Just over a week ago I arrived in Ansan, South Korea, for a 5 month exchange, where I will be studying design communication at Hanyang University.
So far it everyday life has been pretty quiet/ uneventful. I have had a lot of time to settle in and figure things out.
As part of the exchange program, all exchange students (around 20 of us) receive a mentor to help us adapt. My mentor is amazing, she has sorted everything out easy, so I have been stress free.
Exchange students + Mentors
I am sharing a room in Korea with another guy on exchange. Our facilities are new, but we have no access to a fridge or microwave, so we have to buy all of our meals.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner, rice is offered at the cafeteria with soup and a few extras for 3500won. All meals are eaten with chopsticks. I’ve almost never used chopsticks in my life…
We have a curfew of 1am-5am and all trains stop at 11pm.
In terms of subjects they were either too easy or in Korean, so I had to just go into classes I hadn’t enrolled in and hope they were in suitable.
Now I have some very good professors and interesting subjects.
In my spare time, I am exploring Ansan on foot. The town is fantastic for running in as there are lots of small hills and trails everywhere, meaning I can run around the whole town without having to stop at every intersection. Along these trails are outdoor gyms where you can do basic core training, so whenever I run past a station I do a few reps.
Ansan is a little bigger than this.
All in all, I am looking forward to what is to come in the near future.
Last weekend I participated in Nordic Race at the Royal lifeguards exercise grounds. So the race went throught rough and muddy terrain that is often driven over by tanks. But on Saturday it would just be 1000+ athletes tearing up the ground.
Entrance to the race photocredit: DOCRA
My last Nordic Race was Amagerstrandpark, which I was not prepared for. There were lot’s of new obstacles and I wasted too much energy trying to clear them. This time I was ready.
I didn’t have much preparation for the race, but I had some good gripstrength training sessions with my Ninja buddy Leon who specializes on obstacles and is a great coach.
Høvelte Kasserne is a 10km course which is double the distance of AmagerStrandpark, much less water but the same number of obstacles. So this was going to be a good race for me. I just had to beat the Irish bench, Rope climb, rings and Tarzan.
I was feeling pretty tired on race day as I didn’t get much rest prior to the race so I just lay down before race briefing and just thought about how I would take on the race.
Since I was tired I thought a more conservative approach would be best. Start slow and finish strong. At Amagerstrandpark I had nothing left at the end, so I struggled on the last obstacles and my legs were cramping.
The start of the race went fast and lots of racers were already way ahead, while my feet were attacked by the sticky muddy puddles. Within the first 500m I was covered in mud and since I was wearing long tights and a tee-shirt it felt like I was wearing a ton. My running pace felt very slow, but I was still able to start catching other athletes, who aren’t as used to running 10km.
After about 3-4km I was alternating between 4th and 5th place with my rival Kristian Husgaard who is really skilled at obstacles and would pass me on every one. But then I would catch up to him again just before an obstacle.
Kristian about to pass be on “Legless” Photo: Peter Martensen
Just in front of us was a Swedish Athlete running pretty fast but looking more and more tired the further we got, so did Kristian.
Making up some positions on the gravel road. Photo: Tommy Jensen
All I was thinking about during the race was which obstacles were coming up and how to approach them. The first challenge was Irish bench. Surprisingly I cleared that on the first attempt very smoothly. Then the rope climb was up next. The rope was thicker this time so it was no problem. I was much slower than Kristian, but I felt fresh afterwards and gained my second wind and started flying along the course and got a good lead on Kristian and the Sweed until legless where Kristian got ahead again and got a little lead when we got to the rings which were straight after. I wasn’t fast but I cleared them without any problems.
Being a little reckless on Tarzan. Photo:DOCRA
Tarzan was the second to last obstacle so I needed to be well ahead of Kristian before then if I had a chance at beating him so with 3km to go I just went all out to get a good lead on Kristian. When I got to Tarzan I started off in a hurry, which nearly resulted in me falling off. So I just breathed, relaxed and took it one rope at a time. 500m to the finish line I am running for my life. When I reach the Staicase the final obstacle, my first attempt was running full speed into the wall.(I hope no one recorded that) but afterwards I manage to get up reasonably easily and ran into the finish line as the 3rd finisher. My best result yet!
