A long overdue update on my heatmapping, the previous two updates were all the way back in Jan 2022 and in May 2021. Eighteen months have passed, so you might imagine I have made some progress.
Done and dusted. I achieved this goal on 18 Oct 2022, being the first person to complete Brussels, as far as I can tell. After that was completed, I still spent some time cleaning up the map. Sometimes CityStrides marks a street as complete despite you not having run properly through it. This involved checking the map and looking for gaps in streets. I think I got everything significant.
Once that was done, I also ended up turning on CityStrides’ “hard mode”. It sounds fancier than it is. When trying to complete a street, it tends to offer you some respite from shitty GPS by counting a street completed as long as you ran by 90% of the nodes in the street. Hard mode turns that off and requires 100% of nodes. Flipping the switch forced me to redo about 1-2% of streets in Brussels. This was done in Feb-Mar 2023.
At some point after Brussels, I decided to start running the streets of Kraainem. This city is right up against Brussels (and, I imagine, would be part of Brussels in many other countries). All runs for it involved starting from my work, running about 6 km in one direction, doing some streets, and running the 6 km back. Kraainem is pretty small, so this was honestly finished relatively quickly. Compared to what I was used to from Brussels anyway. :)
I have been a bit lost in deciding what to do next. Everything requires rather dull out and backs. The distances to get anywhere get larger and larger too. Almost all the cities right up against Brussels also extend quite a distance away from Brussels. Their far sides require a straight out and back long run to reach.
Instead I have been chipping away at the closer parts of all of them. Just get my completion percentages up, try to move up in the rankings of each.
For recovery runs on days I have some time to waste, I end up biking about 11 km to Machelen. This smaller city next to Brussels provides an easier completion target — once I get there by other means.
With long enough runs from work, I can reach Drogenbos and Linkebeek. These two “cities” are tiny, so also an easy target if I can reach them.
At first the trips I had to make to get anywhere with these goals felt a little over the top and like a bit of a time sink. But with a clear goal in mind, i.e., making my heatmap cross Belgium, I justified their existence. At some point in the last 18 months, however, I got sort of addicted to them. Take the train somewhere, go for a run in a different environment, optional city sightseeing, take the train back.
I now lovingly call them my “Long Dumb Shit” Adventures, since I tend to only justify the effort for long runs.
To be clear, the goal here is not completing streets, just to make my heatmap look nicer and achieve silly goals in the process.
This goal was the first to spark my interest. I wanted to run across Belgium. One could do this more easily just going north to south, the shortest route. That felt a bit boring, so instead I wanted to connect the north-western point to the south-eastern point. That’s the Belgian-Dutch coastal border on the one hand and the Belgian-French-Luxembourgish tricountry point on the other.
The work on this started in earnest around March 2022 and became a real focus by September. The north-western side was relatively easy, the furthest I had to go by train was about an hour. The south-eastern side was more of a time sink. For the furthest parts the train takes around three hours. Those trips were a bit much. The final connection was eventually made on 26 November 2022.
I used the train for all of these, running between stations. It helped that one of the main lines in Belgium reaches from the coast through Brussels all the way to Arlon (actually even to Luxembourg, capital of Luxembourg!) in the south-east of Belgium. Once in the south-eastern side of Belgium though, I did need some regional trains too as the distances between stations got a bit far for what I wanted to run.
After the main goal, I snuck in an easy one. Running the Belgian coast might sound like a feat if you do not know the geography, but it is only 65-70 km in length. I had already done some parts of it too, needing just another two runs to finish it. This was accomplished on 10 December 2022. I quite like how it looks, but it was not much work, so it is hard to really call it an achievement. Quite some sand running was involved, which is not the most pleasant.
When I came back to my Long Dumb Shit in February, I decided to make that north-south connection after all, realising I needed just four long runs. Guess how many weekends February has? Completed that goal by the end of the month. It felt more like a little extra to keep busy, never a real goal. Yes, by this point my weekend shenanigans had become the norm.
I went through Lier and Antwerpen just to connect runs there to my heatmap blob.
When I was nearing the end of my north-west to south-east connection, a colleague said the logical next step was to do all the other corners of Belgium. To sum them all up:
It’s that second to last one I eventually decided to focus on, though my mind was not really into it. At first anyway.
First weekend of May I did a first stage of this goal. A shorter forest route connecting Verviers to Eupen, adding a little sightseeing walking around in Eupen afterwards.
I then ran from Huy back to Namur, 30k of running along a river. Not ideal for shade, but a lot better than I had expected. Also something I accidentally did right that day: run on the side of the river where the sun is coming from, otherwise I think you also get the reflection of the sun on the water beaming against you.
Next another long run to connect Verviers to Liège. Ran out of energy and/or dehydrated on this one, not sure which, leaning towards the latter. The last few km were a struggle. A decent amount of it was in nature if I recall, so should have been shaded enough, but my body just did not take it well that day. A water fountain along the way that I was hoping to use was also not operational. I think I might not have had enough water before leaving home, so I started the run a bit dehydrated, making the water I had brought insufficient.
After that came running from Eupen to Aachen, which I talked about before. Remember how I said I was not into this goal? Well, by this point I was adding a weekend trip to make the connecting more pleasant.
All of the previous happened in May 2023. Then I took a little break from it until the end of June when I finally got around to connecting the final part: Huy to Liège. I had been dreading it a bit because it was also along the river and I was not expecting much shade. Summer had started in earnest so that was promising to not be pleasant. In the end the heat turned out alright, I must have gotten somewhat used to things. However, I did smash the big toe of my right foot on a rock that was jutting out and took a tumble. Some scrapes and the toe started looking purple and blue, but ended up alright for running. Either way, another connection made!
This final tricountry point one might be a goal for fall 2023. There is a train line that goes down from Liège that should get me close. I have not quite figured out how to go from the end of following that line to the actual tricountry point, but I will tackle that problem when I get to it. Let’s see what my motivation is by then.
Cross border trains get a bit more expensive though, so with the warmer weather starting and wanting to make the most out of the ticket, I decided to make it all more expensive still and make a long weekend in Aachen out of it. That means I needed to carry a bit more than I usually do on a run, which in turn is the reason I am jotting this down as a reminder for a possible future attempt at a similar endeavour.
I had to bring enough stuff to survive the weekend in Aachen and I had to carry it on my back while running. I believe the community calls this “fastpacking”. I made it easier on myself by renting a room in Aachen to crash, so I did not need a tent or anything like that. Evidently I could also just buy food in the city. So in essence what I needed was: clothes, footwear, some essentials.
Eventually I settled on the following. Sadly I am writing this after the fact from memory, so I hope I am not making a mistake. Also, I forgot to weigh the setup beforehand. It definitely was heavier than what I have run with in the past.
Besides all that, I was also wearing running clothes, running shoes, and my running watch. I reused those running clothes (including the socks and underwear) for the two runs I did in Aachen the two days after. This went OK. Shower washing of clothes is also always an option when things can dry quickly enough.
I made sure to cut nails and shave before as well, to not have to worry about those while there.
I was very happy to have brought clean clothes for when not running. Nothing like a shower after the run and not having to squeeze back into dirty clothes.
The espadrilles were not a good choice. They were a bit heavier and they are stiff so not as easily stuffed into the backpack. Disregarding that, they started cutting into my feet after walking a lot in them. That was slightly unexpected since I have used other espadrilles in the past that worked just fine when touristing. In the future, I might be tempted to look into some more minimalist shoes, by the looks of things there are more foldable options in that market. Otherwise I also have some light watershoes I am tempted to give a try once. Just using the running shoes for everything is also an option, but it is nice to be out of those for a while too. Especially after sweating a bunch.
The place actually provided a toothbrush and toothpaste, but I was not aware of that. Would not have saved much weight anyway.
A powerbank would have been useful for the longer touristing days. Would also add a bunch of weight though.
I would have liked my ereader (Nook Simple Touch), but I did not think it would fit in nicely in my backpack since I had to stuff to get everything in. I did not want to put weird pressure on it. Could have used it when just sitting around chilling on a terrace or in a park. Next time it might be better to just bring it.
In the end, this is the result of 60.2 km of running (30.3, 11.1, 18.8) and 43.5 km of walking over the three day weekend. Saturday was the long point to point run. Sunday the south loop. Monday the north loop. I tried to follow nature walking routes where possible. The rest is walking to do tourism.
]]>For as long as I have been running, people have asked me about whether I had done or was training for a marathon. The thought never appealed to me. One reason might be just to be contrarian. If everyone sees something as the thing to go for, it manages to subconsciously lose its appeal to me. One reason might be because of what a dumb distance it is. My running career was nurtured on (albeit, badly Belgian measured) 5 kms, 10 kms, and 20 kms. Nice round numbers. The marathon? Something with wanting to finish in front of the palace of some now dead monarch, if memory serves. I think the major reason was, though, that I realised I liked trying to run fast. I saw the marathon as something people moved up to to avoid having to go through the training to get faster. “Why run harder when you can slow down for longer?”
Fast is relative of course. Fast is everyone that beats me in races. I remain average. For a while I held off the boat with the excuse “I will think about the marathon when I get faster and think I can run sub 3:00”. That point came and went as I improved on other distances, but my desire to run a marathon did not develop. On the contrary, I had discovered track racing in earnest and liked what I saw.
And yet. Over the past eight months, the idea of racing a marathon started growing in my mind. I do not know if it is really true, but I like to say the seed was planted when a colleague told me he was the best marathoner at the office. He said it as sort of a joke, but he was right: of all those that had run a marathon, he was the fastest. He added “and please don’t run one”. I can get a bit competitive about things. Either way, I started thinking about marathons. I also thought that while I do not care about the distance right now, I might start caring in a few years. By that time, some experience could come in handy. With most people only racing a marathon 2-3 times a year, building that experience would take time. Another point in favour of doing a marathon.
Back in, I want to say, November, I looked around a bit at the options for spring marathons. Gent caught my eye because of its proximity. Going by a conversion my PBs on shorter distances, I might have also been able to run a top 20 (twenty) there. That always looks nice. Rotterdam also caught my eye. It is the Netherlands, so it is flat. I had heard it was well organised. I saw the results from previous years and I was going to have to work to be top 200 (two hundred). That meant there would be a lot of people to run with in case the going got hard. That has really dragged me through some bad spells in races in the past, so if I had to make a choice, Rotterdam would be it. And then I shelved the idea and sort of forgot about marathons.
Around the end of January, beginning of February, I thought about the marathon again. I opened the Rotterdam marathon website. It had already sold out and… I felt a pang of FOMO. That was the very moment that I realised I did want to run Rotterdam. Bit late, innit?
Rotterdam marathon also has a “Vraag en Aanbod forum”: people with a ticket that do not want to use it any more, e.g., because of an injury, can offer their ticket up for sale. Potential buyers then fill in their email address and hope the seller picks them to talk to. As I write this, I do not know whether they actually offered this in a language other than Dutch. Maybe not, to avoid scams. From time to time I opened the forum and filled in my email address in a bunch of offers. Weeks passed without a reply, but I figured even a sale three weeks out from the marathon would be fine. I already had my training that kept me busy, all that I would need to adjust was some taper time the final weeks before the actual race.
Eventually someone contacted me and somewhere in early March I was officially signed up for the Rotterdam marathon on 16 April.
I will only give a detailed overview of what happened since the Belgian Half Marathon Championships 35 days (5 weeks) prior to this race. For more details, check out that report. Basically during winter I had built up to 120 km per week and kept that steady, not really doing workouts. Six weeks prior to that race (so 11 weeks prior to this marathon), I reintroduced workouts. LT work and some Marathon pace attempts.
After the half marathon race, the plan was to do a recovery week, then two up weeks around 120 km with workouts. Finally two taper weeks with the marathon race at the last Sunday. I will count the weeks down to one in this overview.
Week 6. Week of the half marathon race. Some lower volume as a mini taper for the race. Race pace workout on Tuesday. Race on Sunday. Good effort, new PR, yadeyade, see the other report.
Week 5. Planned post race recovery week. 10-13-13-13-13 for the weekdays. Lower side of the belly felt sore from the race effort. Legs more sore than they had been in a while. Nothing worrying, just racing shenanigans. The night of Friday to Saturday, things went to shit. Literally. I had a stomach bug, flu, whatever you want to call it, and everything had to go. I forced some puking to hopefully resolve the situation, but kept on feeling bad. Saturday I quickly decided to not go for my planned long run. Fool me once, don’t get fooled again, and all that. The non-literal runs continued, I had zero appetite, and whatever I did manage to eat seemed to go straight through. I thought I’d suffer for a day, but no, it continued for days on end. I lost Sunday too. Just 64 km for the week.
Week 4. I continued being sick and lost another three days of running. Five days down the shitter. I lost 4 kg in the process and I do not have many to lose. When I finally seemed past it, I dared to try running again. My body had taken a beating though, everything felt like a lot of effort, I still needed to regain all the energy I had lost barely eating for days. Rest of the week was 6, 10, 13, and 13 km. 42 km total. I did also manage a 17 km walk on Saturday. Running too much too soon felt risky, but I figured a walk was more readily kept easy or abandoned.
Week 3. I needed a good week still before the race, if for nothing else than my confidence. This one had to suffice. I ran 120 km for the week, but did not feel quite right enough to do a workout yet. Long run (30k) and mid-week long run (23k) went fine though. Also made sure to have another go at practising taking in gels. That seemed fine too, no stomach issues. For the 30 km I took five of them. First one at 2 km, then another one every 4 km. 88 kcal per gel, 22 gram carbs.
Week 2. And then it was already taper time. It felt weird after just the one up week because of the illness, but I felt more like playing this one safe. Whether it was the right choice, I will never know. I put the plan for this together rather belatedly (that is, the Sunday of the previous week), getting inspiration from Pfitzinger’s “18/85” plan (18 week plan, peaking at 137 km or 85 miles). I settled on 90 km for the first taper week: 14, 10, 15, 10, 11, 21, and 9 km. Strides on Monday and Friday. A CV workout on Wednesday. If I had not been sick and actually done workouts the two weeks prior, I would have done VO2max then, and probably now too. In the current situation, I decided to not try my first VO2max in a while just 10 days before the marathon. I did 4×1000 aiming for about 3:21 to 3:26. Actual splits: 3:27, 3:23, 3:19, and 3:21. Had actually wanted to do five reps, but something felt a bit off on the fourth one, so I called it a day. Rest was about 1:10 (~1/3rd of the time of a rep).
Week 1, race week. Not much running left at this point: 11, 10, 13, 10, 8, 6, race day. Total prior to race day: 58 km. Wednesday I did 3 km at marathon pace, but the GPS went all wonky and I was constantly speeding up and slowing back down to get the pacing right. Maybe I should have done it on a track just to be sure of the pace this one time. Considerations for another training cycle. Either way, paces were a bit all over the place, but it did not worry me. Strides on Monday and Friday.
Back when I first considered running this marathon, my then half marathon PR put me just shy of 2:40. My PRs on the shorter distances put me under 2:40. That looked pretty, but also probably just out reach. Then in March I ran 1:14:52 on the half marathon, which translates to a 2:36:35. All calculations in this paragraph based on JD’s vdot calculator.
So. Ye. That’s really tempting. At first I was hesitant to go out that aggressively on my first marathon. Surely it was safer to go out at 2:45? Play it safe, don’t blow up, keep the fast work for a future marathon. Alas, the more I thought about it, the more I realised I wanted that sub 2:40. 2:40:xx or 2:41? Maybe I could live with it, but I probably would not be happy. Slower still? I think I would just be disappointed. I am not trying to qualify for anything, I am not trying to beat anyone. It’s intrinsic motivation only and that one was now all in on sub 2:40.
So that is the goal time: 2:39:59. That is 3:47.5 per km. Even splits seemed the safest approach, so the plan was to aim for that pace from the start. Banking time sounds risky, even with the hypothetical few seconds per km I supposedly could go faster according to the calculator. Starting too slow sounds risky too, cause that expects me to be able to speed up in the second half. I didn’t know yet whether I would dare to speed up if I did happen to feel good later on in the race. Either way, that was a decision that I wouldn’t need to make till maybe 34 km into the race. Worries for beat-up-by-the-marathon-me. We cross a bridge twice and go through a tunnel, but besides that I don’t think there is any elevation. So not much to plan for on that end.
