Great learnings

Over the past couple of weeks so many great things have happend – but I have had so little time left to write about it. But now the time is back.

With a couple of weeks with really busy workdays, that requires heavy amounts of hours, I have had a challenge doing my trainings. But somehow it all worked out – since I dont mind getting up early for trainings. Training around 10 hours a week seems to give energy – even though they have to be squeezed into som hard workdays. Actually. I think it has become a drug to me.

Good nutritions

A few weeks ago I participated in a 3h indoorbike event with the TRI-team. 70 triathletes side by side working and sweating hard, in a hot smelly room kind of gives me the creeps thinking of it. But once I get onto that bike and gets the engine started I love every single second of it!! Its such a great feeling sitting there – getting stronger, working for the dream! Everybody in that room have a challenge infront of them. And we all somehow participate in eachothers dream. We are racing each other, compairing and racing harder! Thats how we get better! And with coach Rørbæk shouting one more millimeter, keep going and ” now the girls are sprinting” go get them – makes me go even faster!

My main focus that day was to keep an eye on my nutritions – feel the reactions on my body, when my energy was low – and how it felt when it was fully loaded. BIG changes.

In the beginning I thought Rørbæk was crazy – asking the crowd to put in energy every 2o minutes. But I followed. Learning. Believing.

During 3h I consumed:

2L high5 isotonic energy drink, 3L water, 1 redbull, 1 banana, 2 energy bars, 4 gels! It seems impossible to run with those amounts of liquid and food in the stomack – but no. I felt great after 3h hard training – eager to get out in the sun and see how the legs would feel.

We ran 12k afterwards – and if it was’nt so goddammit cold, I guess I would have continued for at least 5 more! I was very surprised. My nutritions must have been well disposed. Succes.

Simulating open water IM swim start

The weekend after we had a ”Ironman openwater swinstart event” in Kildeskovshallen. 45 people in wetsuits – 5 women and 40 REALLY BIG AND TALL MEN! Just a little bit terrifying … I felt REALLY small.

With swim coach Mark Von Vogel and Mark Aaron Saus in the control seat, we were trained like soldiers! Their focus were to get us all breathless, stressed, tired and THEN simulating the swim start. Imagine. Go as fast as you can for 50m, get out of the water, run along the pool side, jump in, and repeat! Repeeeeeat! For 10 minutes. My lungs howled for air. I felt a bit dizzy. But did it. Over and over again. Thinking. Hang in there honey … they must have a reason for this!

By the end of the 60min training session we were split in half. Everybody hanging in the edge of the pool … gasping for air … The coaches asked us to put our heads under water – hold our breath for 20 second!(f***) – and then come up over the water – and put off like if it was the swim start of and IM! People kicked, tore and pulled like crazy! It was wild. Big heavy men swam on top of me, and I could’nt do anything but try to keep myself above water! It was brutal! But, great. Suddenly I understood the former excises. Just go. Dont think. Swim! The day after I had bruises on my body – proving that I gave all I had! Succes. Great learnings. Great experience.

Learning from bad trainings

Last weekend we had another 3h indoorbike event. This time I prepared myself for a minitri. Starting with 1200m swim. Bad swim! Mental challenge, that day. My goggles were broken, and I got lots of water in them. I have never felt this before, but it made me very dizzy and somehow seasick. Dammit. I struggled with my dissapointment. (I had put my mind into swimming 2k), knew I had to go for 3h bike and 15k run.

Unfortunately I got an injury on the front of the thigh – on my way out of the swimming pool!! Doing some sort of stupid jump! So the biking was a little tough. But I could’nt quit! Needed to do it. Thinking of the lecture of the week with the TRI-team: Motivation. There will be bad days, and there will be good days. Learn from the bad days – that will make it easier to do great days and avoiding those things that tricks you mind, and telling you to quit! Always go a little further.

During the 3h I experienced the lack of energy. The first hour I felt tired, powerless … stressed about my leg. Coach Rørbæk told us over and over again to fill up with energy – we needed to get at least 1500 calories during the 3hour session! Thats a lot when one gel is 150 calories! – and those of us who had been swimming was already behind … that answered why I felt tired. I could’nt believe that little swim could eat up that much energy – but it could. Suddenly I understood the importance of a continuously intake of energy, when you are training hard.

