Run, Koper, run

After the 50K in August last year I later decided that this year it will be time to increase the distance. Shorty after the Paris marathon I found Lakeland 50 -- a 50miles race in northern England, that I thought would be perfect. I was deeply surprised to learn that... it's full and I was put on the waiting list! I knew about marathons, but that there were so many people crazy enough to do ultras was a surprise to me. Few weeks ago I lost hopes of getting a spot there and was hectically looking for a replacement race. At the beginning of this week I finally found one that was looking very promising: Trail des Fantômes , a 50 kilometers trail race in Belgium. At first I dismissed it as it was "only" 50K and I already did that . But then I looked at the 2400m of ascent and the winning time last year, 05:00:26.8 -- much slower than my lousy 50K -- and realized that this is a different game altogether. I was about to subscribe for the race when... I got en email telli...

Another lousy week... Well, what can I say... First part of the week I didn't do anything because I was still curing the cold. Then one run on Friday, then being away for the weekend and finally no excuse for Sunday evening -- I was simply to lazy to go running. I do really hope that the next week will be better.

Coming down with a cold... Cannot display training data. If you're viewing it in an RSS feeder (such as Google Reader) you'll need to open the original post to see it. Slow beginning of the week. I only did 1 training on Tuesday, skipping intervals in the evening and 1 hill training on Thursday, instead of 2 runs. That's because my legs were begging for mercy. Either the Sunday half-marathon really gave me hell or a general overtraining is setting in. Quite possibly a combination of the two. Then on Friday I came down with a cold. That meant I had to cancel the long running trip on Saturday. I didn't want to give it up completely so at least I went to the gym and did a slow 15K on the thread-mill. However, on Sunday I really felt like crap and knew that I'm out of commission for at least a week. Well, that's life. In fact maybe it's not such a bad timing as I was really burning out and like that hopefully I'll get a chance to recharge my batteries. I o...

My slowest half-marathon ever :) Cannot display training data. If you're viewing it in an RSS feeder (such as Google Reader) you'll need to open the original post to see it. A well balanced week, with two "floating on water" sessions. Easy running on Monday, then very intense intervals on Tuesday, I pushed myself to to at 3:49min/km on 800m intervals; still slightly faster than on 600m ones last week. Then a hill session on Thursday (now full 15sec/km faster than two weeks ago) and rest until Sunday. 10/06/2012 half-marathon Amersfoort, The Netherlands 1:37:32 4:39 min/km 170 hrm And on Sunday, the half-marathon of Amersfoort. I was quite positive about it, I woke up on time, made it to the train on time, didn't drink too much beer the previous night, while watching EC with friends. All looked good. Until I started running. With Thyra, Michal and Radek we started way in the back of the pack, so the first 3K involved heavy elbowing through th...

A week that broke me :) Cannot display training data. If you're viewing it in an RSS feeder (such as Google Reader) you'll need to open the original post to see it. Monday off, then Tuesday traditionally interval training on the track with Jan. Last week it was 20x300m, now it was time for 10x600m with acceleration for the last 200m. Numbers look good as I was going 3 second faster per km than last week (on longer intervals) with the same average HR -- yet another tiny step to better form. On Wednesday I felt pretty beat tough and only went to the gym in the evening. Thursday was supposed to be a big day. I planned a 60K run from Hoorn all the way down to Amsterdam and even took a day off at work to facilitate that. I figured that it'll be difficult to find so much time on the weekend, plus with the Amersfoort half-marathon looming around the corner this variant would give me more time for recovery before the race. The weather was not on my side as it was cloudy and rain...