Spurned on by the wonky GPS during the last marathon pace mini workout the week of the race, I also checked heart rate ranges in Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning book. I got 155-166. Had no clue what in that range to aim for, but I was going to remember that range.
I had a bunch of the gels I had tried three weeks out (88kcal, 22g carbs). They would have to do. I wanted to take in six of them and ended up packing a seventh as backup. The plan was to take one at 2, 6, 10, 14, 18, 22 km. It seemed to work in training. There are water stands every five km, so be sure to take some sips of water every time.
I like the racing aspect of, well, racing. In a 5000m you can gamble to try and follow somebody’s move even if it feels a little bit hot. Probably a bit riskier to do that in your first marathon. I picked Rotterdam cause there should be a good number of people around my pace. I just have to make sure they do not lure me into running too fast. Definitely run my own race the first 20-30 km, then evaluate after. But damn, it may be difficult to rein myself in. I will have to tell myself this a few times in the corral and during the first few kilometre.
I found myself not thinking about the marathon as much as I would have expected going by other people’s accounts. None of the “taper crazies” or anything like it. Maybe cause it still feels like something extra, not a main goal I have worked towards over months. It is running, how much worse can it be than the suffering I always put myself through? I planned out my logistics of course, but never sat around fretting. By this point I had settled on my goal pace as well, so there was nothing that could be done any more.
I slept less than I usually do, just waking up earlier. Maybe the lower volume left me rested. I also wore a face mask in public transport more often again. Did not want to get sick.
My wife and I made our way to Rotterdam on Saturday. It is an easy train ride from Brussels. Arriving around 13:00, I had eaten on the train, food I had brought from home. We went to the marathon expo to get my bib and a free running t-shirt. Walk through all the stands that I did not feel like standing around for. Got to rest them legs! We bought what we needed to make some pasta in the evening and made our way to the place we were staying. Rest of the afternoon and evening was spent sitting around and planning the final details of the next morning. The place I had gotten last minute was in a bit of a public transport dead zone and I did not want to have to walk too much in the morning. We settled on getting a ride in the morning to the nearest metro station and taking that into the city. Next time: think better about public transport options when getting your place.
I put my alarm at 6:00, four hours before the race was supposed to start. I mostly wanted to give my body enough of a buffer to do all the toilet business it might need to. Had 150g of muesli I had brought along from home and 300ml soy milk with it. Drank two cups of Kenyan black tea. Feeling faster already. Went to the toilet a few times, took a shower. We planned to get out the door at 8:00. In case getting a ride failed, there would still be enough time to walk to the public transport. The ride showed up soon and brought us to the metro station nearby (driving into the city was… difficult because of the marathon).
Because of the walking backup buffer, we got to the centre of Rotterdam a bit earlier than originally planned. We went to the marathon expo building again to sit inside where it was dry and warm (it was about 7-8C and had started to drizzle a little). I went to the toilet there again and we sat around for a while waiting for the start to draw closer.
Around 9:10 we started meandering towards my wave. Since I was more near the front, we still had to walk down all the waves. There was a large amount of portapotties everywhere. Both outside and inside the waves by the looks of it. I tried using one just in case. Getting bellycramps during a race is something I always worry about. The checks to get in your wave were quite diligent. Would not have been able to just hop in there. I jogged around for like half a km as warmup, gave my wife the last of my extra gear, and went into 1.C, my start area. I was not sure where in this area to start. I think it was everyone from 2:31 to 2:59, so I wiggled between a bit to move up some lines, then stood around waiting for the gun.
They had a guy with a red flag at an elevated platform at the front. This indicated it was still more than two minutes. Dutch singer Lee Towers sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, which is apparently a tradition at the start of this race. At some point the red flag got swapped out for a green flag, indicating the final two minutes.
The gun went off aaaand we walked towards the start line. Always a little anticlimactic that way. Eventually I reached the actual start line.
Almost immediately after starting, you have to cross the Erasmusbrug. A podcast I listen to had expressly said to not go out too fast on that. I had kept that advice in mind. It was also quite crowded at this point, so I could not actually go much faster up it than I was doing there. I think I kept things under control, but it is hard to know for sure. There are also a lot of spectators right there on both sides on the bridge. The tram line that normally goes through the middle is also rerouted and taken over by spectators. A wall of cheers to go through. You quickly reach the top of this bridge and when heading down I pass some more people. Going downhill is easier for me.
Over the next several km I am mostly trying to find my pace. I do not trust the 1 km splits too much and instead pay extra attention to my heart rate. That one quickly settles around 159-160, smack dab in the middle of the range I had planned for. I decide then and there to aim for that heart rate for a while, ignoring pace till I hit the 5 km marker. I had written down the 5, 10, and 40 km splits on my hand as well, so that was easier to compare than doing the mental math with 3:47.5 per km. My plan to take a gel at 2 km felt silly since nobody else was grabbing anything yet, but at 3.x I decided to grab my first one after all. Perhaps a little too early. Around the 5 km point is also a water stand and I grab a cup and try to drink some of it. I am sure most of it splashed out, but at least some of it I managed to actually drink.
Similarly continued on the next 5 km. I had another gel around 7.x km and felt the belly be a little unhappy a km or so later, so I decided to put some more kms between gels. Another water attempt at 10 km.
I think by this point I was in a bit of a group with similarly paced people. I ran at the front for a bit, I purposefully moved a bit further back at some point because there was a head wind. I kept an eye on my heart rate and was also satisfied with the pacing so far. I did try to keep an eye on the km splits too, had to ensure I kept on sub 2:40 pace. We all ran together for a good while.
Some people in the group had friends, coaches, whatever, that would be ready with bottles or gels, some biking between spots, some briefly biking along to hand over what was needed. A squeezy bottle did seem a lot easier to drink from than the paper cups we got from the organisation. I just carried my own gels and had another one of those around 13-14 km. I think I aimed to eat the gel just before the next water stand. Help digesting with some fluids.
After the 15 km water stand I suddenly found myself a bit ahead of my group. I don’t know whether I subconsciously speed up through them or whether everyone else slows way down. Briefly thought about waiting for them specifically again, but decided to just hang at the pace I was hitting.
The next five are a bit of a blur. I think I was still mostly running with others. I had gel number four at some point. My mental math with the splits was failing me, so I was just waiting for the halfway mark to have a better idea. 2:40 divided by 2 I could still handle.
Somewhere in this block I was also thinking how kinda boring it was. You are racing, but it is mostly a game of ensuring you do not push too hard. OK, every race is like that, but in a marathon it actually has to feel somewhat easy for quite a while. In a 5k it is more about only slightly killing yourself the first half.
At some point I found myself alone again, possibly after the 20 km water stands. After the halfway point, you also hit a lonelier stretch in terms of crowd support. Finally there was some headwind to top it all off. I tried to stay focused, just ticking away the kilometres. Not sure whether I had an opinion on any of the GPS km splits that I saw. I think I caught up to a group a little before the 25 km mark. No clue whether I was still on track for sub-2:40.
I ran with my new group for a little bit. Around 26.5 km into the race, we take a turn and the Erasmusbridge is showing itself again in all its glory. I felt awed by the sight of it. So tall and hulking, a beautiful piece of engineering. I had seen and crossed the bridge a few times on a past trip already and never had that feeling, so I am attributing it partially to running emotions. Shortly after my admiring, I got smacked around by the bridge as we climbed upwards. I quickly decided not to have my heart rate shoot up trying to keep pace with my group and switched tempo. There were also more spectators here again, I made sure to not make them hype me up so much that I would blast up the bridge after all. Soon I found myself descending again and creeping closer back towards my group. I also spotted an official photographer. I decided to flash a moose antler sign, but as I raised my hands for it, the crowd went absolutely wild. The decibels shot up. I felt slightly seen and turned my movement in a sort of raising the roof moment. The cheering got me real hyped. I briefly thought about trying it again 50 metres further, but felt too self-conscious and feared I might get left hanging.
I think I joined some people (or at least one person) again by the end of the bridge. The HR had shot up a little after descending, I was confused about that at the time, but in retrospect I am inclined to blame it on the crowds. Either way, we continued on and after an annoying π turn, had to go in a short tunnel just past the 28 km point. The tunnel part is fine, but on the climbing out of it, I decided to take it slower than those around me again. I do not really remember anything about the next bit though recall the lane before the 30 km water stand being a bit narrow.
I believe around 31 km I suddenly started hearing a helicopter. I saw some police motorcycles drive by. I knew what was coming. Soon I saw them, Bashir Abdi and some other guy leading the race together crossed me in the opposite direction. Sadly there was the end of a tram stop separating us. If I had been 20 seconds faster or slower, I think all that would have stood between us was a little red-white ribbon. Either way, when they got as close to me as I was going to get, I let out a “KOMAAN BASHIR” as loud as I could manage. Probably got lost among the noise, but it was as much to hype myself up as it was to shout him on to victory. You have to do something to keep yourself busy during a marathon.
Soon after, I hit another quieter part of the course. This road is wedged between a highway and a large lake and surrounding park (Kralingse plas en bos). Not many supporters were present here, though after the race someone assured me that it gets quite crowded if you are on the slower end. It is just that at this point in the race, all those supporters are still waiting for their loved ones on earlier parts of the course. The road also had a bit of a camber going for longer than I liked. Or at least, I remember being annoyed with it at the time. I briefly ran behind someone else, but I think they were slowing down too much and I left them behind. I had my sixth gel somewhere along this stretch, I want to say around 32-33 km. You would think this would have been the perfect time for some split calculating to see whether I was still on pace. I had not really had a clue since the halfway mark. You would think wrong, I recall still struggling with it. It really should not be as difficult as I was experiencing at the time. I passed the 35 km mark at some point and I think I realised I was behind pace, but I do not think it really registered how much behind I was.
Around 36 km you get outside of the more lonely stretch. It is also the moment I decided I could stop trying to keep the heart rate under control. Looking back at the data afterwards, I: (a) had apparently already crossed the upper range (166) of my heart rate in the kilometre before that, and (b) seem to have actually gone slower the kilometres after my decision that I could speed up. Zooming way way in on the nearly flat Rotterdam marathon elevation chart, there is a hint of it going ever so slightly up in comparison to the ever so slightly down of the prior kilometres so maybe that is to blame. Either way, I let the heart rate creep up to 170.
Around the 38.5 km point, you start running the opposite direction of people that are yet to run around the Kralingse plas, on the other side of the road from them. To do so, you run perpendicular towards the road they are on, then turn left onto their road. I remember spotting people running into the turn-right direction, thinking that was where I would have to go next. I also saw us being directed to the left instead. I was confused, was there another moment where you go left for a bit before turning around? I thought only Slinge and the tunnel had a π turn. After the turn I started looking for the turn around. It took me a little bit to realise these people were way more numerous than what I had been running in and were going noticeably slower. Finally I realised this were the people that still had 11ish km to go. I swear I am not normally this dumb.
Around km 39 and then some I was already starting to feel the extra effort of my speed-up-but-not-actually-speed-up I had started at km 36. A little swearing at myself for, apparently, starting too soon, but did my best to hold on. I did not die entirely I think, so maybe that was just how I was supposed to feel at that point. I was counting down the kilometres, figuring it was barely anything now, just keep on keeping on.
The 40 km point was coming up, besides the 5 km and the 10 km split this was the only split I had written on my hand. I had figured that by this point I might have trouble to do split split (hehe) calculations in my head. I was not wrong. I was also not quite right. I could have used many more splits on my hand.
So that was a bit of a stroke of clarity. I was way behind the 2:40 goal now. I quickly realised that there was no way I would be making up 56 seconds in the last 2.195 km of a marathon. Damnit, that was a bit of a mental blow. I had known I was behind, but I was not 100% sure how much exactly. I figured with starting to push at 36 km I had been closing the gap to make it manageable for the last bit. No dice. Despite the disappointment, or because of it, I pushed harder. See what I can still do. Keeping it at 2:40:xx was the new goal.
In km 39.x, my heart rate had gone to 171-172, in km 40.x that went up further to 173-174. Speedwise, not much actually changed it seems. Elevation data shows a little bump here, but I am inclined not to really believe that. Again, The Netherlands.
With 1000m to go, there was a marker placed. That motivated me to push harder still. The heart rate kept creeping up now. I did not pay attention to it at the time, I was just pushing whatever I still could. The 500m point was marked in the same manner and from there I started my sprint to the line. 100-200 metre later I regretted that choice. Lots of gritting my teeth to survive. I was passing people still though, so must have been doing something right.
In the last 50-100 metre, I knew I could somewhat celebrate without losing pace. Some time ago I had read “Inside a Marathon” by Scott Fauble. In it, he mentions approaching the finish line of, I think, NYC marathon and lifting his arms, pointing at people in the crowd, enjoying that last moment. That had seemed like something I should do at some point. Emboldened by my earlier luck on the Erasmusbridge, I went for it. I raised my arms a few times, hands spread out and the palms up, asking for some encouragement. The crowd roared in response. I swung my right arm in a circle maybe twice to hopefully keep them going as I raced the last bit to the line. The clock was ticking away at 2:41:20ish, but I knew I had a 28 second buffer of the difference between chip and gun time.
I crossed the line. Having finally learned from previous (mostly track) races, I did not let up on the line to stop my watch. Every second counted. I passed the second timing mat. I stopped my legs and my watch. My legs almost immediately started to buckle. A crowd of medical personnel was waiting and one immediately came up to ensure I did not topple over. I leaned on her, shuffled some steps, pointed at the fence on the side, and asked her to drop me off there so I could lean on it. I hung there for a while, then started to shuffle onwards through the 500 metre long finishing chute, grabbing drinks and snacks along the way. I quickly downed everything. I was cold. My legs were in pain.
I had mixed feelings.
My time was 2:40:55 (my watch was showing 2:40:57 at the time and that was all I had to go by). I had the 2:40:xx I had been focusing on during that last bit of the race. I also missed out on sub 2:40, the real goal I had come here for. It felt so close and yet so far away. At the time, I was not sure yet how I felt about it. I leaned towards disappointment, but with some acceptance. I write this a few days later and the feeling has flipped to acceptance with still a little bit of disappointment. “I am a 2:40 guy” sounds fine. I don’t think I messed anything up on race day, so this is about as much as I could have squeezed out that day. Above all, I did not blow up, which is what I really did not want to happen. As you can tell from the following table, I did positive split, but not in a crazy manner.
km | time | 2:40 | last 5k | split pace |
---|---|---|---|---|
5 | 18:53 | -5 | 18:53 | 3:47 |
10 | 37:50 | -5 | 18:57 | 3:47 |
15 | 56:52 | -1 | 19:02 | 3:48 |
20 | 1:15:47 | -3 | 18:55 | 3:47 |
half | 1:19:58 | -2 | ||
25 | 1:34:59 | +11 | 19:12 | 3:50 |
30 | 1:54:06 | +20 | 19:07 | 3:49 |
35 | 2:13:17 | +34 | 19:11 | 3:50 |
40 | 2:32:37 | +56 | 19:20 | 3:52 |
full | 2:40:55 | +55 | 3:47 |
I finished 312th of 16849 finishers. I think this was a faster year, because there was no sun or warmth to deal with. 2:40:55 would have netted you a top 200 spot in the previous years. There seems to be a 6 hour cutoff. I am interested in seeing the bell curve (also compared to other years), but am too lazy to whip that together right now. Plus the problem with that for everyone is that there are a lot of untrained people taking part too. I don’t think that is representative, but I do not know how to limit the data to what-I-consider-relevant results.
As a silly aside, I have been keeping somewhat track of how many World Athletics points my time on the different distances net me. I do this only cause it is the kind of stuff that entertains me. Either way, this is my first result netting me over 700 points. For reference, the maximum is 1400, a man would need to run a 1:56:14 marathon with the current tables to achieve that. The world record nets you about 1300 it looks like. You get one point for running it in 4:25:53. I think it may be more generous for longer distances.
Distance | My WA points |
---|---|
800m | 558 |
1500m | 583 |
3000m | 539 |
5000m | 564 |
10k | 603 |
half | 664 |
full | 704 |
Usually I mention the times of some people that I ran with here. Rotterdam marathon even makes it easier: everyone has to wear a second bib on their back. So I saw many bib numbers. I remembered none of those I actually ran with.
