Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

Marathon Spectating

Saturday, July 5th, 2008

580We headed east to Rømskog this morning for Christine to run in the Unionsmarathon. After watching her start, Emma and I played in the sunshine on the grassy start/finish area, watched the kids run their races in some smart looking numbered vests, and then drove off after the marathon runners. We managed to see Christine a couple of times before reaching the Swedish border across which the hire car wasn’t allowed to go. Emma and I therefore stopped for lunch and then had a wander around the lake shore (only disturbing the one "optionally clothed" local!) before heading back to the finish. Christine finished in a good (given the terrain/climb) time of 4.5 hours and as second lady. It sounds like it was a bit of a struggle to get round but she seems to be recovering well afterwards. Just a shame she didn’t finish 10 minutes earlier so that we didn’t have to watch from the car whilst sheltering from the thunder and lightening!

O-festivalen

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

We’ve spent this weekend competing in the O-festivalen competition held at Siggerud on the outskirts of Oslo (not far from the IBM office). I went to Friday’s middle distance race on my own. It made a pleasant change not having to go off at one end or other of the start block and with minute intervals I was actually able to race round most of the course. It still took me just under 10 mins/k but with only a couple of minutes lost at the first control I was pleased with my run.

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Nordmarka Skogsmaraton

Saturday, June 14th, 2008

553This morning I lined up with 400+ other runners at Sognsvann for the Nordmarka Skogsmaraton (forest marathon). The rain had stopped and it was a pleasant temperature for running. The cheerleaders had gone on ahead to get a good spot. With next to no training under my belt I really had no idea how I was going to fare.

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Not last at orienteering!

Sunday, June 8th, 2008

We went to Nydalens’ Nydalten event today. This seemed to primarily be about the juniors’ Trimtex Cup match with some courses for adults sandwiched in the middle. Unfortunately this meant that, despite having put us at opposite ends of the start block, we had just 80 minutes for me to get round my 10k course and for Christine to do the 2k to the start. As Christine has kindly pointed out, I failed to do even my part in under 80 minutes and she consequently missed her run.

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Laces my undoing

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

550Off to Sognsvann again tonight for another race round the lake. As you can see, this time Christine was just holding the camera (and Emma) although she did get to run home the long way whilst I put Emma to bed. Knowing about the waves at the start still didn’t help me work out the logic as to how went in each one. I suspect it’s just up to the individual. I ran two laps again but had to stop on both of them to retie one shoelace. With a time just five seconds slower than the previous week I think that probably means I was running faster…

Marathon training

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

544On Friday I finally completed my entry for the Nordmarka Skogsmaraton. As with most sporting events, you enter online and then pay via bank transfer. It took me a few attempts to realise that, despite the field being exactly the right length, I shouldn’t include the periods in the account number that was quoted. Anyway, with the entry submitted it was time to put in a bit of training, particularly as the sun was out.

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Linderudkollen

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

Our babysitters headed off back home this afternoon so it was Christine’s turn to run at the Nordmarkskarusellen up at Linderudkollen whilst I took Emma out in the back pack. It was a very pleasant evening to be out and about although I picked some rather narrow tracks to try and negotiate with Emma who probably got the odd poke in the side from a pine tree. Christine seems not to have mentioned on her blog that she failed to beat my last place from the previous week. She made the same mistake of taking two controls out of sequence but, unlike me, couldn’t be bothered to correct her error.

Waves at Sognsvann

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

With Christine’s parents here to babysit, both Christine and I could run at Sognsvann tonight and both decided to run two laps. Having emerged from the toilets just before the off it had completely passed me by that there were a number of start waves and I just joined in at the front. With most competitors racing round just the one lap it was quite difficult pacing myself and, with no-one around me for most of the second lap, I was definitely slowing. When two guys did eventually come past me, there was no chance that I could keep up. I’m assuming in hindsight, that they started in a later wave but rather embarrassingly they did also continue on to do a third lap. The eventual time on the clock was 24:35 which doesn’t sound so bad.