First Blood: The Bar Runner getting ambushed.

So I'm kind of fucked. And kind of saved. I'm now officially participating on the Nordmarka Ultra Challenge, a 83 K dash across the forests north of Oslo in, for me, unfamiliar territory. Unfamiliar until recently, that is. Because when I thought of signing up and read the website I assumed with unforgivable hubris that it would be on meters-wide gravel paths and gently rolling landscape. The distance wouldn't be a problem as I had many months to build up a sufficient mileage in my legs. But months passed and planned races were dropped as time and commitments didn't afford the necessary forays into the woods. The Euro 2012 dented the weekly mileage quite severely. And then I received the confirmation mail. Crap.

The Euros, a month of celebration of the finest football athletes
in the world and snack and beer. To hell with running.

Ok, I still had time to increase the effort, but I needed to almost double the training hours and I had to recce the terrain, though how different and hard can the route be from what I run almost daily?

Well, I've spent last week in Oslo during Norway Cup as a assistant coach for a youth team so I had the opportunity to test the course. The first trip was a slight miss since I forgot to bring the maps I had printed out and I ended a 20 K run 4-5 K south-east of the finishing area. But I learnt that the almost invisible paths I was running on was identical to what I could expect in the race. So it's not at all similar to my regular stomping grounds. Shit.

Not the straightest line of travel.

And saturday came and I got on the bus all the way up to the finishing area. I packed lightly for what I saw as an 20K, two-hour recce jaunt. A couple of gels just in case, my handheld water bottle and a map. The first few Ks(or the last few Ks as they will be in September) were on dirt road gently sloping downwards, but after the last checkpoint it turned pretty rocky, muddy, boggy, rooty and, I guess, pretty gnarly. The path was at times difficult to see, let alone follow, and I had to do map checks often and in the end constantly. My feet also took a punishment as I had some blisters from an ill-advised tempo run earlier that week on asphalt in my road flats, that and all the grit and sand grinding my feet, the sharp rocks trying to puncture the soles and natures Panji Traps slicing me up, my legs looked pretty horrible. It's going to be a long walk if I injure myself up there and it's not that unlikely considering I'll be seriously fatigued at that point. Damn.

20K in two hours was rapidly becoming unrealistic as the heat, the mud, the uncertainty at every crossroads  and my energy levels made themselves felt. It was hard and it was challenging. And even though I felt fresh at the first half and even considered going for 30K, it dawned on me that I spent a whole lot of time getting to the 10K point so I turned around feeling hungry and tired. I didn't have any pep in my legs for the long climbs and I even managed to miss a turn, backtrack a kilometer, just to spend a few minutes with the map before realizing I hadn't missed the turn after all. That was deflating. It was suddenly really hard getting back in time for the bus back so I cut the route short. And failed to reach the bus anyway. Fuck.

"Which way is north? Screw it, I'll make a hat out
of it and traumatize some children."

An elderly lady with walking poles I had zoomed past earlier on the last descent found me sprawled on the bus stop, defeated and an hour away from salvation, offered me a ride down to civilization. A touching gesture of kindness after I had probably scared her off the slippery and steep trails earlier.

So it was a skirmish turned into a rout, a brutal ambush from nature and a lesson in humility. I'm realizing that a finishing time below 15 hours will be ambitious and just finishing a mean feat in itself. I'll also need more food/gels, getting used to the backpack pronto, running in darkness(which I hate), getting better to read maps and being more patient.

The reason why I hate running in the forest at night.

In the end I understand what kind of colossal task I have undertaken, so I fear that I might have taken water over my head, but in the same time I've tossed the dice, I've put myself in a situation were I have to go through with it and it has worked before. It's pretty Sun-Tzu, if not Zen, and I'm sincerely looking forward to the race.

Garmin info here