It was rather chilly this morning at the extensive sports grounds on the outskirts of Perk, a few kilometres north east of Brussels.
This region, close to the Zaventem international airport, is very flat and in fact the sports grounds consist of large areas of grass, mostly football pitches next to each other, with a clubhouse close to the entrance from the street. This street leads further out into the flat countryside, towards another obscure Flemish village. Across the street from the sports centre is a wooded park, the dominant feature of which is a castle.
The race consisted of three loops inside the park, followed by a dash towards the sports centre and a rather large final loop there. As usual, in the beginning, the running was a bit crowded, the path being no more than 3 metres wide or so. It got worse, and for a good part of a whole kilometre we had to run in Indian file, unable to overtake, unless we wanted to risk injury on the uneven, muddy ground hidden by a thick layer of fallen leaves mixed with tall grass.
Considering that for three longish stretches I couldn't do any overtaking - going faster in the other bits doesn't quite make up for it - I can say that my final time of 45 minutes and a few seconds was a good performance. In my pre-injury post-40 years of age era my standard good time for a 10k was 44 minutes. I'm back in 13 point something km/h territory again, and my recovering hamstring only 'protested' at two particular spots in the triple loop, where it was so muddy we had to waddle through like penguins.
Silly route. But a good race for me.
This region, close to the Zaventem international airport, is very flat and in fact the sports grounds consist of large areas of grass, mostly football pitches next to each other, with a clubhouse close to the entrance from the street. This street leads further out into the flat countryside, towards another obscure Flemish village. Across the street from the sports centre is a wooded park, the dominant feature of which is a castle.
The race consisted of three loops inside the park, followed by a dash towards the sports centre and a rather large final loop there. As usual, in the beginning, the running was a bit crowded, the path being no more than 3 metres wide or so. It got worse, and for a good part of a whole kilometre we had to run in Indian file, unable to overtake, unless we wanted to risk injury on the uneven, muddy ground hidden by a thick layer of fallen leaves mixed with tall grass.
Considering that for three longish stretches I couldn't do any overtaking - going faster in the other bits doesn't quite make up for it - I can say that my final time of 45 minutes and a few seconds was a good performance. In my pre-injury post-40 years of age era my standard good time for a 10k was 44 minutes. I'm back in 13 point something km/h territory again, and my recovering hamstring only 'protested' at two particular spots in the triple loop, where it was so muddy we had to waddle through like penguins.
Silly route. But a good race for me.
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