Nordic Noir

It’s holiday time and the first task is to drop the dogs off at kennels. MD and I are distraught at this prospect whereas L and the Lad are doing cartwheels. The Lad is so excited that he practically jumps up on to the desk in reception to introduce himself.

Then we head down to Heathrow, from where we have a mid-afternoon flight to Oslo. We fly over with SAS and then spend the night in the Park Inn at the airport, which takes a bit of finding. It is there that we are introduced to the realities of life in Norway e.g. £9 for a beer, and a similar hike in food prices. The food though is of high quality and always seems to come with a unlimited supply of bread.

The next day, we pick up our hire car from Hertz which of course comes with the usual unavoidable free upgrade to a far bigger car than the one you want. Hertz say they don’t have anything smaller despite the fact my booking gave them a month’s notice to find one.

Then we have a two hour drive across an incredibly flat looking country which perhaps explains why Cross Country rather than Alpine skiing prevails here. There is, however, oodles of snow everywhere, even at airport. Then suddenly, as we approach the Swedish border, a small cluster of mountains appears. This is where we are headed.

We arrive in Trysil where we are staying at the Trysil Hotel which is a reception-free hotel and there are no keys either. They text us a keycode for both the entrance door and our own room. The other quirk of the Trysil Hotel is that it has its own brewery. Any thoughts that I booked this place deliberately can obviously be dispensed with but we would be mad not to check it out. So we do, every night.

There are twelve beers on their blackboard of which we chalk off nine on the first night with the help of a tasting palette. The other three last only as far as the next night. Towards the end of the week they introduce a thirteenth, a porter with no name which I name after absent furry friends.

We eat in their Kveik Restaurant every night where the food is excellent and I can heartily recommend the Elk Kebab. Everything comes with a large jug of water (from which we start to develop a water obsession) and the standard generous portion of bread which, in this case, is from the Kort & Godt craft bakery next door. This is also where we go for breakfast which is a standard sort of continental affair but also with the local delicacy of Brown Cheese.

The meals are very expensive but for some reason our barman, who works every night we are there, always seems to leave a few beers off the bill. I can’t work out whether he’s doing this deliberately to be generous or whether he’s just incapable of getting the bill right. We don’t complain.

They do have a cunning ploy in Norway to make you think that you aren’t being fleeced. Nowhere that we went accepted cash. So we never even bothered bringing any Norwegian Krone with us and we never saw any. Everywhere makes you pay on card. This means you also barely notice that a cup of coffee is no cheaper than a beer.

The Norwegian's also seem to have a weird toilet fetish.This is just one of the strange characters I met.

The skiing itself is good and not much different to what you’d get in the Alps. Possibly slightly easier due to lack of height of their mountains and definitely windier do to lack of mountains providing shelter.

We liven things up on the second day by deciding to get Nordic and have a go at Cross Country. I’ve done 30+ years of doing 'proper' skiing and in all that time I’ve never seen such flimsy a pair of skis.

Anyhow, we hit the cross country trails with our instructor Erik who is big on advice but low on sympathy. How hard can it be though, it’s all on the flat isn’t it? Apparently not. The first lesson to learn is how to go downhill and how to stop. Which is, we are told, exactly the same as with ‘proper’ skiing except for the flimsy things on your feet and the fact that your heel isn’t clamped down. The only thing I find easy is falling over backwards. Erik advises that you need to snowplough, like when you were eleven.

We must have enjoyed it as we do it again two days later. 

All too soon the holiday is over and we have to say goodbye to the brewery and the cross country embarrassment while my credit card heaves a huge sigh of relief. We haven’t even done a Parkrun. There are only four in Norway, none of which were very handy for this trip. So it’s a good job L’s not obsessed. It’s also a shame they’re all on Saturdays because looking at Scandinavia as a whole, there’s a nice little tour to be had there.

Back at the airport, SAS demand a ridiculous amount of money to transport our skis home despite Heathrow not charging us on the way out. They point to their hugely ambiguous terms and conditions that clearly I and Heathrow interpreted one way whereas Oslo Airport interpreted another way. I dig my heels in, refuse to pay and ask where I can abandon our skis. They agree to carry them free of charge.

