Got the slot? Got the slot. GOT THE SLOT!!!

I guess the subject says it all. Today at 6:22PM EET my life changed for good (well ok, maybe I'm exaggerating, but at least now it feels like it). The mail from the NXTri staff arrived. And I couldn't open it. But then I had to.
And I started to read... "We are happy to announce you that..."
...what, why are they happy, what, WHAT!!! (my brain did not function properly at that point, nor does it now)...
Then I continued..."announce you that you have secured a slot in the 2014 Isklar.... 
....Secured what, what have I secured, secure, what secure, what!!??
... a slot?
... a place in the starting line...

And finally it started to get into my concious...
I've gotten a slot there!
Noooo....  Can't be...
YES!!! It be. Me got a slot. a slottee. Jiihaaa!!!

Ok, I'll continue with some more, no less idiotic writing in couple of days. When I can.

Four day training-spree

As a long-distance consecuence from a polar fitness-test I did with my RCX-5 training computer, this week I ended up in cycling on thursday, running on friday, cycling on saturday and running & swimmin today (sunday). And still, I feel quite fine now :o
It all started on the fitness-test on October 5th (the basic test the polar does, you just lie 5 minutes on your back and the watch does something and provides you with a result afterwards). I felt quite ok, had rested a couple of days, and thought "hey, now is a good time to do the test, it's been a while since I've done it earlier...". I do it every once in a while, as it provides some feedback on the development of my fitness level other than "Hmm, feels like this run was a bit easier than previously".
Ok. So I did the test. Earlier result was 56 (it's sort of an estimate of the VoMax of the person under the test), which was ok. I hoped for 57 or even 58, but was not sure as I didn't have a clue on how the training had actually effected. Well. The  result was 68. SIXTY EIGHT! I've never had that even then when I was training for the half IM, and then I was Really in shape!
So, I thought, some things have been working if this is real, so I should be happy. And I was. Until I realised it had consecuences to the training-load measurement that monitors the cumulative load of the sessions you download to your account in Polar personal trainer -pages. Ha ha. Suddenly the sessions I did had a much smaller effect and created much less load than they had earlier. One-hour trainer ride meant earlier that the "load cauge" in my personal pages recommended me having a day off or at least train on much lower level of intensity to not to overload my body. Not any more. The every-other-day trainings I had done earlier started to look like piece-of cake stuff that doesn't get me anywhere. Just small peaks in the load that I'd recover pretty quickly from.
And this started to bother me. Maybe also because, to be honest, that's what I had felt too. The every-other-day training was nice and good, but maybe unconciously I had already come to the same conclusion. But it was irritating to need the machine to tell you so before you realise it really. Grrr.
So come the last thursday, when I felt REALLY lethargic. In the evening my wife came back home from her evening run and asked if I was going to do the trainer ride I had talked about. I really didn't want to, but looked like I had to as I had talked about it already earlier like it was something important... So I did the thursday's one-hour trainer ride. And I checked out it into the Polar pages, checked the training-load page, and it said "it is ok to do another session tomorrow". And something clicked in my head. I thought: "F*ck, let's see if I can get it to rise so that it recommends a rest day at some point". And decided to have a run on friday. And had, here's the summary. The ride was quite mellow, but this was not so much. I ran with the "natural rhytm", did not pay so much attention on the HR or other indicators (other than how it felt in the body). Still, the load-indicator was happy to say "it is ok to train next day". AAAARGH.
After my wife got back from her morning long-run  (and I had vacuumed the house) I went for a bike-ride. A 100-minute ride with an average of 32 km/h was maaaaybe a bit hard. But I did it anyway. Now, the cumulative load indicator said:" you can train tomorrow, but high intensity is not recommended". !!I was getting somewhere!! Today, after the swim-session I held for the adult-class, I went for the final run with one of the swimmers. Finally, after the download, the load-indicator recommended a really low-intensity training (which I see as a recovery-session) or a day off. I had won!!!!
Ha ha. Won what? Or who? My body? The load-gauge?
Yes. No. So it actually took this blog for me to realise that this might have been a bit of an idiotic endeavour. On the other hand, now I know that my body can take more load than earlier without serious results, so I know I need to tweak my training a bit now. Maybe I also will :o
Tomorrow or on tuesday the latest the results from the NXTri lottery are announced, let's see how that goes and how it affects my training plans for the near-future and a bit further. But I'll get back to that when I get the result...