With Rasmus and Nikolaj on the Podium!
For me this was a really great event, It was tough running terrain and I managed to conquer the obstacles that I had trouble with last time. I’m looking forward to the next one!
Leon and Nikolaj at the finish. Somehow I am clean here.
I was in Suzdal, Russia in the weekend for a 30km trail race, goldenringsultratrail. This is the longest race I’ve ever done by 17km.
This race is much longer than I would normally run, but I was invited by my friend Alexey to give it a go and it sounded like a good fun challenge. The course record set last year was 2:04:44. I thought that sounds beatable, if I run 4min/km then I can break it no sweat.
The day before the race I am with Alexey, his sister Julia, her husband and Alexey’s best friend. Suzdal is a very scenic town so we take a look around and I tried Borscht for the first time (highly recommended). Then we went to the running expo, where there was a pasta and pancake party. Great in concept, but not in reality. I stood in line for two hours for 1 pancake… and the pasta was just with tomato sauce and cheese (which is normal in Russia) but not worth waiting another two hours for so we went our accommodation and had a BBQ.
I’m in the grey on the left
Race day: We had an early morning start to stay out of the scorching heat. 10, 30 and 50km runners start together. There were over 1000 runners at the start line, but I was lucky enough to be at the front. All race numbers were colour coded, so I could see who else I was racing against. When the gun went off, the pace was pretty fast through the town, but I had to run with the other 30km runners and make use of roads and flat ground.
There were a few steep up hills in the town and one down hill that was straight down and just mud. Somehow I managed to skate down and stay on my two feet, while lots of others bum slided down. The first 8km were ran in 29:20minutes the fastest kilometer being 3:25/km. My goal was to run at a 4 minute pace. The real race started from here where we met the trails.
Green numbers are 30km, orange 10km
I’m with 2 others on a single track with through high grass and zig zagging along a riverbank. The ground was slippery and a fell over a few times, but I was still keeping a good pace through the bush. After about 13km there was the ‘Adidas cascade challenge’ where there were many short but very steep hills that I had to use my hands to get up.
There were lots of hills like this.
Then at approx 14 and 15km were river crossings, it felt good to cool down, but it takes a toll on the legs and the bank on the other side was pretty slippery. After this point it I am starting to feel my legs, but I am still running 4min/km. Then at the 3rd drink stop at 17.5km there were a lot of runners who were running 100km. This was also the turn off for the 50km course. After this point I am running alone and through thick bush and then course was flat through a forest so I just tried to keep my pace up as fast as possible. Then I came to a marshal who said something telling me to go left but at the next corner was a road and no markings. So I guessed and went on the dirt path, But after 100m I found no markings so I turned back and tried to communicate with the marshal and got on the right path again. Two kids made a much needed drink station at the 27km mark I was starting to suffer and it was over 28 degrees. The last 3km were through long grass and my legs had started to cramp up and I tripped over a few times. I was really looking forwards to getting to the finish line. Then 30km clocked over and there was nothing. I was on the 50km course. I ran a little further and came across a runner doing the 100km course and walked with him a bit and then ran on some more until I reached a marshal. He spoke very little English, but with body language I got the message across that I ran the wrong way and he got in contact with the organisers. Since my legs were all cramped up I walked/jogged to the next marshal to stretch out a bit and waited for a car to pick me up.
A lot of the trail was like this
An Ambulance came. Another runner was having a lot of trouble. So I went back with them. Meanwhile my Supporters had been expecting me to arrive a long time ago… So they got a little stressed out and went to the race organizer who told them I was in bad shape and in an ambulance back, so they were driving to the emergency room, but luckily saw the ambulance on the way there and it turned out okay.
My unofficial 30km time was 2:10:10 on the wrong course. This would have got me a podium position, but instead I got a more interesting story to tell. It was a fun course to run and although it was hard, time disappeared really fast. I don’t feel disappointed, I had a good run.
