I had not run
this race, one of my ‘early’ favourites in Belgium, since several years. This
time I thought it would serve as good race practice ahead of my upcoming
marathon in 8 weeks’ time. It would also delay by one week my build up of long
runs, which would otherwise peak one week too early. And serve as a welcome
break from very long runs, which I have now been doing without fail since I can’t
remember when.
Although I could
have thought of a somewhat more restful “break”. This hardly qualifies as
a break at all. A 20 km race on a hilly route cannot be considered to be a
rest. The really effective rest period will probably happen the next 5 days
with no running at all while on a sightseeing visit to Montenegro.
They have a habit
of changing race routes in Belgium. Les Hivernales is no exception. This year’s
was at least the third different version of the route that I can remember out
of my six participations to date. The initial loop around the streets of
Boitsfort was a bit more extended this time. It gave us the chance to get really
warmed up before embarking up the hill into the Foret des Soignes. There, we
followed the usual fairly steeply undulating route which, this year, instead of
going out to a narrow path adjacent to the road, turned back into the forest.
This was a good idea.
This route change
didn’t catch me by surprise as I had already had a look at it on the organisers’
website. So I was already bracing myself for a probable steep hill and, sure
enough, at around the ninth kilometre following a long fast downhill stretch,
we went down into a slight dip and came up against a wall, i.e. a steep hill. This was the turning
point of my run – a positive turning point. Many felt justified to walk up this
200 metre stretch. But I know, from experience, that once I walk it’s the end
of my performance and I will later keep slowing down to a walk for every little excuse. I
decided to treat this like running up a flight of steps and above all not to be
upset at the loss of speed. In any case, I was going past other ‘walkers’,
meaning that I was actually gaining ground compared to walking pace.
Soon enough, the
path came back to level and my breathing settled back to normal. It helped no
little that at the moment I’m rather fit from my marathon training and that I
had rested properly with no running at all during the previous two days. We
rejoined the laggards from the 10 km race. Going past so many runners was a
further boost for me and I kept up the momentum even after the latter went along
their own way while we took a further detour on our 20k route.
From here on it was the usual route. It wasn’t flat but never too steep either, except for
the bit at Groenendaal going up into the Tumulidreef at 16 to 17 km. I passed a fair number of
rivals in the last few kilometres. Two of them overtook me again in the last half
kilometre, but I didn’t react as I was running the fastest I could. My good
work had already been done – throughout the run.
Some statistics: time 1:16:04. Finishing position 257th of 889 finishers. 42nd of 180 in my age group. 4:50 minutes per kilometre. 12.43 kph
