Watermolen Cup 2009 - Epilogue

Success!

I have just checked the final classification of the Watermolen Cup competition, and I just managed to scrape through into the 20th position of my category, with 1574 points, barely two points ahead of my closest rival. It was the last position available for obtaining a prize - 16th to 20th place in the male veteran category - a 25 euro voucher from the Watermolen sports shop.

It was the prize I have been aiming for since the beginning of the competition, all the way since March at Dworp, that interesting but very hilly race through forests in that area, just a couple of weeks after the Malta marathon. Two points. Any slower in any one of the seven races (again, the minimum allowable to obtain a classification), and Francois Rotiers would have beaten me for the 20th position.

So, even the disastrous Kortenberg 12k turned out to be extremely important in the end. While, of course, the race for nut cases on a hot 15 August in mid afternoon, the Zaventem half marathon, was the decisive event that gave me the highest number of points in the competition. That was an incredible run!

These 13 races of the Watermolen Cup will from now on be the framework running calendar for my adopted home in Belgium. I intend to repeat the competition next year, just keeping wary of the possibility of having to negotiate some steep, narrow, slippery forest paths on certain occasions. Hopefully, I'll manage to run in those places where I was unable to participate this year.

So thank you, organisers of the Watermolen Cup. I'm keeping the number 5700 for the 2100 edition.

Vossem 12km - 0h53:46

Vossem seems to me to be a quiet, sleepy village, surrounded by agricultural land and parks, close to the more famous Tervuren. Arriving here, I noticed two landmarks that were noteworthy. One is a large farm building, pictured above, quite striking as you're approaching the village centre. The other is the church dedicated to Saint Paul that dates back to the 12th century, with construction typical of very old structures, with bricks embedded in mortar, but very well kept. Pity I couldn't have a look inside, as I was dressed rather inappropriately in short shorts and running vest...

This weekend they had their Dorpsfeesten, whatever that is. The sleepy quiet character of the place was of course shattered on this occasion. There was a street market, a stage, someone shouting on a PA system, and lots of chips and beer stalls, always all too present in these races, without it being possible for me to buy anything since I don't carry any money with me during races!

Again, it was awfully hot today, as I embarked on my seventh race in the Watermolen Cup, which would ensure a placing in the final classification. Again, I had to drink lots of water before the race, and pour lots more on top of my head to cool down a little bit. And yet again I cursed the strange idea of race organisers in Belgium, who could easily schedule August races in the morning, or in the evening, so that participants might run in temperatures that are better suited for endurance events. But no! The races have to start in the hottest part of the day, in mid-afternoon.

Well, 10k is more achievable than 21k. But I made it a point to stick to a cautious pace, at least for the first third of the race. All this Watermolen Cup series has for me been a bit of a jump in the dark, since I have never done any one of the races, so I didn't know what to expect during the routes. So, again, today I didn't know if it was a single or a double loop, if it was a flat or a hilly race, or if we would be doing easy-going bicycle lanes and normal roads, or if we would be doing any treacherous forest paths that the Belgians seem to like so much.

For a couple of kilometres it was normal streets, going slightly uphill or downhill. There was a double kilometre marker after 2km, saying "2km 8km". How sweet of them, I thought, 2km gone, 8 to go. We entered a wood and the ground started to get rough. But I had settled into a good steady pace, even though the quality of the ground kept deteriorating. There were a couple of stretches of single file running. Luckily, it has only rained on rare occasions for the past few weeks, otherwise this would have been another mud feast. Instead it was bone dry and very dusty. It seemed as if I was running in Tunisia rather than in Belgium.

A second, cryptic kilometre marker: 4km 10km. What the hell? Did they mean the 4th kilometre of the 10km race? Maybe. Then an even stranger marker: 5km 11km. Never mind. But one question had been answered. It was not a double loop, since at the half-way point, i.e. 5km, we hadn't passed the starting point. Or so I thought. A few minutes later I started to hear shouting on a PA system, and suddenly it clicked and all the cryptic kilometre markers made utterly perfect sense: we were doing a double loop after all, the half-way mark being at 6km!

