Roller Ski Testing.
This blog post is under continuous update as I get to test more roller ski models. UPDATE: SKIGO Carbon Classics now added to the test! I am a type 2 diabetic that decided to get healthy without the use of medication. Cross country skiing and roller skiing have been instrumental for me in achieving those […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2020, Flying on slow wheels and something about slow vs. fast wheeling.
Yesterday I wrote about breaking a new personal best roller skiing on slow wheels. Seems like I am on a roll ’cause today I broke it again! I also wrote about the heart rate zones. That back in May I was 44% in the red zone. Yesterday that was 79%. Today despite starting from strained […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2020. New Personal Best on RollerSafe
Unlike last year with wedding preparations and everything going on then, I didn’t go down on training this June. This means that now after changing to a new set of slow grey wheels (courtesy of RollerSafe, thanks Henrik Karlstad and Atle Stubberud), I set a new personal best doing 18k at 17.12 km/h. I feel […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2020, spring rolling
Today’s training. Notable that I broke my previous personal best on slow wheels at 17 km by 3 minutes! But also that my heart rate didn’t even go to zone 5. . It is even equal to my personal best on fast wheels at this distance. Also worth noting that at 14 out of 18 […]
RollerSafe… What a joyful spring experience!
330 km so far in April. Including the workout the 31st of March I had ten days doing 180 km on snow in the beginning of April at Orsa Grönklitt. A great way to end the winter season. Then two days break at home and an equally great feeling entering the spring/summer season by continuously doing better at the 17 km track on roller skis. Topping it up today when I cut 2 minutes off of my personal best on the 10 km track on slow wheels.
En Route to Vasaloppet 2020, testing ThoraxTrainer
Oh the ambivalence of returning home to rain, rain & rain again… The weather in Copenhagen, Denmark isn’t exactly something to boast about. It is rainy, stormy and generally depressive. Coming home from 70 cm snow in Dalarna, Sweden after a month away at Vasaloppet and Orsa Grönklitt to 24h rain isn’t exactly uplifting. So […]
Skin vs. Cold? Madshus cross country skis
Some people have been asking what the difference is between skin skis and normal cold skis, questioning if there is a real palpable difference between glide performance. Therefore I have taken out a chop of two workouts in Orsa Grönklitt in relatively similar conditions with only a day between them. The day before Craft Ski […]
Back at Orsa Grönklitt
In my preparation for Vasaloppet 2019 the preseason has been marked by the scarcity of snow in both Sweden and Norway. The snow didn’t come until two weeks ago but now that it is here the decision to go for a New Years stay was easily made. I have the Craft Ski Marathon to attend […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2019, day 105-117, Finally it is here!
At long last I received my wedding present today from Anschütz. A laser power biathlon riffle. In time to test it also. Works perfectly! I was shooting out in the garden behind where we live. At least 12 meters works fine if not more. It is a little gem. Pricey but excellent. On top of […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2019, day 70-71
You know these days when everything feels heavy on you straight from the morning. I had some bad dreams and slept very uneasy… In the morning I couldn’t sleep any more so went up early with an aching body. Still, I wanted to hit the training course to get it out of my system before […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2019, day 64-66
9th classic roller skiing in a row without going low of 16.2 km/h in average speed. Today at 16.6 km/h, like yesterday at 16.7 and Sunday at 17 km/h. Otherwise I wanna focus on what I did today in the morning before work. I trained biathlon with Christian and Erik. In my best series in […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2019, day 56-57 and something about how to achieve permanent weight loss
After a days break, fuelled by taking the kids to the park and playing D&D 5th. ed. with good friends afterwards, I took to steal another run on the RollerSafe this morning. A couple of weeks ago I aimed for 16 km/h in average speed and figured once I got there I would be at […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2019, day 55
So many things that were right today! First thing in the morning I did a fitness test on the Polar V800. For the first time since I started measuring, my result is now 50, which means my VO2max is 50. This is 2 points from my ultimate target to hit the elite level for my […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2019, day 53-54
Been rolling the past 3 days in a row. Planning to do Saturday and Sunday too and on Monday I got my first biathlon training coming up. I think it will be good for me to mix the roller ski training with biathlon training. Maybe I will have to get a pair of RollerSafe skate […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2019, day 51-52
Recently I have been rolling the 9-10 km route in ‘Dyrehaven’. But today I felt like revisiting Route 2 up to ‘Hjortekær’ and ‘Eremitagen’. That is double the distance, ten double the vertical meters while retaining the average speed of 16 km/h. To cut it short; that was a great success… almost… as I made […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2019, day 18-19… Testing the Madshus Redline IGS, part two (Update on glide performance, see link below).
