A setback... or is it?

In spite of having announced my retirement from marathons after Rotterdam in April 2013, I had been aspiring to build up to another marathon this October 2014. My long runs had gone up to 2h45m (for approx 30km), but I was struggling to cover this much.

Last Sunday was the middle of a heat spell and less than half way through the run my right shoe was already completely soaked in sweat, the remaining distance to cover seemed endless... I decided to stop - and prepare properly for a 30km effort the following Sunday (today).

Today morning I started earlier on a make-or-break long run for my planned marathon. I would either resume the build-up in training or I would just have to give up. I drove to Tervuren Park about 15km from home, leaving a bottle filled with an energy drink at the doorstep, the idea being that I would pick up this drink in the middle of my run and go back to the car at Tervuren. 28 minutes into the run, on the first uphill stretch, the urge to stop again overwhelmed me, and stop is exactly what I did. I simply didn't feel like running for a long distance.

This of course spelt the end of my marathon aspirations. We're in the middle of summer. I'm suffering from severe lack of motivation, which, combined with the heat make preparation for a marathon in October very difficult indeed. I don't feel like doing it, I don't need to do it, so I'm not doing it.

Walking back, I realised that giving up was like a liberation. Interesting alternative scenarios opened up. I could take a break. I could take up cycling with occasional short runs whenever I feel like it. For three weeks in the upcoming hot Maltese August I could do a lot of swimming instead of running. I could resume the 2014 Scott2Run competition, for which I'm still in the running for a placing.

Five minutes into the walk back to the car I broke into a run, and, amazingly, I started running fast. The slow plod of my earlier run was still echoing in my head, but this new run was quick and sprightly. I had shaken off the burden of having to run long distances to build up to a marathon, and all of a sudden training has become interesting again, rather than a chore. I alternated some jogging with fast running for half an hour, for a decent total of close to an hour running today, and resolved for the next few months to mix it all up a bit.

Long term target - the second edition of the Wings for Life World Run in May (more on this in another blog post that's half completed). As for marathons... never say never again. Maybe winter would be a better time to run long distances.

I don't want to think about it.

Erps-Kwerps - Easter Monday, 2014

Years ago, when a colleague at work mentioned the place to me, I wouldn't believe it was really named Erps-Kwerps. The same thing happened to our son Gianluca today afternoon. But Erps-Kwerps it really is, and the surrounding land is completely flat, which suited me just fine as I wasn't in the mood for any hills, more so as I'm nursing a sore hamstring.

Today's race was preceded by Gianluca's debut race - a one kilometre dash for children. With no training at all he finished the run in the middle of the pack. May this be the beginning of a long running career, Gianluca!

I started my own race with strong misgivings due to the hamstring. The past five days I've only done a short 25 minute jog two days ago, to keep it rested and allow it to heal, but during the warm-up I could still feel it hurting very slightly. A few minutes into the run, however, the pain disappeared and I could concentrate on my usual business of overtaking my rivals. A short stretch with cobbles was followed by longer asphalted stretches and some patches without asphalt, next to fields, a railway line, a huge car storage area and houses again as we headed back to Erps-Kwerps village for the start of a second loop.

No hills meant that I could maintain a constant pace. It's convenient when there are no uphills, but it also means there are no downhills and by the middle of the second loop I was becoming tired. Not too tired, however, and I managed to keep a steady rhythm. At the 11th kilometre I heard someone coming up close from behind. I was in no mood for any sprinting - I was already going as fast as I could - and I wished he would pass by and disappear, but he never did. Instead, I approached another couple as we neared the last bends before the finish, and I overtook them too!

Utter exhaustion at the finish was rewarded by a good time of 53:45 for approx. 11.8 km. It was my best performance to date in this year's edition of the Scott2Run. Tomorrow I'll find out the effect of this strong effort (I don't think I could have run any faster today!) on my long-suffering hamstring. Fingers crossed, it's still fine up till this evening...

Scott2Run 2014 - the first three events

The first group of three races for this year's Scott2Run competition kicked off on a bad footing for me on 22 March, continued with a close to disastrous performance a week later, but was concluded with a fine, fine run on race number three today.

Vilvoorde 12km - 22 March 2014

I had long been looking forward to this. I had been training well, putting in some fairly long runs as well as speed sessions, so I took a fair degree of confidence with me to Vilvoorde. But the day turned out to be cold and wintry, and I was never able to fire myself up properly.