(Sunday 24^th March)

Emotional Shopping

The Monday shop has got a bit emotional of late. I'm finding it difficult passing the reduced pasties and the Fray Bentos pies. These were the type of things we resorted to giving Doggo in his last few weeks to make him eat. The Fray Bentos pies particularly bring a tear to the eye.

Tuesday I’m on the bike and thankfully so given the state of the traffic this week. Even on the bike, I’m constantly weaving in and out of cars. Tuesday is also dog training night.

Wednesday I’m in London for work and the traffic isn’t any better down there. In fact they close the M1 on us, due to an accident, forcing a long detour across country to reach the A1. We arrive at 11.30am having left at 6am.

On Thursday I take a vital delivery at work, hoover bags. I rush them home to L, not wanting to be the one that comes between a girl and her hoovering. That's the puppy's job.

Talking of the Lad, the new toys are stacking up. He now has a cow to go with the sheep he already has, both from L’s Mum. He again joins us in the pub after squash.

(Friday 23^rd March)

Thunder Running

This morning we head off to join our team mates at Catton Park for the Thunder Run where they seem to have been in residence for months but it’s only actually been 24 hours. I think they suspect we’re not coming but we don’t let folk down, only ourselves occasionally and the people who organise the Leeds Half. Which we both bailed on but they probably didn’t notice.

We pitch our tent, meet our team of eight known collectively as the Unbr8kables and then head off to the race briefing where again there is no mention of an allocated holding area where you can store your dogs while you do the hand over. It would have been nice for L and I to run consecutively but given this organisational omission we are allocated places three and five in the running order.

The weather is already quite warm and the midday sun beams down as the race kicks off with a spectacular mass start at 12 noon. Our lead out man puts a marker down with a 53 minute lap and battle has commenced.

I have no idea how many teams are in the event but there are over 250 in the teams of eight category alone. As well as the eights there are teams of five and then there are the real nutters. Those doing it in pairs and those doing it solo.

By the time I do my first lap at 2:15, which is a little later than I’d predicted with runner number two doing a more leisurely 80 minute lap, it seems incredibly hot. The first problem though is not the heat but recognising my team mate who I only met a few hours before and has since changed her running top. Eventually when it becomes clear no one else is going to take the baton off the girl who is standing there looking lost and confused as well as knackered I do. I just hope that was my team mate who slammed the snap band (the baton) onto my arm.

During my lap the heat does takes its toll as a hilly 10km off-road course. It’s enjoyable though and it nice the way the route meanders through the campsites enabling good support to be available across most of it. I am also hampered by making the wrong shoe choice, perhaps the trail shoes that I’ve never ran further than the length of a dog agility course in were not the best selection on such hard baked ground. Standard cushioned running shoes might have been wiser.

I come in with a foot full of blisters but even that could probably have been prevented had it not been for the schoolboy error of not lacing them up tightly enough. The time though is 50:35 and the dodgy calf is fine. Get in.

Now just what did the girl I was handing over to look like? Not this one, or this one, or... hmmm, she’ll do. Now I’ve either performed two successful changeovers or we’re about to be disqualified. As I meet up again with L, she doesn’t seem alarmed at who I’ve just tagged into the race so hopefully it’s the former.

I’m buzzing after my run and feel like I’d like to go around again asap but it’s a minimum of eight hours to my next lap.

It’s so hot now that even L is drinking fluids and she has purchased a ‘Secret Training’ bottle which comes with free refills of watermelon or lemon and lime or mango and others. Then after a 60 minute lap from whoever I tagged in its L’s turn. Will her ankle hold up? I’m not sure if she’s ran this weekend by her physio but I guess what she doesn't know won't hurt her. I wave L off and then head off to get a ham and cheese roll from the car to perk myself up.

L does well with a 74 minute lap and then we can both chill for a bit. We visit the Shardlow Brewery’s bar which is aboard a Routemaster Bus. We daren’t drink too much and instead head back to the car to heat up some pasta for our evening meal.

I was hoping for a second lap at around 10pm based on us averaging 60 minute laps but that was a bit optimistic and I start my second lap at 11:35pm, by which time it’s a lot cooler. This time the girl who is running before me gives me a fashion show before she sets off, showing me her brightly coloured ‘wasp’ attire so I shouldn’t miss her this time and I don’t. What we really need is an inflatable haddock like some of the other teams have which clearly identifies them to all and sundry.

