I wrote the other time that I've become a lazy writer. Almost a non-writer. Too much Facebook and too much Candy Crush. Too bad.
I used to write about every 'significant' run, which normally meant that every race would warrant a blog post. Well, not any more. Nowadays an entire season of races making up the yearly challenge of events in Vlaams Brabant (previously the Watermolen Cup, then Scott2Run, from this year Loopcriterium something) are wound up in a single blog post. It may also mean that the various individual races are becoming routine for me and no longer so 'significant'. Never mind.
The first run was quite significant, actually, and I even got round to writing a blog post but didn't manage to complete it. It was the first day of spring, still as cold as winter. We started at Tervuren and moved into the Arboretum forest, still very much in winter attire (both the forest and us runners). The other year I had to slow down to a walk after a hill too many in the second half. This year I was warned so I held back in the beginning to remain strong in the end. It worked, but I learned a great truth. I'm slowing down. There's nothing much I can do about it. We all age (unless we die young). A 70 year old runs slower than a 30 year old, and the slowdown is not sudden but gradual. Which is why my finishing times are becoming progressively longer. I was faster than last year but that comparison doesn't count because of the walking 'sessions'. Instead, I compared my time with a comeback run I had done 3 or 4 years ago, still nursing a hamstring injury, and then, hamstring and all, I was still quite faster than this year while fully fit. Never mind...
Two weeks (plus one day) later I had the Vienna marathon. I needed to get 7 runs in total to be able to classify at the end of the Loopcriterium, so a week after the marathon I had to go to Perk to chalk up another participation and a couple of hundred points. The intention was simply to take it easy and complete the loop. Obviously, I ended up racing and had quite a good performance too. The completely flat route worked to my advantage.
Another 2 weeks and I went to Porto for the Wings for Life run there. This was the 2nd or 3rd of May. Six days later I was in Hoeilaart for the Meifeest run, which I hadn't done for quite a few years. (Come to think of it, I realise that a good number of runs I couldn't run really fast due to being tired from preparatory long runs or from long distance events.) In Hoeilaart they have changed the day - from Friday to Saturday evening - as well as the old familiar course, which still goes into the Groenendaal wood but now takes in a much more challenging hill up to the rural area of the commune. I did well to keep running both times that we went up this hill. It was another good run, considering the hard work I had been doing the few weeks before - a full marathon and a 25 km Wings for Life.
Around 21st June, the official beginning of summer, we have the Machelen 9 point something kilometre race. This, too, they have changed. It's still in two loops but now they have included a rather long uphill street, which came as a bit of a surprise to me. Here, too, I maintained a reasonably good rhythm from start to finish, but the final time was nothing to write home about...
In the end of July, on a Friday evening, we had another double loop in Kortenberg. I was a bit wary of this one, as a few years ago I had a difficult race here and had to stop walking for a while in the forest. It turned out to be a good run for me, with a strong finish, although yet again I increased my final time.
Then came the summer visit to Malta, which made me miss the Duisburg 10 km and the Zaventem half marathon. Instead, I went straight into a race at the peak of the Mediterranean summer heat, a night race at Żebbuġ. I had to retire mid-way through this, fearing heat stroke. I hadn't been feeling well, either, and I think I did well to stop. I did recover well in the remaining 2 and a half weeks, putting in regular midweek training runs early in the morning running 15 loops around the block of buildings in Ta' Giorni where we were staying, and most importantly two hour runs for two Sundays running. Mid-August. That was excellent.
Back in cool and temperate Belgium... I needed two more races to complete my seven. Vossem I ran in much the same spirit as Machelen and Kortenberg. Meaning that I ran as fast as I thought I could reasonably expect, only to discover with dismay at the end that my performance worse than usual. I had laughed at a good friend of mine a number of years back, back in Malta, who in his fifties had complained that his times were a minute more each year. "What should he expect?" I had wondered, almost aloud. He's not getting any younger and the older you get the slower you become. Well, it's hard to accept that when it's you who are hit by this tough reality.
The last run to complete my set of seven was the dreaded Bertem, with its impossible hill in the forest, that I had conquered well, twice, the previous year. This time the hill never materialised. Bertem, too, had had its course changed. I realised this gradually during the first loop, and then, with a sense of relief we started the long, fast downhill run back to the start for the second loop. It should be ok, then, no more terrible hill to worry about. But I had forgotten that, instead of going up a very steep hill, we needed to go up by exactly the same elevation over a longer distance. For the first time in this year's edition of the Loopcriterium, in the second half of the last event, I slowed down to a walk! With consequent mediocre time.
Good thing that 3 weeks later I made up for this demoralising setback with a decent performance at the Brussels half marathon.
It was enough for me to obtain yet another placing in the top 20 of my category for this year. There were exactly 7 out of 13 races that were physically possible for me to achieve, and I managed to do them all.
