BT Halvmarathon

Per, Jimmy and Ole from our athletic club, HGATM.

 So yeah, back in January, Ole convinced me I could run a 1:25 at BT half marathon (today) and because of that expected finish time I was put in the elite group (with the above guys) and they were rightfully laughing at my presence. And I made it clear I knew I didn't belong there, but anyway.

Note absence of Gamnin. And, guys, I swear those are super strong abs and not a pot belly. .. 

Soon we sang "Sweet Caroline" in honor of Boston. 

Nice start photo by Jeppe Bjørn Vejlø. 

Anyone want to wager a guess as to which of the above people won? (Hint it was not 1807, but she was the wife of the guy who won and she took 4th for the women in a sweet 1:20:13)

A fantastic view of the start by Mikkel Barker.

There was no reason for today to not be my day, but it was not. I felt it as I was warming up. I had tapered, followed my training plan exactly, but I just didn't feel it.

My excuse du jour is this:

"Many of the female runners I’ve coached have experienced their worst training days in the few days leading up to and including menstruation" says James Karp, PhD in exercise physiology, on Uber Mother Runner. He goes on to say women perform their best when estrogen is at it's peak.

At the end of the race, it was no surprise that Aunt Flo had just paid a visit.

So maybe, I could have run a couple minutes faster had progesterone not been working against me, but clearly there were other reasons I did not PR.

My 5k split was good: 20:32. But then the stomach "cramps". Of course, as explained, this pain is related to the McKenzie back extensions I have been doing. And it sux. Even before 10k I wanted to drop. Dang, this was not good. I was not having fun. But I decided this would not be about having fun or getting a PR, but simply getting a good training run in since I paid for this race and SR and his parents were being so extremely generous by watching the kids.

I came through 10k in 41:58. I drank and used a sponge. It was pretty warm today. I then ate a gel and started to pep up. The pain in my right side eased up. Thank goodness. But the tightness I guess had to go somewhere and it moved back into my right leg. And the sound of my right foot pounding against the pavement sounded terrible.

15k split: 1:04:11. Slowing significantly. We had a tail wind at this point. I had hoped to use it, but couldn't muster up any sort of fight.

Then my legs just wanted to give up. Am I having fun yet? NOOOOO!

THEN, (and I had heard the route was flat and fast), we entered a section of hilly trails! Hello? I remember saying at some point that I "loved trails". Well, hmmm. Just not right now, please?!

Meanwhile - the winners:

Elasri Ebderrahim in 1:04:58 and Sara Sig Møller in 1:15:09

I picked it up for the last 1km. Somewhere I found strength. I was probably still angry at the anonymous person who wrote the comment "jackass" on this blog last night (on the post about gun control). Or maybe I was just happy because it was almost over. 

Final time was 1:31:29. Honestly, folks I shouldn't complain since it is my second fastest half marathon. But not what I expected. Maybe the 60k took more speed out of my legs than I had imagined. Notably, Dorthe Dahl (the first place woman at Fyr til Fyr) ran nearly 4 minutes slower than she did last year (she ran a 1:24 something). I hope this doesn't come off as selfish or mean of me- but it was kind of comforting to know that maybe we were in the same boat, struggling to get our speed back after the ultra.

Pia Joan Sørensen (2nd place female at Fyr til Fyr), on the other hand, just ran the 3rd fastest 100km by a woman in Danish history: 8:34-something. She would have won for the women yesterday at the Mad City 100km USATF championships, just to put this in perspective! Amazing race, Pia!!

Pia- grabbing a snack on her way to an 8:34 100k in Albertslund

Running Song of the Day:

Everything is embarrassing by Sky Ferreira 

Madison, Minnesconsin Part II

So a while ago I wrote about this fictitious perfect midwestern town called Madision, Minnesconsin.

As of yesterday, it looks like SR got a job there starting in September. I think I'd prefer to allow him to reveal the true name of our future home.

Now that I have gotten all of my feelings about Denmark off my chest (in the last post), I can start looking forward to the actual future. And doing things like finding a school for the boys (hopefully a Waldorf school) and figuring out how I will "commute" to work in Denmark. These things have a way of working themselves out. And I have to admit I'm excited about SR's job and the location.

In the meantime, I have to figure out how to get myself to run a ½ marathon PR on Sunday at BT Half Marathon There will be 10,000 participants!! I hear the route is fast, I just hope I am, too.

**********************

This weekend offers a couple other great running events, that I have participated in before and highly recommend.

Copenhagen Ultramarathon in Albertslund and

Brøderupløbet in Tappernøje. (great trail half marathon!)

