Running to Think

The end of the week has been marked with the long distance running session that has been scheduled, namely 42 km self supported, completed at the pace of 4:34" per km on 270 mt elevation gain.
Legs were rolling like wheels. I never pushed along the test and was running very relaxed, breathing and looking around as if I was running on a much shorter distance. I take this as a sign that my condition is getting better and better.
The workouts at the gym are being effective, as expected. No pain on the hills, no slowdown, no problem to the knees whatsoever.
Looking forward to May 17th.

Here is a split of 40.1 km of the total.
Happy running!

 

This might sound hard but I'm finding it extremely useful and fun.
In order to spend some hours at the gym I had to decrease the mileage per week. My highest priority has been about improving the core muscles that usually kick in after the 40th km.
No strength in the muscles after 4 hours of running usually means that it's pretty much over. You heard that, my friends. Over. Finito. Go home.
I am not talking about glycogen and lack of carbs. These things remain the same for every ultra marathon and the strategies to replenish the overused resources are those that almost every ultra runner already knows.

As some of you know, I set my next race to May 17, Trail de la Lesse. A 50 km trail run nearby Liege in Belgium. One more time to "feel the hill", pumping lactate around the blood stream. One more time to feel alive.

Dear runners,
a lot happened since my last trips to Finland and Vienna. Buying a house that I don't really need has probably been the stupidest thing I've ever done so far in my life. Even more stupid when I realised that being a gipsy is indeed my attitude, at least for the time being.
Thank God, sad things never come alone. The grateful smile of Caroline is one of the most fulfilling experiences I have day by day.

With this said, I should be here to write about my running experience rather than my personal life, right? Well, running is about my personal life. No off topic.
The last weeks have been partially dedicated, as I said, to working in the house, working in the office and eventually maintaining a good condition by running in the forests and hills around Liege.
Before each running session and especially during many of them, however, I often felt tired, with that feeling of emptiness in the legs, not in the mood at all and kind of bored. Have you ever had such a feeling?
Life was never meant to be easy, as the lyrics of a song say. I do agree. But running with no enthusiasm can be more painful than interval training itself. I was even hoping to find some good pals out there who experienced the same at least once in their life, when, one day, I got enlightened by my own schedule.
Actually there was no schedule!
I was lacking the most important component of a runner's plan: the plan indeed! No target race planned any time soon, no training schedule, no goals to achieve, no weekly mileage to keep up to... Basically, I was just running. I don't know how good or bad that is. Many people just run. Many go out every day, after work or during a break. Some even at lunch time. I was probably becoming like those people. Nothing bad of course. Except that... it was killing me. It was like I was not running at all. That feeling of disappointment brought its consequences also in my diet, with a consistent increase of sugar, chocolate and frangipane cakes. Not to mention ice cream.
I am a runner who needs a plan. I've always had one.
To let things work out again I did it: I decided to run the Bear Trail this year. A 56 km trail with 1200 mt elevation gain near the belgian-dutch border.
I don't have much time to train for it. Four weeks are definitely not enough. But I have the feeling that those weeks will be intense, full and meaningful.

The running philosophy is the best lecture with which I deal on a regular basis. Goals keep me alive and remind me of one important fact: I might fail them, trying is already successful.

Keep running!

This summary will be short, for the reasons that will be clear in a minute.

21/04/2014
rest


22/04/2014

14/04/2014
rest

15/04/2014
I decided to spend some time into the forest. When I am in Leuven I miss Sart Tilman, and the other way around. Long story short, 13 km in the forest. But at a moderate pace of 4':30" per km.

16/04/2014
rest

17/04/2014
14 km again in Leuven. Decided to add some spicy hills of 300 mt at about 12% elevation. I couldn't do more than 6. Bad idea?

18/04/2014
Woke up with a sense of dissatisfaction. I was thinking of those hills of yesterday and to the reason for which I collapsed at the 6th. Went out for some more drills and went back home after climbing that 300 mt hill of yesterday 11 times, for a total daily milage of 18 km.

19/04/2014
Planned for an easy run of 15 km. Caroline decided to join. Caroline's father couldn't resist. Wanna know how this ended? 15 km with the guys and 13 with myself.
28 km was really not in the plan.

20/04/2014
7 km and stretching and rest. Damn week.



Total milage: 80 km 

Total milage 85km 

A boring week with total mileage of 75 km.


19/03/2014
After a fast recovery from the trip back from Spain, I finally met my hills in Liege Sart Tilman. They gave me a painful welcome though: half marathon on steep irregular terrain. A tumble on the ground started something that I still feel: pain between the left rhomboid and the spine.

