Running in the clouds

On a misty, chilly mid-November dawn I set out to get back on track in my preparation for a marathon some time in spring of next year. It was more than five weeks since I'd last run for more than an hour, including three weeks without any training at all due to a bad backache that, literally, floored me. So I was quite apprehensive about my level of fitness barely ten days after having resumed training. Eight years, almost to the day, after moving to Belgium, I was about to partake of a great spectacle, laid out especially for my comeback long run by my adopted home country.

From the edge of Hoeilaart I set out towards the Foret de Soignes, where the colourful Belgian autumn was in full display. It's the last few days before autumn gives way to a wintry landscape. The forest paths are covered by a carpet of fallen red, brown and yellow leaves, but there are still enough leaves clinging to the branches to complete an all-round spectacle, on the ground and up above.

In some places it was very foggy, but there were clear patches. I was practically running from one low-lying cloud to the another. I was so enthralled with the spectacle that I forgot all about my level of fitness and the 5-week gap in long distance running.

At one point, the rising sun broke through a multitude of tree trunks and branches in front of me, adding a golden aura to my run.

Glorious!

I managed to run the 90 minutes back to the starting point. The plan was that if I felt strong enough after 90 minutes I would add a second, shorter loop, for a possible total of 2 hours, i.e. the long run I was doing  five weeks earlier, before the injury. So I ran an additional 15 minutes in the opposite direction towards Overijse and then turned back, et voilà - simple, really - two hours done and my long distance training is back on track. Great run!

Sore leg muscles...

Bang on cue, on turning 50 I'm having to come to terms with what I'll call OOA - the Onset of Old Age.

Well, if you're a runner you know how it is with injuries. You carry out a training programme, doing progress towards a given goal, but you're always prone to injury or illness, which forces you to take a break from training.

With OOA it's exactly like that for me, but the other way round. As a general rule I'm injured, but every now and then I take a break from injury to do some training.

I may be exaggerating, but it's not far from the real situation. Since April, when I ran the Madrid marathon, I've had to take long breaks from running, first due to a seemingly never-ending cold, then a pain in the knee that slowed my walk to a limp, and most recently a severe back pain that immobilised me almost completely.

This latest mishap floored me, literally at the worst point, and very nearly metaphorically as well. It's so frustrating to carefully build up your training over a long period of time and then to lose the fitness and endurance gained after so much hard work, having to start all over again after succumbing to an injury or illness. I almost concluded that maybe the time has arrived when I should hang up my running shoes and call it a day.

But, deep in my heart, I knew that after recovery I would resume my training, and by the first sign that my back muscles were back to their good old normal fragile self I went out into the street for a five-minute jog. The following day I did 18 minutes and today 30 minutes. It's such a good sensation to feel the soreness in my leg muscles again!

No, retirement can wait a few more decades. So many thousands of marathon runners are over 50, over 55, over 60, even over 70, and as long as I'm healthy I'm going to compete with them. So, no, dear Mr OOA, Sir, you'll have to do much worse than what you've thrown at me this year to make me stop running.