Cortègen was good this year and I watched it from Götaplatsen where they had a screen and a guy explaining things. Plenty of silly jokes and strange bits of engineering so it was quite fun. Except for the fact that it was raining and my jacket was only waterproof for the first 20 minutes. So now I am at home shivering. =( At the same time, now I have an excuse if tomorrow's race goes horribly wrong!

I will give you one guess what is inside this rather large box...


But before I open it and make oooohing noises, I am off to Cortège to watch Chalmers engineers make fun of Västtrafik and other things.

Today was gorgeous so I should have been training. But I didn't. Although I can say that this was perhaps a life-changing day. So it was not a waste.

In other news, my new Belgian toy is now on the way from cyclecomponents.com to me. Excellent!

Saturday is the start of Västgötacupen and I am ganska excited even though I see this as a training pass.

Basically all of MCK is planning to go and now that HSport will not give any cup points, we are all taking a step up. So HSport will actually be for beginners. I will race HSenior just to get a bit more race time and practice...and because I like points. =)

1:a Maj Loppet promises 60 höjdmeter each lap which is impressive when you think of how flat Vara is. This link gives the rather scary höjdprofil but you never know what it is like till you get there.

Vi ses i Kvänum!

Like I said a few times, my goal of the year is to race in 10 MTB marathons. Why? Well, when you work in university research you never really know what will happen next year. So 10 långlopp in 2010 is the right thing to do. Here is the list...

16 maj Billingeracet 81 km - Skövde (S)
29 maj Den Långa Dagen 90 km - Ludvika (S)
5 juni Raumerrittet 84 km - Oslo (N)
12 juni Farrisrunden 70 km - Larvik (N)
2-3 juli Trysilrittet + topprittet 75 km - Trysil (N)
11 juli Mörksuggejakten 70 km - Rättvik (S)
*7 aug Grenserittet 80 km - Strömstad to Halden (N)
*14 aug CykelVasan 90km - Mora (S)
*28 aug Birkebeinerittet 95 km - Lillehammer (N)
4 sept Bockstensturen 100 km - Varberg (S)

How is that for a list? The * are the ones I am hoping to be in super shape for. And now it seems that the SM Marathon will be Snapphaneturen on 19 sept so if I have to I can change one of those above. And 3 okt is MTB Marathon in Denmark but by then it will be time for cross season. =)

Well it is Tuesday and I feel like I have been hit by a bus. A trevlig way to start the morning, in other words. Tonight is MCK MTBs tävlingsträning and once again I am wondering how I can possibly leave work at 15.30 to get home and back to SCAs parking by 18.00. During the summer this works great but now is peak work season at the university.

You will have noticed that 10 XC marathons in 2010 is my main goal so honestly the next two weekends of short 3 XC races are really just for fun and training. So maybe I should stop stressing over getting to training or I will get burned out, injured or fed up with the sport. And that we don't want. No no.

Today may have been my last chance to train distance before 16 maj and Billingeracet so I sort of combined all my favourite routes together. First up the cykelväg from Sävedalen since this is gravel and nicer than the road. This took me up to Furulund where I turned in and headed onto the 7.5km running trail I mentioned before. After those hills I already felt quite crap and I didn't have any desire to catch up to the other MTB cyclist in front of me. Instead of continuing all the way around, I cut off towards the Kåsjön parking area to join the cykelväg towards Landvetter. Then it was time for the Tahult - Härkeshult - Jonsered route which was just the same as usual...hills but still road. My legs felt great at this point so I kept going at a steady pace. Back in the valley I turned north on Lexbyvägen up the hill again to my favourite little logging road.

Originally I was going to take that last but I decided it was a good time and headed off towards Paradiset. Of course I discovered why I liked the road last week because in reverse direction it slowly climbed all the way back up the hill I just came down. So by the time I reached the end of that I had been out for 90 minutes and thought it was time for a break and some pictures.

Yep, only 10 km from Avenyn you find this. And if I write bike porn again I am sure to get a hit from Google yet again. =)

You can also see some tractor marks which were nothing compared to everything else in the way on this road.

Here I look ready to continue my ride. Perhaps also I look like I have seen a few hills.

Switching direction meant that I could enjoy this bit of gravel hell back to the road. There I seemed to be following a LVG guy from HCK and was also keeping up but instead of passing I turned off on that gravel road heading over to Angereds kyrka since it is much nicer (hills + gravel = nice). Down again to Gunnilse and I was going to turn around but I didn't feel tired so I followed some cykelväg signs pointing up to Rannebergen. Fy fan was that a nasty set of hills. The road part was bad enough but then it switched to a lovely forest trail and went straight up. At the top was some kind of lake (St Molnsjön or something) with a nice trail around it which was a natural turning around point...especially since people did not seem to like that I was there.