The event consists of two loops - each one with a long steep hill during the first half followed by a flat mid-section and a final downhill stretch. The uphill part of the second loop I suddenly slowed down to a walk. It happens sometimes. A number of other runners passed me while I recovered my breath (and some strength in my legs). I started to jog again after two or three minutes, and began to re-overtake some of the runners who had passed me during the walking stage.

All considered, the final timing of 56:48 wasn't so bad. The field of participants was rather small, so I still managed to collect a useful amount of points.

Furaloop 16km (Tervuren) - 29 March 2014

Mostly in one of my 'haunts', the Arboretum part of the Zonienbos (Foret des Soignes) that straddles Jezus Eik in Overijse and Tervuren.

I realised there was a hills 'issue' in this one, so I checked the height profile on the Furalopers' website the days before. I found that most of the uphill parts were in the first half, while the second half was generally downhill. So I went to Tervuren determined to make up for the previous week's disappointment while being careful not to overdo it in the first, hilly, part.

The first 8km were, indeed, very hilly, but I managed them quite well, overtaking a large number of rivals in the process. The second half, as predicted, was generally flat or downhill.

Up to a certain point.

Suddenly I saw looming up ahead a steep hill. I thought it would be a short stretch, and then we would resume going downhill. But then we came to another hill. It went on and on. Determined as I was not to slow down to a walk this time... slow down to a walk is exactly what I did. Once. Lots of rivals going by. Restart at a slow jog. Another hill, one I've done lots of times in my training. Another stop! What a disaster.

I lost about four minutes from my normal time at the end, though I did manage to recover enough energy in the final 2 or 3 km to have a respectable finish, at a sprint. Official timing: 1h18:58.

Picking up the pieces - Wednesday 2 April 2014

I had been looking forward to a good year of running, with lots of ambitious plans, and here I was slowing down to a walk in the very first two races of this year's edition of the Scott2Run.

I'd never slowed down to a walk in two successive races. I sorely needed a morale booster, so I decided to risk a make-or-break long run. I'd gone up to 25 km - 2h15 in my pre-Scott2Run preparation. Next long run: 27km - 2h30. That's what I set out to do, and that's what I did without any particular problem.

That's how I found out that there's nothing seriously wrong with my current form. With the wisdom of hindsight, I can lay the blame for my recent mishaps on:

a. Having done a short run on the day before the race;
b. Having had a stressful morning a few hours before the race, doing the weekly shopping and such stuff;
c. In the case of the Furaloop 16km, bad mental preparation for the route.

I also seriously need to improve my form going uphill. I used to be very good at this, but, seemingly, not any more.

Perk, Kasteeljogging - 11.5km - 6 April 2014

This used to be a triple loop in a park, with long stretches where runners are forced to go single file or risk twisting a knee or an ankle while trying to overtake on very rough ground. They have now changed this into a more sensible double loop, finishing with a long lap around the club football grounds.

Except for the initial two or three minutes, that were rather crowded and where overtaking was next to impossible, the going for me was very smooth. Most of the time I was overtaking other runners without exerting myself too much. While I ran, I realised that I hardly need to make any effort to run on flat terrain, which is what we had throughout today. Having 'rehearsed' the final lap around the club football grounds during warm-up before the race, I was prepared for this too and finished strongly at 53:19.

So, I guess, I'm back on track for a (still) promising 2014 running campaign.

The Malta Half Marathon, 23 February 2014

...

I hadn't raced in Malta since... I can't even remember. In fact I hadn't run at all in Malta since almost a whole year due to various mishaps and injuries.

I sort of made up for this in the 2014 edition of the Malta Half Marathon.

Looking at the statistics of my previous participations in this one, I noticed a steady decline with the advancing years. Can't be helped, of course. I had achieved an impressive 1h30:11 when I was 14 years younger, followed in later years by 1h31 and 1h34. In recent years I was doing 1h40 or so in half marathons in Belgium. A PB this year was just the stuff of wild dreams, but the downhill profile of this race did justify an expectation for a sub-1h40.

But first of all, the greatest pleasure I had from this return to my running roots was the opportunity of reuniting with so many dear friends.

I miss them really a lot. The picture above, taken just before the start, shows from left to right: Victor Laurenti, Lee Micallef, myself, Charles Tedesco and a fifth person who I'm sure is a fantastic chap, but who unfortunately I don't know at all... There were also many others, and to all of them I was glad to say hello, how are you, it's great to be here and to see you again.

The event has grown tremendously since my previous participations. Back then the field used to consist of hundreds of runners, now it's in the thousands. More than 2000 ran this half marathon, while a comparable number did a "walkathon" - exactly the same event, at a walking pace.