New swim coach

The last new great thing in my training is, that my little swimteam have got a new coach, Mark Aaron Saus. Thanks to Mark Von Vogel for training us so fare J – we have learned a lot from you! – and we are happy that you introduced us to Mark Saus – so that we can continue getting better!

Mark Saus is from Australia, have 15 years of coaching and a lot of impressive references that made me think: Why do you want to coach me?!?! I am already a fan of you, and I believe in you philosophy: Swim smarter, stronger, faster!

Out for now – heading for new exciting experiences. Keep going!!!!

Running with - and in colours!

Christmas time went well with a lot of training – avoiding gaining weight – and exploiting the holidays. I enjoyed having time to scedule my new trainings in Fitness.dk – and until now I am very satisfied with my options in Fitness.dk

The heavy amounts of training during Christmas peaked with a 14,4k run Sunday afternoon. With the team I ran one of the 3 loops we are doing for the marthon part of Challenge Copenhagen. Great experience to get to know it – and while running in the f…… cold conditions, avoiding slipping on the very icy pavement and still keeping the pace, I felt very welcome J

Once again I must share the magic with my trainings – I had two passes today – and each of them with magic moments! Listen here.

The day kicked off with swimming. Until today nobody, who could guide me and teach me how to get better, has seen my swimming skills … So it was with some nerves, I jumped in and did the intervals I was asked to do. Swimming as fast as possible 3 x 25m – then 1 x 25 in a resting tempo. 10 repeats! Oh lord. I saw stars while gasping for air, trying to remember my technique, and constant reminding my self of: Your arms won't fall of ! Push it harder! Really trying my best not to fail on my first real swim training. If my arms was’nt feeling soooo punished – I would have had them abowe my head all day. 2 months of swim technique focus payed of – I could push my self harder then I thought! Yir.

Since Sundays run I have been thinking about how to get rid of my fears of falling and getting injuries. Actually I love running in snow – its kind of playfull, quiet and joyfull! I always find some magic during those runs. But I constantly remind myself of NOT slipping, and that freezes my moves and makes my running unrelaxed. The solution was te get some new trail running shoes right away.

And look above ...these colourful running shoes are mine now – and tonight – we went out on a 8k run – and they are AMAZING. I felt like spiderman! Flying over the hard-pressed snow around my favorite running track – the lakes in Copenhagen! The shoes sort of stick to the icy, wet pavement. The soles are low, the spikes are soft and adjust easy to the changes of substrate.

It felt almost like running on New Years Eve. Seriously! The landscape was all white. All the lightnings from light signs, cars, windows reflected on the snow – making it all colourful and very beautiful. I reminded my self of putting that magic moment in my ”mental backpack”. There will be times when running sucks. But these evenings just add on so much happiness that I do not even want to think of the bad runs. Come and see if you can catch me! I am flying.

While running out there I must have looked like an idiot – but I was so happy. One more time I got to the conclusion: Training is a drug.

Keep running - and enjoy the freshness of the chillfactor :-)

Hi, welcome to the online learning center. I'm coach Marc Evans

I remember the feeling when I was standing on the beach in Barcelona minutes before entering the Mediterranean and my very first triathlon race ever in October 2010. I was really, really nervous. Excited, but nervous. Mostly because of the unknown I was about to jump into, but also because I was not really confident with my swimming skills. At all!

Little nervous girl, bigger not so nervous man.

But as I made the first part in the water it was all good. I could breath. I could actually crawl. 1500 meters. Piece of cake. That I lost my orientation every nineteenth meter and maybe took the first of the 3 C's - nadar con calma - a bit too literal is a whole other story.

After-wards I could look back at good experience and go home with a nice feeling of self-confidence. If I could learn to swim like that from scratch in less than two months ... well, then the swimming part cannot be that terrifying and hard after all.

Beforehand I had had a couple of swimming lessons in Copenhagen but besides that I learned it all from the dear YouTube. Especially from Mr. Marc Evans.

Check it out if you need to get some competent advice for swimming or maybe if you just need a voice to fall asleep to - yeah, he is definitely not the best entertainer. To put it mildly. Yet, I have learned to like his somehow monotone voice and incredibly boring intros. Underneath you can see three of my favorite videos but there is much more where that come from on the evanscoaching youtube channel - also on cycling and running.

Give it a shot!

YouTube - Freestyle Breathing