 Alright guys, I'm here in my caravan here on La Palma and I thought I'd just go through the last few weeks of training with you guys, basically the last three weeks from I arrived on the island, I did some epic long runs, I did some nice training and I also did some mistakes and I want to talk about those with you today. We're going to take a look at Strava, see what's up there, what's going on with my training and yeah, I want to share some thoughts with you guys on that. Alright, so let's head over to Strava and take a look at my training. So here we are in Strava, my training log. This is today, done zero kilometers this week. Let's go back three weeks to this week, that's when I arrived on La Palma. So this Tuesday here, that was my travel day, no running the day before, I was packing and all that stuff and then no running on the day of travel and then the day after I was just recovering, resting, it was a pretty big ordeal physically to go traveling as most of you probably know. Anyway the day after I started running, first run on La Palma and as I've said many times the elevation on this island, it's so steep, so you're getting a lot of verticals, so even this first run on La Palma was supposed to be an easy run, ten kilometers, ended up having like almost 300 meters of elevation gain, which is not crazy but it's still a fair bit. Anyway so yeah, finished that first week, just did three runs, got up to 28 kilometers and you know just to give some context, let's go back here. The highest kilometers I ever done per week was back in November where I did 50 kilometers and the internet is a bit slower so it's still loading, there we go. I did three weeks of about, anyway three weeks of about 50 kilometers back in November, October November, that was the highest mileage I've ever done. Then back down up to 40 and then at this period in December I was focused on strength training so I was keeping the running pretty stable and then taking a break over Christmas easing into the new year, running not that much and then the winter was a bit challenging. Anyway, revving it back up again after Christmas, 30, 40 and I think I had a little bit of an injury or I don't remember why I wasn't running that much this week but anyway then I went to La Palma. Okay so now we're here now on La Palma, I've done my first week of training, 28k and this is the last three weeks so 60 kilometers, 54 kilometers and 28 kilometers, that's what I've done over those three weeks. Now let's talk a little bit about how that sort of played out. I was, let's just say it immediately, I got a little bit too eager arriving on La Palma. You know I wanted, when I came here I had the intention that I wanted to do the whole Transvulcania route, the Transvulcania race which is a 74 kilometer ultramarathon here on the island and I was going to divide it into five segments. So one from the sea level, the lighthouse in Fuencaliente up to Los Canarios, 7 kilometers, one from Los Canarios to El Pilar, 17 kilometers, one from El Pilar to Roque de los Muchachos, that's like a 26 kilometer run and then one from Roque de los Muchachos down to the ocean in Tazacorta, I don't know how long it is, maybe 17, and then one from there up to Los Canarios. So anyway that was my intention and I was going to spread that out over the seven weeks that I was here doing like one of those adventure runs per week. Jumped into it a little bit too quickly though, should probably have spent a couple of weeks at 60K per week before adding in all that vertical because that's really what the issue is here as you can take a look here in Strava. This is my first 60 kilometer week ever, never run that much in my whole life. I did 60 kilometers my first proper training week here in La Palma and yeah for me that's a lot right, 60K. But not only did I do 60K that week, I also did almost 2000 meters of elevation of vertical. So 2000 meters that's also a lot, if you look back here you can see that my typical elevation even on the weeks of 50K was around 1000 and then down to like 400, 300, 600, 500, okay so I'm not used to doing much elevation certainly no more than a thousand meters per week. Suddenly not only do I jump up to 60K per week but I jump up to 2000 meters as well. I wouldn't advise anyone to do that. That's poor planning on my part. That's two different stressors at the same time. That's the stressor of more mileage, more steps, more time on feet, more running but it's also the stress of more vertical right and that's a different game altogether. So I did a bit too much and it brought me, well we'll get to that, let's first look at that week. It's solid nice week, one rest day. It's not really a rest day this Friday, it's a strength training session. I go to the gym as well here a couple times a week, lift weights, maintain, just keeping it steady. I'm not trying to improve my squat on my deadlift, I'm just keeping it at that same level that I was doing during December. I was building up to it in December, I found a certain level and now I'm just