Why sports?
Ask 20 people why they run, bike, swim, do any type of sport, you might get 20 different questions: get out of the home and away from the husband/wife, to fight boredom, because it makes you feel good physically, because it's helps fight stress, because it gives certain bragging rights, ...
I was just thinking about what my reason is to undertake these crazy plans. I've never been the super sporty type. I've always played sports at school, played soccer for 7 years (as a kid), was always up for a game of soccer, basketball, volleyball, you name it, but still I was never considered the sporty type. I guess my "shape", literally, had something to do with it... Never the giant fat guy, but always the (very) husky one.
Like I said, I played sports, but the thing I like A LOT cancelled out any physical activity I did : I love to eat!!!!!! And no, no vegetables... I'm a meat lover, the more you give me, the more I'll eat. Add to that a king sized candy-addiction and we have the formula to obtain my "shape" 
And this brings us back to the start of this small blogpost : I train so I can eat. Without it, I'd blow up like an oversized helium baloon.
I'm super over the top jealous of people that can eat whatever they want without gaining any weight. Unfortunately faith decided I gain weight by just looking at a chocolate chip cookie.
So far, the only solution I found was to burn the calories that are in the cookie, in order not to gain any weight. And no, not eating is not an option :p
Finally a new goal after a lot of injury miserie
After being injured for a long time & some personal issues I completely lost track of training & my goals for 2012. I had big plans for this year, had complete faith in myself & lots of support from friends & family. Unfortunately I went through a rough patch in life, and as we all know, these always come when you least expect it.
I started riding my road bike & mountainbike again a little while ago, but never got into the mindset I needed to get things back on track. After a lot of soul searching, thinking & talking I think I'm finally ready to kick some ass 
The first ass that's going to be kicked is my own fat behind. No training for so many months, mixed with my love for food made me blow up like an angry pufferfish, resulting in a fat supply that would make a polar bear jealous. (Seeing a number in the 3-digit range on my scale scared the living daylight out of me!)
I already started my diet yesterday and so far so good (2 days babyyyyy!!!! :p) and I added my marathon training plan to my calendar: as of next week, I'll be starting my training for the Amsterdam Marathon.
Last year I ran the Stockholm marathon and succeeded, although my silent goal of finishing within 4:30 failed. This year I'll be aiming for the same goal : 4:30.
Yes, I once again have a "silent" goal as well, but that's so crazy that I'm certainly not going to say it out loud. Let's just call it a "bonus target" to aim for
So from now one I'll be bringing some new life to this blog after months of gathering dust
Why go on an early morning run, with an injured ankle, while on holidays in Cuba?
2 weeks before heading out for a 2 week trip through Cuba with my dad, I injured my ankle pretty badly.
During our trip, we stayed 2 days in a hotel by the Caribbean sea. Watching the sun set the first night we where there, a crazy plan started to grow in the back of my head, moving down to my legs: I had to run!
Going for an early morning beach run must have been one of the stupidest things I could have done at that point in time, but being a bit crazy in the coconut and some Ibuprofen got me going.
A deserted beach + Ibuprofen + full moon + rising sun = one of the most peaceful experiences I ever had the luxury of experiencing!
I brought my cell phone with me in case I got hurt, kidnapped or raped by a group of hot women (in which case I would use my cell phone afterwards, of-course...). In an attempt to share this experience I made the short clip below. Enjoy!
And they say sports are good for you…
3 weeks ago I got a message from a friend asking me if I was up for a run that evening. There was an organized Halloween-themed walk over a variety of distances and she proposed to run one of them. I thought that was a great idea & we decided to do an easy, relaxed 10K run.
I had a great time, we chatted a lot (it's always nice to talk running to a fellow runner, since non-runners always give me weird looks whenever I start telling them about running :p), the course was indicated by hollowed out, candle lit pumpkins. Very cool! Little did I know the proverbial shit was still to hit the fan...