There is one time I can give you. It may come as a surprise that after beating me in the half five weeks earlier, Bashir Abdi beat me again here. He won the race in 2:03:47. He had hoped to beat the European record he already holds, but cited bad pacers and wind as two of the reasons it did not work out.
We went for some Vietnamese food as lunch after I had changed into clean clothes. I was worried I would have trouble eating, so I went for a pho since at least spooning in soup should work. Turns out my stomach wasn’t in that bad of a shape. I definitely ate less than I usually would have, but still downed a decent amount. Also had a beer.
We meandered around for a bit and passed the course again around the 41k mark. As we were walking along it, some guy with a bib saying “Tom” on it had to stop running and switched to a walk with a grimace on his face. Me and someone on the other side of road immediately started yelling at him (in Dutch) “COME ON TOMMY! DON’T QUIT NOW! YOU’RE SO CLOSE! DON’T GIVE UP!”. I do not know whether he appreciated it.
We got beer in another place, meandered some again, sat down in yet another place for two beers and a little snack. In this final place, at some point a guy was walking around on the terrace, holding up his Rotterdam marathon medal in one hand, holding up a beer in his other hand, looking triumphant. He went around the tables, cheering if anyone showed their own medal, bumping the glasses against each other in salutation. When he had gone around the tables, he walked to one certain table, took off his medal, gave it to a guy sitting there, and said “thanks for letting me borrow it for a second”. Well played, well played.
Eventually we made our way back to the bnb. The legs were tired and I walked quite slowly, but they were not feeling terrible. They got very sore later in the evening.
The next morning the front of my thighs were killing me, but I had time before needing to catch my train back to Brussels (had to be at work in the afternoon). I decided to try a 2-3 km jog. The first few steps felt like I was Bambi on ice, my legs did not want to support me like that. It quickly went to “ok”, though I did keep things at a shuffle. Just wanted to get that blood flowing. We also walked 30ish minutes to the nearest tram stop to head to the train station. All in all, a decent amount of movement.
The second day the fronts of the thighs were still super sore. Going down stairs or getting up out of chairs was near impossible without supporting myself with my hands.
Third day things had gotten manageable. Fourth day I would say it felt pretty much alright. I did a short jog daily, just for the semblance of movement. That will continue for another week or two. Have not quite figured out yet what exactly I want my recovery to look like.
I might do the 20 km door Brussel again. That is the last weekend of May. I will also be taking a proper look at the track calendar in the coming two months, that should be online by now. Something nice and short again for a change.
Future marathons… we’ll see. I definitely think it was less enjoyable than a speedy track race. The long recovery time is also driving me mad already after only a few days of it. It is worse than the marathon taper, at least then you have a goal you are aiming for. Maybe I will end up aiming for one marathon a year just to get some more experience. Going sub 2:40 will remain a goal too, I admit.
With all the time I spend in the USA, maybe I will end up having a go at the Boston marathon. Not cause I care for the course (though a point to point does look nice on my heatmap) or the race, but mostly because I can already anticipate the “so did/will you run Boston” questions when state side. What I hear of the logistics makes it sound miserable though.
]]>As described before, I spent the winter building my base. That was almost exclusively calm running to give whatever was causing the hip niggle to pop up from time to time the chance to fully disappear (knock on wood). Meanwhile I was pushing my weekly distance up to 120 km and holding it at that consistently. This also made me add a mid-week (mid-)long run, usually of about 23 km, once I hit 120 km weeks. All singles.
I decided to start reintroducing workouts in the week of 30 Jan-5 Feb, i.e., six weeks before the race (including race week). I will count down in this section. Workouts are described in terms of their goal effort / planned idea. I ran quite some by feel because of the undulating terrain, so that confuses the matter further. Up weeks I aim for 120 km total, long run of 30 km. A usual split over the week would be: 18, 14, 23, 14, 11, 30, and 10 km. All the details and meaningful deviations are mentioned explicitly further down.
Week 6. Monday I planned 2×3k LT, but because of a red light that became 3k, ~1.5k, and ~1.5k. Paces averaged 3:47, 3:42, and 3:52. Heartrate seemed to be high 150s until the final km which was low 160s.
Wednesday I tried Marathon pace, something I had never done before. I was not signed up for a marathon, but was tentatively trying to get into Rotterdam (16 April) still. When I saw Rotterdam had sold out, I realised I was for the first time in my life actually in the mood to try a marathon. Despite being sold out, people can still put their bibs up for sale in case they got injured or something similar. If I managed to at some point get a bib that way, I wanted to at least have given Marathon pace a try beforehand. Wednesday was a first try at that. I set out to do 12 km. Pace wise the calculators put me around a 2h40 marathon (3:47-3:48 per km). I ended up aiming for that as the faster end of a slightly more conservative range: 3:47-3:54. I had no heart rate to aim for and the terrain was still undulating, so feeling wise I settled on “feels easier than LT, but you gotta remember to push harder than regular running”. Splits were: 3:40, :54, :34, :45, :50, :59, 4:13, 3:38, 3:55, 3:57, 4:02, and 3:58. Heart rate apparently hovered around 155-157. I don’t really look at my watch during this. Just vibes. Also am doing Citystrides at the same time (and really for almost all my runs) and it turns out dead ends are not great when you’re pushing the pace some.
Later that week my left hip area felt a bit more tired than I liked, so I decided to do just one workout per week the rest of the weeks, replacing a workout day with strides instead. No point overdoing things when you are coming back to the harder work.
Week 5. Monday I did some strides. I do not really count them any more, I just wing it and hope I will hit something in the 6-8 range. Tends to work out. Wednesday I did 12k Marathon pace again. Again mostly by feel, though I glanced at my watch if I noticed it buzzing. Parts of this workout was on earth frozen into weird angles which I had to navigate a bit carefully to not twist an ankle. Other parts had thawed in the sun and instead had a muddy slippery upper layer. That said, most sections were fine. I tried a gel to see what the stomach would say: it was fine. Splits: 3:42, :59, :47, 4:03, 3:46, :49, :52, 4:03, 3:51, :48, :38, :50. Heart rate in the low 150s, so that was likely not hard enough.
Week 4. I took a down week so that I could do two more up weeks before race week. Two days with strides, a 25 km long run. 96 km total.
Week 3. Monday was strides again. By this point I had actually signed up for the half marathon, so I switched away from Marathon pace and did some LT again on Wednesday. I had planned to do 3×3k, which comes down to about 30 minutes total. Aim for ~2 minute break in-between reps. Seems I went by vibes again. If taking it more seriously on the flat, the goal would probably be about 3:35 per km. Actual split: 3:43, :34, :40, jog, :29, :35, :50, jog, :49, :42, :49. Average: 3:41 per km. As before: undulating and citystrides. Heart rate high 150s, low 160s near the end. I was happy when I neared the end of the workout. I recall back in the day aiming more for like 170 for LT work though, so I might be taking these too easily. The realisation did not bother me. I’m having fun. Felt a bit deflated for Saturday’s long run, like when you run out of carby energy. Not sure what was up with that, don’t think it was related to anything.
Week 2. Monday strides again, Wednesday 3×3k Threshold again. Same caveats. Paces: 3:34, :41, :44, jog, 46, :32, :53, jog, :33, :27, :48. Average: 3:39. HR a bit lower than last time. Was wearing a chest strap and I am not sure whether it connects up perfectly. Eventually reached 160 HR in the last km.
Week 1, race week. Distances for the week: 13-16.5-13.5-13.5-10-6-24. Tuesday I did race pace / threshold. By this I mean I wanted to see what a sub 1:15 half marathon might feel like, so I set out to do 2×2k at 3:33 per km. It was a shitty day raining through the night, morning, and during the lunch workout. Headwind for the stretch I planned to do the workout and there were soooo many puddles everywhere. Sunday was also looking shit, so I saw it as a good test in all manners. Felt a bit out of it in the warmup, but I was not deterred. Splits: 3:31, :34, jog, :35, :31. Average: 3:33 per km. Perfecto. Heart rate settled around 165 bpm. Feels like: maybe just a bit too fast for an entire half marathon. Thursday and Saturday, I threw in some strides to keep the legs on their toes (badumtsj).
My obvious goal was to PR, beating last year’s 1:16:43. I was not sure what shape I was actually in though. I had been running a decent amount, more than ever before, but not much of it fast. What could I run? Eventually I thought “sub 1:15 looks pretty, let’s do that”. Was I capable of it? No clue. Did I mind blowing up trying? Nah, just go for it. A true scientific approach. Note: this is why I did the workout I did the Tuesday before the race, I wanted some feel of the pace.
I had to wake up at 6:00 to get ready and catch my train. Had my usual bowl of muesli with soy milk (150g muesli, 300g soy milk). Did not have time for tea, so just had some water. I took the metro to catch a train and brought a bike along. Once dropped off in Ghent by the train, I biked the last 4 km to the stadium from which the race starts. Could have also taken a bus for that part, but it would have involved more waiting around in the station.
Tried to use the bathroom (and would continue doing that periodically prerace just in case). Grabbed my bib. Went to sit in the cafeteria to pin the bib onto my singlet and the guy on the next table over was mentioning the wind might make this tricky. It did not seem to have bothered him that much in the end… :)
I started some stretches and tried to time my getting ready to not stand around too long. It was around 8C and cloudy. Shorts and singlets would be fine for running, not as much for standing still. Eventually changed and dropped off my bag.
I ran maybe 2 km total as a warmup. Did two strides. They announced the start would be soon so I went on over the start area. The organisation had placed some signs so you knew where to line up: sub 65, 65-70, 70-75, and 75-80 minutes. The signs also said there would be pacers from 75 minutes and faster, spread out around every 2-3 minutes. None of us where I was lined up actually saw the 75 minute pacer though. Oh well. After a bit of an extra wait because the police was still clearing the course, we eventually got ready and waited for the gun.
At the start line I had noticed a younger looking guy, bit taller than me, shirt was for RAAC, another club in Brussels. After the gun, he was in front of me, so I semi-followed him over the first 500 metre as a sort of pacing guide. We were both on the inside of the track so that worked out. Getting out of the track was a bit cramped, but then we were on the streets and things were fine. Everybody is a bit looking for their pace so I just focus on keeping things under control and doing it right™. According to my watch, the pace was a few seconds per km fast, but I figure that is just how these things start.
After about 2-3 km, I found myself at the front of a little group, with another group maybe 10-20 metre ahead of us. The other group did not really pull away and from time to time someone would zoom past me to get to that group. Eventually I looked back, saw maybe 3 or 4 people, so I too decided to bridge the gap. A brief acceleration later, I latched onto the back of my new group of 25(!) people (I counted them afterwards using the official 5 km split). I was happy here and hung at the back of this group for the next several km. The pace kept perhaps a few seconds faster than I wanted for sub-75, but I was not going to let go of this group just yet. The wind picked up along the water and it was interesting to see how we all manoeuvred to try to not get hit too much by it. Did not feel like I was protected much though. At some point along the water I also saw someone lying face forward in the grass along the path. He looked like he might have been one of the elite or pacing African runners. I wondered how you could be so dead so shortly into a half marathon and whether he would be OK.
Around 6-6.5 km, we turn away from the water and shortly after that the path also narrows. Some jostling for position because of that actually saw me move up in the group without intending to. I felt good though and, without changing how the effort felt, seemed to be slowly moving up further in the group. The feeling did not last too long. Around 8.5 km, when passing under a highway bridge, I felt a side stitch developing. It did not hurt yet, but I recognised the signs and reined myself in. I went backwards in the group, sort of hung on for a bit, and then went out the back. But at least I did not have a side stitch.
As I tried to find the right effort again, I noticed I was alongside or in front of a woman. I only mention it because in situations like these she, rightfully so since she was around 10th at that time, gets more attention from the crowd with constant shouts of encouragement for “Elke”. We ran together for a little bit, but by the time I hit the water again (around 10.5 km), I must have gapped her: the shouts were further behind me.
At some point a guy with a shirt that said “Ploegsteert” passed me and I latched on. We ran together for at least the second half of the path along the river. He did most of the work in front, I must admit. When we passed the spot where earlier the runner had been lying face forward, there now were two ambulances on the one-car-wide path. We had to squeeze past them. Now I really wondered what the hell had happened to the guy. Anyway, I had my own suffering to focus on.
Ploegsteert and I left the river path and stuck together. At some point a guy with some fluo yellow patches on his shirt passed us. I had spotted him a few times before as we yoyoed around one another throughout the race. This time I decided to follow. It seemed fine. However.
When we hit the bridge area again, around 16.5 km, I had a side stitch issue again. Now it was straight into pain. I tried to keep myself focused on the pace, but it actually hurt, so I slowed down a little. I had to let fluo yellow go. Soon, the side stitch was gone again. I think it was around the same spot as it had disappeared the round prior. My conclusion: that stretch of road is cursed. (Looking at the GPS splits, I am probably to blame though)
From here on, things are a bit more vague in my mind. I think Ploegsteert passed me again and, feeling better, I decided to hang on to him. I seemed alright again and started looking forward to the finish, breaking down the kms into “just x more minutes of holding on”. We passed RAAC club guy, throughout the race I had seen him up ahead, but had never gotten close to him. I then recall following some guy in a triathlon suit, I assume he passed us and I latched on.
At around 20 km I decided it was time to just squeeze out anything I still had left. I sped up, repeating to myself it was almost over anyway, repeating to myself to just ignore any complaints from the body. Back on the track where we had started, I went into what I choose to describe as a sprint. Any onlookers may disagree with that nomenclature, but this is my story. I was passing other people though. As I came out of the final bend, two people were also sprinting for the line and for a moment there all three of us were abreast, racing our hearts out. It lifted my spirit and I tried my best to outkick them. I failed. They beat me. I crossed the line and had no clue what time I had. In my tunnelvision to sprint to the line and beat those guys, I had not even thought about looking at the clock on the finish line or my watch at any point in the past km.
Once past the line, I did check my watch. Success! I did it, sub-75. Turns out “I’ll go out at sub-75 pace because it looks pretty” is a valid tactic. Official results place me at 1:14:52. There’s also my Strava for gazing at the map and splits.
Assuming I got their names right, the people I specifically mentioned finished as follows. All times chip times. RAAC guy 1:15:01. Ploegsteert 1:14:29, so he really dropped me. Fluo patches 1:15:00. Elke 1:15:46. Ah and of course Bashir Abdi, who set a Belgian national record in 59:51. He told the media afterwards he could have done better if it had not been for the wind. You and me both, Bashir, you and me both.
Of the 25 person group I was in at the 5k point, 12 finished ahead of me, 11 finished behind me, and 1 DNFed.
Splits dump. Since GPS wise the activity ran a little bit longer than a half marathon, all the projections slightly lowball the result. Projections are made from the cumulative time. As you can tell, the start was a little too fast. On a whole, I am satisfied with my race though.
Distance | Time | Split | Projected |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 3:28 | 3:28.3 | 1:13:15 |
2 | 6:57 | 3:28.8 | 1:13:20 |
3 | 10:28 | 3:30.4 | 1:13:33 |
4 | 13:57 | 3:29.7 | 1:13:36 |
5 | 17:27 | 3:29.4 | 1:13:36 |
6 | 21:02 | 3:35.0 | 1:13:56 |
7 | 24:31 | 3:29.1 | 1:13:53 |
8 | 27:58 | 3:26.8 | 1:13:44 |
9 | 31:28 | 3:30.2 | 1:13:45 |
10 | 35:01 | 3:33.3 | 1:13:53 |
11 | 38:36 | 3:34.6 | 1:14:01 |
12 | 42:06 | 3:30.8 | 1:14:02 |
13 | 45:40 | 3:33.1 | 1:14:06 |
14 | 49:17 | 3:37.1 | 1:14:16 |
15 | 52:49 | 3:32.5 | 1:14:17 |
16 | 56:25 | 3:35.4 | 1:14:23 |
17 | 59:53 | 3:28.8 | 1:14:19 |
18 | 1:03:29 | 3:35.3 | 1:14:24 |
19 | 1:07:06 | 3:37.8 | 1:14:31 |
20 | 1:10:40 | 3:34.0 | 1:14:33 |
21 | 1:14:07 | 3:26.7 | 1:14:28 |
Official splits, though I probably would not trust their distance. Overall position is neat though (includes women and non-Belgians). At least it went the right direction throughout.
