T-8 months Or 34.5 weeks, or 242 days. Whatever way I look at it, I can feel some kind of pressure already building. Every time I’m in the pool, on the bike or out running, I’m envisaging what it’s going to be like on the day itself. What challenges will I face? How many walls will I hit? What part will be the hardest? Road to recovery After (slightly foolishly) running the Dodentocht (100km) in August, I’d damaged my ligaments in my left knee. I had to have physiotherapy to sort it out which meant about 2 months without running. I managed to keep swimming and cycling a bit but not much.  ..read more

You know that feeling after an achievement that you can tackle any challenge? Well it can lead to decisions which will have a profound impact on your life. And it can start from something really small. A year ago in January we started running at lunch with a few colleagues. 10km killed us. So much that I even injured my back and didn’t run for 2 months. In April we made the decision to run the marathon in Amsterdam and started training. By August a 20km run wasn’t abnormal anymore. We ran the marathon on 15 October 2017. I was relatively disappointed due to the finish time and pretty much imm ..read more

For the upcoming Antwerp marathon, I’m finding it really hard to set myself a goalwhich is not too big of a stretch, but also which won’t leave me too disappointed should I not achieve it. I’m not the kind of guy who’s happy with just finishing At my last lactate threshold test, my doctor looked at the test results and said: “you should be able to run the marathon in 3:30 with these results”. Y tho? Why heap so much pressure on me? I’m terrible like that, if someone tells me I should be able to do it, I want to do it. But as my first marathon had a visit from a man with a hammer, I want to tr ..read more

Training has been going OK the past few months. I’ve done my best to incorporate a swim and a bike ride weekly whilst continuing my running. I’m averaging 30-40kms per week usually so with 10 weeks to go until the Antwerp marathon on 22 April, I need to increase this to about 60km/week minimum. That’s the goal from next week onward. The new job offers some more flexibility regarding the timing of the activities so that makes it a bit easier. I’m able to go for a swim in the morning and be in store in time for the opening at 10.00. The only hard bit to make time for is the cycling, as cycl ..read more

Back in April, two colleagues and I set a goal of running the Amsterdam marathon. 6 months later, all three of us completed the challenge. Any previous training sequence I had begun, had always failed. I either got bored of running or 1 week of inactivity lead to 2, 3, 4,… which meant I always had to start again. It’s tough to motivate yourself to get out there and get moving without actually having a proper reason. After our marathon, which was exactly 4 weeks ago today, I feared I would grind to a halt. I needed something to look forward to. I managed, after about a week of rest, to put my r ..read more

I keep an eye and contribute sometimes to the subreddit r/running but came across a great thread yesterday. Someone with his marathon coming up asked the question: “what advice would you give someone going for a first marathon?” There was some great input from dozens of people, and it would be a shame for that advice to get lost. Some of it would have been handy to have known before my own first marathon! Your weekly mileage is just as important as your long run, if not more. But make sure to do a 36km long run before the race, just so you have that experience in the bank. Try a few trainings ..read more

Pre-race The weather was far better than anyone would have wanted. The forecast was for 22°C and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. Not the type of weather you would expect on the 15th October in Amsterdam. Although I’d had a decent night sleep, I was up quite early and was a little nervous. We managed to set off on time towards the Olympic stadium. But not before I’d had three toilet stops, I was adamant I wasn’t going to shit myself whilst running. Before the marathon Arriving in the Olympic stadium was a cool experience. The seats were filling up nicely and 16.500 runners were taking place on ..read more

Apart from running a lot, there’s not much that can prepare you for a really long run. Running for more than three hours on your own is hard. In the lead up to a marathon, nearly everyone will have a 30km+ run scheduled. This is to test your body and mind to see if you are actually ready to run a marathon. And it can be a real test. My schedule was to run 36km two weeks before the actual race. I’ve prepared pretty well, not missing many training runs and running three to four times a week. In the three weekends leading up to last, I had run 25km each weekend. You get used to a distance li ..read more

Been a tough week this week. I had to combine the second hardest week of my 5 month training schedule with quite a bit of travel for work. First on Sunday I ran my longest run so far, a 25km run along the Schelde. I am hoping to run my marathon around 5:25-5:30min/km and I averaged 5:30 on this one, so was pretty happy with the result! Then I had two 18km runs planned for the week. Unfortunately, due to a last minute trip to Paris, I split one run into two. Any run is better than no run right? Firstly I got a 12km tempo lunch run in: 1km at my extensive endurance pace and 1km at my intensive ..read more

I’m not quite sure where to start, and not sure where this will end. I have always been a sporty person. I’ve played cricket all my life, at the top level in Holland, captaining the Belgian national side and playing in numerous tournaments around the world. I still love the game but time constraints mean I can’t play it at the level I want to. When I go for something, I don’t want it to be half-hearted. I started cycling and running two years ago. Never with much in mind, just as a hobby. But the big difference with team sports is that I can decide when to go running and cycling. I can fit it ..read more