Christine Currie

Today was the day of the marathon I have been training for, on an off, since about January (although it wasn’t until recently I actually picked the Unionsmarathon). I finished in a time of 4 hours 29 minutes and 59 seconds, according to my watch, so just attained my “stretch goal” of breaking 4 and a half hours, although I fear the finish official might not have been as prompt as me in stopping his watch. I was second lady, securing me 500 kronor and a nice blue technical t-shirt that made a nice thank you gift to Dave for all his supporting.

The marathon was small and friendly - there were probably more people manning drinks points than there were actually running it - but pretty tough. I wore Dave’s Garmin watch round and it calculated the climb to be over 1000m, with a lot of that coming on very hot gravel tracks in the second half of the course.

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It’s my marathon tomorrow (the Unionsmarathon) and currently the temperature here, in the shade, is about 27 degrees celsius. I’m a bit concerned now about how I’m going to fare. Looking through the previous years’ results, the winner has been over 3 hours every year and the times usually spread to over 5 and a half hours. The course is described as hilly and tough, and that’s by the organisers! With the biggest hill in the last 10km, I’m going to have to conserve energy early on in the race and make the most of the numerous food stops.

Don’t expect me to post a fast time - my sole aim at the moment is to finish, with my stretch goal (is that true management speak or have I made it up?) to be under 4 and a half hours. We’ll see what happens. It’s going to be a long day for Emma as well, but I’m trying to leave worrying about her to Dave.

Today was my first and last long run before the marathon. I was out 2 hrs and 7 minutes. I think most of the schedules suggest having a longer run than that before the race, but not 3 weeks before the race. Anyway, beggars can’t be choosers and it’s going to have to do.

It was pretty wet here in Oslo this morning and got quite cold when I was on top of the hill near the ski runs so I was glad I’d taken Dave’s windproof jacket with me. I felt fine when I got back home, just a bit sleepy, apart from a big bash on my knee - I managed to bash it on a rock after about an hour of running. Luckily the rain seemed quite good at washing the worst of the blood away and keeping it cool. I have an extra lump on my knee and a bit of a graze but nothing to stop me running a marathon. That’s good as I have finally entered!

Dave was running the Nordmarka Skogs (Forest) Marathon today so Emma and I were required to act as cheerleaders. It turned out to be a really fun day so we’d both be happy to do it again. We were in a better state than Dave at the end of it as well.

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We drove over to the end of Maridalsvannet for the Nydalten event, run by Nydalens OK on Sunday. It was another scorcher of a day and the assembly field was smallish and shadeless. The focus of the day was on the Trimtex Cup, a series of races for juniors. They were having a Chasing Sprint and were just finishing the prologue when we arrived. Possibly because of the style of their races but maybe also because of the small number of entries, the start block for the rest of us was pretty short. Consequently, we ended up with 80 minutes between Dave’s start (first) and mine, with mine being right at the end of the normal people. With Dave’s course being 10.5km and hilly and the start being 2km away, it was always unlikely to work. In the end, he was out over 100 minutes so I didn’t have a hope of getting there, not that I felt much like it after a couple of hours of entertaining Emma in a hot and dusty car park.

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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!

Yesterday 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?

Today Oslo was the warmest capital city in Europe, so I was told by a reliable souce (our landlord!). It’s certainly warm here, even at quarter past eight in the evening. Emma has continued to sample the great outdoors and we’ve managed another two runs in the running buggy this week.

It’s good to see Emma enjoying the running buggy so much. She sits with her head out, looking from side to side and exclaiming when we see a dog, a bird, a buggy, another child, a bus, a motorbike, a bike, … However, 40 minutes was enough today and I don’t want to push it. To thank her for being so patient, we ended at the playground in Frognerparken. There’s an amazing castle-shaped climbing frame which is brilliant for the over 3s and a great sandpit with small climbing frame that’s more Emma’s size. We were in the sandpit for getting on for an hour this morning. Then a walk round the park while she had a sleep before a picnic on the grass. She loved it all.

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I’ve restarted my marathon training so Emma and I braved the Nordmarka with the running buggy this morning for a long run. I managed 80 minutes running, she managed 30 mins sleeping so everyone was happy. There was still some snow on the tracks, which being pretty old was quite slippy. We could cope with little patches but when it got more extensive we had to turn round. That meant the run was a bit stop start and didn’t have a nice satisfying loop. The buggy worked fine except on the really rocky stuff, where the front wheel seemed to work itself a bit loose, but that may just have been me not putting it together properly.

Most importantly, we ended near a playground so Emma could have a play in a sandpit and a go on a swing before we caught the T-bane home. That meant both of us enjoyed our morning out and felt we’d got a good dose of sunshine. Hopefully the weather will hold for the rest of the week so we can do a few more running trips out.

We were out in the New Forest yesterday to celebrate me getting old with a few friends. I’d been planning a run from Lyndhurst for months so was really cross when I went down with a sore throat and temperature on the Friday night. It still hadn’t shifted by the morning so I was relegated to the walking party, leaving all the fit people to run.

After a good hour’s exercise we headed to La Pergola for lunch. The service was good and the two babies who were there were tolerated very well (thankfully both behaved themselves impeccably, which probably helped!). Choosing chicken in a creamy sauce was stupid as I don’t like creamy sauces but the enormous slice of cheesecake was delicious, although even I was struggling towards the end of it.

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