Heading back was a story of wind but nowhere near as bad as last week. The hills were hurting but I kept at it and by 2.5hr or so I was back on the road down to Lexby. Again, I felt like I had something left to give so I went flat out along the rest of that road back to Partille station. Was I tired? Yes, my legs were burning. Did I have the energy crash? No. So I added a bit of an extra loop out towards Utby and then across to Hemköp and back home but still no energy crash.

Time: 3:03:59
Distance: 58.5km
Höjdmeter: I am guessing at least 700m
Hr ave: 159
Hr peak: 187
Energy: 2382 kcal

So you are probably wondering if the Enervit Pre Sport worked? The answer is nja. It did not help right away but certainly I lasted longer. I also stopped for my banana and cookies earlier this week. And my Hr ave is lower which suggests that last week probably helped my overall fitness. So it might have helped a bit. It certainly did not hurt.

I am up pretty early this Sunday morning to run a very scientific test. Certainly you have seen this advertised...

Evervit Pre Sport is supposed to save us from eating 7kg of pasta before our long races. And when I first started with XC marathons, I really tried to eat a lot of pasta. Truth is it never made a difference on race day. So I thought I would give this a try before using it in a race situation.

This will not be a perfectly controlled study since I also ate a big bowl of fruit/nut musli. But on top of that, I had one package of Pre Sport. This is supposed to give me 25g of slow and fast sugars. It looks like Jello and is quite heavy so I have no idea.

Either my pass in an hour will be brilliant or my stomach will be terribly upset. Soon we will know...

It is good to train with others for two reasons. First, at least in my case, you learn how to behave when riding with others. Or in my case I learn that I can effectively get in people's way. And second, you realize just how slow you are. These things might sound negative but I am pleased with the MCK training tonight.

My first plan was to join the 'middle group' since I was a bit worried about the pedal thing. But they told me to take the tävlings group which actually was a good thing. We just went around the Lindome track where Göteborgserien had a race towards the end of last season. I found the track brutal then and I still agree. But once I started I realized it was better with the SPD and I could unclip. Of course the first couple intervals I was hesitating which meant I was way behind the others.

We did jaktstart with start order in reverse meaning that I always had to go first. But that was fine. I did Öijertekniken on the two hills which I knew that I would not get up. So before losing all my speed I jumped off and ran. Yes, cross was good for something. This was actually quite fast. And in a race situation at the back where I always end up, this will work against those I will be racing.

Of course I was tired but towards the end I pushed harder and tried staying in one gear instead of switching down. And suddenly I could sort of keep up. This is exactly the kind of discovery I need to make. Great for confidence.

This was also my premiere for the new MCK shorts and legwarmers. Two local fjortisar approved of the look but I was a bit disturbed at the rude farting noise the shorts made when rubbing against my bike seat...

The sun is shining here in Göteborg and today there is nothing standing in my way of training with MCK. The question of the day is whether we can become addicted to cycling? Of course! After this winter, obviously cycling on a day like today gives a nice kick.

Since I obviously missed the MCK deadline, I signed up myself for 1:a Maj-Loppet in Kvänum. I decided to take H Senior since HSport will give no points in Västgötacupen and Björn/Tomas seem to be taking H40.

H Senior will mean that I at least race the whole course but the length is not enough to disturb the organizers if I am THAT slow. But at some point I will need to try H30 if I hope to survive MTB SM in Rättvik. But for now I have to go to my course which prevents me from training at all. Blääää.

My thoughts of a good Tuesday XC pass with MCK tomorrow night kept me going today. Until now when I realized that a course I am taking every second Tuesday (tomorrow) ends too late so I can't make it. Argh! This makes me want to swear in German.

Although I did find out that there is a shipment coming up from Belgium with something in it I have been waiting for...

Träningsvärk on a Monday is always a sign that I have spent my weekend doing something useful. Although my slowly increasing full-body stiffness is less good when planning for Monday's teknikträning. Luckily I can blame my stiffness since the reality is that I have to prepare two lectures today so I would never have made training anyway.

In other news, I yet again have no clue about MCKs anmälning system since it looks like I have missed the deadline for 1:a Maj XC. But this year it seems that HSport is actually for beginners since it is not included in Västgötacupen. HSenior is a better fit for me though since I have a problem with driving for over an hour just to race for 15 minutes.