**Update**: I have done a more thorough glide test comparison of the Madshus Redline Cold vs. the Redline IGS (skin). You can read more here: Skin-vs-cold-madshus-cross-country-skis. While it was -10 to -20°C all of February I did not take out the Redline IGS much so I kind of stood my ground on the Redline cold […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2019, day 16-23
“When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse Out of the corner of my eye I turned to look but it was gone I cannot put my finger on it now The child is grown The dream is gone” My life revolved around these lyrics for many many years while wandering in […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2019, day 9-15
First of all I have to thank a lot of people who believed in me. In that it was possible to work my way out of diabetes without using medicine. My long time blood sugar HbA1C is now 46 Mmol/mol (below 48 equals no diabetes)! I am so happy and grateful to all my friends […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, March 4
A season of my first races in the long distance cross country classics has come to its conclusion. Yesterday I finished with Vasaloppet 2018 (results for Sockertoppen IF) as number 7508 in the time 8h37m29s. I felt I could have done better as my finish time of both Kortvasan 2:28:09 and Halvvasan 3:42:49 suggested that I […]
En Route to Vasaloppet, day 343-346
The fourth long distance race of 2018 for me started today at 9:00 A.M. in Oxberg as I was in place for start in the first group for Halvvasan 45 km. The weather conditions were rough -11°C. Wind from North – East meaning head to sidewind from about km 8 and the chill factor to […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 330-334
Been training short distances in order to recover from the Marathon last weekend but today I went out for a half marathon on a similar path to the race track. I did pretty well. Just about as my first lap in Grönklitt Marathon, 12 km/h. Interestingly it seems I am getting better though as I […]
En Route to Vasaloppet, day 329
Grönklitt Ski Marathon is well over for me but with a bit of mixed feelings. I haven’t been training for the past four weeks since my dad came home from hospital with a cancer diagnose and passed away only 4 days after. He should have been here with us today… Sometimes life sucks. Suffice to […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 313-328
Finally they are here! The Madshus Redline IGS that I ordered have finally arrived in a span that fits me perfectly! It will be a hard choice tomorrow at Grönklitt Ski Marathon between those and the Redline Cold. Probably going with the Cold. Thank you to Conny from Skistart in Älvdalen for being such a great […]
En Route to Vasaloppet, day 285-300, The first big test! AXA Skimarathon
In the ever ongoing battle against type II diabetes I was a bit disappointed in my finish time at the Orsa Christmas Marathon the 27th of December plus I DNF’ed at the roller ski race of Kongevejsløbet in Denmark in the fall falling out of the time restriction by about two minutes. It made me […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 284. Testing the Madshus Redline IGS.
Ran the Orsa Grönklitt Julemarathon today. After an all night with 30 cm new snow it was amazing that they even got a working set of tracks for this competition. Marcus Laggar från Längdcentrum at Orsa Grönklitt let me test the Madshus Redline IGS for this race but when we were to start at 10 […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 280-282
Well well, been training good up here in winter wonderland (better known as Orsa Grönklitt) In two days I have a training marathon to participate in. Looking forward to it. Courtesy of ‘Längdshopen’, situated right at the snow tracks in Orsa Grönklitt, I was allowed to test a pair of Madshus Redline IGS 95+ with […]
En Route to Vasaloppet, day 262-279
I know… I have been absent for a while but I have been busy. I was in Sweden in the middle of December running a total of 120 km on classic skis in five days. It started out good with a test run of 20 km at avg. speed 12.6 km/h and a new personal […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 250-261
Been taking it easy since I came home from Norway focusing mainly on technique and safety. Weather is getting colder and we had a few nights with frost making the roads slippery with patches of ice as well as wet and muddy. In other words quite dangerous especially in the dark. For some training sessions […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 235-249
Here is a tale of my first days in the snow this season. I took my RollerSafe to service in Norway and from there went on to Lillehammer to visit my niece and to get my first snow-experience this season. Expectations were high as I have been doing a lot of workout on the roller […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 234 Comparison stats Polar V800 vs Polar M430 vs Runkeeper/iPhone7
A little devil whispered in my ears that for todays long roller skiing workout I should compare the two Polar watches being the V800 and the M430 as well as with Runkeeper using my iPhone 7. The Polar watches were very close. The V800 does seem a bit more accurate on altitude though which may […]
En Route to Vasaloppet, day 232-233
So Sunday was one long interval of sorts going 15 km at a very high pulse. 10 of 15 one kilometer rounds were in zone 5 (between 176-194/bpm, with 3 consecutive kilometers averaging 181, 180 and 182 bpm. That is very high. https://flow.polar.com/training/analysis/1909899460 Yesterday I broke that down to acceleration intervals so that I would […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 226-231