On Saturday I competed in Copenhagen Warrior, a 6km obstacle race that is good for runners, because of the not so technical obstacles.
I was up against some fast athletes, Michael T.K. Jeppesen, A very fast runner, who is also a personal running coach. Anders Poul who is very well known in the OCR scene is also a personal trainer. Last weekend he did a 60km trail race at a very fast pace, So I thought I would give him a run for his money.
My plan was to casually bike out to the race, but the bike i was going to borrow wasn’t there…So I had a very thorough warm up of 12km jog with my change of clothes in my backpack. I was trying to run as slowly as possible but my watch said otherwise 4:45/km.
I get there with an hour to spare where I just lay down and wobbled my legs. When it was time to race I was feeling a little heavy, but overall pretty good.
I got out pretty clean
The first obstacle was a mud bath right on the startline, I was lucky enough to get through that pretty fast and then 100m later I was in a comfortable 2nd place. I was feeling good and not too far behind Michael.
The barbed wire was a bit high on this one.
Halfway through my legs start to feel heavy and then Anders calls out to me and I run like a scared rabbit. When there was a good corner a looked back to see Anders right behind me! Crap! We meet an Obstacle, where Anders breezes over and gets ahead and I’m on the chase. The distance between us stayed the same for the rest of the race until the last obstacle.
I finished with a solid 3rd place 13 seconds behind Anders, Then a little while later ran home. A good tiring day!
Saturday was a day to play! Nordic Race is an Obastacle Course Race, which means running and clearing obstacles as fast as possible.
Last year I managed 5th pace on the Burnout, qualifying for the World Champs, but this year they changed the concept. Bigger and harder obstacles!
Lately I have been neglecting my upperbody, so now i’m a bit of a weakling. This isn’t a problem when running, but a had a few issues during the race.
I’m the skinny white kid on the left.
First big issue was the rope climb. Until then I was in 4th position and gaining. Normally this obstacle wouldn’t be a problem. I would just use my legs to climb up, but the rope was extra thin, making all brute arm strength, which I don’t have. So after getting about halfway up, I couldn’t go any further and needed to take a breather. but while I’m stuck on the obstacle all of the other elite athletes just power through in 5 seconds. I manage to get a little higher up, but it still wasn’t high enough, more athletes go by… Eventually I make it all the may up,my arms were completely dead and I had a lot of people to chase down.
I’m actually doing okay here
I caught up a lot of places on the soft sand, then I met the Rabbit hole. I had to somehow climb through a hole in a 2 meter high ceiling without any help from walls or people. My arm were dead, so I just had to stop and analyse how others were clearing it. I cleared it by hanging from one side and then swinging my legs through the hole and then some how lifting my butt up. I’m sure it would been a laugh to see.
Not long after that was my dreaded obstacle ‘the drop’, I’m not really a heights person so it’s not my cup of tea. I had hoped that being in a competition would make it easier to just jump. but the person in front of my stopped, so I stopped and my brain started processing what was happening. I was like a horse lead to water, but I did pull it together and made it.
Damn, I was scared!
With only a couple of obstacles to go I charged through to meet the Irish bench, a 2 meter high bench that I had to climb over to progress further, but after many attempts I still couldn’t clear it. Then I met a nice man called Michael who I helped over, on the condition he helped me, Finally I could get further. Now there were lots of people cheering 3 obstacles left. Tarzan was first, inspired by Uncharted the goal was to swing from rope to rope until I reached the other side. It was going well until halfway when my rope stopped swinging, resulting in me taking the penalty round.
Next was the wall run, I cleared it no problem.
Then last but not least ‘the stair case’ with my cramped up legs it took a few attempts to climb each step, but after the 3rd and final step it was a quick few jumps down and a final 100m sprint.
Running wise I finished feeling fresh, but the rest of me was scraped and bruised. I still ended up finishing the race with a respectable time 38:11 and 26th place overall.
Despite the challenges, I had a lot of fun. I learn’t more about myself and I think I can do better next time. I better start practicing!