My plan today was långlopp training and a lot of it. So that meant mostly gravel roads, a couple trails and plenty of hills. To start I went straight up that nasty hill at Paradiset which ends, drops down again on a gravel path and then heads straight up again until you reach the hiking trails. This was quite useless for MTB since you could not really ride very much so with very little distance travelled I had already used 30 minutes.

The point was to reach a logging road which is the MTB equivalent of a Paris-Roubaix road. These ALWAYS appear in långlopp and they hurt. The stones are the size of my head, wood chips are everywhere and there are holes which shake you around. So by the time I reached Lexbyvägen I felt like a smoothy. Good trail. Then I took a direct left towards Angereds kyrka on a Norwegian-style gravel road which was pretty smooth but full of hills. Soon it was time to head east on the old railway path to Olofstorp and this part went far too fast (more on this later). Then after rather quickly passing a group of 10 motionär who were enjoy the view, I turned left at Bergums kyrka to head off to where they were looking...another set of mountains.

This road is a moderate gravel road with some holes every once in awhile to keep you awake. It essentially goes straight up a good 120 m but does it by going up a bit and then down and then up a bit more. You get the idea. This was the road I used for last minute training for SM-marathon in Falun which was made up of the same sort of roads. Then I found a nice lake.

This looked like a fine place to stop for a banana and a couple of cookies.


Have to have some bike porn in this entry also.


And here I have taken special care to line my nose up perfectly with the horizon.

So then it was time for the jobbig part of the trip. Once I got back to Olofstorp I was faced with one of the worst headwinds I have ever felt. But I kept going, trying to stay as low as I could even if trying aerodynamics with an MTB is a bit silly. The new tight-fitting uniform helped a bit also but the flirt potential is down when you are hardly moving at all.

By the time I reached Angereds kyrka and headed back on that Norwegian road, I could feel the result of wind riding. Aj. But when I reached Lexbyvägen I just stayed on it and since I was almost home I decided to push a bit harder. What a great road! Of course when I reached the bottom and turned right into the wind again, I had my usual energy crash. I should have kept going a bit longer but I was almost home. But this is what I usually face in a långlopp. And I never get this after LVG since you are using less muscles for that.

With these numbers in April, I guess an energy crash is not really surprising.
Distance: 52.3 km
Time: 2:45:54
Hr ave: 162
Hr peak: 187
Energy: 2249 kcal (45 of the cookies I had with me)

Today I woke up early. For the 3rd time this week I dreamt that I missed the start of a långlopp and was rushing to get changed and still make it. Either cycling means that much to me or I am slowly going mad. =)

Anyway, now I am off for a peaceful Sunday morning ride.

I seem to have slept in a bit today. Guess that means I will be training on my own yet again. After this week, I obviously needed more sleep.

This afternoon I had a mind-numbing headache so I just headed home to rest for a bit. So no MCK training for me. My head cleared and then I felt fine so I went for a spin around the local trails.

But first we start with dagens outfit for all you fashion types. And this is certainly not good press for my phone since you see how crap the picture is in low light. Still, this is the fancy new MCK jacket.

I took off through the little trail at the bottom of the hill which connects to the gravel bike path up to Landvettervägen. My bike finally feels stable so this was no problem and riding up the hill was much less of a pain than running. I just kept climbing and did the 7.5km running trail I used to run in the winter. Then the hills started to hurt. Aj!

After awhile the 5 and 7.5km split and it becomes pure MTB trail. Sven, this is where we need to train! It has a bit of everything but is not going to kill us. There is one gravel downhill towards the end that is tricky but overall this is perfect. But I suggest tires wider than 2.1 for the wooden plank parts. And the SPD was fine today.

I have no clue if I was supposed to ride there but, unlike Skatås, no one minded. If you show respect for others, they are not going to complain. Where I show less respect is out on the cykelväg where people walk 5 across and don't move. Anyway, the MCK jacket earns respect and several smiles from women also. Can I buy another one? =)

The best part of the trip was along the cykelväg towards Utby where I was actually keeping up to a couple of fjortisar on their mopeds. Guess they didn't fix them to go over 30km/h. I even had one chance to pass them but I didn't feel like giving them a reason to run me over.

Time: 1:06:41
Hr ave: 164
Hr peak: 190
Energy: 906 kcal

Finally, I will conclude by saying that I can feel all of my muscles now. Yes...MTB is a full-body workout.

After writing my last entry I started digging around on the RF website since SCF hardly updates. This is something we should all have a look at.