Post registration, pre lottery

So, the registration for the 2014 NXTRi opened, and then it closed. A short week. And I was there in the midst of those pain-addicts, registering to the lottery already on monday. And of course I couldn't do it the first time. And not the second. Or the third. And then the frustration came and I contacted the NXTri people to find out if the problem was me, or something else. Well, guess what. The problem was...  ....me. Or actually my PC, which was not mine, but my employer's. And the Firefox there is, let's say, a bit (old? outdated? obsolete?), erm, limited edition. So it did not function properly with the active sheets in the registration form. Gladly I also have the IE on the same computer, and that worked well. So I'm in. For the lottery I mean.
Ok, in the hind-sight, I might have had a bit of a hidden agenda when contacting the arranging party representatives. I mean, I, almost accidentally, of course, did go through all the previous race results, and did not find any Finnish names there. So, to my knowledge, I would be the first Finn to do the race if I got the slot. Somehow this information also creeped into the mail-exchange I had with the organizers with a question of maybe getting a special treatment because of that fact. I don't know how, but it just sneaked in there. It might be that the people on the other end of that exchange had gotten similar kind of inquiries from some other people also, as the response was really discreet, and with a bit of humour in it also. Something like this: "Don't worry, we provide the same special treatment to everybody, good luck with the lottery!" So that was it. But I had to try!
Another thing related to me possibly being the first Finn there was that I had to keep my mouth pretty much shut from summer to this moment (at least within certain groups of people). I wouldn't have liked competition there wouldn't I. Guess how many times I almost blurped out what I was planning on doing, realising what I was doing, and then rerouting my talk on-the-go to not to let the truth out. Like "Yeah, I'm also going to take part in at least one marathon and a couple of bike-endurance events next summer to prepare for the... ...erm the local open water swim races nearby (what the hell do those have to do with the swim...?).
After realising that I might end up empty handed also with the NXTri participation, as I mentioned already in my earlier blog, I decided to enroll to a local ironman-distance race (sorry, this is in finnish). I have not done that yet, but will if I don't get the slot in Norway. Another REALLY interesting race is something called "Ö till Ö" in the Stockholm archipelago, where they run and swim for 75 kms (10 km swim total, 65 km run). The idea is to run through the islands and swim between them. THIS IS SOMETHING WE'LL DO WITH THE WIFEE AT SOMEPOINT ANYHOW. I got so hyped about this when I got the link from a colleague of mine, and as I showed it to my wife, she got also hyped about it. REALLY hyped. As we are both the type of diesel-engines that can go on and on for no end, but may have some challenge with keeping the speed, having a full day for the 75 kms suites us quite well. At least we think so. But let's see. If I get the slot in the Norway, It'll be too close with the "otillo", as we named it already. And perhaps also the local IM distance race is too close, I don't know...
PResently it looks like I have less than a week to the moment where I either crap my pants as I understand that I really need to start to train to get ready for the Norway (i.e. I get the slot), or I don't, and then I need to replan the 2014 season totally. Which one is more scary??

We'll see that in a week.

Training weight, don't eat sand, coach freestyle, help 70.3 first-timer and Norseman

I almost wrote AGAIN how quick the time goes as it just did again, but I need to stop having that as an excuse for not writing here regularly and actually start writing here more often. So stop complaining and start doing.
During the last few weeks Ive had a several personal "projects" started. Some of them have been carried out already, some are in good progress, and, finally, some not. I thought I'd explain them shortly and see where that takes me (us).

Lose weight to train (and maybe a bit train to lose weight also)

Throughout summer I've swam, ridden the bike and ran whenever possible (I have some other priorities also in my life, surprise surprise). Tried not to take too much stress of that, but still kind of preparing for the REAL training regimen that will evidently come later in the fall/ winter. The main purpose for this has pretty much been keeping my basic fitness up, and my belly not exploding of all the stuff I'm eating (So train to lose weight). Five weeks ago we (me & my wife) decided to start looking what we actually eat, as it looked like no training had any effect on the number the scale provided. For me, this meant putting the carbs down at lunch & dinner, filling the plate with salad, greenies and some protein-source. I also started to look  more carefully for the portion-size, as I have the habit of getting really hungry before lunch, filling up the plate to a horrifying degree and then eating it all even if I'd be satisfied already earlier. For my wifee this meant trying out the now-popular 500kcal-days twice-a-week in addition to eating a bit less and keeping the excercise-levels the same.