On Thursday evening I had Hærløbet, ( Military run) So I had an easy jog to school and back and then had 1 1/2hours rest before heading off to the race. I was really hungry, so had half a liter of chocolate milk, half a packet of gifflar (small pinwheel scones) and a loaf of white bread.
30 minutes later I was regretting my gluttony.
I jog over there (8km) feeling my stomach bouncing up and down, but otherwise I was feeling good!
I raced Hærløbet last year and I really enjoyed it, so I had high expectations this year. In my opinion it is one of the best running races out there for a man. It is well organised by the Danish Military and most of the participants are soldiers. Which gives a brotherhood atmosphere to the place.
On the start line I recognised a fast runner whom I had raced against at COP RUN. We had a quick chat and then bang we were off! The first part is downhill so I made the most of it with a quick pace, then on the first hill I’m past halfway up. I maintain my pace and then pass him again on the downhill. Already 1km in and only 3 minutes have gone by.
We run up the next hill, I’m right on their tail, but they pull away just a little bit. Then a little more. I’m working hard to reel him in but it wasn’t happening. The first 5km disappeared like a flash and then the guy in front of me stopped and pulled out of the race!
Mr Saysky was my rival
The next 5km was spent running as evenly as possible and cheering the other runners along as I went by. I finished in 33:37, a good result for the day. If the other runner didn’t pull out, he would have won. It wasn’t a perfect victory, but a win is a win.
I hope I can spend more time up here.
The prize was just what I needed; a gift voucher at løberen. Now my hard worn shoes can retire.
It has been a while since I have won something, so I had a smile on my face the whole run home. =D
A couple weeks ago I got called up to participate in Saysky’s COP RUN; a 3 person 15 x 1km relay series of 3 races in urban Copenhagen. I was a part of team Trusted Sport. A company that made an app that we can use to rate different races. Last year COP RUN was voted the best.
Chasing some really fast guys
I have ran a lot of different relay events, here in Denmark and back in New Zealand. I don’t think it is as epic as the NZ National Road Relays, but it is a good event for people of all levels with good atmosphere and competition.
The first race was at Østre Anlæg one of the inner city parks of Copenhagen. I was the second runner and high on aNutramino energy shot. I almost never have caffeine so it hit me hard! I hadn’t done any speedwork, so I was surprised when I started catching some of the elite runners who have been beating me in competitions recently. That was the first round and I felt like I was going to die. After around 6 minutes break I was feeling okay again, then it was back to the pain train. I was a little slower on the next rounds but all in all I ran much faster than expected.
Almost at the finish line.
Race 2 the night before I confirm i’m ready to run, then on race day I’m sick there’s rain, hail, snow and a long day at school. I did not feel like racing! I lay down and cuddled the 2 dogs Thor and Loki until it was time to leave. Swearing under my breath I jog the 7-8km warm up to the event.
This time I was the first runner, I don’t know why but I was in the lead for my first leg for the first half then got passed by the big guns. I still ended up in 3rd place not too far behind them. The rest of my laps were dead even despite my legs cramping in the last 3. Even though I didn’t want to go out the door I think it was worth it. With only one week until the series finale, I was thinking about how I could beat the big guns the next time.
First lap of the second race. Why do I go take the lead?
I decided to do a little more mobility work involving my hips, so I could lift my knees higher and be more stable when running.
flying on final course
I was 4 seconds faster! but my rivals were better. The final course was at H.C Ørstedsparken and probably my favourite out of the 3. It was the hilliest of the courses which made it tough but more interesting. Since the change zone was at the top of the hill we could spectate a lot of the course while we waited.
No time to look at the scenery.
Afterwards I had to pick something up in the opposite direction to where I live. As I don’t have a bike I ran there then back home again with my 8kg rucksack; a good 15km warm down 🙂
The whole concept is to make workouts more fun and competitive. I really like how these races build rivalry’s between athletes and brings motivation to beat them next time.
I’ll have to enter again next year.
On Saturday I had the Danish National Championships for 10km cross country in Esbjerg. I had no expectations for the race as I had been running lot’s of K’s leading up to the race, but I thought it would be a good idea to test my legs a bit.
