micke-midlife on November 30th, 2008

it’s day 99 and week 14 just got completed. the test race a week ago has brought back motivation. now it’s time to have our sight on test race #3 in two weeks time. another 40-50 seconds of the current time, to bring the 10k time down to the 36min mark, preferrably a bit below [...]

Continue reading about week 14: the stepping stone to long distance

micke-midlife on November 28th, 2008

our hero had to pick up the princess from day care today, because the queen had one of her pre-christmas socials. so running after work didn’t fit in the normal way. this called for a back to front re-planning of the daily schedule. the trick is thereby to identify the items with no delay (or [...]

Continue reading about drop the keyboard at 2:30pm for the lil’ princess

micke-midlife on November 25th, 2008

just bought a new pair of running shoes for the winter. the local budget sport outlet had a number of winter and off-road running shoes on sale. although a pair of nike were about half the price of the asics I ended up buying, I don’t regret the decision. inexpensive nike shoes have th [...]

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micke-midlife on November 24th, 2008

click the picture to enlarge
same place a bit over one month earlier looked differently. last weekend brought the winter over europe.  in finland’s and sweden’s capitals air traffic was partly halted. in germany the usual traffic chaos on highways and state roads. 4 people died in austria  in an accident. in switzerland fallen trees took [...]

Continue reading about it’s time to change the tyres

micke-midlife on November 23rd, 2008

week 13 reminded of a rollercoaster ride. monday after work, emergency call from home, the little one screams and no one knows why. by the time i arrive at home it turned out that the shoes and gloves haven’t been warm enough, feet and hands got cold on the way home from day care. [...]

Continue reading about week 13: back on track

micke-midlife on November 22nd, 2008

micke-midlife had to prove himself in the second test today. and it looked good, almost too good.
the aktia cup is a 10k run winter series held in vantaa, north of helsinki. the series started today and consists of 5 runs, one per month from november to march. registration, start and finish organized in and at [...]

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micke-midlife on November 16th, 2008

day 85, a total of 68km in week 12 is slightly more than the 63km the week before, but it’s still not there where it should be. running doesn’t feel the same right now than it did earlier in the fall. the threshold to go out appears to be higher. for monday it was way [...]

Continue reading about week12: unfortunately back to basic runs

micke-midlife on November 15th, 2008

last sunday was father’s day in finland. unlike mother’s day which is pretty much harmonized across countries on the second sunday of may (except for the uk), father’s day is all over the calendar. in central europe e.g. it’s in june, in the us, japan, canada and the uk as well, australia and new zealand [...]

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micke-midlife on November 14th, 2008

this first body pump session was devilish. the session itself is short, about an hour, and quite compact. i.e. there are no longer breaks, but rather the exercises on the different body parts follow in quick succession. one can easily over do it by putting on a bit too much weight on the bar. the [...]

Continue reading about pumpin’ hurts

micke-midlife on November 11th, 2008

the girls from work finally got me to join the body pump session that’s given on tuedays at 5:15. or was it the weather - rain pouring down today - that did it? either way, after a short warm up run, 6.5km outside, we found ourselves in the basement 10 past 5pm. water from the [...]

Continue reading about some pumpin’ is not such a bad experience