Sunday, September 8, 2013

Still running...

Some have misinterpreted my "That's all, folks" along with "Now I'll call it a day as far as running marathons is concerned" to mean that I've given up running altogether.

I even reinforced that impression by not writing here at all for a long time.

Well, nothing could be further from the truth. The crucial word that some have missed was "marathons". I was calling it a day as far as running marathons was concerned. Not running. So in fact I did keep on running, although with several interruptions and comebacks, which seem to have become the rule in this day and age (i.e. past half a century...) for me.

After a very difficult marathon in Rotterdam in April earlier this year, I decided that I didn't need to put myself through the pain of running marathons, so I would be running shorter races instead. The Scott2Run aggregate challenge was already in progress, but I was still in time to join the fray.

The challenge consists of 17 races held between March and early October in the Flemish part of the Brabant region. You compete with other athletes in your age and sex category by acquiring points depending on the placing you achieve in each race participation, final totals being based on the best 9 results for each athlete. This means that you need to complete 9 out of the 17 races to be eligible for a prize, which is given to the top 25 placed athletes in each category.

By the day I ran the marathon, I had already missed three races, and the following Sunday I thought it would be risky to do the fourth one - a 16 km - so the first available race was a 12 km race in an unheard of place called Tildonk, on 1st May, a public holiday on Wednesday. There were now 13 races left, of which I needed to complete 9, and one of the 13 was unavailable anyway since I would be away on summer vacation. So it was 12 races available, with the ever-present risk of injury or illness or not being able to participate in some of them for any number of reasons.

Well, here in this blog, a long while ago I decided to start to record my most memorable runs. I grew lazy in this, and I've been missing out on some of the good ones. In this post I'm recording collectively all the runs of this year's Scott2Run challenge, except for the last one, which is hopefully yet to happen, and each in their own way these runs have been quite remarkable. So here goes.

No. 1 - Wednesday 1 May - Tildonk - 12.6 km - 0h59:19. Two days later I had another race, an old favourite close to home, the Hoeilaart 11.2 km, but I thought that I couldn't afford to miss yet another race if I wanted to achieve my nine placings, and decided to participate in this one at training pace to notch up a couple of hundred points, and save up my energy for two days later and do Hoeilaart as well. It was one of the rare occasions when we had a warm sunny day this spring, and the event turned out to be a pleasant affair - three 4 km completely flat loops along country roads and pathways in an agricultural area. No warm up, just as in training runs, and I took it easy, just enjoying the pretty landscape and avoiding the slower runners at the back of the field. Of course, I ended up overtaking other runners, but took great care not to exert myself too much. I really should consider doing more of this type of relaxed "racing"...

No. 2 - Friday 3 May - Hoeilaart - 11.2 km - 0h51:27. The combination Tildonk/Hoeilaart over three days worked out fine. I wasn't tired at all from the race of two days previously, and here I could run a proper race, which I hadn't done for many months due to my preparation for April's marathon. It was my typical race when I do well, starting at a moderate pace just keeping up with the rest of my section of the field, avoiding the slower runners, and after the initial crowding thins out overtaking rivals one after the other, possibly until the end, when I have to find a kerb where to sit down, utterly exhausted, but satisfied that I've performed to 99% of my capacity.

No. 3 - Sunday 9 June - Sterrebeek - 10 km - 0h46:07. Recovering from a cold, yet again I was more concentrated on notching up points rather than racing proper. It's what kept me going at one particularly difficult point. It turned out that I notched the most points here at least from the first seven races.

No. 4 - Saturday 22 June - Machelen - 9 km - 0h39:52. I didn't do the Buizingen 12k, for no reason except that I don't like this particular route. It may have been an error, as it turned out, as I might even now not be able to obtain my nine placings because of this omission. But Machelen I did do, even though it's becoming a habit for me to lose my way until I get there... And I did it extremely well, though not as well as I thought at first. You see, the Belgians have rather a cavalier regard to race distances. Like, for example, this one, which was advertised as a 10 km run, so when I came in at less than 40 minutes I thought that I had run a lifetime best for a 10k at the age of 50! It couldn't be the case, of course, but it was still one of my best performances for several years, and my fastest pace achieved yet in this edition of the Scott2Run - 13.54 kph.