Distance | Position | Time | Split pace | Projected |
---|---|---|---|---|
0 | 169 | |||
5 | 156 | 17:40 | 3:32 | 1:14:33 |
10 | 135 | 35:37 | 3:35 | 1:15:09 |
13.2 | 131 | 46:33 | 3:25 | 1:14:24 |
18.2 | 124 | 1:04:49 | 3:39 | 1:15:08 |
Finish | 120 | 1:14:52 | 3:28 |
Maybe half a year ago, the thought first crept into my mind: maybe it is time to do a marathon. I never cared for them and for a long time used “they can wait till I can run sub-3” as an excuse when people asked me about them. That time has come and gone for a while now though, and I still did not care. Half a year ago, I for the first time considered the idea and had a look at the options. At the time, the Rotterdam marathon seemed like a good candidate. Largely flat, lotta fast people (i.e., people I could run with), relatively close-by. And then I got distracted from the idea again. I did not really care.
Then around the end of January, I thought about the Rotterdam marathon again. I had a look to sign up for it aaaand they were sold out. It was at that moment that I realised: I was slightly disappointed about missing out. So from then on, I tried to have a look at the bib selling platform that Rotterdam offers, a place to get in contact with people that cannot do Rotterdam any more, e.g., because of injury, and are looking to sell their bib. It took a lot more checking than anticipated, but by early March I finally did have a bib.
So that lies in my future. The Rotterdam marathon on 16 April. I am not quite sure yet what time to aim for. Plugging this half marathon time into JD’s vdot calculator makes for a scary sounding 2:36:35. I will probably aim for something more conservative, but how conservative? 2:40? 2:45? I am tempted by the 2:40 or more correctly 2:39:59. This race has shown “because it looks pretty” gets you there. I remain undecided though. My future holds a lot of pondering. And that marathon.
]]>Just catching up on the past summer months and the last bit of the track season. Some highs and lows, PRs and recurring little injuries, training a bit all over the place, but mostly in the “not enough actual workouts” camp. I will just go through it chronologically. So will you.
I felt great after a successful 20 km door Brussel at the end of May. Had two weeks of easy running, though not specifically low in volume after the first week. Then halfway the third week, I got COVID19. So that made me skip several days before carefully restarting. Maybe a week after restarting though, I took a weird step when walking around the office and had a big stab of pain in my left hip. I feel old writing that out. It is the same hip that bothered me earlier in the year and I think it was the same injury coming back somehow. I took another few days off before restarting more cautiously than I had after the bout of COVID. I got properly back into the running routine over a week or two, three, skipping a day because of travel. The running was kept easy, while I got the volume back relatively quickly. By this point it was already July, it was hot and humid, and I was in hillier terrain. The hip was likely fine already, but I kept it as a sort of excuse to not have to run hard in terrible weather. Fine or not, bad weather or not, I decided to hop in a local race to stretch the legs and get some racing feel again.
Weeks overview:
The “CCRS Tuesday Ice Cream in the Park 5k series” caught my eye, largely because there were not many other options in the area. The two previous races, held at the end of May and the end of June, respectively, of the series had had a winner that seemed easy enough to beat, though I wondered whether a college athlete on their summer break might show up and smoke the field. TT or racing, I was up for some action and signed up.
The race was on a Tuesday evening, 26 July, around 19:00, which helped a little with the weather. You mostly did not have direct sunlight any more due to the sun being low enough and the trees on the course doing some blocking too. It was still warm, it was still humid. Before the start you got a ticket for the post race raffle which I passed on to my wife just in case we were still there when that occurred.
I went for a little jog, stretched a bit near what I supposed was the start line, cheered a little at the kids’ race, and observed other people getting ready for our race, scoping out the competition. And then I spotted what looked like a fast guy. Lean figure, wirey legs. I figured looks could be deceiving though. Then he started another little jog to stay warm and the stride just looked really smooth. He definitely looked faster than me. I figured I would just try to follow him anyway though, see what happens. With the lack of fast running due to COVID and the hip, I did not know what to expect, but I also did not particularly mind blowing up. It is not like this race mattered, nor was I going to PR here on this day.
When the time came to line up, he and I were the only two to go stand at the front. It was a small path, but a third or fourth person could have easily joined in still. Nop, just us. Off we went, slightly trading places before I settled in behind him. I also quickly felt this was going to be a tricky one to try and win. After 700-800 metre, my GPS said we were going 3:10 per km pace (~15:50 finish time). Translation: oops, that’s a bit fast. Soon after we hit a little bump for a bridge and my body decided to nop on the pace. I got left behind.
For the next kilometre or so I was a bit out of it. I still tried to keep the pace honest, but also needed a slight recovery. By around 2-2.5 km I heard third place catch up to me. When he did, I decided to switch my focus to finishing ahead of him. He had the same idea and we traded places several times, sticking close together. He seemed to mostly try to drop me by pushing the pace on the slight “uphills”, then I would throw it back at him in the “downhill” afterwards. I put them in quotation marks since most of these were more anthill than anything, though there was one uphill grassy section at 3.7 km where he might have almost gotten me.
Eventually I managed to break him. Less than a kilometre from the finish, I did my best to keep one of the downhill surges for longer, maybe even till the finish line if he kept pushing. Suddenly though, I did not hear him right behind me any more. I was quite sure I had a gap, but I did not know how big the gap was. So I kept up the effort till the finish line anyway and got second place.
Result: a pretty meh 17:47, but even without the first km blow up, it would not have been much better. Just what the body could do on the day. First place must have stopped pushing after dropping me because he ran 17:03 in the end. He told me afterwards he had already done a workout that morning, so… ye. I looked him up after and he is indeed a college runner. Third place came in 10 seconds behind me. He turned out to be the guy that won the May and June stages of this series. I stuck around for the podium (there were gonna be some coupons). Strangely enough they only “crowned” first male and female overall. Instead of placing me second, they made me age category winner. :shrug: More hilariously, I won the raffle and got a pair of free Mizuno shoes. I have been lucky with these post-race raffles I feel like.
Not too much happened the next few weeks besides getting a blood blister when a hole in one of my socks started really acting up during a run. I did not know what was happening so ran through it as it got more painful. Then noticed the mess afterwards and was stuck with it for at least a week after. Ended up popping it at least daily. That made it OK to run with.
Clubboss contacted me the final week of August and asked whether I would be interested in taking part in the 4×1500 relay race at the provincial championships that Saturday. I figured it was time to jump back into real racing and said sure. It ended up being a pretty small race. Only six teams were fielded and half of those were mostly master runners. The other, faster than me, guys of my club also were planning to make this more of a workout than a race. I figured I would still try to run all out though. If only because I had never raced a 1500.
I got placed as the first leg runner, which worked out nicely for me. I could pace off of the other people. If you run any of the other legs, chances are you are all alone. There were two guys that definitely could have gone faster, but for some reason they both started around my pace. Fine by me. I just hung behind them for as long as I could.
I tried to glance at my watch a few times and think I saw 1:10 for 400 metre and 2:22 for 800. That is on pace for 4:23-4:25 and for 4:27-4:28, respectively. About 1100 metre into the race, I could not hang on to the other guys any more as they started speeding up and I started wilting away. Swapped the baton in third position. I have no official time for my leg, that is not measured by the organisation, but my hand timing places me at 4:31. Felt alright with the time for a first try.
My teammates managed to catch up to second place still, so in the end we went home with a silver medal. (VICE-) PROVINCIAL CHAMPIONS, BABY!
Our total time ended up being 17:30.7. That averages to 4:22.x per 1500m.
Incensed by that track race, I went looking at what races were still left at the tail end of the season. I spotted a 5000m the following weekend that I figured I would hop into, I still wanted to run under 16:30 at some point and figured I would need a few more tries to get it right. It was also a planned down week that week, so I figured maybe the lower volume would help a bit too. Thus that Saturday I once again packed my spikes and went, coincidentally, to… the exact same track as the weekend before. I am so well-travelled.
It was a day without wind, but the temperature was still 25C. Most of the race was under cloud cover though, so that helped. The first lap was too fast, as is tradition. A guy in a green shirt took the lead and set a more steady pace for our little group that had formed. I saw a faster group pull away in front of us and was not sure whether I should follow them or not. In the end decided to just go for it. I overtook green shirt and tried to close the gap. After another 200 or 300m, I regretted that decision as I realised that that group was too fast for me. Indeed, they would end up finishing in the low to mid 15s.
I ran alone for a little bit, ensuring I had not blown up too much from that little attempt. The guys I had tried to leave behind caught back up to me and we formed a group of four: me, green shirt, black shirt, and red-white shirt. I let the others lead while I got my shit back together, hanging mostly in third or fourth spot. Green took the lead, black took over for a while, then green led some again. I let them do their thing, the pace felt alright. Eventually, redwhite shirt made a move to the front and I just felt like I had to react, it seemed like it might be a breaking point. I followed him and settled into second.
Red-white led for a few laps and then I took over with four or five laps to go. I figured he would appreciate some help. With three laps to go, I briefly tried to push the pace some so we could finish strong (and maybe I could drop him). I quickly realised it was a bit too early for that though. Red-white took over again with about two laps left and he started pushing hard. I knew I had to hang on now or I would slow way down after the mental loss of getting dropped. I stuck close for the penultimate lap. With maybe 200-300 metre to go, he cracked me. I did not die, I just could not follow him any more. I tried to just squeeze out everything I still had left to the line.
After finishing, my watch said 16:29-16:30. I really hoped it would be an under, not over. The results system was having some troubles, so I could not quickly check my results online. Instead I had to wait till after my cooldown to find out that I did it: 16:29.41! Score. Red-white beat me by a second. I do not know at what point we dropped the other guys from our group, but they finished 8 and 30 seconds behind me.
Wife handtimed the laps, which I will just copy paste here. Will see if I can be bothered to integrate that nicely into the previous text. (The answer is no) She did not get the last split, so I just calculated that from the official time.
Counter | Total Time | Lap Time |
---|---|---|
200m | 00:34.44 | 0:34.44 |
600m | 01:51.50 | 1:17.06 |
1000m | 03:13.01 | 1:21.51 |
1400m | 04:34.49 | 1:21.48 |
1800m | 05:56.01 | 1:21.52 |
2200m | 07:15.80 | 1:19.79 |
2600m | 08:36.80 | 1:21.00 |
3000m | 09:56.90 | 1:20.10 |
3400m | 11:16.49 | 1:19.59 |
3800m | 12:37.15 | 1:20.66 |
4200m | 13:57.56 | 1:20.41 |
4600m | 15:14.12 | 1:16.56 |
5000m | 16:29.41 | 1:15.29 |
The day after I went to do a longish run and suddenly started feeling my left hip again about 2/3rds in. Damnit. Not happy with how that niggle keeps on coming back.
I played it a bit safer the days following that with some shorter jogs, even taking one day off and replacing it with some ellipticaling. Meanwhile I also had to decide whether or not to still sign up for another race I had had my mind on. A 1500m on Friday evening. After the 4×1500, I wondered what I could do when properly timed in a real race. Eventually I decided to bite the bullet and sign up. The list of other participants was too tempting. There were going to be several guys running with PBs in the 4:25-4:35 range. What was I aiming for? sub 4:30 at least. Perfecto. This was going to be my first official 1500, so I did not fill in a PB when signing up.
I found out that was a dumb move when they started calling the names to line up for the 1500. Apparently they decided to split it up into two heats. They did not call my name for the fast heat. I had filled in no time, so I was put in the slow heat. Fastest guy in that slow heat? Around 4:40. Fuck. I tried to convince the jury member to let me run in the fast heat, it was the main reason that I showed up to this race. He called his superior. The superior shot it down. Fuck. Annoyed, I looked at the first heat’s runners going at it. Annoyed, I waited for my name to be called for the second heat. Annoyed, I lined up.
The gun went, I went to the front, the 4:40 kid followed me for maybe 100 metre. Then I was alone. I did not really know what kind of effort to look for. I glanced at my watch at 300m and at 700m and saw 54s and 2:06. Both on track for 4:30. I tried to push a bit in the last lap, but I do not know whether I really managed all alone. I finished feeling fine, too rested, not pushed enough. Annoyed, I walked off to change shoes and run a cooldown. The cooldown jog helped distract me at least.
Wife took some pictures, I look positively angry in some of them. At least my leg muscles look good.
Official time took a few days to come online: 4:30.70. Bleh.
After that race, nothing on the calendar looked good for the next weekend. The niggle in the left hip probably could do with the bit of extra rest anyway. The two weekends after that, I was not going to be in Belgium. The week after those two weeks, I was probably going to do another track race. The event I was looking at had both a 1500m and a 5000m. After this failure, I was starting to lean towards giving the 1500m another try. I already had my new shiny 5000m PR anyway. Either way, for the time being it was just going to be regular running.
To play it safe with the hip niggle, I did not do any fast running. I did throw in a long run. The week after I tried some strides, but they did not feel quite right yet. Just did not feel as smooth as I am used to them feeling. The long run still felt fine, though that was done in Madrid where summer had not ended yet. I experienced a slight bonk running in the deserty wasteland on the south east side of the city. Nothing to worry about. Also a good amount of touristy walking while there.
The week after that, I still kept the runs easy. I was going to be in Manchester that weekend and decided I should pay a local parkrun a visit, that had been forever.
This part is written waaaaay after the fact. I am too lazy to dig for the details, so will just go off the description I put in Strava.
Felt pretty dogshit all morning. I blame not getting enough sleep because of not reaching the hotel till past midnight. Around three hours short of what I would call a good night’s sleep? Legs weren’t in the mood during the warmup or the long run afterwards. Both felt sluggish.
As usual for these smaller events, I lined up at the front with the idea of vying for first. First was, however, out of reach from very early on. I went slightly too hard trying to keep up. Reevaluated before it got too bad and slowed down a bit. Two people passed me and pulled away. I never let them get too far from me though. Caught up to one of them just over halfway first lap. The other one was further up ahead still, but I didn’t feel like trying to bridge the gap. Seemed like it would be too much effort. Hanging back turned out to be a good call because he faded about ⅓ into the second lap. Then some other guy of our group took the lead before a very grassy and muddy section. He got a slight gap, I closed it shortly after the grass. I sat on his tail for a while and then kicked with maybe 500m to go. Ended up in second with a few seconds slower than 17:00 (results). Bummer, could have had my first parkrun sub-17 if it wasn’t for the patch of mud I think.
The course was nice enough, though three parts were “lose most to all of your speed, and then start up again: the first sharp turn, the very muddy section, and the 90 degree turn after the straight after the muddy section. So six annoying points total because of doing the route twice.
Also writing this way after the fact.
After the parkrun weekend, I wanted to give this final goal of the season a proper go. So I ran a bit less total the week of the 1500m. Tuesday I did an easier workout (some pace around supposed 2mmol/l lactate point). Just stretching the legs some. Saturday was the race. Final spikes of the season.
This time I did get placed in the faster heat, filling in my previous time was just enough to be allowed in. Lucky break. I was the slowest of the fast runners rather than the fastest of the slow runners.
The plan was to just aim for 4:25. Looks pretty and I thought it was within reach. Before the race started another guy said he and his club mate were doing 3 min first km and then speed up for the 4:25. He suggested we all go for it together. That sounded good in theory and I mumbled agreement. The gun went and I hung around them, but after 100-200 metre I thought “wait, I don’t have that kind of kick”. I moved up and tried to close the small gap on a guy further ahead of the 3-min-and-kick club mates. I never really closed the gap, never really let it get real big. Hard to make serious adjustments in a race this short. Either way, keeping the guy in sight was good enough to pace off. I do not have exact splits but glanced at watch and saw a 0:50-0:52 first 300m and then a 2:01-02 700m. No more watch glancing after that. The two club mates from before zoomed past with 150m to go. Seeing their pace, I thought that was indeed not a kick I would have been capable of. Glad I pushed a little more earlier. I tried to use them to pace me to the end despite the quick gap they got on me. Just a reference point. Then I let up a tiny bit too early I think. My finish time was 4:25.27. If I had done a lean and raced to the line, maybe it would have been sub 4:25. Pity that. Maybe next season I’ll give it another go.
I was going to take it easy for a while, but my club contacted me to see whether I was interested in running the Brussels Ekiden. So I only had the one week of laziness, before it was time for another race week. They put me in their first team, running a 5k. The concept of this Ekiden is six runners: 5-10-5-10-5-7.2 to make up a marathon distance.
