Good Morning! šš»āāļø
This last week I ran in Sweden and in Norway - just short runs, but great scenery on the coasts of the Baltic Sea. I love it do run in new places where I really donāt know where the next steps might lead me and it is a great way to explore a city. Also, when you sit in a car all day long, a morning run is just wonderful.
Hopefully Iāll get a few nice runs in along in the Oslofjord, it is just beautiful here.
I also did some reading about running last week, so please dig in and read the five articles I picked out for you!
The Norwegian Training Method Promises Faster Long-Distance Running and Better RecoveryāHereās How
In short, the idea is to do as much volume at sub-threshold pace (done at 80 to 87 percent of max heart rate) as possible without working so hard that you break your body down, upping the risk for injury and burnout, according to Bakken, who is now a physician in Norway.
A former elite runner himself, Bakken first started employing this method in the late 1990s. āSplitting the work into two sub-threshold sessions on the same day, morning and evening, dropped recovery from days to hours and let me roughly double the threshold volume I could repeat,ā he says.
Since he started employing the method himself, Bakken competed in two Olympics as well as two World Championship finals, and set Norwegian records at 2,000, 3,000, and 5,000 meters.
Iām currently in Norway and I will try this out as it probably works better when applied on Norwegian soil. Or maybe it is the weather hereā¦
How Everyone Became Obsessed With Running
Gen Z might be getting into running, but we are still bored, lonely, and anxious. Perhaps it is no accident that we neurotics are drawn to running, a uniquely trackable sport, where every minor improvement incrementally increases your predicted race times on Strava. Every element of your diet, sleep schedule, and social life can be adapted to it. āHealthy is beautifulā is repeated ad nauseam and we become walking public health campaigns. We are slowly outsourcing intuition to optimizable metrics. Every unforeseen life event or ingested substance can throw off the regimen; complete lack of resilience to any outside stimulus is reframed as health. āHolisticā just means adapting everything to fit your workout routine.
Whatever the motives, I think it is good people are finding running as an outlet.
Tapping out of running at 28 weeks
I didnāt know what to expect from pregnancy. Iād heard lots of horror stories: months of sickness, constant discomfort, fatigue that never stopped, sofa-bound for weeks on end, insomnia, night sweats, swollen anklesā¦ the list went on. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, people on my Instagram feed were winning parkrun the day they went into labour.
Iāve landed somewhere inbetween. For the most part Iāve had an extremely straightforward ride and feel basically fine. Or, I would think that if I was somebody whose hobbies didnāt usually involve going for 20+ mile runs on a Saturday and fastpacking off a long-distance trail for a relaxing weekās holiday. As it is, my social life and free time look pretty different to how they did this time a year ago, and Iād be lying if I said I havenāt found that hard.
It must be a total challenge to figure how long into a pregnancy running still makes sense.
The Best Running Shoes You Canāt Get Your Hands On
As someone whose lifetime mileage to date tops 130,000 and who writes about running, I had personal and professional reasons to look into this phenomenon, and Iām a convert too. I paid $90, shipping and tariff included, for the Li-Ning Red Hare 9 Pro. Itās the equivalent of the Puma Deviate Nitro 4 ($170) and Saucony Endorphin Speed 5 ($175). The BMAI Jingtan 3.0 Turbo cost me $161, again including shipping and tariff. The shoe is akinābut superiorāto racing shoes such as the Brooks Hyperion Elite 5 ($275). Iāve run in hundreds of models from dozens of brands over the past 47 years, and the BMAI model and a few other Chinese shoes are among my all-time favorites because of their combination of ride (the feel underfoot), versatility, durability, and price.
Actually, I donāt really care about Chinese running shoes. Iād rather pay more for a shoe manufactured in Europe.
To Get More From Your Run, Try This Training Strategy
Modern running watches and fitness trackers can be wonderful tools, making it easy to analyze metrics like pace, distance, heart rate and more. But all that data can lead some runners to fixate on their stats, which can be counterproductive.
āIt can easily become paralysis by analysis,ā said Mario Fraioli, a running coach in the Bay Area who works with athletes of all levels. āThereās an overwhelming amount of data, and people donāt know how to make sense of it or have a healthy relationship with it.ā
I think it is refreshing to not look at the watch when I am on a run, but I guess this is one of the topics where there really is no right or wrong, itās up to you.
If you missed last weekās edition, you can read it here:
Now, go running!
ā Nico
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