Running

This is my first summer that I haven't been officially training for cross country skiing, so it's been interesting to plan workouts around life, instead of planning my life around workouts.

Last fall I dreamed of coming home from school and not having to go rollerskiing, running or to the gym, but after  "quitting" ski racing, I've found that I can't live without exercise. At home I walked about an hour every day to get to and from school, as well as training most days. Here I have about a three minute walk, so that's a big difference. 

I find that even if I have no real reason to, I still like to run to relax and keep up my old habits. I'll come home from school, having decided I don't need to run, hang around for half an hour feeling jittery, then give in, change and go.

My standards have changed; I used to consider an hour "short" and while I'm still in good enough shape to run for longer, I've learned to accept that any length of run is good, and have no problem going for just half an hour. It would be a better use of my time to do intervals and long runs and mix it up, but for now I'm happy plodding along at a steady (slow) pace. 

At first I didn't know where to run here; everywhere I went seemed to be a busy road with no shoulder, or a frustrating maze of dead end streets. I found out about some roads that run parallel to the busy main road, and discovered a network of trails that wind up the mountain. 

This morning I took a trail up behind the handball gymnasium, and ended up at the beginning of some trails I'd come to before, but from a different direction. I kept going up, mostly walking because the trail was a slippery muddy river in some parts. I seem to have found where people hike around here; I got lots of hei hei's as I met people on the trail. I kept thinking I should turn back, but knew I was getting near the top of something, although I didn't know what. After about 40 minutes since leaving the house, I popped out above the trees to an insane view. I could see to Bergen in one direction, the Osterøy bridge the other way, and rolling hills meeting the ocean. 

It was like being above the treeline in Canada, but it had only taken 40 minutes from town to get there. It was greener as well, it felt like I'd hiked from Norway into Scotland or Ireland, with the rolling green hilltops. I heard some clanging, and there were sheep wandering around up there!

I regret not bringing a camera, jacket and water, because I felt like I'd just gotten to the good part. I'll go up and take pictures another time, because it's gorgeous! More rolling than around Nelson, and the hills aren't as high, but it's really amazing to get above the trees so quickly. I had to go back for breakfast; the whole thing took about an hour and a half.

There is nothing better than a cold shower after a weekend run, drinking water from the shower head while shaving my legs, then going upstairs to a feast. 

At orientation they showed a sine graph and said that on exchange there would be amplified ups and downs. So far the graph of my exchange has been absolute valued (if you can even use that as a verb) and has hardly dropped into the negative axis at all. (Sorry for the nerd moment, apparently I haven't forgotten all of math 12) On Friday night I hung out with Emma from my HiFi class and some of her friends, then yesterday I went shopping with Vilde in the city then went to a party later on with the girls I hung out with the night before. Alt var kjempe gøy (everything was very fun, at least I think thats what I wrote :P )

Life is good.