During the run we where talking about running the final K through the nearby park in complete darkness. It contains a lot of hills & the roads are very uneven... This last part was about to kick me straight in the nuts... In the park, on a downhill stretch in pretty much complete darkness, only lit by the soft light of our Petzl headlights, I (mis)placed my right foot in a whole, spraining my ankle. The pain was immense and the only way to the finish was limping.
Final result? I ruptured a ligament. Fortunately it didn't tare of completely, but it's a major training setback nonetheless 
.
I just got back from a 2 week trip through Cuba and did 2 short runs there. The pain was bearable but it's safe to say I still shouldn't be running until it's completely healed.
Got an RX & ultrasound upon return, still waiting for the doctors' final ruling.
For now? No running & lots of tape
My very first lactate test!
Last Saturday I had to rise bright & early (hey, 8am is super duper early on a Saturday morning!!!!) to get my ass to Zele for my very first lactate test! Saying I was nervous would be exaggerating, but since I didn't really know what to expect & it was the very first time I was going to meet some fellow 3coach-ers & the coaches in person it was "special" .
I parked my car & a guy in full running gear arrives at the same time. We chat a bit & walk towards the dressing rooms to get this thing on the road. For starters they needed my height & weight (everybody can see I'm no skinny dude, but it's still pretty confronting at times to actually say how much my fat ass weighs out loud :p). Then it was time to start the actual test. Apparently I had to run 1200m and increasing speads, and after each 1200m run they would make a huge hole in my finger and collect 1 liter of blood to test & see what my lactate levels where at. (Just kidding, it's actually only one tiny drop of blood & it barely hurts, the first time :p). After running those 4x 1200m I had one final mission : run 600m at full speed. I had to give it everything I had.
And so I did. It hurt like hell, my longs where about to explode & my hart was beating overtime, maxing out at 181bpm. After this torture I could jog for 1600m to cool down & stretch my legs, before saying goodbye & heading back home.
It was a fun experience & I'm curious to see the results one of the following days!
Let the training begin!
ps. Note to self : start adding pictures to your posts!!!!!
The journey towards becoming an Ironman : coaching
For quite a while I had been doubting wetter or not to try and finish this journey on my own, the internet is a neverending source of information, so how hard can it be to find a training shedule to whip me into shape for the 2012 Antwerp Ironman70.3?
Well, turns out a lot harder then I expected. Finding training plans to help you finish a couch-to-5K, a 10K, a half marathon or a full marathon is as easy as taking candy from a one eyed baby, the internet is flooded with them. Granted, they aren't personalised but they will get you there. Personally, I used a training plan by Hal Higdon to help me train for my first marathon. There's some very good stuff on there!
Swimming wasn't that easy. There are quite some resources out there about how to swim correctly & as efficiently as possible, like for example Swimsmooth.com's Mr. Smooth and the Total Immersion technique. It's cool to see how you are supposed to swim, but how on earth can you actually learn it? Swimmers in training usually do a combination of swimming "long" distances and doing drills (repetitive swim exercises) to improve/perfect their style. Googling for swim drills didn't help me a lot, so I would need a swim coach to make me swim better, nicer & more efficient. My swimming isn't bad (as in: I'm actually moving forward & I'm not drowning) but it's way to slow (2km/h). It's fast enough to get through the swim part before the cut-off time, and even though my goal is just to finish, I prefer not to finish last :p).
Third but not least, bike training. Belgium is a country that LOVES cycling. On sunny days and especially on weekends, our roads are filled with cyclists on expensive race bikes, wearing shiny flashy outfits. Some are training, some are just riding towards the next pit stop to top off their stomach with Jupiler or even heavier beers. Personally I've never been much of a fan of covering my not-so-very skinny body in tight fitting clothing, sitting bend over on a bike for hours on end.
An Ironman 70.3 race has a 90K bike ride in it, and a full Ironman a whopping 180K. This means I'm going to have to get used to having my man-nuts squished on a rock hard saddle for kilometers on end...
But how do you train for such a bike race? I'm sure I can build up my distance & get used to riding 90K or even 180K, but how can I learn to ride more energy efficient and faster without injuring myself?
And finally, how on earth can I learn to race in all 3 sports one after another for hours on end? Coaching!
