Norway

I kicked off my new year’s resolution by entering the Spiritløpet in Sola, near Stavanger in Norway. Truth be told, I was pretty nervous- this was my first race since my injury and also the first time I’d travelled somewhere abroad completely alone. I’ve been lucky enough to have visited lots of different countries around the world, but I’ve also always had a friend travelling with me or been met by a friend at the destination. This solo travel thing, into a world of strange languages, strange money, strange food and strangers, was new. And a bit scary.

To add to my nervousness, I had decided to find a place to stay through the Couchsurfing website. I first learned about Couchsurfing from my good friend Mark, whom would often have people staying with him. The idea is that instead of checking into a nameless, faceless hotel, you stay in someone’s home and get to experience their country and culture in an authentic way. Most people, anywhere in the world, would be happy to have a friend’s friend stay overnight if they were in town- Couchsurfing takes that idea and extends it to strangers or, as your mum called them on your first day at school, friends you haven’t met yet. Through Mark, I’d met a lot of Couchsurfers before and had opened my home to a few people travelling through. I’d been to Couchsurfing meets, where local Couchsurfers get together, make friends, arrange language classes, hiking trips, cinema dates and I’d taken plenty of foreigners on tours through the lanes and parks of Glasgow’s West-End. I had not, however, ever taken myself off and stayed with someone else.

On the flight over I suddenly realised I’d forgotten to tell anyone where exactly I was going to be. Thankfully Norwegian airlines has free wifi on-board (hurray!), so I quickly emailed my housemates with all the information I had about my host and included my Couchsurfing login details so they could get into my account if I didn’t come home. Its like hitch-hiking, most drives will be fine, but there’s always the tiny outside chance of getting picked up by an axe-murderer, right? On this occasion, I obviously lived to tell the tale.

My host, Andreas, met me at the bus stop and we walked to his house in the freeeeeeeeeezing cold and gale winds. When we got home we had a cup of tea and made polite getting-to-know-you conversation, before making up a bed on the living-room floor for me (Andreas did have a spare bed, but another Couchsurfer had beaten me to it!). It was late and Andreas had work in the morning, so after helping me translate the Norwegian instructions about where I needed to go in the morning to pick-up my race number, we turned in for the night, with me thinking mostly about how many more layers of clothing I should’ve packed and talking myself out of needing to get up in seven hours time to run around Norway in the cold.

In the morning I got up, hummed and hawed about how what to wear- there’s often a dilemma dressing for runs: do you wear enough to be warm when travelling/standing about but you’ll be too hot when you’re actually running, or too little for the travelling bit but you’ll be fine once you start running? Some people wear old clothes that they don’t mind losing and big races will often collect the discarded clothing to give to local charities, but this wasn’t a big race and I didn’t want to lose any clothing that I might yet need this far north. Eventually I settled on a vest, thermal long sleeved top, running long sleeved top, thin waterproof jacket, thermal leggings with a second pair of metallic leggings on top, a scarf, gloves and hat- and, with the temperature around freezing and a severe minus 6-10 wind-chill, I kept every layer on throughout the run!

Things did not get off to a great start when I arrived at the wrong hotel and tried to register. Well, it was sort of the right and the wrong hotel at the same time. Andreas had advised me to get a bus to the Quality Hotel and then I’d have to walk 1-2km from there to a second hotel, the Sola Strand Hotel. But I forgot the second bit and marched into the lobby of the first hotel asking where to go to register for the race- several minutes and phone calls to senior managers and google searches later, I was marching back out with vague instructions of how to get to the Sola Strand instead.

Eventually I found the Sola Strand, got my race numbers and after asking a few people, found someone who didn’t know anyone else either and was happy to show me where the start line was- enter Stig, a friendly Norwegian from Stavanger, who was running the half marathon distance.

As it turns out, the start line was up beside the first hotel, so we jogged a kilometre back up the road I’d just walked down. At least I had a good warm-up and Stig gave me a rough idea of what to expect on the route.
(The route was taken from a technical drawing of the area by the Sola City Office and isn’t available to view online, sorry there’s no link here).

The half marathon and 10K distances had different starting points, so Stig made his way to his start point as I lined up with the other 10K runners. I made a few smiles at the people around me, who mostly made friendly-sounding quips to me in Norwegian and I smiled a bit more back at them.

This lovely lady talked a bit at me, it sounded like a question, so I explained that I only spoke English and she swapped languages for me. She said she was happy at the back of the group, letting the fast people run ahead and staying out of their way. I agreed I had the same strategy and wished her best of luck for the race as the gun went and we were off!

For the most part the Spiritløpet runs on footpaths, in and around the local airport, past the Aviation Museum, along a bit of trail for a kilometre or so, then joins the Nordsjøvegen as it runs beside the beach and doubles back to finish the the Sola Strand.

The route is predominantly flat and windswept, with some nice views across the plains to the mountains that make Rogaland famous for hiking and fjords. The view across the beach might have been nice but I was too busy paying attention to the aeroplane practically landing on my head and creating a sandstorm to run through!

I quickly lost most of the other runners early on, sticking to my slow speed and running my own race, at my own pace (I say this to myself over and over when I’m running!). I enjoyed running alone, just thinking and breathing and feeling happy that my injured muscle wasn’t giving me any hassle.
Occasionally a runner would come past me, in either directions, as the 21k looped the 10k route at a few points and I would shout something vaguely cheering, with a Nordic lilt, and the race marshals gamely translated their instructions for me as I called out “english, english!”

I finished in fine time for me, at 1.05 and got my precious cup of tea and MEDAL!

        

After the race, (the) Stig kindly gave me lift in his car back to the city, sharing stories of his time doing National Service and plans of travelling to Peru in the coming year.

We even got a write up in the local newspaper, by my new friend Andreas Askildsen and another mention on this Norwegian running blog, words by Thomas Hetland- have a read!

After driving back to Stavanger, I headed back to Andreas’ house and thought about what I could cook for dinner. In the world of Couchsurfers, it is pretty common for the guest to cook a meal and often a meal from their culture if they can get hold of/remembered to bring the right ingredients. Wonderfully for me, Andreas was already a fan of haggis (one of many great Scottish inventions) and had some in his freezer which we defrosted for me to prepare for dinner. I googled “fancy haggis recipes” and ended up going for a variation on this lovely recipe from the Hairy Bikers, with the clapshot, whisky sauce and a bit of broccoli, followed by some delicious traditional cranachan inspired by different elements all mentioned in this piece by Nigel Slater. Shopping for all my ingredients was a bit of an exercise in language and picture deduction, but I’m proud to say I got everything I needed and only had to ask for help once- mostly because they don’t colour code their single versus double cream in Norway in the same colours as we use in the UK.

Andreas, Jay and I sat down to our whisky-laced meal with some red wine and more whisky, and spent a great evening swapping travelling tales from around the world- Andreas has sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, from the Caribbean all the way to Norway; and Jay has hitch-hiked and couchsurfed his way across Europe with a suitcase in one hand and saxophone in the other!

We sampled heavily from Andreas’ whisky collection and the time came when I had to put Runrig on the stereo and sing Alba VERY LOUDLY. Well, just the chorus bit. Well, really just the “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaalba” bit, as I don’t know Gaelic so it’s the only bit I can sing with confidence.

Many hours and drams later we all got off to sleep and in line with Norwegian custom, had a long lie and a lazy day on Sunday. Jay took me on a stroll around Stavanger, showing me the sights and grabbing a water in a pub when our legs got too weary and our heads hurt too much. There was time for a delicious risotto, with home-made sausages from Andreas, before I had to head back to Sola for my flight to London and my journey back to reality.

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