We purchased some really good head torches a few years ago and these really come into their own this weekend, lighting up the course brilliantly. It had been suggested that carrying a hand torch as well would be useful but I certainly didn’t need one. All the same I stalk a girl who was running at about my pace so that I can use her light as well as mine.

The only problem was that when I stopped for drink at the water station at halfway she didn’t. I downed my drink quickly and sprinted off after her but then we headed into a narrow wooded section where a slower run got between us. I saw her in the distance getting further and further away. Bugger. I eventually squeezed past the other runner, upped my pace and then went down like a Premiership footballer looking for a penalty. Where did that tree root come from? Well actually they are everywhere and I just wasn’t paying attention.

My battery pack becomes detached and it takes me a while to reassemble everything. Then I have to pass the same runner again, the girl meanwhile is long gone or so I thought. I now run my own race and probably run quickly, then about 2k before the finish I pass the girl and leave her for dust coming home in 54:30. Not bad at all. Again I’m itching to go around again having really enjoyed my night time lap.

Now it would be great to get a bit of kip as its half past midnight, and almost my bedtime, but L is off out in an hour. So it is not until L gets back around 3am that we finally turn in. I get around four and a half hours sleep before I’m up again and ready to run again at 9:30am.

It’s cooler this morning and light of course, which all makes for a really enjoyable last lap. The on course support and camaraderie has been great throughout, even at night, from both those watching and those actually on the course running. This time I get round in 53:39 and tag girl four who is tasked with getting round in enough time for L to start the team’s last lap before 12 noon and bring it home. Naturally she is terrified about this prospect but she sets off with twenty minutes to go before noon giving her plenty of time to soak up the atmosphere.

Those of us without dogs (e.g. not me) join her for the last stretch and all cross the line together. The team has done 21 laps between us, that’s 210km. Which is a pretty good effort.

So were the Unbr8kables broken? Not a bit of it. We would not be broken. In fact my calves survived 30k and L’s ankle maybe 30k worse off but she’s still walking, just.

We had tentatively thought about doing it as a pair next year but I’m not sure that will happen, a five would be nice though.

We get home, have a shower, do the usual debrief in bed, and then head off to the Golden Fleece. There’s not a lot dark doing there so we move to the Lincolnshire Poacher which is better. The Sunday curry rounds things off. 

(Saturday 23^rd July/Sunday 24^th July)

A Forlorn Figure

Today we head over to Son’s domain, Leamington Spa for the Leamington 10k run.

We manage to park up very close to the start with is good on one hand as we’re nice and close to the dogs. On the other hand they’re actually marked next to the course, so the boys will be able to wave to everyone as they pass.

Before we get to that point we have to contend with a slightly chaotic first few kilometres. First we have to negotiate our way through a cordon of parked cars (not ours I will add) and then they send us off on a lap of Newbold Comyn Golf Course, which involves a rather narrow footpath that is so deep in mud that I think they should reclassify the race as a cross country run. At this point you can set any thoughts of a PB quickly set aside.

Once at approximately half way, back on the road and past the boys, things are much better and the course very pleasant. Although the centre of Leamington is conspicuous by its absence.

With a big field and big local sponsor in solicitors Wright Hassall they should have the clout to get the council to close a few roads for them. Let’s face it the centre of Leamington is nearly always closed for a Sunday market anyway.

A time of 46 minutes is respectable for me but more importantly my calves survive and my knee isn’t too bad either.

All in all a decent run, although I regret not being at the cancelled Sheffield Half Marathon today. That looked a hoot and it would have been great to have said we’d been involved in such a fiasco like that.

After our run we manage to raise Son from his bed, no mean feat as he doesn’t finish work until 4am, and go for lunch with him and his other half at the White Horse. The White Horse is minus its horse at the moment, the creature that sits in their courtyard looks a rather forlorn figure at the moment capsized on its side like a Grand National tragedy.

In the evening we head to Beeston to check out the refurbished Star which is now owned by the same people who have rejuvenated the Horse and Jockey in Stapleford. Very good it is too.

(Sunday 6^th April)