Result: 6 kgs drop for me, and 5 kgs for the wife. My run has improved, and I don't know if it's because of the low-carb diet or something else, but my hr-readings have gone down also (so same speed - lower hr or same hr, higher speed). Not bad, not bad at all, especially as the changes have been sort of minor...

Start teaching people freestyle basics (swimming I mean)

I did this shortly last spring also, but now I have a class of 8 people and they will be getting 11 one-hour lesson once-a-week. I've now had three of them, and boy, has that been a learning-experience for me too. First of all, I realised I need to prepare for these meets. My preparation for the first meet was only to come up with the idea of getting to know the people and their needs towards the course. Well, the realisation that that initial "hello" took about 10 minutes of the hour was quite a shock, so what I did was try to improvize all sorts of stuff. And that didn't go well. I think I was the worst kind of ADHD-case during that first meet, and was really grateful of the people actually coming also to the second class (which I had prepared with actual training parts and a working timetable). So a BIIIIG lesson learned there on the first one. But a good one, now I am actually thinking of what people will be practicing and how much of different stuff can I fit into one hour without creating a mess. On an overall level, I get real pleasure from seeing the people getting the stuff and also understanding why they should use a certain technique instead of just treading the water. And them noticing the real effect of the technique change on their ease and speed in the water is nearly priceless :)

Not eating sand

Well, as you might guess, this is a wierd thing to encounter as it is really against any and all reason. And how tough it is to get rid of it in the first place!
Ok, just for a clarification, the person in question is my younger child, a 3-year-old boy, who, for some totally ununderstandable reason, with his mates in the kindergarten, has started eating handfuls of sand. At first encounter this was funny like "ok, kids just playing". Second time it was stupid, and the boy was told to stop it. The tenth time we decided we need to do something. For some reason the little guys have created some sort of game or play where they are stuffing the sand into their mouths. And encouraging each others to do that. So we needed to stop that. Not as easy as you would think, though... First it seemed that nothing helped. Now we have several different restrictions on the boy (e.g. no tv as long as the idiocy lasts, all "lightning McQueen" stuff confiscated (that was really hard for him)) and agreed with him that if he stays off the sand-eating for five consecutive days, we'll take him to his first real movie (the Planes). Lets see how things go there...

Wifee Half-distance training

On a sunday a couple of weeks ago I signed my better half for her first half-distance triathlon. That'll be due next July, 17th to be exact. So some time for the preparations still remain. But it was good that I did the registration for her, as no-one would have guessed that the national half-tri would sell out its 1 300 places in 22 hours from opening :o
But, I got the wifee in, and she's determined with her one-time-sprint-triathlon experience that she'll do it. And I'm sure she will, especially now as we both have been getting towards more reasonable weight considering the training. But I know I will need to drag her out of her comfort zone in some training-sessions to get her actually progressing on her training. I'll probably need a long stick there to keep the unavoidable aggression bursts on a safe distance.

Norseman 2014

Yes, I'm a stupid man. I knew that triathlon is getting ever more popular, but I didn't understand that it's hit the Nordics also. So two of the IMs I was planning on having in my back-pocket IF the lottery from Norseman didn't go my way are now off-limits (Copenhagen and Kalmar). Now I'm just biting my nails and awaiting for the enrollment to start and the lottery to happen, because that'll be the only chance I'll have for next year to do the ironman distance. Well almost at least, as I decided that maybe I'll just have to budge and participate a small national full-distance if the lottery will fail me. But we'll see. One side of me can't wait until the lottery on November, and another side does not want to get there as getting the invitation there would actually mean that I'd have to go. and even worse, TRAIN. Aaagh!!!!

Ok, so five present projects for now, I'll leave the rest for the next update :)

Half a year later...