(Still writing well after the fact)
It was to be another Saturday race day, this time just around the corner from where I live. That was easy at least, I could walk to the start: the Koning Boudewijnstadium, home of the Brussels Diamond League. Start and finishes are in this stadium, the run itself is in and around a rather hilly park nearby.
My sleep had been iffy for two weeks, but I hoped it would not affect me. The race was also in the afternoon, which meant I was not sure what to do foodwise. Seems whatever I did, I messed it up, because during the warmup I felt my belly was not right. Did a few toilet trips, but it still felt off.
On the way back to my team’s stand, some guy was walking in the opposite direction. I thought I recognised him, so maybe stared a bit too long, but he also was looking back at me somewhat. He smiled a bit, I gave a non-committal nod. The one where you feel like you should say hi, but you don’t remember where you know the person from or who they are, so you don’t want to commit to saying hi and starting a conversation. I continued on and a few seconds later it hits me. That was Bashir Abdi (Tokyo Olympic marathon bronze medallist)! I contemplated turning back and asking for a picture, but it felt a bit weird. In my mind, it’s not something I really do. I glanced back and I see someone walking up to him, asking for a picture. Fuck it, I might as well get one too. And so I did. At least one win out of this day, because the rest was not going to be it.
I barely wrote down anything cause of disappointment and (let’s be honest) this just being a tacked on goal I was not heavily invested in. Basically boils down to: the cramps continued. Since I was the fifth runner, there was also nobody to race against. The person ahead started 30-60s earlier, the person behind, no clue. You’re also overtaking all the slower teams, so you don’t even see your competitors. So I was alone with my cramps. Did not go great, never got moving right, finished in a disappointing 18:05. Our team finished fourth in the end and I had lost 30-60s on the fifth place runner of the third place team. Ye. That’s annoying.
And with that, it really was the end of my fall season.
Ok, winter was not yet starting, but I decided to take it easy in the coming months. Light on workouts, just build the volume up some. Let the hip fully heal, then see what I end up doing come spring and summer. Seems to have gone alright, I went up to a consistent 120 km per week and got to the start of next season’s training in one piece.
Because it got a bit long and all over the place, the main takeaways.
The weeks following that, I started introducing workouts again. Those will get talked about in the next race report, which is the Belgian Championship Half Marathon on 12 March 2023. Also known as: tomorrow, the day after this is published. Now let’s hope I can get that one out the door with less of a delay.
]]>Warning: a lot of these will end up being tables of data, because that is what I like looking at. Don’t expect any groundbreaking conclusions to be drawn from the data.
There is no easy API to get this information out of Citystrides. Instead I decided to scrape all the cities and go from there. The scraping of cities was done from 28 to 30 September 2022 from the main city index. Armed with a list of 170,000 cities, I then selected those with 5000 or more streets. For those I scraped the first page of striders running in that city, so that is a maximum of 12 top striders per city. This scraping was done on 9 October. I always made sure to play nice and not make more than six requests a minute.
There is no clear answer. Different countries define the boundaries in different ways. Citystrides uses OpenStreetMap information, so we need to rely on those being present as well. Which boundaries Citystrides selects can also be a topic of discussion. Should you think about that more in a serious study? Yes. Is this a serious study? No.
Citystrides works with the “ways” present in OpenStreetMap. To try to make sense of them, Citystrides joins ways with the same name within one city into a street. So streets without a name do not count. Streets where only cars are allowed do not count (think highways). Forest paths and the like also tend to not count, though this is heavily dependent on how they happen to be tagged in OpenStreetMap. See my serious study remark from the previous paragraph.
For those curious about the entire city dataset, here are some descriptive statistics. These are calculated after some data cleanup:
You might think the caveat of the second bullet surely cannot matter much, but it turns out there are a lot of cities with almost no streets. For the about 170k cities, these are the numbers.
street count | |
---|---|
mean | 97.409907 |
std | 394.551961 |
min | 1 |
25% percentile | 10 |
50% percentile | 27 |
75% percentile | 76 |
90% percentile | 194 |
95% percentile | 349 |
99% percentile | 1182.43 |
99.9% percentile | 4314.172 |
max | 44082 |
So these are the cities currently in Citystrides with 5000 or more streets. Brussels just makes the cut with 5007 streets. Happy little accidents.
cs_id | name | region_country | street_count | |
---|---|---|---|---|
0 | 36594 | São Paulo | São Paulo, Brasil | 44082 |
1 | 188749 | Greater London | England, United Kingdom | 39149 |
2 | 227615 | Sydney | New South Wales, Australia | 32375 |
3 | 225687 | القليوبية | القليوبية, مصر | 30858 |
4 | 225681 | محافظة الجيزة | محافظة الجيزة, مصر | 22319 |
5 | 177521 | City of Cape Town | Western Cape, South Africa | 22308 |
6 | 225679 | محافظة القاهرة | محافظة القاهرة, مصر | 20787 |
7 | 225680 | القاهرة | محافظة القاهرة, مصر | 20734 |
8 | 177494 | eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality | KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa | 19706 |
9 | 33385 | Rio de Janeiro | Rio de Janeiro, Brasil | 17953 |
10 | 227695 | محافظة الرياض | منطقة الرياض, السعودية | 17939 |
11 | 167292 | Loire | Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France | 16959 |
12 | 177491 | City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality | Gauteng, South Africa | 16154 |
13 | 94322 | Roma | Lazio, Italia | 15970 |
14 | 7696 | Jacksonville | Florida, United States | 14816 |
15 | 177488 | City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality | Gauteng, South Africa | 13949 |
16 | 188747 | Brisbane | Queensland, Australia | 13813 |
17 | 10538 | San Antonio | Texas, United States | 13509 |
18 | 221129 | Surabaya | Jawa Timur, Indonesia | 13235 |
19 | 172050 | Auckland | Auckland, New Zealand / Aotearoa | 13232 |
20 | 171368 | Houston | Texas, United States | 13182 |
21 | 171512 | Census Divsion No. 6 | Alberta, Canada | 13153 |
22 | 223551 | กรุงเทพมหานคร | กรุงเทพมหานคร, ประเทศไทย | 12330 |
23 | 177489 | City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality | Gauteng, South Africa | 11848 |
24 | 130998 | Leeds | England, United Kingdom | 11657 |
25 | 187894 | Indianapolis | Indiana, United States | 11622 |
26 | 35294 | Belo Horizonte | Minas Gerais, Brasil | 11276 |
27 | 171334 | Charlotte | North Carolina, United States | 11274 |
28 | 221380 | Semarang | Jawa Tengah, Indonesia | 11217 |
29 | 2525 | Los Angeles | California, United States | 11098 |
30 | 218739 | Johor Bahru | Johor, Malaysia | 10916 |
31 | 12129 | Columbus | Ohio, United States | 10750 |
32 | 131268 | Toronto | Ontario, Canada | 10443 |
33 | 33516 | Goiânia | Goiás, Brasil | 10193 |
34 | 2550 | San Diego | California, United States | 10112 |
35 | 132395 | Berlin | Berlin, Deutschland | 10075 |
36 | 36171 | Salvador | Bahia, Brasil | 9801 |
37 | 218665 | Petaling | Selangor, Malaysia | 9717 |
38 | 32499 | Curitiba | Paraná, Brasil | 9698 |
39 | 5637 | Las Vegas | Nevada, United States | 9665 |
40 | 173609 | Fort Worth | Texas, United States | 9628 |
41 | 160001 | Juárez | Chihuahua, México | 9575 |
42 | 171388 | Calgary | Alberta, Canada | 9492 |
43 | 32406 | Manaus | Amazonas, Brasil | 9365 |
44 | 5074 | Austin | Texas, United States | 9236 |
45 | 2098 | San Jose | California, United States | 9205 |
46 | 14065 | Dallas | Texas, United States | 9061 |
47 | 15734 | Memphis | Tennessee, United States | 8886 |
48 | 104756 | Madrid | Comunidad de Madrid, España | 8817 |
49 | 221066 | Jakarta Timur | Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta, Indonesia | 8710 |
50 | 160222 | Monterrey | Nuevo León, México | 8632 |
51 | 225689 | محافظة الإسكندرية | البحيرة, مصر | 8492 |
52 | 131267 | Ottawa | Ontario, Canada | 8479 |
53 | 36434 | Campinas | São Paulo, Brasil | 8342 |
54 | 22080 | Louisville | Kentucky, United States | 8295 |
55 | 159441 | San Luis Potosí | San Luis Potosí, México | 8218 |
56 | 140129 | Hamburg | Hamburg, Deutschland | 8125 |
57 | 159392 | Puebla | Puebla, México | 8032 |
58 | 160068 | Morelia | Michoacán de Ocampo, México | 7991 |
59 | 131066 | Birmingham | England, United Kingdom | 7990 |
60 | 35801 | Fortaleza | Ceará, Brasil | 7797 |
61 | 18074 | Nashville-Davidson | Tennessee, United States | 7766 |
62 | 132539 | Praha | Praha, Česko | 7595 |
63 | 31374 | Recife | Pernambuco, Brasil | 7545 |
64 | 171347 | Virginia Beach | Virginia, United States | 7522 |
65 | 130996 | Bradford | England, United Kingdom | 7519 |
66 | 9842 | Raleigh | North Carolina, United States | 7427 |
67 | 9252 | Albuquerque | New Mexico, United States | 7325 |
68 | 159898 | Chihuahua | Chihuahua, México | 7321 |
69 | 31703 | Campo Grande | Mato Grosso do Sul, Brasil | 7129 |
70 | 227966 | Град Београд | Србија, Србија | 7126 |
71 | 227612 | Honolulu County | Hawaii, United States | 7080 |
72 | 97060 | Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality | Eastern Cape, South Africa | 7031 |
73 | 42638 | Budapest | Budapest, Magyarország | 7027 |
74 | 159833 | Zapopan | Jalisco, México | 6948 |
75 | 187823 | Wiltshire | England, United Kingdom | 6846 |
76 | 130668 | Osmangazi | Bursa, Türkiye | 6815 |
77 | 132430 | Ecatepec de Morelos | Estado de México, México | 6762 |
78 | 221065 | Jakarta Selatan | Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta, Indonesia | 6708 |
79 | 159332 | Aguascalientes | Aguascalientes, México | 6592 |
80 | 5732 | El Paso | New Mexico, United States | 6541 |
81 | 132396 | Wien | Wien, Österreich | 6497 |
82 | 218707 | Kinta | Perak, Malaysia | 6484 |
83 | 130967 | Sheffield | England, United Kingdom | 6342 |
84 | 131026 | Manchester | England, United Kingdom | 6320 |
85 | 187843 | Durham | England, United Kingdom | 6263 |
86 | 10126 | Oklahoma City | Oklahoma, United States | 6224 |
87 | 171363 | Glasgow | Scotland, United Kingdom | 6161 |
88 | 34030 | Porto Alegre | Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil | 6117 |
89 | 207703 | عمان | عمان, الأردن | 6088 |
90 | 132529 | Iztapalapa | Ciudad de México, México | 6012 |
91 | 36891 | Sorocaba | São Paulo, Brasil | 5965 |
92 | 25864 | City of Casey | Victoria, Australia | 5960 |
93 | 46528 | Bogotá | Distrito Capital, Colombia | 5957 |
94 | 7563 | Colorado Springs | Colorado, United States | 5944 |
95 | 171349 | München | Bayern, Deutschland | 5905 |
96 | 130669 | Yıldırım | Bursa, Türkiye | 5758 |
97 | 131085 | Liverpool | England, United Kingdom | 5695 |
98 | 48513 | Paris | Île-de-France, France | 5673 |
99 | 130985 | Kirklees | England, United Kingdom | 5667 |
100 | 221069 | Jakarta Barat | Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta, Indonesia | 5666 |
101 | 187842 | Dorset | England, United Kingdom | 5613 |
102 | 187803 | Cheshire East | England, United Kingdom | 5605 |
103 | 36151 | Guarulhos | São Paulo, Brasil | 5581 |
104 | 2421 | Bakersfield | California, United States | 5575 |
105 | 124652 | Santiago de Querétaro | Querétaro, México | 5538 |
106 | 25809 | City of Greater Geelong | Victoria, Australia | 5520 |
107 | 225540 | Kuala Lumpur | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | 5490 |
108 | 6836 | Tucson | Arizona, United States | 5459 |
109 | 218670 | Hulu Langat | Selangor, Malaysia | 5422 |
110 | 32830 | Natal | Rio Grande do Norte, Brasil | 5362 |
111 | 124926 | Rotterdam | Zuid-Holland, Nederland | 5318 |
112 | 188751 | Torreón | Coahuila de Zaragoza, México | 5318 |
113 | 213880 | Saltillo | Coahuila de Zaragoza, México | 5312 |
114 | 159171 | Acapulco de Juárez | Guerrero, México | 5255 |
115 | 159265 | Hermosillo | Sonora, México | 5225 |
116 | 187804 | Cheshire West | England, United Kingdom | 5184 |
117 | 189835 | Warszawa | województwo mazowieckie, Polska | 5184 |
118 | 113291 | Göteborgs Stad | Västra Götalands län, Sverige | 5162 |
119 | 95259 | Durango Ciudad | Durango, México | 5134 |
120 | 5630 | Henderson | Nevada, United States | 5129 |
121 | 229537 | Municipiul București | Municipiul București, România | 5072 |
122 | 213874 | Municipiul București | București - Ilfov, România | 5070 |
123 | 25808 | City of Wyndham | Victoria, Australia | 5048 |
124 | 32136 | João Pessoa | Paraíba, Brasil | 5023 |
125 | 207687 | Brussel-Hoofdstad - Bruxelles-Capitale | Région de Bruxelles-Capitale - Brussels Hoofds… | 5007 |
The astute reader might spot some oddities. Calling the Loire (spot 11) a city is a stretch. Indeed, I think this is a Citystrides issue that I will report separately. Similarly, the top ones in Arabic script are various gigantic swats of land in and around Cairo, Egypt, though I do not see an alternative for those areas. Spots 6 and 7 seem to be the same city, though with slightly different boundaries. One of them will have to be removed. Same for spots 121 and 122. Those, and many other duplicates I bumped into before, have been reported in this CS forum post.
Let’s look at how many of these are completed or near completion. Also considering some variations on this idea.
For this list, I sorted everyone by percent in their respective cities. Here is the top 20. The ones listed as “Anonymous” is due to their privacy settings in Citystrides. I added the total number of streets for each city as well for perspective.
Strider | City pos | Pct | City | City streets | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Stephen Peck | 1 | 100 | Toronto | 10443 |
2 | Monkey Man | 1 | 100 | Manchester | 6320 |
3 | Michael Shanks | 1 | 99.9 | Glasgow | 6161 |
4 | Tony Woods 🌱 | 1 | 99.77 | Liverpool | 5695 |
5 | Denis Bafounta | 1 | 99.11 | Berlin | 10075 |
6 | Ward Muylaert | 1 | 98.86 | Brussels | 5007 |
7 | Dan Schoettinger | 1 | 96.28 | Colorado Springs | 5944 |
8 | William Skorupinski | 1 | 91.05 | Ottawa | 8479 |
9 | Krzysztof Kasprzyk | 2 | 88.6 | Brussels | 5007 |
10 | Richard Denis | 2 | 85.48 | Toronto | 10443 |
11 | Just_one_more_street | 1 | 77.31 | Wien | 6497 |
12 | Anonymous | 1 | 76.08 | Austin | 9236 |
13 | John Teal | 1 | 75.99 | Columbus | 10750 |
14 | Graham Holland | 2 | 75.01 | Liverpool | 5695 |
15 | Al Vermette | 2 | 71.43 | Ottawa | 8479 |
16 | Jim Fulton | 1 | 71.07 | Sheffield | 6342 |
17 | Matthew Stroh | 3 | 65.27 | Toronto | 10443 |
18 | rick richard | 1 | 64.12 | Calgary | 9492 |
19 | Fabrice DUPOND | 1 | 63.71 | Paris | 5673 |
20 | Anonymous | 2 | 61.55 | Calgary | 9492 |
So at the time of writing, only two big cities, as per my definition, are completed by someone. My guess is both the 99.9% and 99.77% counts are cities that had been at 100%, but an update made those striders lose some streets. Perhaps the 99.11% one in Berlin as well. Then in spot six you have me, hoping to finish Brussels in the next few weeks. Toronto also has quite the strider interest, with three people showing up in this little top 20. Other doubles cities are Liverpool, Brussels, Ottawa, and Calgary.