Unfortunately this wasn't the end of my quest, since you can get coaching by joining a club, get individual coaching or online coaching.
I would have loved to join a club (a nearby club for example is Mr. T triathlon club in Gent) but it would be to hard for me to make it to every training since, as a photographer, I work the weirdest hours. Individual coaching was the second option but I thought that would have been a bit overkill since I'm not really planning on racing competitively, so in the end, after emailing back & forth a bit, I decided to go for online coaching & join the 3Coach.be endurance team.
October is only the "warm-up" month, meaning we can follow the training schedule they give us but we can also chose not to do anything. I have been following their training schedule for the past 2 weeks & so far so good. They are very helpful & fast to reply when you have questions about a certain exercise and the plans are clear & easy to follow. Next Saturday I'm doing a first lactate test with them, I'm curious to find out what that's all about and what that will mean for my future training.
Wish me luck!
The journey towards becoming an Ironman : Where to start?
For those of you that don't know what an Ironman or "the" Ironman is : it's a triathlon. Those of you with awesome deductive powers might have already figured out that a TRIathlon consists of THREE parts :
- Swimming
- Biking
- Running
Training for & completing the Stockholm Marathon gave me a nice amount of running experience, so for the time being I won't be focussing on that. I'll be running some small races like Dwars door Mechelen (as a one year running anniversary), Dwars door Hasselt, etc just to maintain some of my running form, but nothing special.
I signed up for the London Marathon lottery but they aren't drawing the final participant selection till September, so untill then I don't have any special running plans.
What I do need to train is my swimming & biking skills. I've been training my swimming during my marathon preparations (run 4 days each week, swim 1), so I already worked on my form & technique, but I'm still a bit slow to my liking (I swim an average of 2,2km/h, which is sufficient to get me through the Ironman swim part before the cutoff, but I'd like to do it quicker).
At the moment I'm still looking into training plans to increase my swim form & speed, but haven't decided yet. I'll keep you all informed
The biking part is the part that needs the most work. I used to ride my bike a lot... when I was a kid. Since I turned 30 this year my kid-years have been far behind me. A little over a month ago I rode a bike for the first time in many, many years. Needless to say I'm starting from scratch on this one...
I own a mountainbike, but a really basic cheap one. Not the perfect bike for a lot of heavy bike training, so I had to search for a decent race bike. Since my plans are to finish an Iron Man, not win one, I decided on a reasonable budget for a normal race bike (no special aerodynamic time trial bikes and stuff). "What's a reasonable budget?" I hear you say... Well after asking around & checking many bike stores it became clear to me that I'd had to cough up around 1200euro for a decent bike. Add to that bike shoes, a fancy (or not so fancy) bike outfit, a helmet (safety first!), etc and you end up with a budget of around 1500euro. By far the most expensive part of the triathlon if you ask me...
I've been on the lookout for the past month, visiting bike stores over & over again, searching online auction sites like ebay, 2dehands.be etc for good second hand bikes, asking people what I needed to pay attention to, ...
I'm happy to say the long search finally came to an end Tomorrow I have my bike fitting scheduled and I'll be able to bring my baby home & start training my bike skills
Stay tuned for a blogpost dedicated entirely to my baby!
The journey to challenge number 2 has started! Only 49 more weeks to go!
The count down has begun: Only 49 more weeks till it's time for number 2 on my "Crazy Challenges" list : The Antwerp IronMan 70.3.
After my Stockholm Marathon experience I'm now focusing on swimtraining and, most of all, bike training. Untill a couple of weeks ago I hadn't been on a bike for years (not counting my motorcycle :p) and so far it's killing me!!!! My legs feel fine, but my ass!!!!!! I'm told it'll get better over time, but untill then... OUCH!