...so it's been a while since I've been here. The spring went in recovering from the surgery, summer went in starting up with the training again, and now it starts to look like fall all over again. And I'm eagerly waiting for the registration for norseman to open (still some weeks to that though...)
During the summer I had a success in luring my wife also into the long distance-training. I'd say it was a success as I got this previous cycling-hater on bike, and even doing a couple of over 80km rides during the summer! And as I went with her, most of the times also with the smaller rides, I got my cycling legs a bit back too :)
Finally, now a couple of weeks back, we both participated in a local sprint-distance triathlon, which was a first for her, and we really had fun there, even though it was raining the whole swim (well, that did not matter) and most part of the ride (that did make it a bit harder). Luckily, the run was dry.
But that's for that, I'll now start actually updating this blog a bit more frequently (not too high a requirement when looking back to the previous frequency).
As an end-note, I'm really scared if I don't get the slot in the lottery as I dis-succeeded in reserving a place in the replacement-races I was planning to take part in if I did not get the slot (Kalmar or Copenhagen) as they were filled up sooooo quickly. But now I have to go, but I'll return soon :)

Recap for the past three months, including spinal surgery and other interesting stuff...

I know three months of silence usually kills any blog there is, and I don't assume these texts are any different from that, but sometimes things happen and (b)logging goes way down in your own priority-list. At least for a  while.On the other hand, I don't think I'm able to explain the last three months very shortly or in a totally structured way, so I'll just let the text flow and see if I end up with the longest and most difficult to follow -text I've ever written or not :)
I just checked that my last post was at 22nd November 2012. At that point I was in the middle of "medical process", i.e. waiting for an invitation for future examinations by an orthopedic doctor. During the following week I got examined by a specialist (on tuesday), got a waybill to a magnetic spinal-scan, had the scan on friday, and spent pretty much the whole friday waiting for the results at the local ER (the only way to get the results examined ASAP). Finally I got in to hear about the results. And that was something I still have hard time to understand. At that point a senior spinal-surgeon had examined my scans, diagnosed a massive spinal hernia, and reserved a surgery for the following tuesday (three days from that date). And I never had thought it would be THAT bad... After getting all these info I was sent home to prepare for the surgery.
After I got these news I pushed them forward to my wife, who also didn't quite get it first, but when she did, she got quite scared. For some reason I really did not understand how serious the situation was, not then, and probably not even now...
So, the weekend went in a sort of mist for me. I couldn't quite understand what was happening, a good example of that was that we actually argued with my wife if we should cancel a trip to Milan that was reserved for us, starting two days after the surgery. I actually thought I could manage the trip, so that was the level of denial I was in. But finally I agreed to cancel the reservations, and am glad I did, I would not have been in any condition to travel at that point.
So, then came the big day. My younger brother had agreed to drive me to the hospital (some 50+ kms) and also pick me up afterwards. Still, even when I was at the hospital, I did not realize what was happening. I got to the laboratory to provide some blood-samples, got to the spine-surgery department, changed my clothes, got the IV, and was pretty much on the spot taken to the operation room. The next time I woke up, I immediately noticed a change on the right foot. It actually felt better :)
I had to stay for the night at the hospital, but was released the next morning, and was quite happy to get out.
So, for the next 6 weeks my exercise consisted of long slow walks (again) to see if the foot would come back. And some trainer-cycling. Slowly the power started to return to the calf, which relieved me quite a bit, as the surgeon that I talked with after the surgery had told me that as the numbness had been on for so long (three weeks), it was not certain if it would be repaired even after the pressure from the hernia had been removed. The Christmas week came and we drove to Lapland in the north of Finland, where we had reserved a cottage right next to a skiing resort. Didn't do any skiing though. But I'm glad my family did :)
After the six weeks I had an appointment with the doctor that had operated me, and I got a pass from her to start living normally again. A few day later I visited a physiotherapist, who provided me with some guidelines on how to strengthen up my core muscles. She also did some tests to me, and found out some weaknesses both in the core-muscles (that I thought were in first-class condition) and the big butt-muscles. Apparently I had mistaken my top-layer stomach-muscles to be the core muscles :o
Anyway, I got some really good instructions on how to strengthen myself up in the middle of the body, and a pass to gradually start training again.
So, the last four weeks I've been first riding my bike on the trainer, and then found a new total-body-workout from doing the cross-country skiing. And that is something I've really fell in love with now :) Ofcourse it helps that my wife also does it :) :)
During the last week I skied over 50 kms, with four different sessions, so I think this is a good way to keep up and enhance my endurance during the winter. And it's a bit more forgiving to the right calf than actual running, so I'm able to strengthen the muscle before the summer and running sessions. Presently I'm still only able to run as I used to (on forefoot) for 50 - 100 meters, if even that. So finding out how to run again will be a challenge during the spring and early summer.
But, all and all, I am able to train, and that is enough for me presently :) Maybe next time I'll even get into details of the sessions I've done ;)

You never know a good thing... ...until you lose it!