Wow… Been standing still at a plateau for a while now roller skiing at about 14-15 km/h. Average pulse around 160-170. Felt like I was missing some hard interval trainings and enjoying comfort zones a bit too much… So last night I put on my newly acquired X-bionic full set and went out in total […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 215-225
Last time I promised I would write something about the estimated VO2Max test of the Polar M430. This is what my measurements look like so far: Ideally you should measure the VO2Max every 6 weeks to get a good insight into how you are progressing but I just wanted to see if I could get […]
En Route to Vasaloppet, day 191-214
Ok, it has been a while… I have been busy at work after returning from sick leave. So skipping fast forward to the positive side of things I acquired a GPS training watch, the M430 no less, from the Finnish company Polar. This is looking like being the best investment I have ever done apart […]
En Route to Vasaloppet day 176-183
Buehh, got an injury to my right shoulder probably at the lower end of m. teres minor or m. teres major or both. I think it started when I was doing Kongevejsløbet which would explain why I felt so out of power towards the end. A sneaking injury that didn’t really come to play until […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 153-158
Did some ok runs here in the past weekdays first at home and then in Sweden when we stopped one night at the cottage. On the way up yesterday we made a halt in the picturesque village of Fjällbacka at the Swedish west coast (see pictures). Now we are finally in Norway. We visited RollerSafe […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 145-152
After the sharp run in Sweden I took a three day break to celebrate my birthday and to get some mushroom, and berry picking done before we went home. Now we have been back for 5 days and it has been five days of hardship but also with positive feedback. My weight is still going […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 141-144
After a two days break I was out again this morning. I felt good. I broke another distance and average speed personal best. Coming in at 13 km at average speed of 15 km/h and another personal best for 16 km at an average speed of 14.75 km/h and a third at 17.7 km at […]
En Route to Vasaloppet, day 140
Today is a break day despite better weather. We are celebrating my little nieces 6 years birthday. There need also be time for other stuff than training so a trip out to pick mushrooms and wild raspberries seemed suitable and was a good workout too. The raspberry pickings were slightly interrupted when I went out […]
En Route to Vasaloppet, day 135-139
It has been heavy raining here in Halland in the past 5 days. That did not deter me from going out. Add a little grease to the outside of the wheels of the RollerSafe and they can practically go amphibious. Well needed as it felt more like running through a shallow lake at times with […]
En Route to Vasaloppet, day 129-134
Ok, so I was seriously aiming at 400 km for July but rainy weather and a trip to Sweden kind of prevented me from reaching the goal. However, including todays RollerSafe workout I did manage to make it to 387 km. Here are a few other comparisons from June to July. 22 out of 31 […]
En Route to Vasaloppet, day 127-128
Good news. I rounded 315 km in July. My goal was to go 300 but there is still 6 days left. We’ll see how close I get to the 400 km mark! Well well, in the morning I went out to take a lesson in classic skiing from Bo who works at Nordic Sport / […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 124-126
Day 124 was set out to train on a more flat and easy route. I did 17.5 km at the fastest pace yet for the long distance courses I have been doing lately at average speed of 14.54 km/h. Smooth. Yesterday (day 125) we were going to visit my parents and the plan was to […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 123
What a perfect day to roller ski. Sunny, 22° celcius and absolutely no wind. When I got home from meeting my friend Johanna and her little sweet 6 months old baby Malcolm I went to swap the sunglasses I bought yesterday since they had some microscratches in the glass. No problem at Rulleskisport. They just […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 122
I went to my local equipment pusher at Rulleskisport today to get some new classic boots and sunglasses. I rolled there on the RollerSafe and after I went out for a 10 km run. Nice and easy 15 km today. I got boots and glasses at a nice rebate. Nice to have a good local […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 119-121
3 days ago was hellish pain and agony. After a 2 day break I did a good workout the day before and then boom I felt really tired and everything was aching. My back, my shoulders and legs. I did a respectable 13 km/h 18 km roller skiing pass anyways but when I was done […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 115-118
Been doing a couple of nice RollerSafe runs of 18-20 km. I feel more fit and ready to take on the first big challenge: Kongevejsløbet September 10, 2017! This is a seeding roller skiing competition for Vasaloppet 2018 as well as counting as the long distance DM (Danish championships for long distance roller skiing). 45.2 km […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 114