All these thousands inevitably lead to a very crowded start, but we now had an electronic chip tied to the number, which records the actual time from the start gantry to the finish. So we didn't need to worry too much about the time lost until we actually reached the start, except that... in the official result the time given includes this wasted time in the beginning. Worse than that, groups of ignoramuses go and position themselves to start their "walkathon" ahead of the real runners, creating obvious problems, whereas they had been specifically instructed to start at the back, again for obvious reasons that needn't be spelt out at all!

After lots of pushing and shoving for the first kilometre or so, I got down to the real business of running. All I needed to do was keep weaving in between slower runners while concentrating on not running too fast. Whenever the road was downhill I let gravity do my work, otherwise I kept an eye on the runners ahead, always aiming to catch them at a comfortable pace and then looking further ahead to the next 'catch'.

This went on for most of the run. Once or twice a runner would come racing by at what seemed to me an impossible pace, but generally it was me who was doing overtaking, including quite a few of the aforementioned good friends of mine.

The going got tough around the 16th kilometre, where there was a rather long hill towards the Portes des Bombes in Floriana. This was followed by a downhill stretch to Sa Maison. I got my breath back somewhat as I switched to gravity mode until we reached sea level. From then on, for the final 4 km flat along the seafront at Msida, Ta' Xbiex and finally Gżira and the Sliema Ferries, I had to grit my teeth, ignore the weariness in my legs and push hard towards the finish.

We're doing fine, on track for 1h40, someone told his companion as I went past them near the Msida Marina. Oh well, I thought, no PB for me, but a respectable time just the same. I kept my pace, overtook some other runners as we entered the Ta' Xbiex coast road and approached the final stretch past the Manoel Island bridge. 

In the last stretch, someone had the idea of writing down motivating slogans on the road, every 10 metres or so. "Work hard, play hard, run hard", "Keep going, never give up". Can't remember the exact words, but they helped. As I approached the finish I looked for my supporters who had promised they'd come to cheer for me.

Then I saw Daniela, who jumped out of the crowd and took this picture of me. Smiling through gritted teeth...

Daniela is now my official photographer... Next to her, the rest of my supporters' club, my dear wife Sue, Gianluca, Erika, Christine, Anthony, Carm. Thank you all for being there!

I don't know about the couple who were on course for a 1h40m. I came in at 1h38m plus something, official time. Chip time from start to finish gantries was 1h37:14.

Excellent run. I'm thoroughly happy with it, even more so considering that just two months ago, back in Malta, I could barely walk properly due to a back injury.

Big question mark now. Can I build on this, up to the full version? Depends on whether I still have a sufficient mix of motivation and strength to carry it out. Time will tell...

Steenokkerzeel 10k

Typical Flemish suburb located a short distance away from Brussels.

It was the last race that I needed to accomplish to gain a total of nine and a placing in the final classification of the 2013 Scott 2 Run challenge.

I almost missed it.

The race was on Saturday 5th October. The following day, on 6th October, there was the Brussels marathon, and this was the date that stuck in my mind, so I had the impression that the final race of the challenge, at Steenokkerzeel, would be on Sunday 6th October. My plan was that on Friday I would do a final easy 10km run, so that on Saturday I would rest to be in good shape for a race on Sunday.

Saturday morning I looked at the website for the competition, to confirm the starting time and so on. That's when I realised with a shock that the race was that very afternoon, and certainly not on Sunday! So I had to quickly change my plans for the day, prepare my running gear and drive to Steenokkerzeel for a 10km race.

Normally I take a day off running before a race, but this time I had done a standard training run of 10km the day before, so for this race I could only hope to do an easy run and simply gather the necessary points to achieve my placing in the final classification. It turned out the route was completely flat, no treacherous muddy paths in the forest, two loops along flat, well paved streets, and I managed to give a pretty good account of myself in spite of not being properly rested.

And (finally!) I obtained a well deserved classification in the top 25 of my age category. It really was well deserved, as I had to overcome many obstacles throughout this edition. In several cases I simply turned up without racing properly, just to put in a presence and get the necessary points and the minimum requirement of nine race participations. But if I hadn't bothered to check the website at the last possible moment on the morning of the last race, the good work I'd done in August following my back injury, scraping through a couple of races during that month would have been all in vain, as I would have missed the last, ninth, race due to a silly mix-up in the dates.

Placing 22nd in the overall final classification earned me a 45 euro gift voucher, which I can exchange for a Scott product at their warehouse in Kortenberg. This warehouse is open every first Saturday of the month, but the gift voucher expires at the end of February. Next Saturday is the last possible date when I can use it. The saga of my 2013 Scott 2 Run competition continues...

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...

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.