but once in Salen there was plenty of snow. We stayed at "Gammelgarden", an old cottage more then 400 years old. A very cosy timber cottage – exactly what Martin and I needed for our race preparations *smile*.

We went out and tried our skis the first day. It felt good to be back in the tracks and with the sun settling behind the mountains we felt prepared for the days to come. Here are some photos from the first day.

Sunday entertainment - follow my progress online

For those of you who dont know what to do on Sunday I have here the perfect solution for you. Log on to the Vasaloppet website (http://www.vasaloppet.com), click in the top-right corner for an English version if you dont feel that the Viking language is for you.

On the website you will be able to follow all people in the race. My race number is 10244 for anyone interested to monitor my progress in the race. The race starts at 8am CET (ie 7am for you in the UK), but dont worry, I aim to finish the race in around 8h30min, so there will be plenty of time for you to check the race, even if you are not up at 7 *smile*.

Any text messages during the race will be much appreciated. Hearing the mobile phone receiving a text during the race gives a boost and makes me push myself harder.

Over the next couple of days (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) Martin and I will be up in Salen in Northern Sweden perfecting our technique (or rather picking up the basics of moving forward on cross country skis).

The 90km race will be a great pre-race training session ahead of Namibia. I am looking forward to Sunday already! I’ll keep you updated on our training from Thursday and onwards!

One Tube line done - ten to go...

What did you do on Saturday? I had my own way of how to spend a Saturday. I took my trainers and thought that it was about time to discover central London a little bit. As mentioned in a previous post we had had plans on creating some alternative races and running around all the stops on the Circle Line was one of them. So that is what I did on Saturday. Circle Line is actually not that long, roughly 14-15miles the route I went (including getting lost around Barbican, luckily it was around 3pm on a Satuday *smile*).

I had a backpack packed with some books for added weight, energy bars and 2 liters of energy drink as I sat off from Embankment. I took the anti-clockwise route and for each tube stop I took a photo (the result can be seen here).

CLICK ON THE PHOTO TO SEE A LARGE VERSION

It was a great day for a run, and a number of times I was positively surprised by how friendly people are, either by offering to take my photo, or by stepping out of the way - thank you Londoners (well rather, thank you all tourists, because let's be honest, there is nothing Londoners avoid as zone 1 on a Saturday!). It took me about 2h 30min to run around in a slow jog. I am trying more and more to run the way I will run in the race and the backpack and the slower pace is all part of this.

Last but not least I wanted to update my Fame and Shame list:

Fame list - Martin S, who after being on the shame list last week got up the next day and came with me for a morning run.
Shame list - Tom and Ben for failing to make the inaugural run of many more Tube line runs. Meaning I will have to do the Circle line again. I dont know whose excuse was the worst, Ben's for complaining about a calf injury (proving again that Northerners are soft) or Tom who mentioned something about being an Usher at a wedding.

I hope you all had a good weekend. Now it is the Vasalopp week starting and me and Martin Svensson are flying to Sweden on Wednesday to train and prepare for the 90 km cross country ski race on Sunday 2 March - wish me luck, I'll need it!

My own fame and shame list

I thought is would be appropriate to do my very own fame and shame list.

Currently on my fame list:
- All of you that have supported my charity fund raising! Thank you very much for all your help!!

- Ben and Tom for coming up with lots of ideas of crazy races. Below are some of the ones we are considering:
a) Run around the Circle line, taking a photo at each Tube stop.
b) start on Trafalgar square and from 4 signed envelops randomly decide North, South, East and West and have two teams competing which team can run to the M25 the quickest.

We need some input on new non-traditional races we can do, any suggestions, please add them on the comment field. I'll make sure I'll report from any of these that we do.

Currently on my shame list:
- Martin S. Martin is my flatmate and we are doing Vasaloppet, the 90km cross country ski race, on the 2nd of March together. Typically I can get Martin out of bed in the morning to join me for a run.

It normally takes about 5min of verbal abuse to get Martin out of bed for a run, but this morning I couldnt get him to join me. With the race coming up he should be taken every opportunity to prepare, so that is why he is on my shame list today!

Welcome to my ultra running blog

Thank you for visiting my blog. I have secretely been writing this blog for the past months (or rather, in November and then the last week). I thought is was about time for me to start promote it a bit, and hence many of you got an email this morning.

The blog is about the steps I take to run a ultramarathon on the 7 April. For those of you who dont know what an ultramarathon is I include a definition: "An ultramarathon is any organized footrace extending beyond the standard marathon running distance of 42 kilometers, 195 meters (26 miles, 385 yards). Ultra races typically begin at 50 kilometers and can extend to enormous distances. There is no limit. " (quote taken from http://www.ultrunr.com/what_is.html by David Blaikie).