Under 'Kosttillskott' they define things very clearly. The Kostpolicy document is written in a very Swedish way. Yes, we should do these things. But we don't have to. When it comes to kosttillskott, they mean those 'building muscle' products sold at all kinds of crazy stores. But energytillskott is fine so at least I can feel less guilty and less outraged. Still, writing about things we should not do is never going to change anything.

I also found another very good document on food recommendations for elite athletes. Since we all want to be elite, here is the link.

MCK had a visit last night from Anders Grönqvist and also I finally got my new uniform so you can expect this to be a modeblogg for the next couple of days. ;)

Anyway, Anders told us to use our dreams to guide and motivate us in our cycling. That is fine since anyone who reads this blog knows that I have a lot of crazy dreams. And I can easily work my way back to figure out what steps I need to take to get to my dreams. My biggest problem is that all of this takes time. So dreaming is fine for someone young with parents to support them or a rich wife so you can spend all your time training. But the rest of us have jobs that take a whole lot of time. Jobs which we need to eat, pay rent and afford cool bike parts. But still, I agree that it is good to make a plan and this advice is good for parents.

Then he started discussing rules and most of it was based around doping, everyone's favourite topic. Except he considers anything that is not 'traditional food' to be doping. Including gels, energy drinks and bars. I fully agree that in training and short races these things are not necessary. But for MTB marathons that last 4 hours, you have to eat something! How can we carry that many bananas? Is that a banana in your cykelbyxor? No, it is 10 bananas! =)

I have written before that in långlopp I drink water and an Enervitene liquid gel after around 40km plus a banana or bulle at the depå stops depending on how I feel. Sportdryck constantly on a hot sunny day messes up my stomach so the gel is my choice. Without that gel, I crash in terms of energy. This is the medical truth of it. What you eat has to be taken up quickly so you can use it but still most of your energy will come from fat after awhile. And this is why you need to train distance. So I am saying that energy products are needed but should be used in moderation.

I know his point is to deter young kids from using things other than their own strength to gain advantage. But constantly changing parts or wheels is the same thing. We are all trying to gain an advantage somehow. My job is actually involves drug addiction research and I can easily give a lecture on how the best cyclists are also the ones most likely to experiment with drugs. Rather than forbid everything, we need to recognize these things in kids and talk with them. It would be naive to assume that kids are not out drinking or trying drugs or gambling on the internet.

Naturally this will piss lots of you off so comment please. Let's discuss.

After spending the last 3 days in Uppsala/Sthlm where it was rainy and 2C, it was a pleasure to return to bästkusten this morning to see the perfect spring day. 15C! So sitting in the conference I thought, nej, tonight I have to train. No more buffet meals for me. There are 2 more days of conference so I can sneak away.

So I scrambled together all of my MTB stuff and headed off to the MCK clubhouse in Lindome figuring that 'teknikträning' would be a good day to start. It was great to see everyone again but suddenly I remembered the difference now. Yes, the SPD pedals are on so this would be my first forest ride. Naturally, the warm-up was on our teknikbana which is where I took several rather spectacular wipeouts last year. Great. The very first trail felt very strange so naturally I fell over with my left foot still attached. Beautiful. Now I am a real cyclist. =) Of course I managed to slide my finger along a tree and slice it open nice so I had to take a break and stop the bleeding. Then I was back and just rode around a few more times and got the hang of it. Downhill feels completely different and you can control the direction much better. Of course that is probably also because I moved my seat forward.

The others were, of course, trying to climb over giant rocks, wood skids and whatever else was impossible so I just continued to ride around getting use to things. I threw in a couple of hill intervals also just for fun.

My leg feels just fine so I see no excuses now. Maybe I will do all of Billingeracet again afterall.

Here is an award-winning bit of advertising for Skåne. Seriously, this IS an official film. It comes in Part 1, 2, 3 and 4 but I found this 3rd one the funniest.

My application is done! My presentation is done. All of my silly paperwork is done! My leg feels much much better. AND, I am not feeling sick today. Talk about a complete change from yesterday.

But now I have a business meeting all weekend so I will unfortunately miss training tonight, the 'andra klungan' MCK training on Saturday and anything on Sunday. But from next week it is 1 month until the first långlopp so I can get a fresh start after being well rested and well fed.

10 marathons in 2010...that is the goal! And that will be fine if I ignore XC for now.

As you have probably noticed, everyone is a bit sick right now. And since I am kind enough to think of the environment, I get to join these people for a long mysig ride on the bus. So just to piss me off, I seem to have one of those mild colds where you basically feel about 75% of normal and can still work but have this general sedated bläää feeling to kill your motivation for training. This is about as bad as it gets for me in terms of colds unless you count that pig flu from last fall.