I seriously considered running the 100k in Albertslund, but have to stick to the sub 3 marathon trainig plan if it is ever going to become a reality. After that, I will allow myself to give ultras another serious try.

Continent Crisis

Sometime during the weekend we spent on Bornholm running Fyr til Fyr, it sunk in: Denmark is my home and I am more Danish than I am American. But I didn't admit it to myself right away.

The smells of Spring arrived. Especially the smell of the ocean. And even the mud here has a salty scent. It is part of me, though this is the first year I truly appreciated it. In fact, I used to think of Denmark as kind of bland in terms of its scenery. But I find it so inexplicably gorgeous this spring.

Nordstrand 2011 rielyst.dk

Solnedgang rielyst.dk

Sometimes paintings capture the feeling of a place a lot better than photos.

And there are reasons I feel this way.

I enjoy my job. The kids are happy. We have friends. The weather is perfect. We can bike and take trains everywhere. We are safe.

The trail running community here is exploding. And I got to be part of a podcast recording "Trailcast" about trail running in Denmark. How exciting to talk about running in pregnancy, overtraining and trail running in a place where the subject is really on fire.

Trailcast

(I highly recommend the episode with the Casper Wakefield interview who just set the course record at the Yukon Arctic Ultra).

Lars Michael Sørensen and me after recording the podcast in Kongenshave. One of us dressed up.

Ever wonder what kind of equipment is used to make a podcast?

And I just did an article with Løbemagasinet  about using Bikram Yoga to compliment running.

"The Lakes" by Nørreport in Copenhagen. They are beautiful in the spring. Even they smell salty.

I got tears in my eyes today as I was sitting discussing Denmark with my PhD advisor, from his office over looking a park in Frederiksberg. Actually it wasn't a park, but everything looks like a park here, even in the middle of Copenhagen. "I love Denmark. I feel so at home here. I'm going to apply for citizenship as soon as I can." Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with emotion. Then he started joking about the fact that you can't discuss politics or healthcare or even evolution with Americans. America sure is divided, isn't it?

Why does Natty have to move back to the US? Why does SR have to go, too?

It is not looking good for me finishing my PhD from the US- so will SR and I be living apart for a few months this fall? The future is so uncertain. I really just hope we can find a stable, happy place for the boys!

The US & The Boston Marathon

I feel terrible (and afraid!) of what is happening in the US these days. The Boston Marathon was such a terrible tragedy. Two days of tears welling up in my eyes when I read descriptions and saw photos and videos of what happened.

A friend of mine posted on Facebook - "How much of the footage from the Boston Marathon bombing do you let your kids watch?" - I'll write my answer here and that is NONE OF IT. The only thing we ever watch on tv is Eurosport anyway. And you have to imagine one of the reasons the criminal/s targeted the Boston Marathon is everyone would SEE it.

It was an unthikable act of crime that has nothing to do with the amazing sport that unifies people from all over the world. Yet, I have had nightmares every night since (about running- which for so many of us is a sacred place in our mind!).

I think a lot of us feel like we want to do something to help make it all better. I wish I had another answer besides being the change you want to see in the world.

I have already seen pictures and adds for T-shirts about the Boston Marathon bombing. My gut feeling is it sickens me that companies would try to advertise and/or make money off of the merchandise of a tragedy.

In my opinion, buying t-shirts doesn't solve anything. Simply give money to a cause you believe in instead.

Look at how adidas very carefully placed their logo for everyone to see.

I say "just don't do it". Find another way to help America and the world recover from this event. Go on a run with your kid. Appreciate what you have in life. That's what I need to go do right now.

The McKenzie Method & A what weekend in ultra running

Yet again, nothing I learned in medical school helped me with my running injury.

I think most readers of this blog will agree when I say - when you have a running injury, don't go to the doctor. At least in my case, the diagnosis and treatment of my injuries have always come with some combintation of massage, yoga, chiropractic, physical therapy and osteopathic medicine.

The thing that the latter practitioners have in common is they 1. take time to hear your story and 2. examine your entire body, looking for asymmetry, tightness, abnormality, etc.

Physicians used to do both of those things really well, but they don't have time now: too many fancy tests to order. But with athletic injuries, there is no need for these tests since the answers can be found with just your eyes, ears and hands.

I've had pain in my right leg since September. I kept running and it got a lot worse in October, so I took a long break. When I returned to running, it hadn't gotten any better. The pattern of my winter was such that I could run short runs, but nothing longer than 15-20 km. Had I gone to a doctor, he would have sent me home with the following advice "stop running" and maybe some ibuprofen. That would have left me fat, depressed, slower and dealing with a stomach ulcer.

