Week 36, 2011

A very decent holiday-running week.

36
5 Sep - 11 Sep		 This week's totals:5x, 8:52, 79km [8:52]
2:001:112:261:231:51
16.8 km11.5 km22.0 km10.7 km17.6 km
ER 17kmRS 12x400m/120''RT 22kmER 10kmER 17km
127 hrm158 hrm124 hrm129 hrm
6:31 min/km4:20 min/km6:15 min/km6:00 min/km

So last week I did not do very well and was hoping to make up for it this week. Indeed I managed to do the "prescribed" 5 trainings and a total of 79km, which given the conditions (heat & hills), I consider a very good result. Also in those 5 trainings I did a total descent of 1600m -- something that may not impress any mountaineer, but given that normally this figure is pretty close to zero (on account of living in Holland ;) that was quite a change for me.

On Monday I was running in Mondim de Basto, which is located on a hill and surrounded by a river. The distance from the top of the hill to the river was rather short so I ended up randomly going up and down the hill and ending up with a medusa like shape of the trip.

On Wednesday I was in Braga and for a change decided to do a training, as opposed to just going running. I tried to do an interval training but it turned out to be a bad idea. I didn't know the neighborhood and going out at random didn't work very well this time. I was mostly hitting roads, with small or non-existent sidewalks and the drivers were not too careful. Add to that the hills and you get the picture of a not very successful training.

On Thursday I was close to Chaves and went for a longer run in the neighborhood. I ventured into a close-by forest, paid a short visit to Spain and then scaled a small hill nearby. Some photos below.

On Friday I was back to Braga and this time went toward a local hill. Without knowing I ended up at the Bom Jesus famous church-on-the-hill of Braga. Unfortunately it was rather late in the evening so my phone camera was pretty much useless. I liked the climb so much that I did a very similar route on Sunday, only this time I went all the way to the top of the hill. It was an evening again so the photos (below) are not good.

What next? Monday I'm flying back to Amsterdam and hopefully coming back to a more organized training schedule. Unfortunately I just realized that it's only 3 weeks to the marathon and hence too late for running a half-marathon before. That's a shame because that's always a great test and an indication of what one can hope for in the full marathon. Realizing that I decided a 10K race will have to do and even found one in Amsterdam on 20th of September -- perfect timing... but then I realized that at that time I'll be in Paris. No go again. I still hope to find a good race on the weekend before the marathon and if I don't manage I'll probably settle for a race-against-myself on track&field. We'll see. Ok, time to go for my flight :).

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