At the moment I'm looking to buy a road bike. I've been visiting multiple bike stores, wandering the isles time after time, drooling over all those great looking bikes. The problem is that every time I find the courage to look at the price tag, I get a little bit sick to my stomach. There is such a wide variety of brands, types & configurations out there that it's next to impossible to find exactly what you need at the correct price. I'm not one that easily trusts a sales person, because face it, most of them just want to make a sale. They couldn't care less if the bike really is exactly what you need, as long as they make as much money as possible from it. I've been asking around a lot lately, bothering all my friends that might now something about bikes with a long list of questions :p (thanks for coping with me guys, I owe you!). I have my eye on 3 different bikes at the moment, all hoovering around the 1000-1200euro mark. BUT...
Yeah, there's a "but" Just as I was ready to make my final choice I came into contact with someone that just started his own bike business. We've been mailing back & forth & he's now putting a bike together for me that fits my requirements, my (not so athletic) body & my wallet. So, I'm now anxiously awaiting his proposal for a brand new butt cheek torturing device to continue my road towards July 22, 2012!
Stockholm Marathon 2011 – I am a marathoner! #fuckyeah!!!!
Yes, the title says it all, I am a marathoner! A sentence I told myself a gazillion times while training to keep me motivated & to push me past temporary boundaries has now become reality!
A long journey that started on October 23, 2010 has come an end! It's certainly been a bumpy one! While Jan kept on training like a madmen & seemed invulnerable, I was stacking up injuries. I've been fearing for my marathon on more then one occasion, but the last month was the scariest!
After not training for 3 weeks with an ankle injury I did 3 runs, gradually building mileage. So far so good, my body wasn't hurting & the ankle seemed strong! The next weekend I attempted a 27K long run and much to my surprise all went very smooth: no pain & I didn't die . The next day though was something completely different : my left achilles was killing me! Every step I took was pure torture.
Some personal research & a visit to the doctor confirmed my fear : Achilles Tendinitis. Only real cure? Rest. REST?!?! 4 weeks before the marathon?!?! NoooOOOooOoOOOOooOOo!!!!!!!
I saw my marathon dreams being flushed down the toilet... I stopped running & increased my swim training, hoping my body would heal on time, but in the back of my mind I started believing it was all over.
Fast forward 3 weeks : 1 week before the marathon my achilles was still hurting. Not as much as before but still painful... I thought long & hard about what I would do: doing the smart thing, give up & run another marathon on a later date OR being the stubborn ass I am & just go ahead and run the Stockholm Marathon as planned.
Jan already booked the plane tickets to Stockholm & I already booked our hotel a long time ago so I was going to Stockholm either way. And since I was there, well, I could at least attempt to run it, right?
A relaxed 3K run with Jan through Stockholm the day before Marathon Day gave me a little more hope : I still felt my achilles but instead of hurting is was more like aching so I still gave myself a Go!
Saturday May 28 : Marathon Day!!!!
After a pretty good night's sleep we jumped in our running gear, quadruple checked our mental stuff-we-certainly-shouldn't-forget-today, me singing some super cool K3 songs (yeah, I tend to sing silly songs when I get nervous, sorry about that Jan :p), played the Rocky team song on my iPad (long story) and off we went! Today was the day both Jan & me had been training for.
In my mind I was still doubting if I should actually go through with this : I lost quite a big amount of training weeks due to injuries, confirmed by comparing the number of km both Jan & I ran during training : I ran only 615K during training while Jan ran more than double that. I hadn't trained enough, my achilles was still hurt, yadieyadieyadieblablabla I had to stop telling myself I couldn't do it & switch to "hell yes I can"-mode asap! I think I owe an extra thank-you to Jan for listening to all my doubts the days before the marathon & him trying to help me get rid of them
Joining our start coral Jan & I wished each other the best of luck & we both went our own way : Jan wanted to join the 4h pace group & I decided to join the 4:45 pace group. Pace groups are groups (duuuuh!!!) of people led by 1 or more experienced marathoners who will finish in "exactly" the time they say they will. It's the perfect way for people who have a hard time keeping a constant pace since they have pace leaders who keep them from blowing up to fast. Even though I'm pretty good at keeping a constant pace I wanted to join a pace group because I thought that running in a group of people with the same goal would keep me going a lot easier.
