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nordicboys
As Håvard wrote, nordicboys are in "Mäja" on a training camp. Since we like you readers so much we have decided to let you influence our next post. We only have a few days left here so if you want to affect the outcome, vote now! Sincerely
nordicboys
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There has been little updates here from me (Håvard). The reason is a lot of school, traveling to competitions, gatherings and of course many training camps. But having said that, I have made great progress in recent months with my new trainer Siw Karlström and her other athletes. This improvement was confirmed on 4 May at the World Cup in China. I qualified for the European Championships in Zurich, and went 1 min and 24 sec faster than the international A standard with the time 1:25:06. The time was a personal best by well over 3 minutes. A month later I walked 20 km in NM, (the norwegian championship), and at the time 1:26:11, which also is under A standard for EM. Conclusion: I am in shape.
At the moment I'm on a training camp in Mäja, located in northern Sweden. It has been 10 days and we have reached the point where everybody are tired and exhausted. The training we are doing up here is hard. We run fast uphill intervals in a run of about 1.5 km, and it has a slope of approx. 240 meters. This training, I know will give results, even tho its hard to flinch the sessions. The next competition will be SM (the swedish championship) 5 to 6 July. Here me (Håvard), Ato, Persy and Anders (my Swedish treningskompisier) will participate in 10000 meters track and 20 km on road. This will bee a great opportunity to test my shape before the European Championships in Zurich, that are approaching really fast! I'm ready! Håvard. Last weekend (14-15/6) it was time for the annual competitions in Stockholm. As the only member of Nordicboys to participate, I felt the pressure to perform and make the team proud. Finally, at the same date as Napoleon Bonaparte 214 years ago defeated a massive Austrian force at Marengo, the time was in for great deeds. Unfortunately the race didn't go as planned. On this specific day, Stockholm offered some heavy wind and a course that left a great deal to be desired. On the other hand I'm not the one that comes up with excuses, I didn't focus as I should have and the time consequently didn't comply with my expectations. The race was 10 kilometers and I crossed the line at 43:42. Eager for vindication I woke up the next morning with a fierce determination. Only 5 000 meters were to be conquered and this time the gods looked upon me with favor. My personal best was 21:03 and my plan was to start of in that pace and then increase the speed as the race went along. Said and done, I soon felt that I had a lot of power and realized that my plan was far to modest. As a result my first kilometer ended up on 4:08, a pace that I kept for four kilometers before finishing the last kilometer on 4:06. This meant a finishing time of 20:38 (for those not as mathematical as me) and a new personal best! It also meant that I erased a 31 year old district record on the distance, but most importantly it meant that I now posses a personal best 3 seconds faster than Håvard! Live long and prosper! Anders H, Nordicboys Förra veckan var Rickard Ekman från SVT på besök hemma hos mig och filmade ett distanspass och intervjuade och i går sändes reportaget på Sportnytt. Väldigt roligt att bli uppmärksammad och ett mycket trevligt reportage! Har ni missat det så finns det ca. 9 min 40 s. in i programmet: http://www.svtplay.se/video/2119885/sportnytt/avsnitt-120
/Ato Since I haven't really performed this spring as I hoped, I was eager to compete this weekend in York. I felt that I was in a pretty good shape, so the expectations were high. Moreover I was told that the course was new and supposed to be flat and smooth (the two most appealing features for a shaved calf). Along with the fact that Britain usually offers "typical British weather", i.e. rain, a bit chilly and a hint of shepards pie in the air, the prospects where in my favour.
After a rather peculiar day of traveling, including driving on the left side of the road and going with a diesel powered train, we (me, Siw Karlström, Mari Olsson and Lena Tomas) arrived in the medieval town. After a quick evening session and some food I was ready for the next day. As usual the night were followed by another day, the day I had been waiting for. To my disappointment the sun shone and the weather wasn't British at all. I decided though not to let this ruin my day. The race started and I felt pretty good, unfortunately not for long. It only took a few kilometers before I no longer could keep up the pace I had started of with. As the kilometers went on and the pace continued to decrease, a feeling of disappointment and futility started to grow. I thought about quitting but I decided to continue. Both Mari and Lena had already jumped off their races and I felt a responsibility, as the only swede left, to at least finish the race. I managed to keep the pace for the remaining kilometers and broke the finish line in 1.32.36 incredible disappointed. This wasn't my day either. The fact that the course wasn't "flat and smooth" at all and that the wind was pretty heavy didn't exactly help me in my pursue of a fast time. In conclusion, the beginning of this season has been tough and I haven't been able to perform as I want, and know that I can. However, the only thing I can do now is to look forward and focus on the next task which will be the national championships in Borås (my hometown) in July. Until then I will undergo some hard training together with the rest of Nordicboys. Live long and prosper! Anders, Nordicboys Like Persy I have also had my final exams this week and thus not much time for anything else. But I did take the time to put together a small video of outtakes and bloopers from our latest hit - The World cup Musical. And for those of you who haven't watched it yet: Do it! World Cup Musical Finally! The past 2 weeks have had focus on my exam before summer. A lot of studies and not so much of anything else. But now, I'm done in school for this semester. Finally! I'm really eager to start some serious training and become in the shape of my life leading up to this summers European Championships in athletics in Zurich, Switzerland. Getting back to Race Walking after my knee injury and building up the mileage and speed is still my main priority. I feel confident though that it shouldn't be impossible since it's finally getting better and I have started to do a little bit of walking again. After all, it's 72 days before I will be standing at the starting line. Giving me a good 60 days before I actually need to be able to do some serious walking sessions! ;) My exam today wasn't the best..I really hope that I get a passing grade, else, like you all know, I have to do it again. If I fail, it will have been a most unpleasant semester, not getting any points at all! But on the other hand, I have had some really great experiences and competitions that I wouldn't trade for something I can have another shot at. So...! I had a little celebration after I was done. A small portion of food, or rice, as some would say (It was actually my roomie Erik that put the leaf in the top when answered a phone call) :D Another great thing is that Polar have finally started to sell their new flagship product. It didn't took long before I had a pre-sale edition at my doorstep. It was a really good timing, since my old watch, the RS800CX, was really starting to giving up on me after almost 5 years of intense use. Latest months I have had to go really crazy about the start/taking lap button and the only thing that have been working is a Good beat. I've heard Ato saying a lot of times, "you should really get yourself a new watch", so I did ;) I actually jumped of joy, more or less, when I saw the first news about the V800 in January. It have been a looong wait that is finally over. I can say that I really like it and it's awesome! Not only enjoying the benefits in training, but it also comes with a very well working activity tracker. It almost works to good (as in I don't like what I see). When I haven't been doing that much except studying the latest week, the numbers is pretty bad. My average sitting time is around 10h30min/day and yesterday, only sitting in my room studying, I got way to many "inactivity alerts" (when you have been sitting for more than 1 hour straight) and my total step count was around 100 steps/hour. That's more or less one walk to the bathroom, one to the kitchen and one to the living room (yep, I counted haha). I was shocked at first, but if I think about it, I'm not surprised. Train hard! Train Smart! /Persy yeah...! As a request from Anders, I have to put up how my progress with my injury beard is coming along. Not to much to brag about, but so far, it's fun! Doesn't look very good though...4 weeks and counting |
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May 2015
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