Similar, but now sorted by number of streets that were completed by the strider in that city. Note that I cut some extras from the first name cause it was messing up my table layout.
Strider | City Pos | Pct | Completed Streets | City | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | James Salmon | 1 | 26.9 | 10531 | Greater London |
2 | Stephen Peck | 1 | 100 | 10443 | Toronto |
3 | Denis Bafounta | 1 | 99.11 | 9985 | Berlin |
4 | Richard Denis | 2 | 85.48 | 8927 | Toronto |
5 | Marshall Butler | 1 | 56.58 | 8383 | Jacksonville |
6 | John Teal | 1 | 75.99 | 8169 | Columbus |
7 | William Skorupinski | 1 | 91.05 | 7720 | Ottawa |
8 | Anonymous | 1 | 76.08 | 7027 | Austin |
9 | Matthew Stroh | 3 | 65.27 | 6816 | Toronto |
10 | Sean P | 2 | 17.41 | 6816 | Greater London |
11 | Monkey Man | 1 | 100 | 6320 | Manchester |
12 | Brian Grinnell | 2 | 58.08 | 6244 | Columbus |
13 | Michael Shanks | 1 | 99.9 | 6155 | Glasgow |
14 | rick richard | 1 | 64.12 | 6086 | Calgary |
15 | Al Vermette | 2 | 71.43 | 6057 | Ottawa |
16 | Anonymous | 2 | 61.55 | 5842 | Calgary |
17 | Bravo Foxtrot | 3 | 14.82 | 5802 | Greater London |
18 | Dan Schoettinger | 1 | 96.28 | 5723 | Colorado Springs |
19 | Tony Woods 🌱 | 1 | 99.77 | 5682 | Liverpool |
20 | Anonymous | 3 | 59.17 | 5616 | Calgary |
That changes things up a little bit. The cheer size of some of the cities makes it so you need to complete a lot of streets and still get seemingly nowhere. Our new first ranked person has only about a quarter of the streets in Greater London, but Greater London is the second largest city on Citystrides with just shy of 40,000 streets, so, ye, they did a massive amount of striding just to get there.
On a personal note, this drops me down to 27th place. Not unexpected, Brussels is the smallest of these big cities after all.
I take the percentages completed of the first page of striders and average them out. I also ignore all cities that do not have at least 12 striders. Surprisingly that is around half of our original list of big cities! Taking the mean can feel like an arbitrary measurement, but my reasoning is as follows. If you open a city and see a crowded first page in terms of completions, then it just feels like there is some good competition and liveliness going on. It is nice to know that you are not the only idiot going around running all the streets.
City | Average Pct | |
---|---|---|
1 | Toronto | 41.3167 |
2 | Brussels | 40.1708 |
3 | Ottawa | 37.7842 |
4 | Wien | 32.6258 |
5 | Glasgow | 32.345 |
6 | Paris | 32.3417 |
7 | Sheffield | 32.0925 |
8 | Liverpool | 31.6767 |
9 | Austin | 30.575 |
10 | Calgary | 26.2125 |
We keep seeing the same names pop up, but it is expected. If you have some people that have most of the city completed, then it will help a lot in bringing the mean up.
Bit of a weirder one perhaps to look at. I wanted something like taking the median from the first page, but I also did not really care about the percentage of the sixth and seventh placed person. So instead I made the executive decision to pick number three.
Name | Pct | City |
---|---|---|
Matthew Stroh | 65.27 | Toronto |
Anonymous | 59.17 | Calgary |
Barbara Dundas | 58.98 | Ottawa |
Tobias Barnett | 55.06 | Brussels |
Jackie Howard | 50.57 | Austin |
Sobras | 47.23 | Wien |
Joe Carruthers | 45.7 | Sheffield |
JB BOMMIER | 44 | Paris |
Gabe Boer | 41.46 | Rotterdam |
Geof Hileman | 40.78 | Raleigh |
While we are at it, which city should you probably avoid if you just want to get first page on a big city? In other words, which city’s 12th place has the most number of streets completed?
Strider | City | Streets for 12th spot |
---|---|---|
Marcus Schodorf | Greater London | 3320 |
Andrew Greenberg | Toronto | 2068 |
Heather Jones | Sydney | 1340 |
Jesse Blondin | Ottawa | 1319 |
Anonymous | Hamburg | 1131 |
Anonymous | Sheffield | 1130 |
Anonymous | Glasgow | 1074 |
Anonymous | Leeds | 1026 |
Anonymous | Paris | 1013 |
Dena Childs | Austin | 976 |
That said, finishing a short street in the dense old city centre of a European city is probably easier to come by than a long grid-like American one.
It stands to reason that the global top striders would also live (or at least, run) in big cities. There are just more streets there to easily get to. However, the data does not seem to necessarily agree with this. Of the global top 25 (as looked at on 9 October 2022), 2 striders are hidden by privacy settings. Of the remaining 23, just 9 striders appear in the first page of any of the big cities. So somewhat evenly split.
So the SQLite database is 11 MB. It is not massive, but I also do not want to host it myself. If you want the data, drop me a message. You can get the Jupyter Notebook with it too.
That is all for now. I was in a mood to look at these numbers and do not know when I will be in a mood again, so just throwing this one out there before I start overthinking things.
I warned you there would not be any groundbreaking conclusions.
]]>After the interclub three weeks ago, I had a little niggle that made me abandon the plans I had to start proper workouts again. I gave it another week of easy running instead, with elliptical on Sunday after a night of too much drinking and not enough sleeping. Last week I then tried a little Threshold-of-sorts workout. I only did 2 km at higher pace and it was not quite fast enough, but I figured just something to get the legs moving would have to do. My long run on Saturday was longer than usual: 32 km in the hilly Ardennes versus the usual flatter 27-28 km. Finally, this week is also race week. I ended up with 14k, 13k, 12.5k, 13k, 10k, and 6k. Tuesday had a few strides and a km around goal race pace. Saturday some final strides.
So to summarise: prior to interclub week was just maintaining base. Interclub week was 101 km with a little workout and two races. Week after was 101 km, no workouts. Last week was 111 km with rustbuster workout and a heftier long run. Race week had some race pace and strides but mostly controlling the volume.
I have kept the same goal as in fall: 1:13:xx. I always try to plan out how to tackle the paces in this race, but in reality I will just end up ignoring it anyway. Probably just aim for the 3:40-3:45 range at the start and then see how it ends up going.
One data point I hope to remember as I write this part out prior to the race: in the half marathon in March, my heart rate was 165 and up but remained under 170 till perhaps 14 km when it hovered at 170. Then from 16-17 km I started my “push” towards the finish and it went up a few beats more to around 175. I think that might have been a bit too controlled still, so going a little harder could be appropriate.
My night was not perfect, but nowhere near as bad as before the last 20 km. There was some festival happening a kilometre or so away and their music was so loud. I could not drown it out while in the bedroom with earplugs in even. I had hoped to (try to) sleep by around 22:00. Instead it was not till 1:00, when the festival finally ended. I got tempted to call the police about a noise complaint. I have gotten old.
Woke up as planned at 7:00, basically copying older schedules. Quickly try to get my breakfast (140g muesli, double that soy milk) and a cup of black tea down. Spend the rest of the morning trying to use the toilet as much as possible. Left home a little past 8:30, not quite sure I was all emptied out, but it would have to be enough. Arrived by 9:30ish at the “Les Gazelles de Bruxelles” tent I was expecting to find in the same location as last time. Said some “hi”s, did some leg swings to warm up the hips. Went to have a look at a port-a-potty just in case, but the line was long and in the end there was no toilet paper anyway.
Did a bit of jogging back and forth, then went to sneak into the elite corral. No way was I going to start in box 1 mostly behind 6000 people in the “1:14:00-1:34:59” range. I was not the only one to do this. Them running out of elite bibs made it a bit of a shitshow perhaps. Either way, gave my wife my sweater and jogged some more in the corral. Bumped into Dieter, who I had met at a race in Mechelen back in maybe September and then again at the last 20 km. We talked a bit, shared goals, got on with our warmups. An off-hand comment the day before had made me think about something though: Dieter and I were neck-and-neck in the 5000 we raced in Mechelen, why not just stick with him?
The officials made another attempt at filtering out non-elite people, but that was a mess and I avoided “detection”. I lined up a few rows down in the elite box, ready for racing.
Just like last year, we were placed a little ways away from the actual start line. I have no clue why they keep doing that. Looking over people (it helps to be taller than your average distance runner), I noticed the start line’s bottle neck was even worse than usual. Besides being just a bit wider than a van, as usual, there were also two about knee-height hills on each side, around where the wheels of said van would be. I had no clue what that was about, my guess is something from the park service to keep cars out? I did however realise I would want to aim for the exact middle of the start line. Those hills looked a mess.
The gun went off and there was the usual congested jog towards the start line (well, besides from those actually trying to win the race). I was not stressed. It helped that I did not have an elite bib now, so I knew I was going to get chip time instead of gun time. The pace picked up and as we cross around the start line, the little hills are doing what I feared… but only to others. Some people struggling, at least one falling. Unrelated to the hill, a guy right in front of me fell over a circular sewer access manhole. Rather, the manhole was a bit lower than the rest of the surface, creating a little step. Guy in front of me must have hit it and he face planted. Whoops. I cried out what a mess this was, waved my arms to warn others, and ran past the guy on the floor. There must have been more casualties of either that or the two hills, a guy two or three runners in front of me was rubbing and looking at his upper leg / lower butt.
With that behind us, I focused on what felt like a reasonable effort. The first ~700m is still downhill, so the pace is high. After that we are running towards the royal park, mostly upwards. I was passing people, people were passing me, it was the usual mess in the early parts of a race. Looking at my watch, the pace was a bit hot, but I decided on glancing at my heart rate instead of my pace at this point. The HR was still fine.
A bit before hitting the edge of the park in front of the royal palace, I recognised a guy who I had seen a few times before by now. He was clearly going slower than those around him. I had seen him do this in some local races and even in the Belgian Champs half marathon back in March. He lines up at the front, where he does not belong, seemingly tries to hang on for a bit, and drops back. Even at the Belgian Champs, where you had to pinky promise to run sub 1h20, he lined up at the start next to a bunch of 1h guys. I passed him at 1 km or so. He finished just about last in 1h30. So now I once again was passing him. I had to squeeze a little to get past him and some others, so I did a slight shoulder bump as I passed him. I was equally ashamed about that as he is about his shenanigans. Nooot at aaaall.
As we curved towards the royal palace, I spotted Dieter a little ahead of me. That worked out! I closed the gap, asked him how he felt (he had a hamstring niggle the past week). He said it seemed to hold up, so I wished him good luck and decided to hang around him.
As we head towards the Palace of Justice, there is the first water station. I lost track of Dieter there. He might have been just behind me, but I was not looking back. I took a sip or two from a water bottle and offered others the rest. I’m writing that part down because I see it as a sign of feeling relaxed. I recognised it as such too at the time, which in turn further eased any nerves I might have had (not that you are very nervous when you hop in a race without important goal or expectations).
As we pass the Palace of Justice, it is tunnel time. There are three tunnels over the next three km. On the downs I seemed to always go faster than those around me, on the ups I always struggled in comparison and got passed in turn. I did not let it distract me, just tried to keep the effort somewhat consistent. Sometimes I saw Dieter, sometimes I saw a woman who, I found out further in the race, was in second position. With the pace changes I did not try to keep exact pace with either, but I kept an eye on both, figuring they’d run consistently enough that I might appreciate being near them later on.
Distance | Auto lap |
---|---|
1 km | 3:27 |
2 km | 3:31 |
3 km | 3:38 |
4 km | 3:49 |
5 km | 3:44 |
6 km | 3:27 |
When you are past the tunnels (6ish km in) and hit the forest, Ter Kamerenbos, you are still climbing for a bit. The peak is around 7 km. I felt alright enough still as we kept climbing. Around the start of the forest another woman popped up. The one from before was also still nearby, as was Dieter. It was also somewhere around this point that the handisporters started shouting at the two women: telling them they were second and third, encouraging them on. Lots and lots of “Allez les filles!”. Quite the extra crowd encouragement that way, even if it was not directed at me. I figured I should hang somewhat near them till the cresting of the hill or, if it felt a bit too hot, be able to close the gap again on the bit of downhill right after. I do not know any more which of the two it ended up being, but on the downhill I think I passed all three of them.
The downhill goes back to an uphill around 7.5 km, but then from 8 km it switches back to net downhill till 10 km in. Throughout this stretch, there was some yoyoing in positions, not just those three I mentioned but of course all the other people still taking part in this race too. It is just that they ended up being near me for a big chunk of the race that I actually remembered.
We crossed the 10 km marker in a group together though. Me and the new second place woman next to one another, the now third place woman and Dieter behind us in the group, together with some others. Since learning that they were second and third, I had on the one hand decided to definitely trust their pacing, but to also ensure I would not get in their way: in turns and squeezing through gaps, I gave way.
Distance | Auto lap |
---|---|
7 km | 3:51 |
8 km | 3:27 |
9 km | 3:40 |
10 km | 3:31 |
From 10 km there is a bit of climbing again till 11.5-12 km. I decided to not get dropped from this group on uphills so increased the effort a little. My heart rate had been mostly upper 160s again throughout the race, so I probably had more in the tank still any way.
We stuck together till the top of the hill and then it is time to bomb down. For about a kilometre I can use my longer legs and I figured I might as well. I do not know how much of a gap I get on my group, but for a while they are definitely not right behind me. I pass a bunch of other people and feel good. As I hit the bottom of the downhill, just shy of 13 km in, it flattens out for a while. I feel a slight hint of a side stitch, is that from bombing down the hill? In going down, I had caught up to another group, but I let them go again and try to find my own pace. I do not want the hint to become an actual side stitch. It disappears and I am a bit alone between groups. No point speeding up or slowing down to hang with one so I just stick to my own mental game.
Distance | Auto lap |
---|---|
11 km | 3:41 |
12 km | 3:36 |
13 km | 3:22 |
After a few km of that, the second place woman catches up to me again. I do not recall whether the third one was close behind, I am inclined to say no. I also do not recall seeing Dieter around. I match my pace to the second place woman. If she caught up, then clearly I was not going fast enough. For a while we run next to each other again. Soon we will hit the dreaded final climb: Tervurenlaan. Somewhat poetically, somewhere along this stretch a certain song was blasting: Highway to Hell by AC/DC. I had an inner chuckle at that.
As we reach the turn onto Tervurenlaan, I decidedly take the lead of our little group. I still felt strong enough and I wanted to ensure starting the hill first, not at the back of a group that probably climbs better than I do. I push the pace a bit to maybe string out our group on the final flattish parts before the climb.
Distance | Auto lap |
---|---|
14 km | 3:34 |
15 km | 3:37 |
16 km | 3:38 |
17 km | 3:43 |
And then the climbing starts.
You go up about 40 metres over 1 km. The first third or so I am feeling great, thinking to myself “wait, was this it?”. Then it gets a bit steeper and the work starts in earnest. I tried my best to not slow down too much. To not let too many people pass me. Not many do. Perhaps three or four people pass me during the climb and I try to somewhat pace off them if at all possible. None of those people was Dieter or the second place woman. By this point I had made it my own little battle to stay ahead of them.
As we crest this final hill, I know I am in the clear. I am still feeling good enough and pick up the pace again for the final ~2 km stretch. I pick off the people that had passed me on the climb, confident I can keep up this effort till the finish. My wife is waiting a little before the finish, ready to take another picture. I am less energetic than at the 2 km mark, but still feel good enough to wave and put up my thumbs. Somewhere prior to that I had also flashed the old moose hand sign to one of the official photographers.
As always the very last few 100m suck, you go up slightly and then there are terrible cobbles. You know you are basically there though and push out whatever you have left.
Distance | Auto lap |
---|---|
18 km | 4:03 |
19 km | 3:40 |
20 km | 3:28 |
Easy peasy PR. I was only expecting a course record, but I actually ran the 20 km faster than I did during the half marathon Belgian Championships back in March. Official time of 1:12:14. My watch agrees because I did not have an elite bib this time around. Chip time all the way, baby. I also “PRed” my placing in this race: 139th. At least I have validated my jumping in the elite box (they have 200 spots).