Summer break. Five placings to go, with six races available after the break. But during the holidays I had a silly accident. A badly assembled deckchair collapsed under my weight, and I fell on a horizontal metal bar with my back. I could barely walk afterwards and had to stop training for close to three weeks, but was lucky to escape a bad injury to my spine. Such was the "run-up" to:

No. 5 - Friday 9 August - Duisburg 10.2 km - 0h53:00. I would need to do at least one of this and the Zaventem half marathon, six days later, in order to be able to achieve nine placings for the final classification. My injury was almost healed, so I calculated that maybe I could try both events at training pace and just get the points. I barely managed the first one. It was a pleasant event on a summer Friday evening, with lots of beer and chips stalls, and posters abounding with pictures of a certain Suzy who was turning 50 on the day. If we saw her, the posters urged us, we were to give her a "kuss". The route was your typical Belgian convoluted affair among country lanes, rough paths consisting of dust, gravel, weeds or (worst of all) cobbles. I made it to the finish at faster than training pace, but not by much. Following this, I had to stop running again, as my injury wasn't over at all yet. The half marathon was out of the question, of course, but I had managed to get the points that mattered at Duisburg.

No. 6 - Friday 23 August - Vossem 11.7 km - 0h54:15. Many people say that summer in Belgium is a joke. But it isn't, and this event quite often happens at the peak of the summer heat. At 7 in the evening, the temperature was in the high 20s as we prepared for this race. My injury was now really over, and I had had enough training sessions to do this race at almost standard pace, starting off cautiously, but soon enough going through the overtaking routine, through rough country lanes then up and down many paths in the forest adjacent the Tervuren park. It was only in the last couple of hundred metres as we were racing back to Vossem that I had to slow down a bit, thoroughly exhausted, but happy at the entirely satisfactory end result. I was back in the running!

No. 7 - Sunday 1 September - Bertem 10.6 km - 0h48:11. This was a killer! The route was entirely along rough paths, much of the way on cobbles, gravel or dirt/dust/weeds, including some uphill sections, one of which was so steep we had to slow down to a walk. Going back to running after the steepest part, but still going uphill and breathless, required superhuman willpower... The road back down was cobbled, and followed by a (finally) asphalted stretch back to the start. This loop we did twice. A very tough race, where I registered another good performance.

No. 8 - Saturday 7 September - Overijse 14.6 km (advertised as 13 km...) - 1h08:48. My home race. I could jog from home to the start. Strangely enough, there weren't many participants in this, which worked to my advantage as it resulted in a higher number of points. Two loops, again quite hilly, cobbly at one stretch and literally running through fields at others. Typically tough and exhausting.

Now it's just one more race to go at Steenokkerzeel in early Octber, and I will have made it. Nine races and inclusion in the top 25 in the final classification, the last four placings being the only four yet available. A great feat for me, considering all the difficulties and setbacks. Only, that is, if I make it intact to the finish at Steenokkerzeel...

Sunday, April 14, 2013

The Rotterdam marathon


Well, that's it folks. There have been ups and downs, but the end result was good. Fourteen marathons. Now I think I'll call it a day as far as running marathons is concerned. More on this later.

My Rotterdam marathon was going quite well up to 35 km. I was keeping close to my target time, having gained one minute "for safe keeping" for the later difficult stages. Only, I hadn't bargained with hitting the mythical 'Wall' big time. I had been hoping that this time I really was about to break the 3h30m barrier away from the island of Malta. I was keeping to the target times each kilometre, but past the 32 km mark or so the tiredness started to creep in. Incredibly, I was still keeping to my timings, in spite of this tiredness.

"Come on! You're so close to a memorable achievement", I thought.

They have a silly system for handing out drinks. Cups. What a nightmare. With bottles, the helpers hold out the bottle and you literally snatch it out of their hands without breaking your pace, and then proceed to drink from said bottle, again without any real slack in pace. No so with cups! If you try to take a cup while maintaining your pace the liquid will inevitably spill out. So you need to slow down to a walk. This creates havoc with the normal flow of the runners, with many a potential argument and lots of shoving and shouting as some of the runners have no intention of slowing down to pick up a drink. You then need to keep walking for a few more seconds while you gulp the contents of the cup, and proceed with your run while inevitably increasing the pace to make up for lost time.

