månadsarkiv: februari 2010

English

Midnattsloppet / The Midnight Race

2 kommentarer

I finally did it!

I have now entered myself into the midnattsloppet race that will take place on Södermalm here in Stockholm on Saturday the 14th august this year. The race is 10 km on asphalt through the summer night in Stockholm. I have been to watch the race a couple of times but I have never even thought I would be in it one day.

Photograph by plindberg on Flickr!

I am in starting group 7 of course, the last people to start jogging and I hope to complete the full 10 km in about 75 minutes.

Entrance fee is 340 SEK.

What have I done? 167 days left to train for it… that’s about 23 weeks. And I will be needing them!

English

Podrunning 45 minutes

2 kommentarer

Here is my 45 min podrunning list of music. Works great to run to. This list however is without warmup and cooldown so it is just that, 45 minutes of nice jogging music ending with a United States Marines march when you are really tired.

Have fun!

Runners

Contents:

  1. Eye of the Tiger / Survivor [4:06]
  2. Panzermensch / And One [5:05]
  3. Walk Away / Dropkick Murphys [2:51]
  4. Mercy Me / Alkaline Trio [2:49]
  5. Menschenfresser – Klubmischung / Melotron [4:55]
  6. Battle without honor or humanity / Tomoyasu Hotel [2:29]
  7. Walking on Sunshine / Katrina (formerly of the Waves) [3:55]
  8. Isn’t it funny how your body works / Nitzer Ebb [3:47]
  9. Arroganz Der Liebe / Melotron [3:48]
  10. At Midnight / T-Connection [9:44]
  11. We Run Through the Jungle with Our M-16s / The US Marine Corps [1:29]

All in one glorious running package!

Swedish

SJ Slopar resegarantin

Edit: 2010-02-25
SJ har återinfört resegarantin. Det var väl smart.

SJ har nyligen i ett episkt uppgivet meddelande låtit meddela att man inte kommer betala ut någon resegaranti pga det stora antalet försenade eller inställda avgångar.

Fantastiskt bra jobbat, SJ. Och ni undrar varför ni har ett sviktande kundunderlag med obegripliga biljettpriser där ofta en förstaklassbiljett är billigare än en andraklassbiljett månader innan man skall resa.

Källa: SVT Text

113 SVT Text Lördag 20 feb 2010
INRIKES Publicerad 19 februari

SJ slopar restidsgarantin

SJ väljer att slopa restidsgarantin
på sina tåg i snöovädret. Oavsett hur
sent tåget blir betalas alltså ingen
ersättning ut, då SJ bedömer att man
inte ”kan råda över situationen”.

SJ lovar att köpa tillbaka biljetterna
från dem som inte längre vågar satsa
på osäkra tågavgångar. -Bokar man av
biljetten köper vi tillbaka den, säger
Carl-Gustaf Olsson vid SJ:s pressjour.

Ovädret sammanfaller med att många
i Västsverige har haft sportlov och
är på väg hem. På fredagen räknade SJ
inte med att inställda tåg ska drabba
sportlovsfirarna.

Eftar att ha sett hur det twittras på taggar som #sjfail kan man inte annat än tycka att det är himla tråkigt att folk som köpt biljetter på det största persontransportföretaget på svensk järnväg skall stå ersättningslösa när man inte kan komma fram.

Naturligtvis är inte alla problem SJs fel, banverkets linjeröjning av järnvägarna i vårt land är under all kritig och det bidrar till en eländig situation. I torsdags hade man en utfrågning om problemen som förklarar situationen.

Swedish

Positivism

2 kommentarer

image

I dag på väg till jobbet såg jag denna reklamposter på väggen och den slog an en hjärtesträng, jag gillar den verkligen skarpt.

Om bilden är svårtydbar så står det: ”Jag pushar mig lika hårt som Charlotte Kalla, men blir bara hälften så trött i armarna.”

Underskriften är: Stina Sellin, längdskidåkare med en fungerande arm.

Gjorde min dag ljusare.

English

Training Wk 6

Finally gotten the act together again to do some serious workouts. Three workouts this week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the treadmill at work. And also one last week, the first one in 8 weeks! Great running actually and does not feel that bad.

As usual the first run after a down-period was terrible, but I soon found my pace back and the condition is growing on me and I managed after just 4 runds to do a 5 km run again. Which is the goal distance of the C25k programme of course. I feel great but need more time to really get into the habit. They say that the workout habit needs about 5 weeks to form so I need to keep doing this.

The really good things is that the running at the gym from work is not bad at all and with the kind of temperatures that we are having and the treacherous ice and snow out there, trying to run trails in these conditions will probably just end with me needing a hip replacement or something, better to stay indoor another couple of months.