I did not feel particularly dead after the race, so I might have played it too conservatively still. Of course, that is easy to say afterwards. Maybe I would have blown up otherwise. If the race was held more often and under consistent weather, it would be easier to shoot for a next milestone next time. Now I will just have to hope next year is similar weather and I am in similar shape. Assuming I take part.
Year | Time | Rank |
---|---|---|
2015 | 1:30:41 | 2833 |
2016 | 1:30:40 | 2345 |
2018 | 1:27:59 | 984 |
2019 | 1:18:20 | 287 |
2021 | 1:21:09 | 372 |
2022 | 1:12:14 | 139 |
The second place woman was not far behind me, finishing in 1:12:30. Dieter finished in 1:12:32. The third place woman ended quite a bit further down: 1:13:56.
Former co-worker and current co-worker managed to somehow finish in exactly the same chip time: 1:29:15. A PR for both of them, the first time under 1h30 for both of them. I will have to convince them to race each other, evidently. They are still a minute off that other co-worker, who will probably scold himself for not being in shape to take part in this edition.
For future pace planning purposes, these times were required for certain positions in this year’s edition. A top 100 sounds like a nice goal. Attainable? Who knows.
Place | Time |
---|---|
1 | 1:00:01 |
20 | 1:05:20 |
25 | 1:05:52 |
50 | 1:08:01 |
75 | 1:09:30 |
100 | 1:10:48 |
125 | 1:11:38 |
150 | 1:12:44 |
175 | 1:13:34 |
200 | 1:14:19 |
With how I felt afterwards, I am curious what I can really do on a half marathon on a good day with a good group. Shaving off some time definitely feels like a possibility, it is just difficult to estimate just how much time. Racing in a sort of group like that felt nice. Not preoccupied with pace, it was just a matter of going by feel and racing tactics along the lines of “do I hold on, do I try to run away, do I need to not react on these people?”. Makes for more excitement for me during the race. Perhaps a bit less present in my track races. That said, I do like my pretty numbers at the end.
I should do another track race in the coming month, I am just undecided which one to do. Or when for that matter. I have been liking some more adventurous long runs. Those are impossible to combine with a race weekend, so I need to make tough choices. If I am honest with myself, the races are more time constrained. It is racing season! I am not getting younger! The adventurous long runs I can do no matter the time of year or the time I have spent on this world.
I also need to actually reintroduce speedwork. My training has been severely lacking on that front. That will be the primary focus after this recovery week. Also time to actually restart some core and general strength work. It felt fine during this race, but I am sure it can be better.
]]>While I had made speedwork off limits, regular running still went fine. Except for weeks where real life interfered, I hit all my regular distances. The only “workout” every week ended up being the long run, hovering around 27 to 29 km. Weekly distances since the last race week were: 67, 111, 82, 111, 109, 113, and 91 as a recovery week the week prior to this race’s week. Not planned for that purpose, I was mostly through that week when I was asked to take part in the race.
Race week I opted for a gentle attempt at speedwork during this year’s edition of the VUB’s 12 hour race to test how the hip would feel. I did 11 laps (~650 metre each). Ten of them faster than regular running, but not hitting lactate threshold. The final one was all out. Hip seemed fine at all time so that was reassuring. Monday through Friday was: 18.5, 13.4, 16.5, 13.0, and 10.1 km. The race was on Saturday.
I also had some bad luck with work. Monday I had had to teach 5 hours in a row and my vocal chords were suffering from it. That lasted all week and was augmented from Thursday afternoon onwards with a snotty nose and lots of sneezing. Not ideal. The morning of the race it at least seemed a little better, but the illness was all still there upsetting my body.
I was not sure what shape I was in. Rather than think too much about time, I thought I would try to base my race on others. In previous races I often would start very controlled and self conscious about my pace which led to running alone for most of the race as I slowly passed people that had burned all their matches early. This time around I hoped to just join in the fray at the start of the race and see who I could try following. If it worked, I might get a new PR. If it did not work, well, I came without expectations anyway.
That said, I did try to keep some times in mind. My PR is 38.8 seconds per 200m. 9:30 is 38s per 200m. 10 minutes is 40s per 200m. I figured just knowing about them would help prevent me from going way too fast or slow.
My race was at 15:40. I arrived around 14:15. At 14:20-14:30, people from my club said that our 800m guy had pulled out. I was asked if I was maybe willing to also run the 800m. Open to new experiences, I have never raced an 800, I agreed, asking when it was. Soon, apparently. The 800m was at 15:10. So not only did I have to quickly change and start getting warmed up (and toilet visits!), I would also have to handle the quick 30 minute turnaround between the two races.
I got to it and jogged for 15-20 minutes in a nearby park. I went back to the track, changed into spikes, jogged a few minutes on the track with them and did a few very short strides. Also did some leg swings to further activate the hips.
One minor thing: I also went to ask somebody from the club how the start exactly worked. I thought you had to stay in your lane for a bit, I just wanted confirmation about how long to do that. (Till you exit the first turn, basically).
I had no clue about what time would be “normal” for me. Ignoring that, I figured it would also be impossible to try and pace this somehow right. Instead I figured “just race”. We’ll see what happens.
I got put into lane 8, the most outer lane, also making me unable to see the rest. I had noticed I was the only one with a watch one. I figured I was not sure how often I would be doing an 800, might as well get the data onto Strava and friends.
The description might be overly detailed for an 800m. Idk how much of it was justifications after the fact or how much of it I actually was thinking during. Either way, here is the report.
The gun went and off we were. And off they were anyway. When I hit the end of the first turn, I was already gapped by the second to last guy in the field. Not seeing the other guys in the turn, I had started too conservatively, or at least slower than anyone else. I was not worried, I felt I could go faster. I ran at a slight angle towards the inner lane and was behind the second to last guy near the end of the first straight. 200m done, 600m to go.
That guy was clearly going slower than I felt I could do and in the second turn I overtook him. There was already a gap between him and a trio in front of him so I could not wait around. I passed him and closed the gap on the trio. On the second straight I sat behind them. They were a bit bunched up and I did not want to go too wide. I also had a brief “breather”, it was ever so slightly slower than the pace I had ran to catch up to them (Evidently, I guess). I did not see what time we came through the first lap. The race organisers also did not seem to post this split afterwards. Bummer, I am slightly curious now.
In the third turn, things got more strung out and the front guy of our little pack was pulling away from the two right in front of me. I thought I still should keep trying and on the next straight I overtook those two and started trying to close the gap on the guy getting away. Think I caught up to him somewhere between the start and the middle of the final turn.
In the turn I noticed he started flailing a bit, so I figured I could take him. Rather than start that overtaking during the turn (and run some extra distance), I thought I should be fine with the final straight. I was not going to catch any of the 7 other guys in front of us anyway. As we hit the end of the turn, he found an extra gear and sped up again. Shit. I should have seen that coming. I too sprinted with what I had left, but was not even able to pull up besides him. Luckily, he cracked with about 50 metre to go. Suddenly I was alongside and then quickly past him.
My throat was killing me after that heavy effort. I heard I had ran 2:08 and was 8th out of 12 guys. I did not have time to really process whether it was good or bad or what. I had to go and change: back into regular shoes, out of the race shirt, and off for a short jog to keep the blood flowing. I got 12 minutes jogging in before I was back to changing into spikes and going to the starting area for my next race.
My heart rate had not properly come down since the first race, it was still noticeably higher than usual.
I lined up and once again the gun went. I had no clue how much the 800 might affect me, so I stuck to my original plan. I immediately threw myself into the fray and the messiness of a start. We went through 200 metre in maybe 35s. A little hot, but that was to be expected with the start.
I quickly settled in behind a guy from “AC Halestra”. The six people in front of him were definitely going way too fast for me so I was not going to try to latch on to them. In fact, even the Halestra guy felt a little faster than “planned”. We clocked a few laps going faster than 9:30 race time. Our average pace did end up slowing, but even then it was still 1:15-1:16 per lap, aka still at or about 9:30. Those lap times I think I heard right from Halestra’s coach yelling them on the side (I glanced at the official clock every lap but was not bothering with lap math, just a feeling of “yup, that’s fast still”, I did not bother pressing the lap button on my watch). I knew it faster than what I had expected, but I was in this position now anyway, I figured I should keep hanging there.
With maybe 1300m to go (at the end of the turn there), I misstepped inside the track. I made a bit of a jump of “oh shit” sideways. I slowed down thinking I was disqualified now. Then I realised I was being stupid, that was not an advantage, definitely not now that I had slowed down. I restarted, but the damage was done. Halestra guy was a few steps in front of me. Looking at the pace, I seem to have tried to keep up still for maybe a lap. I do not think I managed to properly close the gap any more though and I lost the mental battle against myself there. He was off, I slowed down.
I tried to keep the effort alright for the remainder of the race, I did not want to get overtaken. Did not manage to pep myself up to still go for a PR at least. Not sure I was even thinking about that at the time. Final 100m I figured what the hell and just pushed out whatever I had left still. No clue what I was thinking about then. Just making sure I did not get sneakily overtaken probably.
The 800m was 2:08.91 for an eighth place (Strava). The 3000m was 9:46.80, also for an eighth place (Strava). Both out of twelve competitors. My club finished ninth out of twelve clubs, so it seems I was not the weak link at least.
The 3000 I could place in the grand scheme of things, it was 4 seconds slower than my PR from last year. The 800m time was pretty meaningless to me though. I had a look at an IAAF (World Athletics) scoring tables document I still had saved somewhere. It links times in events to points.
My 800m time is worth 558 points. My 3000m PR is 539 points, my 5000m PR is 535 points. That is unexpected. Am I a middle distance runner now? After some brief confusion about whether I had been approaching my running all wrong, I did check my road races too. My 10 km is 603 points and my half is 609 points. OK, I’m a distance runner still after all. It does make me wonder how fast I could get with some proper 800m training (or any speedwork in the buildup) and the right race. That said, getting the same number of points as my 10 km would only be a 2 second improvement. What I’m trying to say here is: probably not that much faster. Trying to get to to 2:05 or lower might turn out to be very very difficult, if not impossible.
Racing wise perhaps just not starting as slow in the 800m could already make a big difference. That said, maybe I had blown up later in the race then. There was a group that ended 2:06.31, 2:06.88, and 2:08.37 though (last guy faltered). Maybe if I had managed to latch onto them early on, I would have been able to hang on. Bunch of what ifs.
So. A last minute addition to the schedule has broadened my horizons. I think I am more willing to give an 800m another try, if there is not too much travel involved. Maybe a 1500m too, have not tried those yet. Just do whatever and have fun with it. I will have to have a proper look at the calendar for the coming month or two. See if there is some more fun to be had.
There is also still the Brussels 20 km on the last Sunday of May. I am still undecided whether to do that one. I am not really feeling in the mood, but it also feels like a “just do it” kind of race. I will probably think about it for a week or two longer still.
]]>While I only decided on this race about a month out, I will give some more training context than that here. A month does not paint much of a picture. Instead I will start from the week of 6 December, giving you 14 weeks of context, race week included. I will refer to them counting down from 14 to 1.
In a normal week, I would be aiming for about 108 km total: every day has some running, two of them are workout days, one is a long run of ~27 km. I am not fiddling much with the total weekly distance at the moment, I like the consistency, and there is only so much time I can give to my running. Every third or fourth week is a down week. Workout paces are based on my fall PRs in the 5 and 10 km. I have also been trying to start eating a bit during long runs. By which I mean some sort of energy bar or similar, maybe halfway through the run. In December and January, there were not as many normal weeks as one might hope, but you will read more about that further down.
Notations are Jack Daniels’. R is Repetition is intervals at ~1500-mile race pace, rest 2-3 times the time spent on the rep. T is Threshold (the lactate one), so around 1 hour race pace. I do not feel like I hit the right paces very often, but as I tell myself when that happens: at least I am doing something.
Week 14 (107k) went alright. I had just done a down week the week prior. Tuesday workout was 10×400m R. I aimed for 74s per rep, but afterwards realised I had planned 73s instead. At the time I noted not being sure how possible that felt on the day though. Thursday I did 2×10 min T in a hilly forest with iffy roads. Pace was a bit all over the place, but the heart rate also did not creep as high as I wanted. Either way, I figured it was all better than nothing. For future reference in this section: ideally T pace is about 3:35 per km, so if I talk about T work in terms of distance, you can calculate back to actual minutes.
Week 13 (68k) had two T workouts, both 5×5 minutes, both not quite hitting paces due to terrain, turns, hills. I was also combining workouts (and easy runs) with heatmapping Brussels which made it far from ideal to properly focus. Then Thursday afternoon I started feeling shit, had stomach problems again (see last 20k BXL). I skipped Friday, tried a Saturday run which also felt shit, skipped Sunday. Tried Monday still shit, skipped Tuesday. Kept rest of week 12 (75k) mostly easy and short, then squeezed out a 25k long run on Saturday. No running Sunday either due to a long flight and being stuck in an airport for a layover that kept getting delayed.
Week 11 (105k) was more normal again. Started off easy, then did a T workout on Friday: 2k on, short jog, 4k on. Sleep was way short, but it was flat, straight, and smooth ground so I actually hit paces for once. Week 10 (100k) I knew the weekend and next weekend would get rough and tricky, so I frontloaded some distance (and my long run) and did not do any workouts. Lost Saturday due to travel again, been unlucky with flight delays.
Week 9 (70k) was planned as a down week when it came to running. This was also done to make it fit with a hiking trip in Utah we had planned. I was going to make a travel report on that trip, buuuut I have been lazy with it so far. Maybe it will pop up one day. Just like in Slovenia, the hiking ended up taking a bit too much of my time/will. I am OK with some combo of the two, but I do still vastly prefer keeping my running alright. We failed getting that balance right for me. I got tired, I skipped a day of running, I ended up calling an earlier end to my hiking (i.e., I spent the penultimate day mostly napping). The right balance, again, to me, is not quite there yet on these hiking trips where the girlfriend’s sister tags along. Hiking is her top priority so she understandably wants to maximise it. I then also lost Sunday and Monday. We spent all of Sunday travelling, landed Monday, and I did not want to risk running on those tired legs on Monday. The rest of that week 8 (95k) was taken easy in terms of workouts. Distance was readded immediately though.
Week 7 (97k) had another missed day. I got my COVID-19 boostershot on Monday afternoon and was knocked out by it on Tuesday. I decided to skip one of the two planned workouts. Friday I then did 3×2k T, getting slightly hindered by mud and construction messes. Paces were not quite what I was aiming for.
Week 6 (109k) was finally a normal week again. Tuesday I did 5×2k T…ish, was slower and in the hilly forest again. Still, I was running faster than normal easy runs for those intervals. When I don’t hit paces, I can always just say I am training like Jakob Ingebrigtsen. Small victories. Thursday was a track workout: 3×400, 4×400, 3×400 R, longer jogs between sets. Mostly hitting the 73-74s I was aiming for. I did get sore/tired feeling in various parts of my upper body. I have been very lazy when it comes to strength work and I took this as a hint that I should get back on that.
Week 5 (87k) I did a down week to align it with the race, which I by then had decided to run. Now I could have three regular weeks (4, 3, 2) and then a bit of a taper the week of the race (1). I also did some pilates a few times this week.
Week 4 (109k) I did two T workouts: 3×2k T and 4×2k T. Paces still a bit all over the place due to the combo with heatmapping and forest running. Either way it was good to have a normal week again. Especially as it did not last long. That weekend I was an idiot and overdid the strength work a bit. Essentially I jumped straight back in to a routine that I was doing when I was doing consistent strength work ages ago (like… over a year ago). Hip did not feel quite right after that, quite sore.
Week 3 (109k) I felt the consequences of my stupidity when I did my Tuesday workout. I did 3-4-3 × 400m R, started feeling the left hip at some point and then things went from bad to worse. Felt terrible through the afternoon, painful when walking. It got better by the evening and the next day I could walk and run without issue. By the end of the workday I started feeling it a little again though. I think sitting all day might not be good for it. Either way, that made me stop doing workouts. Distance easy running did not seem to be a trigger at all, so that continued.
In week 2 (109k), I tried some careful very controlled strides on Monday. Hip immediately flared up, so that week I also did not do any workouts (or strides).