20/03/2014
Easy pace 12 km run, even though in Sart Tilman nothing is really easy.


22/03/2014
Really not in the mood to go out. The pain of the rhomboid is killing me. Finished 10 miles on the treadmill. Quite boring.

23/03/2014
Rhomboid slightly less painful. I cannot appreciate any running session with this.
18 km with intervals on 400 mt.

Pain pain pain, and there is only one week before the Eco Trail Paris 80 km...

Nothing special happened in week 11. Just feeling closer to race day and slightly more stressed.
Weekly total mileage: 85 km.

11/03/2014
A very easy run in the morning. 10 km on the usual dusty road near El Goloso, Madrid.
At 6pm I realised that the fridge was quite empty and needed to go shopping. Thing is that the house where I was living is 4 km out of town. I turned the hydration pack into something that could carry some vegetables and rice. Evening run of  8 km.

13/03/2014
Things usually get serious on thursday. Interval training on the distance of 2 km, 5 times with minimal rest. Exhausting.

14/03/2014
Easy pace 10 km run. Preparing for sunday.

15/03/2014
Interval training on the distance of 400mt with a total mileage of 17 km at average pace of 4':30" per km.

16/03/2014
Last run to El Pardo. It needed to be fast. But the previous training sessions kicked in since the beginning. Not bad though: 25km on the hills of El Pardo, below 2h

I dedicated week 9 to exploring the country side around Cantoblanco, the district of Madrid where I am staying. As I mentioned earlier the terrain is quite diverse, giving me a series of options that I choose according to my schedule. Regardless the terrain that can be simply road or rocky or sandy or muddy, what really characterises this place is the elevation. It's not possible to run for longer than 1 km without hitting a hill which usually kills my legs or slows me down at the point that I have to reconsider my will to keep that pace longer.
The average milage of the last three weeks was 110 km. Week 9's was just a bit above it.

24/02/2014
Coming from a 19km run at progressively higher pace, the run of a monday is usually easy and slow. This reflects a bit the mondays at the office, during which people get familiar with their new (working) condition

25/02/2014
Rest was just what I needed

26/02/2014
Probably one of the most adventurous running experiences I had in the last few years. I wrote about it here. As a recap, I ran for 30 km on the hills near Tres Cantos, with a bull chasing me and dogs so close to my legs they were probably confident of seeing two big sausages instead

27/02/2014
Easy run and stability exercises, following the schedule of the physiotherapist to prevent injuries of ankles and feet

28/02/2014
Second expedition to El Pardo, following a dry rocky road, climbing short and steep hills. I'm still aware that terrain would be more indicated for cyclists on a mountain bike rather than runners. A total of 30 km and dumb legs. Of course...

01/03/2014
Easy run again. No exercises this time. I felt so stiff that the only thing I would have liked to do was sitting in front of a beer and a boccadillo de tortilla. Which I did.

02/03/2014
Purpose of the day was to keep the milage high. Another expedition to El Pardo, with a total of 30 km did it.

Attempt to finish a marathon in Italy (~km 18)

The amount of work and the unexpected happenings of every day life didn't give me much time to write some lines any time soon. Better late than never, of course.
Year 2014 already had the flavour of an intense year full of things to take care of and targets to achieve. And that feeling was not wrong at all.

My running activity is taking the scary pace of the competitive phase. The race of the year is getting closer and closer, being now only two months far. I have been increasing the mileage quite smoothly after the injury to the posterior tibial tendon, fixed in no time (a record in my career).
I started running a bit everywhere between the hills of Sart Tilman and the flat lands around Leuven.
What made week 6 though was an unexpected trip to my hometown in Puglia, south of Italy. Caroline and I found and booked a flight in the time I need to run 1 mile and prepared the luggage in much less than that. It was that fast!
The trip to Italy was amazing. Great food, great places to visit, great weather and, of course, a lot of miles to run.
On the day dedicated to the long distance training I felt so good that I was about to complete a full marathon. Blisters under three toes of the right foot put an end to my attempt at the 40th km.

Attempt to finish a marathon in Italy (~km 20)

I rested a bit only one day, to give some time to the blisters to get dry. Some good taping and special plasters fixed everything in a bit more than one night. Those are the benefits of having a girlfriend on my side who is into sports and nutrition as a profession.

After two days I was back on the road and did some interval training on 1000 meters. The pace was unexpectedly high, around 3'30" per km.
It seems that I can keep the intensity of the schedule after those two weeks in which I was forced to stay at home due to the injury. I can claim that it is true: giving the body some rest regenerates it and prepares it to the worse. Or the best.