Vilvoorde Sparta Parkloop 12 km - 0:55:40 - 26 March 2011

To my mind, Vilvoorde is best known as the locality that provides the third letter in the Belgian political issue known as BHV - Brussel/Hal/Vilvoorde. It's an extremely complicated regional argument involving court jurisdictions, linguistic rights, and whether you have the right to vote to Flemish or Francophonic parties. In real life, it's a suburb lying to the north of Brussels, and today I discovered it lies underneath the high-level overpass that is part of the northern section of the Brussels ring road.

They have a sports centre named Sparta Vilvoorde at the outskirts of the locality, right next to the river that flows into Brussels. It's a well-kept football pitch with running track at the edge of a rather extensive park, and this is where the Sparta Parkloop was held.

There was a notice close to the registration that gave very accurate data about the course - 411 metres + two loops of 5700 metres + 112 metres for a total distance of 11.923 km - although it's very likely that in this case theory and practise to not exactly coincide, as I'll explain further on... There was also an altitude chart, where it was clearly shown that here, too, runners would need to climb a good bit, come back down and go back up for the second loop.

The run was as tough as expected. I adopted the same race strategy as the previous week at the Tervuren Furaloop 16 km - a moderate pace in the first half followed by a stronger second half where I would overtake as many rivals as possible. I was quite anxious about how my leg muscles, especially my not-yet-healed left hamstring, would react to two strong efforts in the space of one week. During the race it felt as normal as I've become used to expect, and in fact in the second loop my main problem was that I felt tired due to the previous week's strong effort, not because of any recurring injury. In the final downhill, when I was trying to go really fast, I still ended up being overtaken by several others. Too bad. I'm not doing any fast interval training, so I'm still unable to push hard and sprint at the end of a race. Besides, it certainly wasn't worth the while to risk getting injured again. Running fast down a twisting narrow path would be simply asking for trouble.

For the time being, I'm more than satisfied with having achieved two races, with seemingly no lasting harmful effect, at a respectable though still substandard (compared to my standard) pace. There's still a lot of time to achieve a better pace. Here I ran the "11923 metres" in 0:55:40. Quite OK, and slightly faster than the previous week... except that I have strong doubts about the distance. In some sections the painted arrows followed zigzagged gravel paths, but everyone was running straight on the grass cutting across the zigzags. I would have been a fool not to follow suit!

Scott2Run (1) - Furaloop 16 km - 20 March 2011 - 1h15:43

At long last, back to real racing for the first time since more than 13 months.

It's the start of a brand new Scott2Run season here in Flemish Brabant, and the first of the series was a 10 miler starting and finishing in Tervuren today afternoon. We had close to perfect weather for the event, mostly sunny, not too cold at around 13 degrees, no wind at all. The sports complex area was teeming with youngsters and not-so-youngsters enjoying a lovely March Sunday afternoon, including of course hundreds of runners eager to debut in this second edition of the Scott2Run competition, which from 2010 has replaced the old Watermolen Cup.

The Furaloop 16 km is not a walk in the park! (Of course not, silly, it's a run in the forest...). Indeed. After a kilometre or so of running in residential streets, the route heads straight into the Foret de Soignes. I had done some research about the event, and I knew that it's quite a hilly affair. The run is almost entirely along forest paths, luckily wide enough for comfortable overtaking, on good gravelly ground that's not muddy at all.

I wanted to be careful to avoid the error of going too fast in the beginning. I'm still recovering my best form, the distance is rather lengthy, and after 13 months without any racing I'm a bit of a "beginner" - and beginners' most common mistake is that of being carried away and using up too much energy in the first half of a run, to end up exhausted in the second half.

So I chose an old tactic of mine, going at a moderate pace up to the midpoint, generally keeping my position and if necessary overtaking anyone who seems too slow, and then increasing the pace for the second half of the race. Many years ago I overheard an old running friend of mine (hello Tony Dimech, who knows, maybe you'll get to read this some day...) remark to his companion as I overtook them in the second part of a race in Malta, 'There he goes switching on his turbo engine'. I liked that, and 15 years later it's the same expression that I keep in mind when thinking of accelerating during the second half of a race.

The tactic worked, on the whole. It was a good thing that I had known in advance about the hilly nature of the route, so I wasn't taken by surprise there. It was quite satisfying that, although I have hardly done any hills at all during training for my comeback, I held my own very well in the (relatively mild) uphill stretches. It felt like it's always done during races. Fantastic! And after passing the 8km marker I did, indeed, switch on the "turbo engine". I started overtaking rivals. As I approached each successive "victim" I would say to myself, this guy normally ends up behind me in races (since I'm running slower than my standard pace), so he's no super runner, I can beat him. And beat them I did, quite a few of them.

It came to a point that I had moved up the field to reach other runners who were running at a pace that I couldn't beat. So during the last 3 km, when my legs started to tire out, I had to settle for maintaining my position, an objective that was, also, largely successful. The hamstring injury, which has still not healed completely, was beginning to make itself felt, and in certain uphill stretches now it was also affecting my gait.

The final couple of kilometres, back in built-up streets, I had become tired, but I managed to keep my pace nonetheless. True, I was overtaken by two or three rivals, but kept more or less the same distance from a fellow in blue who I had been following for a good while. I haven't been doing any speedwork involving intervals yet, so I lack the punch to carry out a sprint in the final run-up. It seemed like it was never going to end! But end it did, at a very respectable 1h15:43. Very good, considering the long stop due to injury and the fact that I still have to recover and regain my best form.

Let's just wait for the consequences in my hamstring the next few days. Hopefully, it should be OK.

I'M BACK "IN THE RUNNING"!

Au revoir, Maroc!

At a few minutes past 6 in the morning, I would get out of the bed in my hotel room, and 'sneak' out through the pool area into the wide promenade that runs along the sandy coastline of Agadir in Morocco.

It would still be dark, and surprisingly cold. The promenade is lit during the night by floodlights. You can see seagulls flying around in their light. There's a permanent noise created by waves coming in from the Atlantic ocean and breaking up on the beach. Far away perched on top of a hill lie the ruins of the old kasbah that was destroyed by an earthquake in 1960. On the slope going up the hill, huge, well-lit Arabic lettering proclaims, as a talisman against any further disaster, the three entities that are most dear to Moroccans: "God, the King, the Country".

This was the setting for early morning runs that I used to do when I spent a few splendidly wonderful days in Agadir with my family. I made it a point to run almost everyday, to make up a bit for much too many calories that I was consuming at the hotel. I have to say the strategy worked well, as I hardly gained any weight at all during my stay there...

The unusual ambience gave rise to a couple of memorable runs. I wasn't alone. Morocco is a bountiful haven of long distance runners, and Agadir has its good share of afacionados. That's apart from many foreign visitors who like me wanted to keep up their training schedule while on holiday.

The promenade runs for several kilometres along the seashore. I would run all the way towards the yacht marina, along the quays for the marina, up to a point where it was impossible to go any further, and turn back. Sunset and sunrise are very rapid affairs close to the tropics, with hardly any twilight to speak of, so even though I would start my 10km run in pitch darkness, on my way back the lights would be switched off, the road clearly visible, and by the time I reached the hotel the sun would already have come up.

Some stretching, good morning to the guard sitting at the beach front entrance to the hotel, a quick shower, breakfast, and another enjoyable day exploring this region of Morocco.

Au revoir, Maroc!