A long, dark, cold, wintry preparation for the Paris marathon now beckons. My last marathon?
I used to write about every 'significant' run, which normally meant that every race would warrant a blog post. Well, not any more. Nowadays an entire season of races making up the yearly challenge of events in Vlaams Brabant (previously the Watermolen Cup, then Scott2Run, from this year Loopcriterium something) are wound up in a single blog post. It may also mean that the various individual races are becoming routine for me and no longer so 'significant'. Never mind.
The first run was quite significant, actually, and I even got round to writing a blog post but didn't manage to complete it. It was the first day of spring, still as cold as winter. We started at Tervuren and moved into the Arboretum forest, still very much in winter attire (both the forest and us runners). The other year I had to slow down to a walk after a hill too many in the second half. This year I was warned so I held back in the beginning to remain strong in the end. It worked, but I learned a great truth. I'm slowing down. There's nothing much I can do about it. We all age (unless we die young). A 70 year old runs slower than a 30 year old, and the slowdown is not sudden but gradual. Which is why my finishing times are becoming progressively longer. I was faster than last year but that comparison doesn't count because of the walking 'sessions'. Instead, I compared my time with a comeback run I had done 3 or 4 years ago, still nursing a hamstring injury, and then, hamstring and all, I was still quite faster than this year while fully fit. Never mind...
Two weeks (plus one day) later I had the Vienna marathon. I needed to get 7 runs in total to be able to classify at the end of the Loopcriterium, so a week after the marathon I had to go to Perk to chalk up another participation and a couple of hundred points. The intention was simply to take it easy and complete the loop. Obviously, I ended up racing and had quite a good performance too. The completely flat route worked to my advantage.
Another 2 weeks and I went to Porto for the Wings for Life run there. This was the 2nd or 3rd of May. Six days later I was in Hoeilaart for the Meifeest run, which I hadn't done for quite a few years. (Come to think of it, I realise that a good number of runs I couldn't run really fast due to being tired from preparatory long runs or from long distance events.) In Hoeilaart they have changed the day - from Friday to Saturday evening - as well as the old familiar course, which still goes into the Groenendaal wood but now takes in a much more challenging hill up to the rural area of the commune. I did well to keep running both times that we went up this hill. It was another good run, considering the hard work I had been doing the few weeks before - a full marathon and a 25 km Wings for Life.
Around 21st June, the official beginning of summer, we have the Machelen 9 point something kilometre race. This, too, they have changed. It's still in two loops but now they have included a rather long uphill street, which came as a bit of a surprise to me. Here, too, I maintained a reasonably good rhythm from start to finish, but the final time was nothing to write home about...
In the end of July, on a Friday evening, we had another double loop in Kortenberg. I was a bit wary of this one, as a few years ago I had a difficult race here and had to stop walking for a while in the forest. It turned out to be a good run for me, with a strong finish, although yet again I increased my final time.
Then came the summer visit to Malta, which made me miss the Duisburg 10 km and the Zaventem half marathon. Instead, I went straight into a race at the peak of the Mediterranean summer heat, a night race at Żebbuġ. I had to retire mid-way through this, fearing heat stroke. I hadn't been feeling well, either, and I think I did well to stop. I did recover well in the remaining 2 and a half weeks, putting in regular midweek training runs early in the morning running 15 loops around the block of buildings in Ta' Giorni where we were staying, and most importantly two hour runs for two Sundays running. Mid-August. That was excellent.
Back in cool and temperate Belgium... I needed two more races to complete my seven. Vossem I ran in much the same spirit as Machelen and Kortenberg. Meaning that I ran as fast as I thought I could reasonably expect, only to discover with dismay at the end that my performance worse than usual. I had laughed at a good friend of mine a number of years back, back in Malta, who in his fifties had complained that his times were a minute more each year. "What should he expect?" I had wondered, almost aloud. He's not getting any younger and the older you get the slower you become. Well, it's hard to accept that when it's you who are hit by this tough reality.
The last run to complete my set of seven was the dreaded Bertem, with its impossible hill in the forest, that I had conquered well, twice, the previous year. This time the hill never materialised. Bertem, too, had had its course changed. I realised this gradually during the first loop, and then, with a sense of relief we started the long, fast downhill run back to the start for the second loop. It should be ok, then, no more terrible hill to worry about. But I had forgotten that, instead of going up a very steep hill, we needed to go up by exactly the same elevation over a longer distance. For the first time in this year's edition of the Loopcriterium, in the second half of the last event, I slowed down to a walk! With consequent mediocre time.
Good thing that 3 weeks later I made up for this demoralising setback with a decent performance at the Brussels half marathon.
It was enough for me to obtain yet another placing in the top 20 of my category for this year. There were exactly 7 out of 13 races that were physically possible for me to achieve, and I managed to do them all.
A long, dark, cold, wintry preparation for the Paris marathon now beckons. My last marathon?
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