They had advertised a 10km race, but in actual fact it was going to be 12km long.

What a mean trick to play on a hot August afternoon. When I go out for a run, whether it's training or a race, I'm mentally prepared for the distance. When doing a 10k, at the end of that 10k I'm unable to contemplate any more, while two days later I would be quite capable of running 30km without any undue trouble. It's a psychological thing. But there's also the physical aspect. The pace of a 10k is faster than that of a 12k, and I had been running at the former pace, with consequent expenditure of energy. Now I had to keep going for an extra 2 kilometres, which was no joke in that heat. So, I switched to '12k mode', aiming to maintain the good position that I had achieved up till then.

Luckily, it was early enough for me to readjust and 'absorb' the additional distance into my race. I also happened to be in good shape, and it seems that I had hit on the optimum pace. Another advantage was that now, having done one loop, I knew what to expect, so I could prepare myself (mentally, again) for the hard parts, and again I overtook a good number of rivals even the second part. No stopping for drinks today - I reckoned I could survive the distance without having to stop to drink in the plastic cups provided, thanks to my extra pre-race hydration.

After the final bit of steep forest path I felt a bit groggy, but there were just two kilometres left to go, mostly downhill, and I quickly recovered a strong pace that took me beyond more rivals up to the finish.

It was a fantastic performance overall, one of my very best this year.

Zaventem half marathon - 1h38:55

Most people consider summer in Belgium to be a bit of a joke. "Summer? What summer?" they will say. This idea is apparently shared by Dwars door Zaventem, the organisers of the annual Zaventem half marathon that takes place on 15 August, the main summer holiday in Europe. It must be the reason why they don't choose a different time for the race, which takes place at the peak of the afternoon heat starting at 2 p.m.

To be fair, today happened to be abnormally hot. The maximum temperature has been in the low twenties since quite a few days, but it went up to around 30 C precisely on the day of the half marathon. Still, surely it's not unheard of that temperatures tend to be hot in the afternoon at the peak of summer. Would it be such a bad idea then for a half marathon in mid-August to start at, say, 10 a.m. rather than at 2 p.m.?

Whatever - 2 p.m. it was, and that's when I joined the small crowd of long distance diehards at the starting line, under a scorching sun at the edge of the communal park in Zaventem. I had known since close to a week that it would be very hot today, so I was well prepared, having taken a lot of water, plus poured another bottle over the top of my head to cool me down.

Having had a few disappointments in racing recently, owing to having started too fast, my aim today, also given the prevailing conditions, would be simply to complete the run, without aiming for any spectacular finishing time. So I positioned myself in the middle of the pack, and for a good while simply ran along with them, trying not to exert myself at all. It was a bit the same way as I run a marathon.

It was amusing how many runners were jostling to secure a place wherever there was a little bit of shade. Zaventem is famous for hosting the "Brussels" international airport, but I was quite surprised that neither at the start nor during the run was this evident at all. In fact Zaventem turned out to be a typical Flemish town with the main feature (apart from the airport) being the church, and consisting mainly of residential streets, parks and cycling lanes.

To my huge relief we didn't have any treacherous forest paths to negotiate. It was simply terra firma all the way, and also relatively flat, so I could easily settle into the steady pace for which I had been aiming. For the first time ever, I stopped at water stations, where we were (yet again) offered water in cups. I was prepared for this too, and had already decided I couldn't afford to spill the precious fluid. I would stop for 5 seconds to gulp down the entire contents of the cup and resume my run. Four such stops would only cost me 20 seconds, and were more than worthwhile since the alternative would be to eventually give up due to dehydration.

In the middle part of the race I gained quite a few positions. As I passed one particular runner, he jokingly told me "professional", and I replied, "well, almost but not quite...". But in fact I was doing well, and soon realised that there were just 5 km remaining. I hadn't overtaken anyone for a good stretch, and after another kilometre decided this was the time when I could push myself a bit more, encouraged by the fact that I had been told that the final 4 km were mostly downhill.