gonna stay at that level until I focus on strength again, maybe in December next year. So now it's just about maintenance. Anyway, then the weekend, here's the weekend, epic long run hike, it was a fair bit of hiking too in the uphills in between volcanoes, includes the first 7k of Transolcania. Let's take a look at it here, I got new trekking poles too, so those were really cool to use. You can go on Strava obviously and follow me there, my name, here it is, Mikil Gisliunsen and you can read basically my report from the run. Anyway, it was an epic run, started down here in Fuencalienta, Fado de Fuencalienta and went all the way up to Los Canarios, 7km, 700m and onwards to Ersharko, where I catch the ride hitchhiked with some tourists. Pretty crazy gradient there, my effort was a little bit high, especially in the beginning working a little bit too hard, but almost close to my lactate threshold, certainly not sustainable for ultramarathon, but of course this was just a fairly short run, although for me it's a long run. Epic day, just absolutely epic day, I was so happy. Then what I did was a little bit of a stupid thing, because usually what I do is I have a rest day once a week and my Sunday is my designated rest day here on the island, but on that Sunday I chose to run still another 4.4km, and bear in mind it was with a friend, so super easy Sunday jog with Anna, a friend of mine here on the camping, and that was really nice, but it obviously did mean that I ran when I probably should have rested. I don't regret it though, it was a great day, but it meant a few too many consecutive days of running, because of course Monday after I started another week, still aiming for that 60km once again, starting to get a little bit of pain in my foot, I was noticing some pain in my foot, and here you can see I didn't run on the Tuesday, which I was supposed to do, so that shows me once again that sticking to a training plan is a good idea, when you have a training plan, granted that training plan is good of course, but at least if you have a rest day and you feel like maybe I don't need it, maybe I don't need it, well probably do it anyway, and then you learn over time if you truly need it or not, and then you can make a new training plan where you actually exclude that rest day, because you learned that you don't need it, but on the fly, just like I feel good today, I'll do a run anyway, that sort of thing is risky, so the fact that I ran on that day led to my next week becoming less than optimally consistent, I had to skip one day, I went on the bike instead, easy indoor bike ride, just to take a day off running because of my foot was hurting, the week continues, and of course again, I'm a little bit stupid, because I don't take my own advice, sometimes I think it's very typical, and because I finish off that week, already that week was difficult, I had some trouble with my foot, but still, what do I do? I head out for another epic long run, volcanic mountain long run hike, pure epicness to the highest degree, second segment of the Transfukane route, let's take a look at it, absolutely epic day, probably the most epic run of my life, seriously, from Los Canarios to El Pilar, it was just just amazing, although it was pretty challenging too though, like up on the high areas here, the peak was like 100, 1,900 meters, that was the highest point, it was cold, I didn't have enough, I didn't have a wind jacket, I should really get a wind jacket, and so I was actually really cold, I had a long sleeve shirt on, and I just had to keep moving obviously, because to stay warm, and the wind was just insane, and so it was a bit too cold, I was really, it was intense, it was very intense, uncomfortable, I made it though to El Pilar, and I managed to get another ride with some tourists to go home, so that was nice, I don't want to be stuck up there all alone cold, and anyway, so epic day, but of course, yeah, like 17k, again it's one of my absolute longest runs ever, so I'm pushing the boundaries of my long run capacity, and in terms of time, certainly my longest run ever, two hours and 40 minutes, actually two hours and 50 minutes total, including my stops and stuff like that, that's a long time for me to be on my feet, so I'm pushing the limits here in a week that I'm already forced to take a day off, because I had foot pain, now I'm like doing this in addition to that, and again back to the log, I didn't make 60k that week, but more than 2000 meters of elevation though, putting a little bit too much strain on my body at one point there is just like, yeah, not the best planning skills on my part in this scenario, so what happened was that this essentially precipitated me experiencing some hip pain, I think it's in my iliopsoas, I don't know how to pronounce that, iliopsoas tendon, so it's in the hip flexor, my left leg, some pain, and I guess it's just because of all the vertical, you know, lifting my legs up all the time, doing all that vertical, it's just was a little bit too much for my hips, so I