The run I am doing is 77,805 meters longer then a marathon, ie I am going to run 120km, and did I mention that it will be through the Namiban desert *smile*. The heat in the day will be about 35 degrees Celsius and at night time about -5.

On the blog you can read about some of the races I have done leading up to the race in Namibia. The next race on my schedule is on the 2 March, when I am doing Vasaloppet (90km cross country ski race in Northern Sweden).

Once again, thank you for visiting the site, and I would be delighted if any of you would help me to raise some money for the Facing Africa charity (for more information about Facing Africa, click on http://www.facingafrica.org)./ Any help is grately appreciated!

Running thoughts

In a macho moment (I dont have many to be honest!) I tried to come up with a couple of the best cheesy, macho running thoughts to have with me on the run... I cant say that this is what I am thinking of constantly whilst running, but at times when things are tough, it is good to know what others have been through.

The last couple of months I have built up a small library of books covering ultra-running, ironman experiences, and training guide books for endurance racing. I find it comforting to have read about people that have pressed on to their limits and then continued through the wall. It helps me to mentally prepare for the Namibia race. To have seen a pair of feet with hardly any skin left sort of prepares you for what will come.

So if anyone out there has any good one-liners, please click on the comment button below and I'll make another list of the best ones in a later post.

To get you in the zone, consider these one-liners (cheesy, are they not *smile*)

"Pain is fear leaving the body"
Dean Karnazes cross country coach


"Pain is temporary, quitting is forever"
Lance Armstrong

Train to run, eat to run

This week I had my first session with Anna (the nutrition and inspiration coach I mentioned before). The first session was just a general discussion over food. I had written down what I had eaten the last couple of days prior to talking.

In short I was eating far too little. I had averaged about 1800 calories a day, and with my level of training I should be eating 2700. Mainly I was eating too little fruit and vegetables, and too little fat. It was interesting to hear how lack in certain food will impact your body's performance differently.

We also discussed the Vasaloppet race and what was needed for that. During the race you will use up about 8000-9000 calories. This will be a great way for me to try out how to prepare for a long race in terms of food intake, and how to eat during the race. I guess ordering Pizza like Dean Karnazes do for his long runs is out of the question (for the ones of you that have not read Dean's book "The Ultramarathon man", I can highly recommend it). He ordered a Pizza to be delivered to a long country road and said "I am the guy running along the road, and in 30min time I should be around junction X". I think the delivery guy would have problems identifying me amongst the other thousands of people at the Vasaloppet! And for Namibia I am pretty certain we are out of range for most pizza delivery places anyhow *smile*.

I'll get back to you on what I'll settle for in terms of race food, but this should be an interesting one... Probably as important as the training itself for ultra distance races.

By the way, this week I learned how many people will be racing with me in Namibia. About 20 people, that is all! I thought this was going to be a pretty special race that wont maybe appeal to everyone, but 20 people seems very little! That will be the opposite end of the scale to Vasaloppet where your first hour is spent in waiting for people in front to get up for the first hill. On the positive side I might be able to do what Ben and I have tried a couple of times. A very fast sprint the first couple of hundred meters and I should be able to say that I was leading the inaugural run of the Namib Ultra Marathon :-)

Charity fund raising

I decided that since I am doing the race in Namibia I should use the opportunity to try to raise some money for charity. I have chosen a charity that is called Facing Africa. Facing Africa is concerned with the prevention and cure of the Noma infection.

If you want to support me doing this race, please feel free to do so by supporting Facing Africa. On the link to the right you can help me raising money for their charity. If you feel you can support me in doing this, then that would be great, but please dont feel that you are obliged to give to the charity. There are many ways that you can help, an email, phone call or a text is much appreciated too. But I do think that when I am doing the race and I can think about the people it maybe help, I will get some extra strength (and I think that will be much needed!)...

So if you are feeling generous, donate a pound (or a Swedish Krona) or two...

Richmond park and D-Day minus 55

Yesterday I had planned to go running for an hour or so, maybe run down to Battersea park and back again. I gave Mo a call in the morning and we had actually not caught up at all this year. It is the first week of February and all of a sudden you have not seen one of your friends since last year, strange isnt it??

Mo wanted to go Downhill mountainbiking, but I said that until I have done Namibia I will not do anything that might mean I break a bone or something similar. The race through the Namib desert will be difficult enough as is. I need a injury free run up to April.

Instead he agreed to join me for a run in Richmond park. We met up and did a loop of the park, which turned out to be about 11km or so. It is great to run with Mo, his steps are just so flowing so I end up pushing harder then normal too. When Mo took his scooter back home I had decided to run back to my house. I didnt at all know how far it was, but I reckon running by the river should take me straight home.

