Wise man once said: "I love it when a plan comes together"

OK, maybe he wasn’t a “wise” man in the classic sense, but relative to the company he kept, he was quite the thinker. Part of what is making this journey to the North Pole so interesting is the logistical exercise of researching and collecting the appropriate gear, physically getting to Longyearbyen when no flights out of the States hook up neatly with flights from Oslo to Longyearbyen – and then there’s the training for the marathon itself (which at this point is the least of my worries – I’ll be ready as ever to run if I can manage the TRUE challenge of getting myself to the starting line!)

I went for a rather listless 10 mile training run along the Embarcadero yesterday. I'm not entirely sure why it didn't go so well, but here's my excuse: A few days ago, my laptop started making a humming noise. I finally had enough of it so I mentioned it to our tech guy (Dharmendra). He called the IBM contractor and within a few hours he was there ready to fix my machine (talk about service!). It was around 2:45 yesterday afternoon and his best guess was that my computer would be out of action for about 45 minutes. The plan was to do my normal 4pm 10 miler, but since a techno glitch just granted me nearly an hour of down time, I decided to do my run then and just come back to finish up the day. The run that followed (only an hour and forty five minutes after a HUGE lunch) was something that I can only compare to the sensation a baby must have running around with a poopy diaper on (see yesterday’s blog entry about Astro Turf to see why this is at all relevant). I followed the same coastal route I’ve done before, but added an extra half mile on the end (net effect is an extra mile since it’s out and back) to get the even 10. If you include the 2 miles I walked home from the train station after work (which I usually do, because it is forward motion), I got in a ho-hum 12 miles that I’m really not all that excited about, but it’s 12 miles just the same..

I’ve been doing my long afternoon runs at 4pm religiously for months (years actually…), so it was a great example of how if you don’t introduce variability into your training schedule, your body gets in to a groove and tell you quite bluntly “I will only let you run at 4pm”. The concept of being fit at 4:00, but not at 2:45 is quite funny if you really think about it. This is the exact reason that leading up to Badwater it was very important for me to do several all night running efforts – nothing long, but just long enough to get my body used to the sensation of running at 2am. It’s also part of the reason for a question I asked in an earlier blog about what time it was at the North Pole.

Logistically things are really starting to come together (hence, the title of this entry). Gear is starting to arrive, travel plans are coming together.. When the North Pole marathon agenda changed from a Moscow departure point to Longyearbyen, the first thing I did was “google map” Longyearbyen because I honestly didn’t have a clue where it was (and I consider myself somewhat of a guru when it comes to cartography).. Now that I’ve packed every useless tidbit of information about the history of Longyearbyen in to my brain (information that probably wouldn’t even be useful at a cocktail party), the only real conclusion I’ve come to is that it is very difficult to do anything cheap in Norway (in fact, a CNN poll just ranked Oslo – my overnight stop both going and coming – as the city with the highest cost of living in the WORLD). For my extra night in Longyearbyen before the race program takes over, I’ve hooked up with two other runners (one from Canada and one from Sweden) to share a room at the Radisson. I also found a nice B&B just outside the Oslo Airport that isn’t too painful on the wallet.

On the sponsor front, I got the great news yesterday that three longtime supporters of my fundraising event (the Pony Express Run) will be supporting my efforts at the Pole. GoLite (makers of everything that is cool [and light]), Fuel Belt (makers of the most innovative hydrations systems on the planet!) and 66North (makers of the hippest outdoor garments this side of Reykjavik – 66North is based in Iceland). Stay tuned for ways to win more FREE STUFF from these and other great sponsors!

That’s all for right now! The plan today is to do a shorter (6-7 mile) hill run and then something ridiculously short (4?) tomorrow in advance of my In-Laws arrival for the weekend. After all, one shouldn’t be tired and good-for-nothing in front of the In-Laws!

~B