Today was a good day for training. Even though I had been working and came home quite late I felt in good spirit and shape. I decided to go for the longer distance route of 18 km and give it a shot at breaking 14 km/h an average for this distance. I got good feedback […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 107-113
Since I got home from Transylvania I have been changing my training to double length and more up and down kind of terrain, like going 18 km instead of 9 and going up longer climbs, not as challenging as Transylvania though but still some shorter 5-6% climbs and a longer 3% climb of 2-3 km. […]
Between bears and wolves. A Roller Skiing tale from Harghita, Transylvania (En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 90-106)
This is a training diary from Judetul Harghita, Romania. Since we were going to a wedding in Gyöngyis home county of Harghita, Romania, I saw the opportunity to get a bit of mountain climbing in on the RollerSafe and to more thoroughly test the braking ability in rougher terrain with steep decents. After some 2000 […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 89
Still sore throat and feeling the remnants of the cold I have suffered the past ten days now. I felt remarkably well on the RollerSafe today considered the symptoms. I did a couple of high pulse long intervals. One at the length of 2.5 km ranging from 175 to 180 bpm (beats per minute) and […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 88
Sore throat and feeling sick and a very sore back. Still, I did my training today and did well… Average pulse was 164 but I kept a good tempo 14.5 km/h in average speed without going higher than 177, in max pulse. Looking at the pulse chart I am definitely able to keep a higher […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 83-87
Been training 11 of 13 days in June so far. Held a day off yesterday due to a cold that has been hitting me. I am not feeling super but I did go out today for an easy relaxing ride. The past few days I have been doing good runtimes of 14-15 km/h in average […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 81-82
Yesterday I took a day off from training due to heavy rain and a sneak up cold starting off. Turned out to be a good idea as I was definitely feeling better today. Instead of training yesterday I went to buy a new pair of training shorts as the old bike shorts I had was […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 76-80
I can tell you now that the best cure for hangover is to go RollerSkiing the day after. I did 10 km in the evening after the most infernal rainy day and being capsized by massive hangover after a wedding the night before. Towards the end of the day it cleared up and even though […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 73-75
Another milestone! I checked in at 500 km on my RollerSafe yesterday making this distance in just 82 days whereof 55 were active workout days. That is 9 km pr. workout on average. As for the past couple of days I took a break in the rain Tuesday but went out yesterday and today. The […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 72
My local motivation pusher at work, commonly adhering to the name Dr. JR., gave me a little pep-talk today on the subject of keeping up the good work. Therefore I went out in the wee evening after getting home from work. Indeed things are moving. Today I did a run with 7 out of 9 […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 70
Wow, so lovely weather. Hot and nice! It was a bit hard working out though as the air was very dry and it was quite windy. On the other hand I managed again to keep a nice average speed of past 14 km/h even though I felt dizzy towards the 6 km mark. Need to […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 69
Got a good nice breakfast with my girls then went out rolling. The blood sugar was 6.4! Good! In the deer park there were lots of beautiful people out to enjoy the nice warm weather which means I got to make a good commercial for RollerSafe and the blinkies. I went for a slightly longer […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 66-68
I was very excited to go to the dietician this tuesday. I even went out for a short roll early in the morning just as I did in Hungary. Here it was a nice morning too but rather cold compared to the climate we just returned home from. First I went to see the doctor […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, Day 59-65
For the past week I have been in Hungary celebrating a wedding in the family. We were staying in Inárcs at the Bagylovár wellness hotel. They have very nice facilities for bathing and wellness. We enjoyed the stay very much. Of course I brought my RollerSafe with me and had a couple of morning rides before […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 53-57
Some time ago I wrote something about an experience of mine that high max pulse even for a short while would be very effective at lowering blood sugar levels. In the past few weeks since I was suffering from a severe cold I have been having a sort of stuffiness in my throat with a […]
En Route to Vasaloppet 2018, day 32
After work I took a ride out in the sunshine. At second best roller skiing average speed of 14.18 km/h I am very satisfied. The interval splits at the midsection were good! On top of yesterdays lengthy ride the body was responding very well to a more fast paced interval training today. Now to combine the […]
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