I'm still undecided whether it was the right decision. I did, in fact, overtake various other rivals, but with 2 km to go my steam ran out, and they were a very tough final 2 km. As if this wasn't enough, there was a 'sting' in the final few hundred metres, as we had to do a loop in the park, part of which was a rather steep hill, turning into a finishing downhill stretch on the grass. Still, no one overtook me at all in those last 2 km, so I suppose in fact I actually gained a few positions by deciding to force the pace.

What a race! A half marathon under the hot afternoon sun in mid-August, with the temperature in the shade at 29 C. Unfortunately, there was no complimentary beer or wine or memento here either. They gave us an apple. Maybe they're concerned for our health, although there was lots of beer for sale... I also got a ticket for a lottery ("tombola") with prizes including a mountain bike. The draw would take place two hours later, at 6. I didn't have a single cent on me, so I staggered towards the car and drove back home. I probably won the mountain bike, but wasn't there to claim the prize. I still have the tombola ticket, number 720.

Kortenberg - 12.4 km - 0h56:28

A week ago I yearned for the "quiet, peaceful, clean, car-free shaded cool of a forest in Belgium". Well, today I got my forest with a vengeance, but it was just a bit more than I had bargained for...

It was certainly quiet, there were no cars threatening to run me over, it was reasonably cool and also shaded, much too shaded, so shaded that running as I always do without my glasses I could hardly see where I was going and seriously feared twisting an ankle. It was also clean. Well, sort of. That's if you consider ankle-deep mud to be clean. At least there wasn't any vomit on the ground, as there had been in my 'Pigsty Run' of last Sunday.

There's this thing about races in Belgium. If there's a forest in the vicinity, they'll take you there. And they're not happy to simply route them through well-worn and well-made forest paths that are wide enough to allow overtaking, and smooth enough to be suitable for running fast. No! They prefer narrow, treacherous paths, preferably with tree roots growing on the surface, perfectly placed to trip you up. The paths are inclined sideways, with a sharp drop into a ravine next to the lower edge. When it rains, the ground becomes muddy and slippery, so after struggling up a steep hill, side-stepping across a watery trench or sometimes through ankle-deep mud, you get no reprieve at the downhill parts, as you have to be extra careful you don't slip and hurt yourself badly.

I have to admit, irrespective of the horrid ground conditions, that I wasn't in good shape today. It happens sometimes. Maybe I was hampered by the fact that I haven't been doing any speed training recently. Or my legs are tired through too much long distance running. Or the extreme heat of the past three weeks in Malta have sapped my energy resources.

Whatever... I console myself with the fact that, even though this is now my second successive race which ended in disappointment, I'm still doing very well in my long runs, and that's what really matters if I want to run a successful Brussels marathon this October. In fact, as I struggled through the mud of the Kortenberg forest today, I decided to forget about racing and satisfy myself with simply completing the run and avoiding injury, thereby bagging points for the Watermolen Cup.

Back on terra firma in the last kilometre, where I could finally run properly, I tried to re-enter into the spirit of the race by competing and trying to overtake some of those whom I had allowed to pass at the one-man wide passages in the forest. Even this was only a partial success, as I had to contend with an occasional sharp cramp in my left calf. It really wasn't my day today.

At the finish I grabbed and drank a can of mineral water, named Vlaams something and labelled strictly and exclusively in their blessed Vlaams language, then immediately proceeded toward the car to drive back home. They didn't give us any memento or a bottle of beer or wine as most other race organisers do.

Or even a bag of crisps.

Machelen, 9.6 km - 0h41:58 - lovely race!

If you're a motorist in Belgium, you had better watch out for the linguistic tangle that is one of the main characteristics of this country. They have this rigid policy that, unless you're in the officially bilingual Brussels, signposting is strictly monolingual. They even go out of their way to black out any writing in the "offensive" language. This policy is vigorously applied in Dutch-speaking Flanders, as a reaction to French-speakers' linguistic chauvinism, to the detriment of the very idea of Belgium as one nation, and of innocent neutrals, especially expatriates who have to learn TWO instead of one new language to integrate properly in this country. It has apparently not occurred to anyone to follow the Brussels region model of two official languages for the whole of Belgium, which would go a long way to eliminate this ridiculous state of affairs and restore national unity.

