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, t
rying 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?)
No comments:
Post a Comment