The first thing that helped my right hip was taking the shock absorbtion out of my back and hips .I did this through pose running. Trust me when I say that if I can learn a new running style, so can you. We could all benefit from leaning forward more, increasing our cadence and lifting our feet actively.

If you can learn to jump like this, pose running will come very naturally.


Then I went to a physical therapist who had me do this:

This is not me, but had I been demonstrating a back extension in the 80's, I would have worn this outfit.

And I'll be darned if it didn't take the radiating pain down my right leg away. The only drawback is the pain moves to your back. But it is better tolerated here. How and why this happens, I have no clue. I've read some theories about opening up the disc space, but the maneuver also seems to work for non disc injuries with radiating pain.

This treatment was discovered by Robin McKenzie when a patient of his accidently lay himself down for a long time on a table like this, waiting for Dr. McKenzie.



"How's you leg pain", Dr. McKenzie asked (in 1956)?

"I haven't felt this great in weeks!!" responded the man.

But part of the secret is, you have to keep doing these extensions - and in that way, you can keep the pain away for hours or days at a time.

When I ran the Griseløbet 10k, though, I can clearly see now that the pain in my stomach was radiating around from my back after I had just begun using these extensions. The tightness has to go somewhere, but trust me when I say, it is better in the back.

A demonstration of the back extension

and how to determine if the problem is indeed in your disc

Now- what a fun weekend to observe the ultra running world from afar!

1. Meghan Hicks (from Minnesota!) wins Marathon de Sables. Everyone who has met Meghan loves her- even if you've just read her writing (or even her comments here). She is an incredible and thoughtful person who deserved after many years of focused training to win this race. And she did it in style when the first place woman went out too hard on the second to last day (47 miler) and had to drop. Meghan played it calm and smart the whole way and won handily. It even sounded like she ensured medical help for the former first place woman before continuing.


2. What a stacked field at the Lake Sonoma 50 miler. Cassandra Scallon, my bud (from Wisconsin!) had an incredible performance, good enough for the win in 7:47, followed by Joelle Vaught. Amy Sposton showed how consistently she can perform at her peak when she passed Rory Bosio near the end of the race to take 3rd. Good job, Amy!!

That is the way to run on water, Cassie!

3. It was the 6 hour race Slagteriløbet in Jylland, Denmark today. I'm really excited to see how den seje Sidsel did. Anyone know??

For anyone else who just wants to play it cool...

Inaugural Fyr til Fyr 60k

This is what the ultramarathon is about: using your legs to get from one place to another in the stunning majesty of nature.

None of this rat in a cage 2km asphalt loop or treadmill nonsense.

Thank you Moses Løvstad, Jesper Halvorsen, the artists previously known as Team Suunto, and your wonderful family and friend volunteers, for an unforgettable 60k. This was the Danish ultra event of the year (I'm willing to bet). Dare I say you guys are onto something big?

Since October, I have had too much pain in my right leg to even attempt a marathon (though of course I did attempt the Bandera 100k and dropped after that right leg locked up). Luckily, shorter distances have been okay. Finally, about a month ago, I was diagnosed by my physicial therapist (and fellow ultra runner),  Jakob Nordholt Hansen, with a protruding disc, which had been causing the radiating pain down my right leg. Right before Griseløbet, he did something to my back by pressing hard that took the pain in my leg away - after some intense, continuous yoga and stretching, I can run long again - and what perfect timing for Fyr til Fyr

I have a lot  to say about this race (including the return of CCU and the eating of a ton of snow (not in that order)), but would rather let the pictures do the talking for now.

Check-in. Photo:Stine Sophie Winckel

Start at the Dueodde lighthouse with one hand on the wall. Photo: Moses Løvstad.

leaving the lighthouse at Dueodde- the southern tip of Bornholm. Photo:Stine Sophie Winckel

Beach running with Stefan and Stefan. Photo: Stefan Stougaard.

Photo: Stefan Stougaard

.

From Dueodde Lighthouse overlooking the course. Photo:Stine Sophie Winckel

Photo: Stefan Stougaard

SR and Dorte Dahl. Yeah, she really is that good (previous age group world champion in Mountain Running, according to SR). Photo: Stine Sophie Winckel.

Photo: Stine Sophie Winckel.

Basically this photo is about showing off my nice, er, back....pack.
Photo: Stefan Stougaard.