Yes, that line from Dream Warriors (and others, I assume) pretty much sums it up for me now. Or "be aware what you wish for as it may come true..." could also work. On my last post, if I recall correctly, I was in pain with my right foot, and wished it would go away. Well, on last week's Monday it did go away, but it also took something with it, something I'd like to get back ASAP :). But lets go back to that Monday (November 12th) for a while, I'll shed some light on the events then and afterwards.
So, early at that mentioned Monday morning I had some pain in my right foot, again, but that was nothing unusual anymore, so I went to kiss my wife & children goodbye (they were all asleep still) to leave to work. As I leaned down to say bye for the day to my daughter, something happened in the right hip, and the pain intenisfied quite much. So much that I had quite a diffulties to put on my shoes and walk to the car after that. Sitting in the car for the 1 h commute was truly agonizing, and when I got to the parking-lot, I had to take a few minutes time-out to actually get up from the car. At that point, finally, I decided that I'd get an appontment with the doctor at the office to see if there's anything that can be done on the leg. So, after limping the distance to my desk, I called and got the appointment.
So, when the time came, I got to the doctor's office, and he examined my back and the leg. I had not lost any power from the leg, but I was not able to bend the leg more than 30 degrees from my back-line, so the doctor sent me home with an order to get my hip x-rayed to find out if it actually has something to do with the spinal discs, or if its some piriformis -issues.
When exiting the doctor's office, the leg had decided to explode with pain. Maybe the examination caused it, or just the terrible chair I sat in at the office, but the pain had got even worse. Tears in my eyes I decided not to take the elevator but to walk the stairs (Don't ask me why, I was not apparently thinking straight at that point...). Well, walking the stairs was a challenge that I did not need at that point, but I walked them anyway. I was so concentrated not to cause any more pain to the right leg that I did not pay attention to the left one. So I stumbled, had to put all my weight onto the right leg, and nearly cried out loud from the pain.
I'm not sure how long I just stood there trembling, unable to move, but at some point I realised I had started slowly walking again. The highest peak of the pain had gone, and I could actually walk to my desk, grab my things, walk to the car and drive home. The driving was a bit weird, because the pain that I had when I came to work had kind of disappeared after the stumble in the stairs.
As I had had pretty much enough of everything for the Monday, I decided to get the x-rays on Tuesday and try to rest for the rest of that day. Lying down I noticed that I had lost the surface feeling of most of my right calf, part of the right back-thigh and part of the buttock. I did not pay attention to those things too much at that point however, I was just glad that the pain had pretty much gone away...
On Tuesday morning I noticed that I was not able to use the right foot as usual. The pain had gone, but apparently it also meant that the connection to the muscles (the biggest calf-muscle, part of the back-thigh and part of the buttock) was non-existent. I could walk (well, limp actually), but I couldn't tip-toe with the right foot. And I couldn't put my weight on the right foot, as the strongest part of the calf was unavailable.
Fast-forward from Tuesday Nov. 13th to today, the situation is pretty much the same. This monday I went back to the doctor's and with the x-ray -diagnosis, he put me on the urgent-queue to an orthopedist. And sent me back home for two weeks.
So, here I am now, awaiting for the call from the orthopedist, and trying to figure out ways to help my body heal and not break from any other parts of it. Training has succumbed to slow short morning walks. And considerations of maybe going for a swim at some point.
As a summary, I wished I'd get rid of the pain, which I did, but got also rid of some of the services from my right foot. And I think I would have needed those in the future!
Apparently this blog has presently more information on my short medical history than my training. I need to change that, so as soon as I get some professional help and guidance on how to make my body heal, I'll treat those guides as training plans and work from there. I'm still adamant that I'll be in Norway in the August of 2014!! :D