In week 1 (89k) it was time to seriously think about the actual race. I did 3×1k HMP on Tuesday. It went fine, but then in the evening the hip acted up again. That had me a little worried: what would an entire race at that pace do then? Things got worse on Friday: I had to get up real early for work, then sit in a crappy chair all day. By the time the workday was done, the hip was already feeling tired. I decided to do my planned 10k jog and that was a bad idea. The hip started feeling progressively worse throughout the run and felt downright bad again afterwards. Not ideal 40 hours before your race. I decided to skip Saturday’s run altogether, doing 30 minutes of elliptical, and gambled on just doing the race and hoping for the best. This week ended up looking like this: 13k, 16k with 3×1k @ HMP, 13k, 13k, 10k, elliptical, race day.
I have only raced one half marathon before. It was years ago (4 Nov 2018) and it had such fun obstacles as stairs. At the time I ran 1:23:48, but that is essentially useless to decide on what to run now. Besides “faster than that” perhaps.
Instead, I threw this fall’s PRs into some calculators.
In other words, they all seem to agree somewhat. I did not know whether I was in the same shape as in fall, per se, due to the less than ideal past months. I thought I might as well aim for 1:17, i.e., 1:16:59, though. The course was supposed to be flat and I did not see any obvious difficult turns, so that works in my favour. The goal pace is an even 3:39 (well, 3:38.9) per kilometre. In important splits that is
Distance | Time |
---|---|
5 km | 18:14 |
10 km | 36:29 |
15 km | 54:44 |
20 km | 1:12:58 |
Half | 1:16:59 |
If I could find someone to run with, that would be ideal. In reality with these things it will probably be a bit messy the first 5-10 km before we all settle into our paces.
I had to wake up at 6:00 to get ready and catch my ride. Had my, now usual, bowl of muesli with soy milk (150g muesli, 300g soy milk). A cup of black tea. A few trips to the bathroom. I went on over to a friend that would also be running today to catch a ride. We arrived at the race location by about 8:20, start of the race was going to be at 9:30. Calmly getting ready, grab bibs, few bathroom attempts, talk to some other faces we recognised. Did my leg swings to warm up the hips muscles. Jogged four laps on the track as warmup. Avoided strides or anything in case the hips would not be happy with it. It all felt fine, though the lower back of my left thigh felt a tiny bit sore oddly enough.
Eventually we all lined up at the start. I placed myself towards the latter half of the pack: you have to run 1h20 or faster to take part in this one, so my 1:16:59 goal is nothing special. Without any pomp or ceremony or countdown, the gun was fired and off we were. (After shuffling to the starting mat in the crowd)
We did half a lap of the athletics track and went out on the street. Someone managed to fall on the first turn out of the place: it was crowded which made the turn a bit tight and harder to see the change to paving stones of the streets as well. Sounded a bit like a cyclist wiping out in a corner, but without screeching brakes. About half a km in I found myself at the front of a pack, with another pack just ahead. Not quite sure what pace I was going or what, I decided to quickly bridge the gap. Easier to fall back in a km or two than the other way around. I settled in at the back of that pack.
Also at the back of that pack was a woman that seemed to have two pacers, or at least two guys that seemed to be running right in front of her as a block. No clue if that was on purpose. I figured I should explicitly try following her for now, that pace might be more consistent than a random guy in this pack. So as the pack flowed and reshaped around me, I mostly focused on matching her pace. I think this lasted till the first 3 or so km were done.
Distance | Split | Goal diff | Cumul | Goal diff |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 3:33 | - 6 | 3:33 | - 6 |
2 | 3:32 | - 7 | 7:05 | - 13 |
3 | 3:33 | - 6 | 10:38 | - 19 |
Either way at some point the pack seemed to be breaking in two. The woman I had been pacing off was going with the front pack, but that pace felt a bit too hot for me. I say feel, but I think this might have been mostly the watch splits making me think this rather than an actual feeling. Running still felt pretty smooth and easy here, but I figured that was to be expected so early in the race. Either way, splits looked too fast, so I stuck to the slower pack. Still settled in, seeing what happens. We were running (generally) southwards for this section which meant there was a headwind. I was happy not to be the leader here.
We reached the Schelde river just under 7k into the race and I felt like we had slowed down a bit too much. I also figured there would now a bit of a tailwind, so I would not kill myself if I moved to the front. I promptly did so and pushed the pace. I also figured by leading now, perhaps people would be guilted into leading again later on. We ran northwards till about 9k, then westwards till just under 11k, when we turned away from the water. I led for most of this section. You felt the wind coming from the south while running westwards, but not in a way that you felt you were fighting it like when we ran southwards earlier.
Looking at the results afterwards, I crossed the 10 km timing mat at the head of a group of at least 10 people. More still if you consider a 3s gap as still being the same group.
Distance | Split | Goal diff | Cumul | Goal diff |
---|---|---|---|---|
4 | 3:36 | - 3 | 14:14 | - 22 |
5 | 3:39 | – | 17:53 | - 22 |
6 | 3:43 | + 4 | 21:36 | - 18 |
7 | 3:45 | + 6 | 25:21 | - 12 |
8 | 3:37 | - 2 | 28:58 | - 14 |
9 | 3:43 | + 4 | 32:41 | - 9 |
10 | 3:39 | – | 36:20 | - 9 |
Shortly after turning away from the water, I slowed down marginally and ostentatiously ran a bit more on the non-logical side of the path / road. A guy or two took the bait and passed me. I tried settling in behind them. I did not stay there too long and I moved to the front a few more times to ensure the pace stayed high enough. It sucked with the headwind, but I figured I had to ensure we kept moving. I always saw the same 2-3 others actually coming to the front of our pack. I felt there were others behind us still, but they seemed happy to just sit and wait. Looking at the 13.1k timing mat results afterwards, our group had at least 8 runners and some more stragglers just behind.
On a longer straight section around 13-14k we were forced into single file. I was in 3rd-4th position and sort of made the other guy move into third, I settled into fourth. By the end of the single file section though, the third guy was having trouble and a little gap was forming on the front two. Someone behind me shouted to stay connected to those front two. I glanced back and saw someone that had not been near the front of our group all day. Sadly he was right and I did not want that gap to form either. I could not go the petty way and not react, forcing him to do the bridging himself. I passed the third guy and briefly pushed a bit harder to close the gap again. The guy that had yelled happily just followed me.
We turned onto the Schelde again and I moved into second or alongside the other guy near the front. This other guy had pushed a few times already a few km before, little surges of sorts. It seemed like he was doing another one, harder still, and I decided to fully match it. So far into the race was no time to sit around. In case our pack got strung out, I did not want to be a few places down and see it break up ahead of me. After another km or so, he faltered again though. I kept the pace up and felt there were still guys behind me. We passed through another water station and the group split apart entirely.
Somebody passed me around the 17k mark and I decided to try to match his pace. It was noticeably faster, but I figured it was time to start squeezing my body for what was left still. 6-700 metre further I did have to let him go, it was going a little too fast. Shortly after he also slowed down though and I ran maybe 10 metre behind him for a while as we ran westwards along the river.
The 18.1k timing mat tells me I crossed it in the company of three other guys, so I might be misremembering the exact moment some of these things happened. It is easy to forget something when you’re fully focused on running an honest pace.
Distance | Split | Goal diff | Cumul | Goal diff |
---|---|---|---|---|
11 | 3:40 | + 1 | 40:00 | - 8 |
12 | 3:38 | - 1 | 43:38 | - 9 |
13 | 3:38 | - 1 | 47:16 | - 10 |
14 | 3:43 | + 4 | 50:59 | - 6 |
15 | 3:40 | + 1 | 54:39 | - 5 |
16 | 3:37 | - 2 | 58:16 | - 7 |
17 | 3:38 | - 1 | 1:01:54 | - 8 |
18 | 3:31 | - 8 | 1:05:25 | - 16 |
19 | 3:38 | - 1 | 1:09:03 | - 17 |
By about 19 km, we left the loop and ran the way back to the track where the start & finish were. At this point it was just a matter of staying focused and hanging on to the pace that felt fast enough, but not that fast that I’d die before reaching the finish. There was another section with a bit of a headwind, but I had nobody near me at this point. I just focused on my stride and on the guy I could see ahead of me. If our distance suddenly grew, I would know to mentally check I was not slowing down.
I turned back on the track, slowly trying to reel in a guy before me in the final 200-250 metre there was left. I had been closing in, but there was not much left in the tank. Meanwhile I heard someone behind me doing his final kick and approaching. That gave me some extra boost and in the final turn I gave what I had left. I closed the gap to the guy before me, but couldn’t overtake him. The guy behind me caught up to me, but couldn’t overtake me either.
Distance | Split | Goal diff | Cumul | Goal diff |
---|---|---|---|---|
20 | 3:37 | - 2 | 1:12:40 | - 19 |
21 | 3:38 | - 1 | 1:16:18 | - 20 |
Official results have me finishing in 1:16:48, but as I mentioned that is guntime. My watch gives me 1:16:43, which would definitely match up with chip time if the results showed it. I guess that is the downside of the elite wave at these events. I had a similar experience in the Brussels 20k last fall. I am taking the supposed chip time as my shiny new PR. Sue me.
I finished in 134th position. I quite like the progression of my position throughout the race, based on their timing mats.
Distance | Position |
---|---|
5 | 161 |
10 | 154 |
13.1 | 141 |
18.1 | 137 |
Half | 134 |
Technically I also broke my 10 mile and 20 km PBs here. Taking the average pace of this race, it puts them at 58:31 and 1:12:44, respectively. Of course I had only ran a 10 miler the one time years ago in Antwerp and my 20 kms usually happen in Brussels where it is rather hilly.
I think the woman I tried to follow early on ended up finishing in 1:15:46. Seventh female, third Belgian. Probably would have had trouble hanging on to that in the latter part of the race. Not quite sure about others I (briefly) ran alongside of. There are not many pictures to find bib numbers with.
My hip was not as beat up afterwards as I had feared going by the week prior to the race. There were some sore spots, but all in all it seems OK. Later in the week it still is a bit nagging uncomfortable at various moments. I will be laying off the workouts for a while to ensure it heals. I know those sore spots could easily get worse again. Sadly that also means no races in the immediate future. I had hoped to squeeze in a track 5000m over the coming months, but I will have to see how the hip evolves. I have to be a 100% sure everything is OK again before I throw that at it. Beyond that 5000m plan, I do still hope to get revenge for my failed Brussels 20k. That would be the last weekend of May. A new personal course record should be doable. A PR for the distance seems out of reach after shattering it during this race.
]]>Situation at the end of the year. Things slightly changed again by the time I got this post out.
Municipality | Done | Inc | Total streets |
---|---|---|---|
Anderlecht | 56 % | +41 % | 510 |
Brussels City | 94 % | +16 % | 1194 |
Elsene | 100 % | +84 % | 341 |
Etterbeek | 100 % | +75 % | 199 |
Evere | 100 % | +84 % | 176 |
Ganshoren | 100 % | – | 122 |
Jette | 100 % | – | 212 |
Koekelberg | 100 % | – | 78 |
Molenbeek | 100 % | +1 % | 294 |
Oudergem | 60 % | +54 % | 260 |
Schaarbeek | 74 % | +48 % | 369 |
St-Agatha-Berchem | 100 % | – | 133 |
St-Gillis | 100 % | +91 % | 159 |
St-Joost | 100 % | +5 % | 117 |
St-Lambrechts-Woluwe | 31 % | +14 % | 302 |
St-Pieters-Woluwe | 25 % | +19 % | 325 |
Ukkel | 64 % | +56 % | 421 |
Vorst | 44 % | +42 % | 201 |
Watermaal-Bosvoorde | 98 % | +87 % | 259 |
Total | 76 % | +38 % | 4986 |
The above table compares numbers to the previous blog post back in May. In terms of the ranking on CityStrides, I went up to the second spot in Brussels. First place was around 84% last I checked. I am still behind, but slowly closing in.
I used good weather days to get parts of the far side of Brussels done. Calm bike ride over, do a run, bike back. It is quite nice when not too cold and with some sun out. Sadly that is not possible on workdays, it just takes too much time. Big focus of that approach was Ukkel.
In October I briefly started going to the office again. I switched all my work day running to be lunch time runs in that area. This enabled me to focus on Etterbeek, Elsene, and Watermaal-Bosvoorde. Alas, work from home laws came back into effect following yet another COVID-19 surge and that approach was largely put back on hold.
I have made a video showing the progress on Brussels streets in 2021. The first view is prior to any 2021 running, every change is another month of progress.
I described elsewhere how to make such a video.
From the previous post:
What will probably end up happening with this goal is me doing a little bit here and there as I find motivation to do anything or happen to be in certain areas.
That indeed ended up happening, meaning very little progress was made since then. Specifically, I only ‘worked’ on this one twice. One time, I felt motivated to take the train out to Wetteren and ran from there back to my tendril in Aalst. That is about halfway to Gent, so now I should be able to make that connection more easily. The other time, I happened to be in Knokke for a coastal weekend with a friend. I took the opportunity to run to the Belgian-Dutch border and a bit in the Knokke area. Not a lot of progress, but touching the border there already feels like a nice achievement and will look nice later on.
This plan had already formed before the trip to Knokke mentioned in the previous section, but that Knokke trip solidified it: I want to run across the entire Belgian coast. If you are unfamiliar with the Belgian coast, that might sound like a lofty goal. Trust me though, it is not. It is only around 70-75 km of running total and pretty well serviced by public transport. It is really just a matter of heading over to that side of Belgium.
Thus, when I was in Knokke, after making the Belgian-Dutch border connection, I spent another morning taking the tram out so I could run back to where we were staying. With barely any running, I now already have a little more than a third of the coast complete.
Not much conscious effort has been put into this. I largely just run and try to get some new streets whenever possible. That said, sometimes I do go out of my way for a “folieke” just because it looks nice on the map or because I am in a mood.
During the year I got some heatmapping done in Mechelen and Tervuren. They are both a bit out of the way, but it is tempting to connect them to the blob. I would also like to connect Opwijk to Affligem (in the north-west) and Dworp to Waterloo (in the south). Beyond that, nothing particular comes to mind.
The USA border had long been closed to me because of COVID-19 regulations. With the recent reopening I was finally allowed back in, and I ended up heading once more into the Philadelphia suburbs to visit the girlfriend’s family. Back in 2015 we had done some minor heatmapping effort, but that had quickly sizzled back out (just like most my heatmapping had) and since then most of the running had been done along the Chester Valley Trail or in the Valley Forge area. Always the same few routes.
This time around, I arrived with a newfound motivation. Having taken it so seriously in Brussels, it was easy to continue the habit there. Easy to motivate myself anyway. Suburbia USA has one big problem: they seem to hate pedestrians with a vengeance. You have your own little neighbourhood (a dead end of a few streets) and to get to another one you have to run on deathly roads with high speed limits, a car lane each way, and everyone else can get fucked. Getting anywhere without a car can get rather dangerous. The safest way to get streets done is to drive to a neighbourhood, park there, run the neighbourhood, and go to another one. Not very pleasant.
This is a bit of a drag, especially with our car situation while there. Instead, I decided to not focus too much on the actual street count and tried to connect up the different bits of heatmap I had. Sound familiar? We’re creating another blob, ladies and gentlemen! One downside: them dangerous streets. I had made up my mind though, I had packed my fluorescent running vest before heading state side and I figured I would give it an honest try.
It actually went better than expected. I think I was helped by doing it around Christmas-New Year. Perhaps also due to more people working from home or picking the right hours (i.e., not during rush hour or lunch time). Whatever the reason, it was not as busy as I remembered it being the past years. Most streets I could handle fine with the tiny bit of shoulder that was given to me and the patches of grass I could hop onto if necessary. Several places were not as forgiving, but I did my best to tackle those as defensively as possible: always wait for the cars to do their things, try to wait it out so you do not see a car coming in the distance, run the dangerous part with a certain urgency (no all out sprint to ensure full focus). For some, I also managed to convince the girlfriend to drop me off in one spot, have her drive to a place where walking is nice, and just have her go for a walk there while waiting for me to run over. That helped a lot, good thing we are all so used to having to drive to get any safe running done in this area.
When I was in a situation where I could not connect any parts on that day, I instead decided to risk other brief moments of danger to reach other nearby neighbourhoods and do some good ol’ street hunting.