Run 5 September

OK, so I’ve been completely a slug since getting over here, and haven’t run since Monday back in the states. So sue me. I’ve been jet lagged, trying to learn the basics of a language, currency, I’ve been driving in Scandanavia (which is really nice, since everyone follows the traffic laws, and there are roundabouts instead of traffic lights or stop signs at most intersections, so you’re rarely waiting for a light). Plus, we’ve been walking absolutely everywhere (except work, which has been about 10 miles from the town centers both here in Stavanger and in Bergen).

Bergen was extremely nice – the town center had everything – good clubs, nice people, all the conveniences of home (I don’t travel with razors any more, plus I needed to pick up a pair of pants), and a 500+ meter mountain on the east side of town. Yep, from my hotel I was able to start walking and be on the Scandinavian plateau about 2 hours later. Make fun of me and call me a peakbagger, but once I came over the first hill and saw the treeline, I had to make it over it.

Norwegians love the outdoors, and have an exceptional system of trails all over the country. And if they’re in a couple of miles of a population center, they’re lit, too, I imagine to support folks who want to go cross-country skiing after work in the winter, since even below the Arctic Circle, there’s about 2-3 hours of daylight during December. But they’re all graded and “paved” with crushed rock.

The picture is from my hotel in Stavanger, and the lake is part of the town’s parks systems (~100K folks live here). There’s a trail around it that connects to downtown and the rest of the country’s trails network. The lake in the next picture is part of the trails, too.

I lapped the closer, smaller lake this morning – 8:34/8:32 (got to love consistency). I was feeling kind of tight, but it was nice to really stretch out the lungs. I may need to go again this evening just to convince my body I’m really getting back into this.

The 101 is working almost like a champ. Except (And this is for you, Running Chick) the combination of overcast and trees over parts of the trail meant that I’d lose signal for between .05 and.1 miles at times. Whenever the trees would even thin, it’d pick up the signal and update the mileage from the last fix, but it uses a straight line interpretation (not a bad fix from a technical standpoint, but a bear if you’ve just run a 200 yard loop in heavy trees). The timer keeps running, so you can kind of tell which miles you didn’t get full credit for (in my case, I’m pretty sure I had a positive split instead of a negative, and most of the heavy woods were on the first mile, so my guess is that there’s a missing .1 on the first lap). YMMV. I still like it, but I do most of my running on roads.