The timing of this little cold, however, is quite crap. March/April are the worst months for my job and everyone gets sick because we never get to rest all that well. Yes, stress is dangerous for your health. Way more dangerous than riding your bike off a cliff.

I have said before on this page that my goals of the year will be a good långlopp season and improvements in cross during the autumn. So why am I so eager to try out XC next week after absolutely no exposure to the forest this year? Am I insane? I have only ridden my MTB 3 times with the SPD pedals so if anything I will be heading for a series of rather nasty falls my first few times in the mud. That happens no matter which shoes I have. In cross you know when you have to unclip. In MTB it is a surprise. I will get used to this quickly but somehow I think a race is not the best place to learn this.

Sorry if this blog is sounding quite confused but I go through this type of thing a lot. I want to try everything and I want to improve. I know that långlopp is my thing and my old club MTB Täby was completely devoted to this training. But at MCK there is very little interest. And that is a shame. So as usual I am lost in that vast gap between beginners and experienced.

After a long weekend of doing not very much and a morning of feeling like I have some kind of cold virus brewing inside of me, I can't help but think.

My running on Friday produced a rather distinct träningsvärk and pain in my quads despite my choice of favourable location, soft grus and only 5km followed by a proper cool down and stretch. My 26km cycling tour which is actually part of Nationaldagsloppet left me feeling stiff at first but quite free of pain later on. And now I am not very still at all. So I would have to conclude that it is time to quit running for awhile and focus on the bike. No running. No duathlon. Just pure MTB.

To motivate me, the first race of the year is 17-18 april in Åstorp. This is pure XC which I suck at but finishing last in HSport is still training.

What will your first race be?

It is afternoons like this where it feels great to be a cycling fan. Perfect sunny weather down in Belgium and Eurosport coverage for the last 150km which was the most interesting. Yes, that was the distance I was going to do in the cyclosportive. Ouch.

I have to go down there and experience those hills and cobblestones myself. When is the question. And I know that I will enjoy the ride much more on my own than if surrounded by a bunch of cyclist asses.

There are a couple of weeks in July that are free of local races. Hmm...road trip anyone?

I thought I would do the same route as last week except in beautiful sunny weather instead of horrible rain. There was a pretty stiff wind though so I did not shatter my record by so much.

Distance: 25.6km
Time: 1:08:21
Energy: 981 kcal
HR peak: 186
HR ave: 167

The hill up to Furulund is really one to respect because it never ends. And this route has two others which are also pretty nasty. Still, I can't believe that I took 15 minutes longer last week. It just goes to show how much time is wasted by stopping for map reading or a quick break. This is something I have a problem with during långlopp races. The people at the food stops are nice so you want to have a chat. Then you lose 30 minutes if you stop 3 times.

Last year one of my best races was Grenserittet where I averaged 19.25 km/h. Today was close to 23 km/h with comparable hills. So maybe there is some hope. Although doing 3 times this distance 6 weeks from now at Billinge is a scary thought.

But now it is Tour of Flanders time!

Yes, I am still around but today was the first day I did something interesting enough to write about. On this semi-fine Påsk Friday I hopped into my car and drove over to Lerum and the Riddarsten motionspår. Why would I drive to go running??? Good question. Here are some reasons:

- The trail is soft grus which is good for my knee right now.
- The 2.5km length means I can stop if I feel sore. 8:an at Skatås would mean I would run 8km no matter what.
- The hill is lagom compared to Partille so it still gives something.
- The place is basically empty so no competition urges would kick in if people pass me. I need lugnt och fint.
- I trained here last year for GöteborgsVarvet so I know how fast I should be able to go when healthy and free of injury.
- In a duathlon you need to do 5km and then 2.5km after the bike so I don't have to think about distance.

When I got there, it was a lot more jobbigt than I remembered to get up the hill but I can't say that I prepared very well for this in terms of eating properly last night or this morning. So this meant high pulse almost immediately. Lap 1 was fine and Lap 2 I felt like I was pushing so I decided to stop after that.

Distance: 5km
Time: 24:13
Hr ave: 181

My leg felt pretty stiff but okay so I didn't want to push it anymore. My plan was to walk the 2.5km lap as 'cool down' but that 24 minutes had Hr ave of 138 which is not quite what I expected. Most of this was because it took 6 minutes to recover from the running. I saw this as a sign that I had done enough for the day.