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"!
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"!
1 comment:
Congrats for the comeback to racing.
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