Winter, xmas, and the days ahead!

Winter, xmas, and the days ahead!

Today I woke up early, Lisa traveled to London for a nice couple of days with her sister and mom. So I got to the office at 0530, and decided to brace the elements and went out and ran around Hagaparken. It was cold, it was crisp - but since most of my running is with many of the Running Sweden groups, Personal training clients, or one of the many companies I run with - this mornings training alone with my only friend my watch and those others out on their way to work, it was a near spiritual experince.

Do not get me wrong, I love training with people and recommend it, but sometimes it is worth it to just go out by yourself and run by feel, instead of looking at the watch - looking at the pace - instead running the pace, and the distance that feels great for you on the day. In many of the training programs I write I put this once a week.  I love my running book library and wanted to add to it, and one of the latest editions to this library that i bought in New York while there is a book called "Run" by Matt Fitzgerald - and it is a great book, with it's main message is that we are all obsessed with the digital age, the need to know what our heart rates are doing, what pace we are running, how far we are running, and of course our weekly total. So I challenge all of you to try this once a week, run by feel, and get energized like I did this morning.

Christmas is rapidly approaching, and like always this time of year my parents who like on the coast of New Zealand have pleasure in telling me that they have warm weather and the sun is shinning. The other night when I called them they told me that they had just returned from their run together (my mum is training or her first marathon and following a training program I have written, I am so proud of her as she has lost so much weight and just last weekend she ran 2hours 10mins for a half marathon, stating I did not push myself), and were preparing for their first real New Zealand summer barbeque. I got a little jealous naturally - but while on my run this morning, we have loads of cool stuff to look forward to over the next few weeks. We have our marathon challenge kickoff on the 11th, we also have decided to have a competition and give 2 marathon challenge spots away to RunnersWorld readers. We have started our LidingöUltra training group, our singeljogg for those who want to meet single people like yourselves - and this Friday I start Running Sweden's first Treadmill Interval Class, it is literally awesome to be in Sweden right now - and I hope all of you can feel it too.

If you are finding this time of As many of you know, as it can be tough when it is dark and cold outside - find pleasure and motivation in reading the successes and thoughts of others like us. For example ready Petra Månstrom lastest blogg on one of our Running Sweden's succes stories Per Jamtelid, click here: http://blogg.svd.se/maratonbloggen?ID=21322

Run Happy everyone!