The treadmill actually interfaces with my el cheapo pulse watch. Not bad for a 59 SEK watch and HRM band actually, and that’s great. I can set a time, a speed and a target heart rate and the machine will then adjust inclination to achieve the target heart rate, all I need to do is to keep running the distance. When the time is upp there is a cooldown period.

My feet are a little sore after each workout but that’s just to be expected, I’ve gone all ”tenderfoot” again after the break from my workout routine. Back on the bandwagon again is the melody.

Speaking of which, I have designed a Spotify playlist for 30 min running with warmup and cooldown which will be useful both in the gym and in the woods when that day comes. Another playlist for 45 min running and so on will be added.

English

Hashing

2 kommentarer
Addition 2010-01-15: Turns out there already is a Stockholm chapter of hashers! See comments for more info!

Apparently there is an interesting form of running and socializing that is called ”hashing” that goes on out there. Hashing is a form of ”chasing the hare” following a trail through woodlands or cityscape that ends with a party where the runners enjoy good food and drinks. Hashing started in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia in 1938 when a group of british soldiers started a hare & hounds running group. They named the group after the meeting place the Selangor Club also known as the ”Hash House”. A ”hare” would be given a short head start to blaze a trail, marking his devious way with shreds of paper, soon to be persued by a pack of shouting ”harriers”. Only the hare knows where he is going, the harriers followed his marks to stay on the trail, somtimes the marks where not too easy to spot requiring a bit of problem solving and reaching the end was it’s own reward because at that place thirsty harriers would find a tub of nicely chilled beers. Some call it a drinking club with a running problem. I thought it was quite nice and was wondering if something like this exists here in Stockholm or if we should just get together and start something. How about a 5 km trail that ends up at a nice beer place that would not mind people showing up all worked up and sweaty in their training clothes looking for a meal and drinks. Better wait until summer time hower. Until then check out the New York City hashers. They’re cool!

English

Google Buzz

I have just tried out Google Buzz, a twitter-like service from Google which is available through Google Mail right now. Clients are expected for mobile phones of various makes soon.

I like the concept although it’s not as innovative as twitter was when it came it is still a really good implementation of a social microblogging feature. That Google saves it in ”conversations” just like email threads is what makes it great. Even people you are not following are included in the conversations so they are quite complete and nice.

It integrates with many google services and Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and so on and your own web side if you have an RSS feed from it, therefore I think it is a great integrator of what you are doing.

People have however raised concerns over that if you join the service then anyone following are able to see the email addresses you routinely email with. I am not too concerned about this but you might want to think through this before joining.

English

Podrunning 30 minutes

1 kommentar

Here is a mixtape list for running 30 minutes that includes a 5:43 warmup and 7:09 cooldown and 30 min of actual running. I originally had a James Last song live here but it did not fit well with the audience applause and stuff so it has been replaced.

Most of these songs have a really high bpm to get your tempo and step cadence up to close of 180 steps a minute but they vary a little which your running also should.

  • WARMUP: Clint Eastwood – Gorillaz
  • RUN: Born to Boogie – Hank Williams Jr.
  • RUN: Vaterland – Melotron
  • RUN: Up Tempo – Leo Kottke
  • RUN: Rocka På – Markoolio
  • RUN: Bloodshot Eyes – Pat Benatar
  • RUN: Breakthru – Queen
  • RUN: Shame, Shame, Shame – Aerosmith
  • RUN: Lakeside Drive – Nitzer Ebb
  • COOLDOWN: Jamo – Cooldown Mix – Skyway

Warmup: 5:43, running 30:00, cooldown 7:09, total 42.9 minutes

And of course, here is the spotify link. Load your mobile spotify client up, select to use offline for the playlist and then keep running! Off-line mode is great since it does not drain your battery as fast and you can keep running even if your 3G coverages is not so good where you are running.

I’d love more tips on good running songs!

English

Back in the shoes

Running taken up again. Two times now on a treadmill at work and that’s actually not bad at all. I thought I would hate it dearly but it does work actually.

Bonus is that the machine can read my pulse belt so it means I can do really good pulse training without effort, it is really easy to regulate speed and incline on the machine whilst running so you can keep the pulse in the zone all the time.

Doing round of about 3.5 km in 30 mins at the moment, will set out to increase over time up to 5 km and my goal is still to run ”Midnattsloppet” in August which is a 10 km run.

A summary of each week’s training will be posted. I am aiming for three runs with one day of rest between them and then two days of rest in the weekend. Right now the runs will be the same all three but I will later divide them into shorter runs with intervals for speed, longer runs with slow tempo for distance and recovery runs.