Winter in Holland

It's winter in Holland at the moment. Since the second Christmas day it's freezing -5°C at night and with temperatures round 0 °C over the day the ice is getting thicker each day.

Altough I like skating a lot, especially on ice-hockey skates, I will not consider to try it this year.

It's years ago since I skated for the last time and will not take any risk avoiding getting injured. But at least I will take a look around the lakes because it's always a very pleasant atmosphere with typical Dutch winter sceneries.

This type of weather has some benefits : mostly very stable conditions and lots of sun !!! So ideal conditions for training. Besides it's possible to get well dressed for the lower temperatures.

Last week I had some good training (running) sessions as preparation for the half marathon in Egmond just within 2 weeks.

To be honest the training program is a bit hard because it exists of 5 training sessions a week with a total of about 90 K. But since I have no work anymore I can train 8 days a week like Grazy Mike told me ;-)

I'm in a hurry for the Parish Walk but also to find a new job because otherwise I would spent all my money and then it's not possible to visit the Isle of Man for another Parish Walk, so there is some pressure on me and I like that very much, it just feels like before starting a race !!!

Well thats it, I hope you all enjoyed the Christmas days and wish you a Happy New Year !!!

Best regards,

Martijn

First of winter series s.v. De L.A.T.

Today was the first of three from the winter series walks hosted by my walking club s.v. De L.A.T. The athletes had several options to choose from : 5 K, 10 K and 20 K. The 5 and 10 K are A races and the 20 K is a B race.

Because I am in running training at the moment and still not recovered from my ilness this week I wouldn't consider to participate in this walk and therefore I was asked for lap recording.

I was very lucky to count the laps of the 10 K walkers and that took less time then the 20 K walkers ;-) These laps have a distance of 2.5 K starting on a 400 meter track followed by a route through a park and then back on the track which is one lap.

This event attracted 40 participants divided over the 3 distances which was not bad. There was a strong wind which made it difficult sometimes for the walkers but nevertheless only 3 people had to give up, well done to all of them !!!

After my "work" as lap recorder I went home and and changed clothes for my own training, the second one after being ill. Last Friday I did one but this felt not good, the same experience today, a 17 k run at low pace which is normally very easy felt like doing a half marathon at max. speed.

Altough it was windy the heartrate was higher then normal which frustrates me but what can I do about it ? Hopefully it will be back to normal soon with only 3 weeks to go for my race in Egmond.

I'm not sure if a post something again before Christmas, so i wish you all a Happy Christmas !!!

PS for those who are interested here the link to the results : http://www.delat.nl/index.cfm?fuseaction=archive.detailtext&id=435

Best regards,

Christmas Martijn

Shit Happens

Last Tuesday was my last working day and to celebrate this I had a farewell lunch with one of my colleagues. One of my favourite food is steak carpaccio and this was on the menu !!!

After about one hour I went back to work and one hour later I started to feel sick, I am not sure if this was due to the meat or flu. I was feeling very cold and had stomach problems so I wanted to go home very quickly. I took the train and was hoping for the best, but I was feeling sicker and sicker. Finally the train arrived at Weesp and I really jumped out just in time and produced a very huge "Party Piece " in front of hundreds of people which is very embarrassing !

After this piece of shit I was not able to train, I hope to do a relaxed training today and see what the damage is of my condition. Nobody is waiting for these kind of problems but we all have to deal with it sometimes. And also I had a better start of my holiday in mind.

At the moment I am glad that it's getting better and hope to continue the training program.

Be aware of raw meat !!!

Nice weekend,

Martijn

Egmond here I come !!!

After the 10 k race last week I had to switch to the half marathon training program which includes more longer runs and intervals for 4 or 5 training sessions a week.

With only 4 weeks left I hope to prepare my self for the Egmond Half Marathon.

The Egmond Half Marathon is one of the hardest half marathons in Holland, which includes 7 kilometers on the beach and a lot of kilometers through the dunes. Also the weather has a big influence because it's in Januari so anything can hapen, snow, rain lots of wind etc.

This event organised for the 37 th time is attracting international topathletes and totally about 12000 runners !!! This race was won 2 times by an Great Brittan Athlete very long ago, in 1981 by Steve Kenyon and in 1987 by Mike Bishop. It's one of my favorites running races altough a very busy one so it's important to start in the front of the field to have some space. I'm lucky to have an racing license which gives me the oppertunity to start in the front.

Target will again be a personal best which I ran this year in Egmond in 92 minutes and 47 seconds. But it will be great if I dip just under the 90 minutes on this course.

Well with about the coming 320 km of training I hope I will achieve this, just realising that it's getting more and more difficult to improve each time ;-)

It's also a special edition this time because the famous Dutch marathonrunner Kamiel Maase is celebrating his retirement after this race and wish him the best of luck in his last race !!!

Best regards,

Martijn

Mixed Feelings

Well done to al the walkers in the Empire Garage Peel to Douglas Walk ! It's great to see that my predictions were not so bad and that Crazy Mike is getting out of his retirement. I'm also happy for Eammon Harkin who's racing again after his surgery.

Alex Wijsman in company of his wife Cisca and I travelled Sunday to the Olympic Stadion in Amsterdam for the 10 K run. Conditions were great, it was sunny and not much wind so everything was looking great for the runners and spectators.

Totally there were 1057 participants, which was a record entry for this event. It has always something special to be in the Olympic Stadion existing now for 80 years. There were 3 distances, 1 k (kidsrun), 5 k and the 10 K.