After crossing the line & identifying the people running in 4:45 pace group I started chatting a bit with the people around me to kill time (hey, 4:45 is a long time, might as well get to know some people while running, right?). Everyone around me seemed just as stoked as I was, whether they where running their very first marathon like me, or running their 12th.
The first km's I felt like I was flying : the huge crowd gathered along the course, the almost 17K fellow runners around me, the perfect running weather (cloudy, 16°C, some wind), this was awesome!!!!!
I ran with the pace group & even 10K or so in front of the pace group for the first 25K (more or less) before bad things started to happen : I started to get cramps in my calves & hamstrings, making me to slow down a lot, eventually even pushing me to a walk so the cramps could go away. Alternating running & walking & stretching every now & then I was able to push myself forward towards the much anticipated finish in the Stockholm Olympic stadium. Cramping up is soooooo damn frustrating!!!!! You feel like you can still run & you damn sure still want to run, but your body simply says "F*ck you!!!!"
On top of that I had to keep myself from crying like a little baby ever since we crossed the 27km mile mark.
I still don't know why I constantly started to cry : I wasn't in any serious pain & I was still feeling pretty fresh except for the cramping-up part. It was totally out of control & it took a lot of focusing just to keep myself from starting to cry like a 3month old baby in pain.
Here I wasn't crying yet, it was still early in the race :-p
Still early on in the race, feeling fresh as a daisy Btw check out the beard on the guy running next to me :p
Fast forward to the 37Km mark : I could smell the finish line & wanted to give everything I had to run the last 5km. The cool part about this was that almost everyone around me was alternating running & walking at this time, so actually running the entire last 5K would make me catch up with A LOT of people in front of me. Hello mental boost!!! On top of that a lot of people around me where to "dying" to still high-five the many kids along side the course leaving them "hanging" so I moved to the side of the course high-five'ing all the way to the finish line. They where happy & it pushed me forward so it was a win-win situation
Don't know exactly at which Km this photo was taken, but judging by my face it seemed more towards the end of the race...
Once I saw the stadium I started to actually realize I was about to complete the mission I set out to do : Run a crazy 42,2K!!! Entering the Olympic stadium, crossing the 42K mark & running the last half of the stadium towards my goal : crossing the finish line, was one of the most indescribable feelings I ever experienced. Did I just finish an actual marathon? Did my fat ass just cross the finish line? Fuck yeah!!!!! Luckily the photographers are stationed behind the finish line, aiming at the finish line. Had they been looking back they would have seen a crazy Belgian guy crying like never before. Not because of any pain but out of sheer happiness!!!
Entering the Stockholm Olympic Stadium
Right before crossing the finish line, look how happy I am
While I walked towards Östermalms IP to deliver my chip, get my finishers shirt & find Jan I sent out the following tweet : "I AM A MARATHONER. #FUCKYEAH". I can't recall how many times I thought about that moment during the past 42,2K, but it was A LOT!
While waiting in line I checked my twitter time line and apparently a lot of friends had been following Jan & me live during the course of the marathon, cheering us on virtually. It was really awesome to read all those great messages, thank you all!!!
The first shot of me as a marathoner
The greatest feeling of all must have been receiving a text message from my parents, congratulating me. Thanks mom & dad for your support during the past 30years of my life, I love you guys!!!!
A very big thanks you!!!! goes out to everyone who supported me the past months, and also to everyone who told me they didn't believe I could do it. Proving those people wrong was one of the things that kept me going!
So what's next? Will I run another one? Hell yeah!!!! I'm not into S&M or anything & suffering doesn't turn me on but there's something magical about running a marathon and I plan on experiencing it many times more My finishing time in the Stockholm Marathon was 4:51:02, so I'll be aiming for a (lot) faster time in my next one. I haven't decided which one yet, unlike Jan who signed up for the Brussels Marathon the night of the Stockholm Marathon :p
Do I have another goal? Of course There are so many awesome races out there be it running, swimming, biking, or a combination of all the previous
Running a marathon is/was only a sub-goal of my ultimate crazy goal :
Hopefully I'll still find the time, in between work, social life & training, to update this blog every now & then