After gulping down my drink at 35 km, I couldn't resume at my previous pace. I was too tired. I started to toy with the idea of slowing down to a walk. After some resistance the prospect became too attractive, and slow down to a walk is exactly what I did. I realised there and then that this spelt the end of my marathon career. It's become simply too hard for my liking. The disappointment was huge, and a new problem had now cropped up. There were 7 km left - which is not very much if you're running, but a completely harder task if you're walking on legs that are as stiff as tree trunks.

We had our names written just underneath the numbers that we wore on our chest. It's endearing to hear complete strangers shout out your name for encouragement. There were lots of spectators almost throughout the course providing fantastic support. The shouts of 'Come on Tonio!' became more frequent when I slowed to a walk, but all I could do was applaud back at them and signal that there was simply nothing I could do to make my legs run.

After an endless one and a half kilometres' walk, a particularly insistent group of spectators wouldn't give up until I tried to break into a jog. This provoked a huge applause from them. I alternated periods of walking and jogging, with the encouragement and applause routine being repeated several times.

Dear Dutch spectators of the Rotterdam marathon. You rock!

At long last I started the final kilometre. I had been having a final lapse into walking to prepare for the final effort and come in running at the finish. A man actually came out from the barriers and started jogging next to me inviting me to join him. When I resumed my jog he disappeared back behing the barriers. A few moments later, someone came from behind and planted himself right in front of me, making me break my step.

"Bhima!"

I resolved I would chase him and beat him to the finish. Incredibly, in my worst ever marathon, where I slowed down to a walk for several times, where 6 km to the finish my legs were so stiff I could barely walk, I actually finished at a sprint, leaving the bhima behind me and coming in at a not too disrespectable time (considering the periods spent walking) of about 3h45m.

As I said in the beginning, running marathons is taking too much out of me. I have been running marathons for all these years, because I wanted to. Now I'm quitting, because I don't really need to run marathons. Of course, this consideration existed even in the past, but the difference, now, is that I no longer want to burden myself with this huge effort, including many months of preparation.

It's been good. Now I can look forward to racing shorter distances again, which is not a bad idea at all.


Monday, January 28, 2013

The abominable Yeti


Many of us who run marathons do so some time in spring. This means that at the peak of winter we are busy building up our training distances to approach that of the real thing. There's no escaping this - no long runs, no marathon, which means that whenever winter lives up to its reputation, we could postpone going out for our long runs, but only for one week, otherwise we won't reach the level of fitness needed to run 42km on the fast approaching date of the big event.

Which was why, when it started to snow a couple of Sundays back, I didn't even consider not going out for my long training run. I had scheduled a 2h45m run for that day, and that's what I set out to do, even though it had snowed during the night and it was still snowing as I set out.

The ground was soft and silent. Traffic was almost non-existent. It was wonderful, especially in the forest. I ran out towards the lovely Tervuren Park, where I had to face the first real difficulty as I approached the half way mark, before turning back 1h22m into the run. The bitter cold wind was biting into my exposed cheeks, my face became almost numb and I certainly looked forward to turning back to run along with the wind!

A second hurdle I had to overcome was just as difficult. It had been snowing all along, and while on my way out it was quite pleasant to tread on a thin layer of soft white stuff, this had by now become a much thicker layer of white stuff rendered uneven by lots of other joggers, people who enjoy a wintry walk in the forest, and even cross-country skiers. It was like running on sand, and the only way home was to run back...

Icicles had formed under my eyebrows. My hair was covered in a layer of ice, which possibly served as a cap, trapping a layer of insulating air that kept my scalp warm. But the ground was very uneven and progress on it was much slower than on my way out. Luckily, I had had the good sense to allow the possibility of a short cut for my way back, but the slower pace resulted in the 2h45m duration that I had been aiming for.

If I manage to make it to Rotterdam in April, this will be one of the main milestones of my way there. It was certainly a run that I won't forget very easily. The pictures up above, taken exactly at the end of my run, will serve as a good reminder...