Birgitte Munch Nielsen tackling the ever- changing coastal terrain.
Photo:Stine Sophie Winckel

Whoohoo! This is a fun gate!
Photo: Stine Sophie Winckel.

Pia Joan Sørensen rejoicing at the one aid station, despite just learning I was right behind her.
Photo:Stine Sophie Winckel

Ehhoew. Is it over already?
Photo: Moses Løvstad.

What is going on here?
Photo: Stine Sophie Winckel.






A run the next morning with Daniel Ditlev, Dan, Greg & SR.

And then awards!

First 3 Ladies: Dorte Dahl, Pia Joan Sørensen and, well, me. We all won Innov-8 trail shoes and the Bonholm brew "den dødelige hest" - The Deadly Horse (the latter for all running faster than the previous "fastest known time" on the course: 6:16).

Results: https://lap.io/event/2013-fyr-til-fyr-60-km-ultra/results

Race video (in English) featuring our new BFF, Greg "Team USA" Friedman.

Påske, Colorado & Fyr til Fyr

There must be a connection between the extreme amount of holiday time that Danes get and their reported high level of happiness. Denmark is historically a Protestant country, but today there are actually very few practicing Christians here; this was a surprise to me coming from such a strongly Christian country.

Nonetheless Easter is celebrated here with 5 days off for just about everyone. This has meant time for playing with the family, planning our move to Colorado and training. In terms of training, I am already tapering for Fyr til Fyr (Lighthouse to Lighthouse) 60km along the coast of Bornholm next weekend. So the focus of the past week has been on some speed and not on distance (glad I have a coach who can make this decision for me). I should also point out that I am no longer cycling as that now seems to have been the source of the problems in my right leg and hip. I guess cycling so much on a bike that was slightly too big for me had its consequences.

 Here was the past week:
 Sun: 10k (Griseløbet) in 41.15 + Bikram Yoga
Mon: Mave, baller, lår + 30min elliptical + my own Crossfit

Trying out all of my equipment for Fyr til Fyr 60k, which is self-supported except one aid station at 30k.

Tues: about 21km icy trails in Fruens Plantage (Lady's Plantation) and Fårbakkerne (The Sheep Hills) in 1:50 something??
Wed: 4km easy, Bikram Yoga
Thurs: 10.2 km on snowy trails (42:09) (Skærtorsdagsløb) (SR ran, too, in 37:09)

What's this? Have I seriously learnt pose running form? btw "learnt" is just as correct as learned, I have learned :o).

chicken

we won paper towels at Skærtorsdagsløb

 Fri: Strength & core + 8km easy with SR
 Sat:  15km in 1:12 on trails
Sun: CX worx, pulse, Bikram Yoga (next to Michelle Vesterby-- the proefssional triathlete!! whoah)
Mon: Strenth & core, warm-up, 4 x 1000 on the track with SR in 3:45, 3:51, 3:45, 3:46 (this earned me a "good job" from SR at the end :o)). My fastest ever 1000 meter intervals. Btw (according to my Garmin 1km in 3:33 - but I KNOW it doesn't count. Just saying...).

after intrevals today on our home track

I hope I never take my runs with SR for granted. 

Moving to Colorado

Here is where I need the help of you readers. SR and I are planning on a temporary move to Colorado while we apply for future residency/fellowship spots and I finish writing for my PhD. We are looking for a short term rental- and right now we're deciding between Fort Collins, Boulder, Loveland, Woodland Park and Crystal Lakes. The latter is a secluded community in the mountains with very reasonably priced cabins and hundreds of miles of running and cycling trails. (I just learned about). Do any of you have thoughts on where we should make our temporary home?

It wouldn't be too terrible to live here in Crystal Lakes (from imgur.com)

It should be noted that we are still looking to buy a place (let's call it the Hard Rock Chalet) with  Alicia and Divesh where we can rent out to friends wanting an adventurous mountain vacation. We'll have guided trail runs, bike rides, etc. This is going to take a while to get up and running, though - so be patient!


Running with Sunglasses

Doing the Ultra-Eye Study had an unexpected benefit for me. After reading so many peoples' experiences, I started doing all of my running with sunglasses. I had previously had this perpetual rash around my eyes and irritated conjunctiva. My patients and colleagues (in the Ophthalmology Dept, of course) nearly daily asked me "What's wrong with your eyes?" Anyway, it is now very clear it was environmental irritation while running that was causing it. If you suffer from similar problems, you might want to give sunglasses or non-tinted glasses a try.

Easter in Næstved

pre-teens

Thanks again for the hat, Olga

The spring experience