Today I had my last run before the marathon on Saturday. 13 km's without pushing it and surprisingly enough, it was my fastest time on that lap for the last six months. It might be a sign of that I'm going to slow other times, but right now I need some positive messages, so I decided that it's due to that I'm in better shape right now, then previously this year. I also checked in my training log and tried to analyse why I sometimes do better marathons and sometimes end up around 5 hours. It hasn't just been because it's been very tough climate conditions in Asia the last 2 years. It has to do with the amount of LSD (Sorry Kenneth, this is Long Slow Distance) training the last month before a race. At my best race so far this year in Japan in January, I did a 25 km run the weekend before and two 21 km runs two weeks before. Otherwise, I normally try to run a couple of times per week, doing distances around 8-13 km's. Not good enough for running marathons, but it has been my only possibility due to lack of time and injury problems. Or is that just an excuse for being lazy or lack of respect for the distance?

My statement or conclusion here is nothing new for runners. Arthur Lydiard (NZ) introduced the LSD training already in the sixties and it's still the most important ingredient for marathoners. It just takes some diciplin and time to practice it. When you read about it in Runners World etc, it sounds easy and straight forward. That is, if you live your life with prime focus on running. For the rest of us (99,9%) it's a matter of compromising with all other things on the daily agenda, but still not to miss out all together from running.

Some added activities to this agenda (probably on the expense of some running), seems to be that it looks like there will be more and more roller skiing this season. Tonight I had a session with Sven, who made his debut. The same with Micke on Monday and with Jörgen on Friday. Very promising development and I'm picking up good vibrations, good good good good vibrations, from all the MC-gang members. Soon we also have to add some LSD to these sessions. We all wanna get high on adrenalin and endorphins. YEAH!!!!