Alex decided to racewalk the 10 K and not at maximum speed, he was aiming for about one hour, which is still faster then some runners ;-) . Myself had another target, a pb on the 10 K and hopefully just to dip under the 40 minutes barrier.

After the startsignal we all finally started and everything was going on schedule untill after 4 kilometers. Then I stormed into a lot of business runners that started 10 minutes earlier and as a result it was very busy on the course and could not run at the target pace which must be under 4 minutes a k. Well I kept going but was a bit frustrated and tried not to lose much time altough I realised that I could not beat the 40 minutes.... and passed the finishline in 40 minutes and 48 seconds, which is still an improvement of 8 seconds of my PB and almost 2 minutes quicker on the same course compared to 2007 so it was time for euphoria untill........

Cisca and I were looking for Alex's finish but after 1 hour he was still not returning into the stadion. After 1 hour and 5 minutes he passed the finishline, but unfortunatley he was injured and had problems with his hamstring, just like 1 year ago in the same event !!! I'm feeling very sorry for him and hope he will recover quick.

That's why I choose this title for this topic, it's always important to return healthy at home after a race or training and the end of this day was not so good.

Stay healthy and keep training !!!

Best regards,

Martijn

Racing Weekend !!!

Finally it's racing weekend, for you on the Isle of Man doing the Peel to Douglas Walk as well for Alex Wijsman and me doing the Olympic Stadion run in Amsterdam. Both races are scheduled on Sunday so I'm getting more and more excited.

The weather forecast on the Isle of Man for tomorrow is the same as it is in Holland, so if Adrian Cowin is right it will be 8 degrees Celcius and it will be dry !!!

Because there is no entrantslist published I will just guess who will win the race tomorrow. Visiting http://www.manxatletics.com/ you can see that there will be a strong visitor, Ben Wears who's 18 years at age, and produced a lot of quick races ( I checked on http://www.racewalkuk.com/) . So he has a big change of winning this race and maybe due to his participation he will hopefully motivate Michael George and get him out of his retirement as he told me that he's tired and lazy !

Other possible winners will be (unless they participate) : Steve Partington, Peter Kaneen and Sean Hands.

In the ladies race i think it will be a batlle between : Marie Jackson, Sue Biggart and Janice Quirk, assuming they will participate. Well within 24 hours we all know more !!!

For myself i have to do a final training today which exists of a 40 minutes run at very low pace including 3 accelerations and that's it.

So finally I wish you all the best of luck and the most important thing enjoy your race !!!

Looking forward to the results and pictures.

Best regards,

The Ducth Team, refering to the attachted picture, if you count all the sheep you will find out the number of sheep will be 11 !!!

Mind Games

Unfortunately our mind is playing games and is trying to mislead us, looking for excuses to skip a training or racing and even worser to give up in a race !!!

I had this experience in this years Parish Walk when I was approaching Peel, I was cold to the bone due to wrong clothes and I had a thought that I would give up the race and was thinking about relaxing in the hotelroom watching the football game from the Dutch against Russia with a fine can of lager in my hand :-)

Fortunately I was very lucky when I met my back-up team Steve Partington and Steve Brennan who had some proper clothes for these conditions, thanks to them I completed this 85 miles !!!

Everyone must keep in mind that if you have to give up a race due to "Mind Games" you'll always regret afterwards. It's very important to think positive, I know that this is easier said then done, but at least try it !!!

Today I had such a day myself. I had to do an interval training for the 10 k race next Sunday which exists of 3 times 2000 meters with about 15 kilometers an hour average with in between these intervals 3 minutes rest, which is not really resting but running at a lower pace to decrease heartrate again.

Looking outside my room I saw that the conditions were far from ideal, it was misty cold and snow in road. I was thinking about skipping this training but I am glad I had done it afterwards. It was really slippery on the road but I could manage the speed target and was enjoying the coolingdown session for about 5 kilometers in the snow !!!

When the training is done I'm feeling great, especially after a hot shower and sit down on the chair and write on my Parish Walk Blog !!!

So my advise to all walkers : put on your shoes and start training !!!

PS attached my training result, heartrate versus speed.

Well at last compliments for Murray, who has produced a fantastic 2009 Parish Walk site !!!

Best Regards,

Martijn

Autumn and Winter training

First of all i would like to say that i like it very much to write a blog, it is getting me motivated to train otherwise there is nothing to write about :-) I was a bit nervous in the beginning to be honest and getting everything organised.

Because a lack off long distance walks in the Autumn and Winter, there are some short races but to trafel 200 kilometers for a 10 k race that's ridiculous, since traffeling is making me very tired, i like to survive on running training and races from November till April. The distances varies from 10k to the marathon distance and possibly a longer ultrarun.

Next Sunday there is a 10 k run which starts and finishes at the Olympic stadion just like the famous Amsterdam Marathon. I aim for 40 minutes or just under to set a new PB which is 40 minutes and 56 seconds, but i think the race is a bit to early, nevertheless i'll go for it !!! Another participant is also a Parish Walk finisher, C666 Alex Wijsman who will racewalk the 10 K.

So with 3 training sessions left this week, 1 interval and 2 slow ones i hope to break the 40 minutes barrier and then go on for the half marathon in the beginning of Januari !!!

Well that's it for today and will keep you informed about the progress of training and racing !!!

PS apologies if my English is not always great and don't forget i'm Dutch and Crazy !!!

Enjoy your preparations and training !!!

Best regards,

Martijn