started getting some pain, yeah, I was running and it was just, the pain was there and I had to do some cross training as you can see here on this week, and again and again, it was just, it just didn't didn't let go, another easy run with Anna, and the pain was there, not serious though, it's not like I'm walking around in pain or anything, but it's just enough to stop me from running because when I'm running it's actually increasing, and whenever you have a pain that's increasing while you're running, that's a bad sign, right, if you head out and it's there but it stays the same or it goes away and then afterwards it's like a little bit, but then it goes away, that's something you can manage, that's like how it was with my foot, but with this hip pain it actually gets worse the longer I run and that's not a good sign, so I was forced to just take a few days off, so what I've done since then, this is last week, this is now, you can see this little XT, it means cross training down in Strava here, so here, here, here, and here I've done some cross training, basically I went to the gym, I did some bike on the cycling, but I noticed actually that also aggravates my hip because I'm obviously lifting my feet when I'm cycling, so the other days I've just been doing some extra weightlifting really, just lifting some more weights from my upper body, doing like leg extensions, leg work, that's not including my hip, right, like isolating my quads and my hamstring, doing hamstring curls and all that stuff, so that's what I've been doing for the last few days and today is a complete rest day, I'm just taking, it's a Tuesday, I should have started running on Monday if I were to meet my goal, but you know what, I'm gonna be conservative because if I run too soon, then I'll probably just end up being out for even longer, so I'm taking today as a complete rest day, just gonna rest, I'm just sitting here making this video, I made another video earlier, I did some coaching sessions with some people, I'm gonna edit, I'm gonna chill out, I'm gonna wash my clothes, I'm gonna sunbathe, I'm just gonna chill out here at home and then I'm hoping that I'll head out for a run tomorrow and I'll see how it feels, who knows, I'm optimistic, I think maybe it'll be okay but if it's not, then I'll have to take more days off and yeah, sometimes you just, there's no other way to learn but the hard way, you know, and I'm learning the hard way right now but it's almost like it's fine because I'm so satisfied by those two runs that I don't really care about it that much because it was just like I got those runs done and that was so satisfying and okay, now I have a little bit of an injury I guess and taking a few days off, it's no big deal, no big deal but I hope and look forward to getting back into running again very soon, I do want to meet my goals, you know, have my half marathon goal this June and I want to get up to 70k per week before I start doing the you know, the speed training and the interval training at the track which I plan to start doing in April so yeah, let's see, it's difficult to keep the vertical low on this island so if I'm able to go up to 70k as I plan per week, I don't know maybe I just have to be sticking to like 60k per week anything can happen, let's see, it's exciting anyway I'm happy here in La Palma, I'm eating really well I mean the food is just like so freaking good the potatoes, the sweet potatoes, the bananas, that's like my staples basically they just taste so amazing, they must be like chock full of epic nutrients yeah, running is exciting here on the island I lost a little bit of my enthusiasm almost for running back in Norway during the winter it was scary, I was like what's going on, I'm not excited to run but I mean it was the weather, it was the cold, it was the snow as soon as I got back down here to La Palma I was just like ah, even though I'm running a lot on pavement I guess which is another element, I'm running on pavement all the time even another stressor making it more difficult for me to sort of reach my goals but yeah, even though I'm running a lot on pavement I'm really enjoying it, the surroundings, the vibe, this island the warm running, running with minimal clothing so nice anyway, that's all for today, a pretty long video I guess just going through stuff on Strava, I like to do it let me know in the comments if you like these kind of videos where I go through my training on Strava and if you would like to see me do it a different way or anything like that, give me ideas, I mean this is a new channel I'm exploring new ways of making videos and let me know what you think, if you have any video ideas, requests please post them in the comments, subscribe if you haven't done so already of course I really appreciate having you with me here on the Lone Trail it's a lot of fun, I'm loving this channel and of course my other channel, Sweet Natural Living, that's fun too so, alright, hope you're having a good day, hope your running is going well I'll talk to you soon, bye bye