There are just 17 days left before the start of the Bello Gallico as I start the last preparations for my first 50 miler, the Bello Gallico trail on the 17th of December.<\/p>\n
So the rough training plan for these last 17 days:<\/p>\n
These last 17 days start as I have just finished my last workday and that structure of having to get up at 5 AM every morning to go out for a run suddenly has dissapeared. I expected that this would result in me getting up every day and just wanting to run endlessly but that’s not how it went for the first few days apparently I had to refind my rythm.<\/p>\n
It did not take me too long to find that though, I just had to kick myself in the butt a few times during the first week after quiting my job.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As I said, the strucutre that was missing had disrupted my training regime and so I ended up not running today and just walked around in the city centre of Utrecht a bit, buying a few small things for the Bello Gallico like handwarmers and a few waterproof bags to store my clothes in that I put in my race vest. Furthermore I am just resting, mentally and physically and rest is also training.<\/p>\n
<\/a>I still did not feel like running but convinced myself to go out for a run anyway. Even though I did not want to run, I also did not want to spend the last 2 weeks until the Bello Gallico doing nothing and watching my endurance level drop.<\/p>\n And so I took a handheld bottle of water with me and set out of a run of an undefined length. Soon after I left the house it starts to drizzle a bit and all I can think of is, great extra training!<\/p>\n After about 20 km I stop to text Astrid that all is going well and that I am actually enjoying myself and will be home a bit later than planned.<\/p>\n After 28.7 km I arrive home, soaked by the rain but very content with this training run.<\/p>\n <\/a>Today I wanted to do another long run, with the almost 30 km of yesterday I wanted to take that “fatique” with me on another long run to simulate running long distances without putting all the distance in one single run.<\/p>\n So for today I had set out a nice new running course for myself by modifying one of my regular cycling routes. The plan was to go for a 40 km run at a very conservative pace. The run itself was quite uneventful, I kept the same pace and heartrate throughout the entire run and after 40 kilometers I was getting close to home again.<\/p>\n When I noticed that I would hit aproximately 41 km I decided to add a short loop to the run and make it a marathon. And so on this random Saturday morning I ran a marathon in a time under 4 hours with my heart rate in the low aerobe zone (135 – 145) for almost the entire run. Slowly I am starting to realize the progress I have been making on these long runs, and it makes me proud.<\/p>\n Since I had just two back to back days with long runs, covering around 70 kilometer in just two days the plan was to do an alternative easy training today.<\/p>\n And so Astrid and I decided to go out for a bike ride on this beautiful sunny winter day. And so early in the morning we ride out on our racing bikes for what was supposed to be a 45 kilometer ride. 2 kilometers into the ride we turn around and ride home to get warmer gloves as we could barely move our fingers anymore, after switching to different gloves we go out for attempt two.<\/p>\nSaturday the 3rd of December<\/h4>\n
Sunday the 4th of December<\/h4>\n