I’ve now settled on the Unionsmarathon as my aim for the next few months. I’ve been trying to find a marathon to run for ages and this one seems pretty convenient and hopefully quite pleasant. I have to admit that the training’s been pretty sporadic with no runs over 100 minutes in the past few months. Despite my tired legs from yesterday’s uphill race plus jog down the hill plus sprint at the end to catch the bus, I managed another 100 minutes today, bringing this week’s total to 4 and a half hours training. I’m hoping all of the exercise I get with Emma will stand me in good stead, but it’s a marathon not a buggy-pushing race!
Archive for June, 2008
It’s a Long, Hard Road …
Sunday, June 1st, 2008Opp, opp og opp again!
Sunday, June 1st, 2008Yesterday was the first Grefsenkollen Opp and I was there, running my heart out with about 200 other people. The organisers claim it’s the steepest race in Oslo with a gradient of about 6%. The first thing that struck me was that the field seemed to be about 50:50, male:female. I haven’t checked the results to see if this was correct, but it made a nice change from the normal male domination.
Was it steep? Kind of. It didn’t compare with the steepness of most fell races I’ve done in the UK: on no occasion did I feel the need to walk. However, it felt very hard the whole way and I wasn’t really pelting it (25:30 for 4.5km and 255m of climb according to my Polar watch). Finishing 5th out of 7 in my category (23-34 or something like that) didn’t seem great and I was whopped by some old women. Why can they run so fast up hills? Will I get better as I get older?
Our First Visitors
Sunday, June 1st, 2008We’re now about half way through our stay here in Oslo and have finally had some visitors to show it off to. My parents came out here for a week to see us and Oslo. The weather was warm and sunny on 6 of the 7 days that they were here for, which certainly helped them to enjoy themselves (at least that’s what they said!).
The weekend was spent in a “hut” by the sea, near Fredrikstad - our first experience of Norwegian hut culture (see http://www.norgesbooking.no/ - an excellent site to book huts on all over Norway) and one I’m hoping to repeat at some point. It was basic (compost toilet, no running water inside but a tap just over the way) but very comfortable and felt very personal, which I think we all appreciated. Emma’s favourite bit was the baby table that went with the garden furniture as it meant she could stand up for meal times.
Back in Oslo we walked, walked and then went for a run most days, all in the sun. The Norwegians keep telling us it was like this last year in May and then rained for the whole of July. As most of our visitors are coming in July we’re hoping that it isn’t like that this year.
Real Nappy Update
Sunday, June 1st, 2008Emma has now grown out of her second size of Tommee Tippee nappies so I’ve had to update our stock. As ever, it was a long and complex process choosing which ones to buy, followed by some random button clicking at the end when I actually placed the order. All of them have pros and cons and however well-written the information is it’s very hard to tell what’s going to fit your baby’s bottom best. In the end, I plumped for a Flexitot and aBamboozle (both by Totsbots) and a motherease Sandy (see kittykins, a very friendly nappy shop with lots of details of the nappies they sell). All have been worn once and seemed to work. The Flexitot is a lovely nappy and I’d buy more of those if I had a chance, the only downside being it uses velcro (which for some reason all nappy websites call applix). I’ve bought poppered versions of the other two as velcro tends to get a bit fluffy after a few washes and then starts to curl. As for nappy nippers, …