Diary of what followed after I finally succeeded in completing a marathon just in time, before my 50th birthday.

Sunday 26 October 2008

WHAT NEXT

It's time to pick up football again. My fiftieth is on a Saturday, and I would like to play a match on that day (though it will be in February, and Belgian climate being what it is games may well be cancelled). So I went training on Wednesday. It was only moderately successful, as my back and upper leg started hurting and I had to leave the pitch before we were done. Still, it was good to smell the grass again.

I don't want my running to go to waste, but am also not motivated to continue training for many hours almost daily. So I am going to focus now on trying to bring down my personal best on the 10 kilometers, from the 50:06 that I have now to something nearer 45 minutes. This will still require several training runs per week. But they'll be shorter and much more varied.

And after February I'll start building up towards a good 20k of Brussels, on the last Sunday in May. Would like to finish this time in under 1:48.

So no marathon for me in Spring 2009. A pity to some extent, as I was already getting a bit enthusiastic for running in either Rome or Barcelona, my two favorite European cities after Amsterdam. But the training regime is too heavy, and there's much work to do on our house and garden.

The 10k first, then. There's one in three weeks from now in Evere, which is close to where we live. I'll take inspiration from this schedule for preparation. The first training is on Tuesday. Until then, I'm taking it easy.

1 comment:

Betsy said...

Congratulations, Erwin! You've been working towards this goal for so long-- it must give you a great sense of accomplishment!