I had learnt my lesson from last week, so I had a backpack with a Camelback with water and several energy gels and bars. It feels really great to be running far. Running from A to point B is such difference to doing a loop. Running along the Thames was great and weather turned out to be perfect. After about 2h I called Mum and Dad and had a quick chat whilst running. I told Dad that I thought I would have about 2h left before I was home. In the end, I was home after 2h and 10min! About 25min away from home I stopped a traffic warden (they can be helpful too!) and asked for directions. He said it was too far to run back to my house and that I should take the bus instead! I told him I had been out for more then 3h 30min at the time, so that should not really be problem... We all mean different things when we say "that is a long run" *smile*.

If I am equally accurate the run in Namibia should take about 18h... That is what I aim for anyhow, even though that time is not the main thing, it is to complete I focus on.

It was nice to be able to do a longer run, 4h 10min and towards the end I was feeling strong and could have continued.

Today I was aching in my tendons on my upper foot, so I decided not to do any running today. I walked for 45min instead to try to loosen up my legs from yesterdays' run.

I am feeling good about the prospect of Namibia! Next week I have my first session with a lifestyle and nutrition coach from Sweden. Anna Bergström has her own busines called "Formidabel" (http://www.formidabel.info). I'll let you know what tips and tricks I can get from Anna.

I have asked her to help me with 3 things:
- How should I eat to maximise the body's ability to recover between sessions?
- What should I eat to prepare for a race?
- What should I eat during the race in Namibia?

I'll keep you updated as progress is made :-)

Train as you will be racing...

I have now been training regularly for a little bit more then a year, and I feel that I am getting more and more confident running. However I am conscious that I am not running under race conditions. Ideally I would run in warm conditions, but London during this time of year hasn't much desert heat to offer.

However another thing for the race is that I will have to carry everything that I need for the duration of the race with me. That includes clothes (it will be +35 celsius during the day, but -5 during night), food, cooking equipment (just a tin, there will be fires at each water stop, every 20km) and safety equipment (whistle, anti-venom pump, mirror for reflection etc). In addition to that you have to carry all the water you need between each water station.

I bought a new backpack that I will use for the race (you have got to love Raidlight, http://www.raidlight.com , a French adventure gear company), but whilst waiting for it to arrive I have started to run with a backpack on. I did my first run with a backpack last week. I only ran for 25min to make sure I didnt overdo it, and to my surprise, my feet hurt after only 25min! I had some books in the backpack and it weighed about 8kg. This just goes to show that I need to be looking to prepare myself as much as possible, and in an environment as close as possible to race conditions...

Try it, running with backpack can be a new challenge for you :-)

a bump in the road...

The week after the Tough Guy me and Ben sat out on a Saturday morning to revisit Box Hill. I cycled down to Ben and from there we went to Box Hill. When we got there I had been on the bike for about 2h15min (and had a very sore bum!). We locked up our bikes and started to run. 15min into the run my shin started to ache pretty badly. I stopped and tried to massage it a bit, but I was getting a bit worried. Shin splints now would mean several weeks of running and would not be a very good lead up to Namibia.

I pushed on but after 5min stopped and we decided to head back, walking... As bad as it felt it is not worth getting an injury and I think that listening to your body is essential. It was a long time since I have felt lower whilst exercising, and the 40min walking back to the bikes was very demotivating.

Back on to the bike and pushing on towards home. The further we went I was feeling the energy leaving me and found it more and more difficult to keep up with Ben. What are they made of these Northerners??? Dont tell him that, I am supposed to be the Viking, but on this day I couldnt keep up...

When I finally got home I had been out for a bit more then 5h and I was feeling pretty low. Partly from the lack of energy, and party from the fact that I stopped the run after only 20min...

Two lessons learnt today:
- Listen to your body and know when to stop, especially if you cannot recognise the pain.
- Dont forget to fuel your body. For any session longer then 1h, remember to bring fuel for the body...

Write down your training schedule!

So with a seriously tough race ahead I sat down to try to draw up a plan over what I needed to do... All books I have read, and accounts on blogs etc all speak of the same thing: Time on my feet. For a first time ultra runner the no1 priority for me is to get running, and get lots and lots of miles in my legs.

I have decided that my schedule will look as follows:

Monday - rest
Tuesday - 45min run
Wednesday - 60min run
Thursday - 45 run
Friday - rest
Saturday - long run 2-3h at least
Sunday - 1h run

With this as my ambition I have started to write down each week what I am going to run. What is so strange is that as soon as I did it I have felt such difference in how I approach each day. Knowing what I should do it is no longer up to how I feel at 6.30am when I wake up and am about to go out. I doubt anyone is reading my blog to get advice in training (and if you do, for your own good, go find yourself a better blog for training advice *smile*) - but I am amazed how much difference it makes to actually write down what you are going to do... It makes total sense, but I had not thought that the difference would be so immediate!