The course was 5 x 2km laps. The first part was on a hard dirt track so the pace was pretty fast and then a very gradual downhill into a nice longish uphill (150m). The best bit was saved for last alternating between; 2 steep downhills and 2 steep uphills. So that was 2km. It rained quite a bit before the race, adding a little more challenge to sections of the course.
The hilly section
The course
As soon as the race started I knew it wasn’t my day, but I trudged on giving myself goals as the race progressed. Everyone had their age category pinned to their backs, so when anyone over 30 passed me I dug a little deeper to keep their pace. At about halfway through I managed to start passing people, but when I ran past I encouraged them along. “Kom så! Kom nu!”. This may sound counter intuitive but by encouraging them, it helped me run faster. It gave me energy.
At least I am infront of some people.
There was an older man I had a battle with from Blovstrød Løverne, his name was also Thomas. So I pretended the cheering from the sidelines for me and used that to push a little harder. I ended up 52nd in a time of 38’10. I think that the race went okay, but I look to having lot more speed in my legs. At the moment though I plan to have this week easy and then back into more k’s for another month.
Running up one of the steep hills.
Today was my first day at KEA. So far so good. I understood all the Danish so far. We have a little project where we make a little music video. I volunteered to do the haka… I hope it turns out okay. I don’t know what I was thinking.
After my holiday, it’s back to reality. I just got accepted into KEA (Copenhagen School of Design and Technology), So I will be starting my Multimedia Design course on the 1st Feb. The challenge being that my course is in Danish. So I increased my workload by taking on two extra courses at Studieskolen (Language school). One being speech classes and the other writing.
During winter there are more variables in play when commuting. Bike gears freezing, icy conditons/snow, so I decided that I would run absolutely everywhere in Copenhagen for the whole month. That way I am in control of more the variables that could delay me on a winters day. So far I have managed to haul in a few kilometers along the way.
For example;
Last Monday; 7.2km to Studieskolen,
back home
5.3 km run to the Sparta running club,
Did Intervals on the running track,
then ran home.
The lakes in Copenhagen frozen over.
Grundtvigs Kirke
Rosenborg slot
Some views on my way back from school
Every weekday I am running minimum 14km and I try to take the Weekend off, so I am ready to rumble for the next week ahead. In the coming weekend I have entered in the Danish 10km cross country championships. I am not in peak running condition, but I plan to give it everything on the day, i’ll make sure I have plenty of energy in reserve for the day.
I am enjoying everyday life
but Most of all I love everyday
My plan for Italy: Eat, run, sleep. Unfortunately on the second day I was there I got a fever and a bad case of the flu. So I slept, watched movies and a little bit to eat.
This was me for two weeks… On the 31st of December I had my target race: the BOClassic. The doctor said I could start running again five days before, EASY running. Fifteen minutes was all I could manage to begin with, then back to bed. Over the five days I rappidly improved in my running and I was looking forward to running the 5km race through the streets of Bolzano. I had nervous legs the night before, which is always a good sign before a race and I was feeling rested. I was ready to go.
When the gun goes, a small group rockets off really fast, they are already way ahead, I relax and catch up to the leaders on the first lap. Everything is feeling super comfortable. then part way through the next lap everything falls to pieces. I just bonked my laps godt slower and slower and I was getting past by older and older people. I finished 37th overall and a time of 17:34. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but I dont see the point in being depressed over it. Being sick was out of my control and there is always next time to run a better race.
A little bit of magic happened that night, because on New Years Day I had so much energy and not a whiff of sickness. (Maybe I need to drink alcohol more often!) So I went for a good solid run up in the mountains! My last week in Italy was fantastic. I had a good appetite, I got some good big hills in and did some crosscountry skiing with the great teacher Jonathan Wyatt. Who has helped my cross xc skiing immensely.
My Italien running mates.
Part of the Dolomites at Rosengarten
On a 2 hour run I came across this light affect!
Up at Ritten 1000m above Bolzano
Even though my training holiday didn’t quite go to plan, I still gained new experiences that I will remember for the future.
Maruia Mountains 