The monolingual policy is also enforced for signposting of place names. Therefore, if you're in Flanders and you wish to drive to Mons, you will only approach your desired destination by following the signs to... Bergen! If you wish to go Liège, the word disappears from all signs as you enter Flemish territory, and unless you know that the Dutch name for Liège is Luik, you'll think you've lost your way. Further examples abound. Antwerp is Anvers for the francophones. Bruxelles is Brussel for the Flemish, while Namur becomes Namen.

It would hardly be surprising, then, if a newcomer who was on the way from Brussels to the beautiful town of Mechelen were to think that they had arrived on seeing the arrows leading to a place called Machelen. Surely, this must be one of the two conflicting language versions of the town's name. How mistaken they would be! Mechelen in French is... Malines! And, in any case, they would rather die than write the word in French on their roadsigns.

In fact, apart from the close proximity and the fact that they are both Flemish towns, Machelen and Mechelen are two distinct and completely unrelated places. Mechelen I've visited several times, and I hope to go there many times again. I was curious about Machelen, but I shouldn't have been. It's situated close to the "Brussels" airport, which is actually in Zaventem, not Brussels. It's also close to a main motorway, the E19 that links Brussels to Antwerp. But, in spite of the background noise created by airplanes and the motorway traffic, it's still a quiet, peaceful, unpretentious village, with a beautiful church dedicated to Christ the King in the centre, and consisting mostly of tree-lined streets and houses surrounded by gardens, large areas of green, parks, fields, and extensive sports grounds.

The Machelen '10' km race, which forms part of the Watermolen Cup series, is the main event in an afternoon with several smaller events, including races for children, all starting and finishing in the athletics track of the Machelen sports centre.

For a few seconds at the beginning of the race, when we commenced a second lap of the track, I thought the entire race would consist of 25 laps on the track, which is of course impossible to manage with over 200 participants. In fact, midway through the second lap we left the track, and went off on an interesting, convoluted route going through grass, parkland, road pavements, around sports pavillions, public gardens and country roads that were completely devoid of traffic and surrounded by large cornfields. It was a beautiful route, and almost completely flat. I started at a moderate pace and after a kilometre or so started my usual overtaking routine, never exerting myself too much. When we re-entered the stadium I was hardly winded at all, but a look at the watch revealed that we had already done half the distance. So, it would be a double loop, quite popular around these parts, apparently.

The second loop went by smoothly enough. For me, the water station was useless as they gave us water in plastic cups. I can't drink out of a cup while running, so I just poured the water over my hair to cool down a little bit. Another look at the watch as we approached the stadium for the second and last time, and I thought that there was something wrong. The time was just 38 minutes - much less than my anticipated time for a 10k. But in fact we were almost there. A three-quarter loop on the outside of the stadium and I was on the final 100 metre stretch.

A final look at the watch at the finish showed 41:58! I haven't run a sub-42 minute 10k for ages. Surely, the distance run must have been less than 10 km. I asked someone as we left the stadium, and his GPS had measured the route at 9.63 km. That's much more realistic, for me, but it's still a very good time - just under 7 minutes per mile for 6 miles.

I thoroughly enjoyed this picturesque, quiet, and very flat route. They sent us away with a much appreciated farewell gift, too - a bottle of French red wine named Coteaux du Languedoc. Now, I wonder what they would call THAT in Flemish...

Thank you so much, Machelen, I enjoyed myself tremendously today. I hope to return next year.

24 May 2009 - Tervuren Parkloop, 10.8km - 0h47:37

Tervuren is a suburb of Brussels that is one of the most popular places of residence for expatriates around the Belgian capital. It is dominated by a beautiful park, built by the flamboyant King Leopold II in the late 19th century, and housing a grand African museum.

One could hardly expect a race held in Tervuren not to feature the local park prominently. There were, in fact, no surprises, and the route quickly headed into the park where we negotiated numerous paths under the shade provided by the tall trees on this gorgeous May morning. The ground conditions were generally fine since it hadn't rained for quite a few days, so we could concentrate simply on racing each other and on the changing inclines, mostly not too challenging, and alternating over and over from slightly uphill to slightly downhill.

