weekend long run

On thursday ran my little hour too without too much trouble.
I did my long run on sunday in the "Zonienwoud", which is a big forest in Brussels. I ran while my dad followed on his bike. It was pretty funny running on a new terain for once. I think I'm gonna run most of my long runs there. So, I ran my 1hr30. Lots of hills too there.

This week, my planning is:
- thue: 1hr -> did that today at 12 km/h.
- wed: 1hr with 20 minutes faster
- thur: 1hr
- sat or sun: 1hr30

mid-week tempo run

Did my first tempo run today.
1 hour running with 3 x 5 minutes faster.
Total distance was 11,7 km measured with the Garmin.
I think I ran my 5 minutes tempo's around 4:30 minutes/km, while the regular ones were between 5 and 5:30 m/km.

the new training schedule

So, I got my new schedule which incorporates longer week runs but slower build up of miles in the weekend. Also wednesday has some tempo runs in it. The biggest change is that we now count in hours instead of miles. This is to get accustomed in running longer instead of running faster.
The schedule for this week is:
Thue: 1 hour: Did that today -> 10 laps in the park, went a little slower then usual since I ran some laps with a guy I know
wed: 1 hour with 3x5 minutes faster
thur: 1 hour
sat: 1:30 hrs

post race week

Well, race is over, but body feels sore all over the place :).
My dad said that for the marathon I should run longer during practice, but not for the long runs.
So he made up a schedule for me where the long runs aren't as long as Higdon's schedule right now, but I run at least an hour every run. Since my target will be somewhere end October, that's fine for now.

Anyway, last week the new schedule was not set up yet, so this is what I ran:

- Thue: didn't run, felt too sore
- Wed: Still sore but went running, ran about 56 minutes
- Thur: wanted to run on the streets for an hour and push a little but the course I choose was a little short so ended up doing 8,6k in 41 minutes, which I thought was a great time.
- sat: ran 1:30hrs -> 16 laps in the park, so that's about 17,5 km

20 km of Brussels (race report)

Had a good night sleep and woke up around 10 am.
Ate my cereals and emmediatly started drinking water, since it was a hot day.
My mom drove me over to the start of the race. 25 000 ppl running, that's a lot, the start location had this festival atmosphere. Sponsors all over the place handing out freebies. I went to the starting grid 45 minutes before the start and took a bottle of sportdrink with me, to stay hydrated. We had to wait in the full sun and it was pretty warm.
15 minutes before the start, they started the Bollero from Ravel in loop. Created some kind of gladiator atmosphere in the starting boxes :).
The starting shot was given by Prince Filip of Belgium.
Crowd starting to move, we're running :).
After tripping a little, and lots of slow-downs the first 400m we came onto a big alley, and all I could see in front of me was this huge crowd.
splits:
dist. split total
------------------
1k: 5:12
2k: 5:11 10:23
3k: 4:45 15:09 (first water stop, bottles flying all over the place)
4k:
5k:
6k: 16:11 31:21 (tunnels, no full km signs, it's too hot feeling dry)
7k: 5:05 36:26
8k:
9k: 11:31 47:58 (missed 8 km, running in the woods, fighting for shadow)
10k: 5:23 53:22
11k: 5:27 58:49
12k: 5:53 1:04 (sports drink stands, sticky road :) )
13k: 5:34 1:10
14k: 5:18 1:15
15k: 5:52 1:21
16k:
17k: 11:43 1:33
18k: 5:48 1:38
19k: 6:22 1:45 (more then steep 1km uphill)
20k: 5:40 1:51
finish: 3:51 1:54:54 (one final sprint :) )

Anyway, hard race, difficult course, difficult weather. Happy to Finish, not too happy about time, but at least it's a reference to beat!

20km of Brussels !!!

On saturday I went over the course with my dad by car. Boy was that everything but flat :). The course takes you over most big arteries of the city. The first 3 km are relatively flat, but then you enter the tunnels, and they go up and down a lot until 6 km. Then you enter a forest, and get back on the street around 10-11 km. Then again, it's relatively flat until 18km and then it goes straight up for more then 1 km. Then you hit 20 km, but that's not the end! The length of the actual course is 20,9 km, so it's more like a semi-marathon.
Small detail, it was 32C on saturday, not ideal running weather, really :).

week 9

Man, I didn't write something for like 2 weeks.
In the mean time, I already ran the 20km of Brussels succesfully, allthough not in such a great time. I'll talk more about that in the next post, now I'm just gonna recap on week 9:

the weekend before week 9 I ran around 1:10 hrs. I didn't wear my garmin, so can't say anything about the distance.

tue: 3 miles -> did the usual 5 laps in the park, don't remember the time
wed: 7 miles -> ran 10 laps in the park. The time was ok, around 58 minutes I think, maybe a little less
tur: I didn't run, as I wanted to keep still untill the race on sunday.