Winter wonderland

It has been commented to me that “it seems like you’re always on vacation!” Reality is a different story, and in reality I’m a PhD student with constraints on my time. The monotony of everyday life has left this blog pretty quiet the last couple months. For that reason, I’ve decided to start writing a weekly training report, to share the little everyday adventures I have.

So here it is, the weekly training report for December 28 - January 3.

Monday

Still in Tingvoll for Christmas vacation, Audun and I opted to run up the mountain that towers over the village, Kirkeberget (which means ‘church mountain’). By running, I mean that we jogged the 2 kilometers to the base, hiked the 600 vertical meters to the top and then jogged down. This coastal region of Norway is very boggy, and we were happy to find that the bogs covering the upper slopes of Kirkeberget had frozen. An ankle deep windblown crust of snow made for rather slow going. There was barely any wind on top, and the mountains in the distance were lit up dramatically by the late December sun.

Audun on the upper slopes of Kirkeberget

11.4 km, 680 vertical meters, moving time 2:01

Tuesday

Audun wanted a rest day, but I was raring to go. When I’m on vacation I have much more time to relax, and thus recover and I seemed to feel endlessly fresh compared to everyday life where I’m squeezing in workouts around work. I mapped out a route on dirt roads around Honnhammeren outside of Tingvoll, which I thought would be 15-16 kilometers. It turned out to be just over 20, which was fine for my physically, but I regretted not bringing anything to eat or drink.

There were high winds in some stretches as I ran along the coast, but I was mostly sheltered by the trees.

 

The worst stretched was a muddy tractor road deeply pitted by cow hooves, where the pits had subsequently been filled with ice. It was above freezing that day, and some of the ice and mud had started to melt, making for treacherous going. I met the perpetrators of the cow hoove pits, and one of them stared at me in a rather aggressive manner as I snuck by them. 

The sun was setting as I jogged back into Tingvoll and home to Audun’s mother’s yummy cooking. 

20.3 km, 684 vertical meters, moving time 2:16 + 45 minutes of yoga.

Wednesday

Audun and I had a short run up to Tingvoll museum and down to the sea at Øygardsneset before a family dinner party in the evening (his family, not mine). 7.6 km, 311 vertical meters, moving time 0:57

Thursday

On New Year’s Eve we left Tingvoll to go to our friend Andreas’ cabin for celebrations. We were slow leaving Tingvoll and didn’t get to the cabin until an hour before sunset. It was extremely windy; a bus had literally been blown over crossing Doverfjell mountain pass nearby earlier that day. There were cross-country ski tracks though, so we put on our hooded jackets and headed out into the wind for a short ski.

5.8 kilometers, 81 vertical meters, 0:40 

Friday

After a late night of New Year’s Eve festivities - 20 people came to the cabin this year! - we started the day with the traditional swim. Sixteen of us went in for the plunge through the hole in the ice, and it was quit a scene, everyone stripping and endeavouring to get in and out of the water and into warm clothes as quickly as possibly. Here are some pictures from the event:

Sigurd prepares himself for the plunge. Note the chaos of people changing in the background.

Ingrid on her way in.

Audun on his way up

And here I am, psyched to have taken the plunge. The dark area behind me that looks like open water is actually frozen but glassy clear, just for the record.

Riding on the stoke of the icy swim, we got in another short ski before packing up the car and heading south towards Oslo. We spent the night in our tent under the trees at Høvringen, where I got to mess around with night shots on my camera. Too bad there were no stars to make this more interesting.

7.3 kilometers, 93 vertical meters, moving time 0:37 (with waaay less wind than the day before!)

Saturday

On the drive back to Oslo, we stopped at Skeikampen to get in some cross-country skiing. It was -7 C in whiteout conditions with a fair bit of wind, but we managed to get in 25 kilometers of skiing despite the adverse conditions. I started to get some weird tightness in the arch of my right foot towards the end, so it’s probably good we decided to go home instead of staying another day.

The best ‘view’ of the day was when we were below treeline.

Does this frost in my hair make me look old?

25.4 kilometers, 691 vertical meters, 2:37 moving time (Recorded as two seperate Strava activities, here and here).

Sunday

I felt sluggish this morning and was sure my run was going to suck. But low and behold, once I got out the door, I felt great. It was snowing the whole time, but the snow was so light and fluffy it didn’t feel like much of an obstacle. I’m glad the winter has finally come for real; if we get a little more snow there will be cross-country skiing here in Oslo.

Views of Maridalsvannet, the large lake that supplies Oslo’s drinking water, on today’s run

17.3 kilometers, 237 vertical meters, 1:50 moving time + 45 minutes of yoga.

Weekly totals:

Running: 56.6 kilometers, 1909 vertical meters, 7h 5m

Cross-country skiing: 38.5 kilometers, 865 vertical meters, 3h 53m

Yoga: 2 x 45 minutes

Total training time: 12h28m

- The Wild Bazilchuk