The race distance wasn't advertised very clearly at all. The Watermolen Cup website gave the distance as 14 km in one place, and 10.2 km in another. On the spot, before the start, it transpired that it was the latter case, so I reckoned if I did well I would finish in my 'standard' 44 minutes for 10k plus a further minute to cover the extra 200 metres - adding up to 45 minutes.

I ran at a moderately strong pace, overtaking a large number of rivals throughout the route while going uphill as well downhill. But still, at the end, I was just a little bit disappointed for two reasons. First of all, in the last few minutes I almost tired out, allowing two of my rivals to catch up and overtake me. Besides which, the finishing time was worse than expected - 0h47:37. Oh well, I thought, my 'standard' 10k must be getting slower with the advancing years, and my preferred race distance is pushing evermore toward the longer distances...

Until I discovered that the actual distance run was not 10.2 km at all, but 10.8, which is 600 metres longer than expected! Which accounts for my getting tired in the last few minutes, since I had been targeting an earlier completion, as well as for the extra two and a half minutes. Conclusion - my 'standard' 10k pace hasn't deteriorated, yet... 88th out of 312 finishers, 24th out of 68 in my age category, isn't such a bad placing after all.

Melsbroek driekastelen 12km - 0h51:35

For my second race in the 2009 Watermolen Cup I went to Melsbroek, which is a rather anonymous village sitting next to the Zaventem ("Brussels") international airport. Given its location, I suspected that the race organised here by the Vilvoorde Athletic Club wouldn't have too many hills and undulations. My intuition was correct, and in fact the route, which goes twice round a 6 km loop, is very nearly flat.

In spite of the name of the event, which refers to three castles, I only managed to see one. As is apparently customary in Belgium, a good proportion of the race runs through wooded areas, generally away from motor traffic. The paths were quite acceptable, with pleasant surroundings consisting of woods, large fields covered by yellow flowers, a lake and the aforementioned castle, all in next-to-perfect spring weather.

The flat profile made for a pretty fast pace. This being my first time here, I did not know the route, so it was only at the sixth kilometre that I found out that we were to do a double loop. It was quite disheartening to learn that participants in the single-loop short race had completed their effort, while those of us who were doing the main event had to run the same loop, at the same fast pace, all over again. Given that the field had thinned out, I probably ran the second loop faster, but by the final 2 km I couldn't keep up the pace, and was in fact overtaken by three rivals.

Those last two km, when my strength nearly ran out, were somewhat disappointing. It's possible, in fact it's a certainty, that I need to beef up my endurance. But a look at my watch as I crossed the finishing line provided a second valid explanation for my exhaustion. I had run very fast (by my standard), more than one minute better than the anticipated 53 minutes, and at less than 7 minutes per mile, which is a pace that I haven't achieved since a long time. Conclusion: excellent race! :-)

Dworp 11.6 km, 0h50:23

Dworp is a pretty little village with a funny name situated on the outskirts Brussels, in the Flemish part close to the great linguistic divide of Belgium. Like many localities in Belgium, it is situated close to a forest, and the organizers of the Lentejogging te Dworp races make ample use of the fact.

My first race participation competition in Belgium, the Watermolen Cup, started today in Dworp, on a gloriously sunny day loaded with promise for the spring season that has just begun. With barely any training since the marathon of 1 March in Malta, and coming back from a brief stop due to a strained hamstring, I relied on my pre-marathon preparation to be sufficient to see me through this event.

After a few hundred metres in the streets of Dworp, the route took a sharp uphill incline going straight into a forest to the south. Here I started overtaking lots of rivals, and tiring though it is to run uphill, with the added disadvantage of not knowing what was coming next since it was for me the very first time here, I never slowed down, and on the level stretches I maintained my position well. The course undulated, more uphill than downhill, and in each uphill stretch I kept improving my position. But I was also tiring out, and was looking forward to the downhill part that would take us back to Dworp.

I finished at 50:23, which was better than I had expected, also considering the difficulty of the route and the sketchy preparation. The spillover factor from the marathon training served me well. Now I'm looking forward to an interesting several months packed with many different events - good health and lack of injuries permitting, of course.