So go away, get a piece of paper and write down what you are going to do this week... If it is getting around to cleaning out a wardrobe or if it is to make sure you get to do a certain amount of miles running doesnt matter, I am so surprised that it was such a difference!

Tough Guy 2008

2007 had ended very strong with two weeks of almost daily sessions of 3h or more. As 2008 started I paid the price for increasing the amount of training as much as I had done for those two weeks... A chest infection kept me off running for almost 3 weeks. It just goes to show that the rule of only ever increase the amount of training by 10% per week actually make perfect sense.

I came back into training with only a week left to the Tough Guy 2008 race. During the week I felt that my legs were actually ok, and maybe the three weeks off also brought something good with them.

The Tough Guy itself is a great race (http://www.toughguy.co.uk). It is basically a great way for a guy to get to crawl in mud and laugh about it :-) This year we unfortunately was not allowed in the first start line, which meant that as the start went off we had 700 people ahead of us, and we were not even allowed to start to run until a minute after everyone at the start had set off. I tried to stay with Ben as we tried to overtake as many as possible ahead of the narrow trails that forms the country miles of the race.

Before the race I had said that I would improve at least double the amount of whatever Ben did (easy to say when he came 36th last year, and I came about 780 or so...). I kept with him for about 5-10 minutes or so, then had to take it a little bit slower, but I was still overtaking people throughout the race.

After crawling under barb-wire, through mud, jumping into freezing water, crawl through tunnels I had managed to get in on 218 place, which for me was great... Ben had only improved 6 spots, so I outdid him with a mile *smile*.

Unfortunately a year until we get to have that much fun again, but the good thing was that now I only had Namibia in my sight and no shorter racing to do. I set out to write down a proper training schedule and start to plan more carefully how to come to Namibia as well prepared as possible...

Update from December 2007....

hmm, how do I pick up from where I left things last year... Well to start with I guess that I can only hope that my stamina when running is hopefully a lot better then my stamina writing this blog :-)

I had in mind to try to take you through what training I have done since the Ballbuster, but that would for one just be a long list of how long I ran for each day, and number two, probably not very accurate since I have not really written down how much I have trained etc. So instead I'll give you a high-level overview of the main sections and instead I'll take a "from-here-onwards approach".

After Ballbuster I went off to Egypt for a week of diving and snorkeling. Sharm El Sheikh was just the place to go for sun, beach and watching some very cool marine life. Camera in hand I spent hours in the water, trying to get some cool shots of Lionfish. We spent a fair amount of time in the gym when the sun had gone down, me running and cycling, and Louise doing her Yoga, probably not the ideal holiday for everyone but we really enjoyed it. It was good to sweat out every day, and nice to get into a rhythm that I might have lacked before. We also climbed Mount Sinai, a very cool experience and the views from the top at sunrise was spectacular... A lot of credit to Louise for agreeing to do the 3h climb since we started at 2am at night, to be able to get there for the first rays of the sunrise.!

Once back in London I was just days away of Christmas holiday. Me and Martin (together we are doing the Vasaloppet in March) went up to Arvidsjaur, a small village up in the very Northern Sweden. We had 6 days of training cross country skiing. I can see how repetitive being a professional athlete would be... We went up at 8.30, had breakfast, relaxed a bit, took our skiis, went out for about 2h, back to the hotel to have a shower, out for lunch, relax and maybe sleep 1h, out again for 1h or 2, back the hotel, out for dinner, relax and fall asleep around 10, up the next day and then do it all over again :-)

We had some great days training, and although we got overtaken of just about everyone we improved for our 90km vasalopp in March... One thing we both learnt, and that is how odd the northern Swedes are... I wonder if all Swedes appear equally odd for people not from Sweden...

After the training up North I went down to my parents place near Malmo in Southern Sweden. I had a great week down South and I managed to get some longer runs in during the Christmas period. My parents live about 30-32km from Martin and Kickan, Otto and Bruno (the Murbeck clan). I took it in turn to either cycle to their house, or to run the distance. We had a dinner party and some of Kickan's friends had asked her if I had actually cycled home at 11pm when everyone but me left... "Surely Joakim didnt cycle back at 11?". "No" Kickan answered, "we stayed up talking and he didnt leave until 2 in the morning" :-) . Some say it builds character to be cycling in the head wind at 2am in the morning and knowing that you have a long cycle run ahead of you.

On reflection I can say that it is probably a good thing that I dont mind if people think I am crazy, since I think that most people thought it was odd when I was running through the countryside leading a cycle with me and a backback on my shoulders and the bike full of christmas gifts to Martin and Kickan's two sons, Otto and Bruno.

Well that was about the training I managed to do before the New Year, more about the New Year in next post...

Cool runnings (remember the movie about the Jamaican bobsleigh team?)