A TOUGH ONE
Since 15 November: 96 hours 27 minutes, 909.9 kilometers
Weight: 77 kilos
Two trainings only this week, of 10.5 and 14 kilometers respectively, which went quite well.
Today's race was the first since the Brusssels 20k. I was ill-prepared. We had a barbecue last night, with the neighbours of our new house. One of them had cooked a brilliant gado gado and I ate lots of it. Alas, it was low on carbs and the beer and wine didn't do much for my race preparation either.
To call the course - 14.8 kilometers through the forest - hilly would be a grandiose understatement. The difference between the lowest and highest point was 130 meters. I knew that the biggest, as in longest climb was in the first two kilometers. But I was not aware of the sleep slopes further down, and they all seemed to go up.
At 12 kilometers I was walking when a woman passed me and urged me in french to try and follow her. I picked up her speed and managed to keep it up till the finish line, where I thanked her. That's one of the nice things of such races: you really experience the kindness of strangers.
In the coming week I will attempt a two-hours training run again. At a very slow pace it should be doable. I'll also go shoe hunting; my pair of Asics are ready to retire after 800 kilometers and the sales are on.
2 comments:
Lemme ask you this - do you ever experience freak runs, where you feel like you can run fast forever? Those are the moments when you set times that you know you'll have trouble breaking.
I've only had a few, and it was usually after I did a REALLY long warm up run.
I don't jog much any more. I just to sports buffet. - cw
I've had brief moments when the running would be effortless, and typically they come after the first 7 or 8 kilometers, comparable to your long warming-ups.
The nicest I've had was during the 20k of Brussels. I was, I guess, completely hypnotised by the monotonous pace of my feet and the constant flow of asphalt just before me. Everything around me was in soft-focus, everything had slowed down and I felt niothing but a refreshing gentle breeze around my body. It's what tabletennis star Bettine Vriezekoop described as balls travelling at 250 k/h coming towars you so slowly that you can carefully contemplate where best to hit them.
It's called The Zone, Runner's High, or The Flow. Whatever you call it, once you experience it it's really great. But it doesn't last forever...
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