Olympic Distance in Retie

When I finally woke up at around 10am I really didn’t feel like racing at all. Still sore from a hard run training on thursday and another swim and bike on saturday made me wanna stay in bed all day. 

I made myself and Reiny a nice and big breakfast and packed my stuff. On the way to Retie it started pissing down which made me feel even better. 

Got my number at Den Dries and put my running shoes in T2. I ran into Steven Dujardin and had a little chat to him. I wasn’t the only one NOT looking forward to racing today. Jess and Dillie decided both not to start because of injuries, which was a very wise decision! And I was so jealous when I saw them at the side of the road when I was struggling to ride my bike in strong headwinds. Damn!

So, got my bike out of the car. Told Reiny not to come to the swim start because it was too far away anyways and rode to T1 with Steven. Got my bike ready, started the usual wetsuit struggle and noticed there wasn’t that much time left until the start and it was still a long walk.. better start heading out there. First couple of 100 meters on the path were ok but then we got all these little rocks and shit again like in Geel and I wasn’t making a good time! Then over this slippery bridge, noticed there were a lot of people in the water a bit further, and started running. as I got close I heard it was 30sec until the start. OW SHIT! ‘can someone please zip up my wetsuit??”  bang.. oops missed the start. Jumped in the water, put my goggles on, lost maybe 30 secs.. and started swimming. I moved to the left side of the canal straight away, ready to pass people. My swim was going really well from the start on and I passed a lot of people. I felt so fast haha! I saw some blue swimmingcaps so that ment there were some girls around me. Good! I’m not in last position anymore. We had to turn around a buoy with about 100 meters to go and got into a bit of a fight with some guys. One of them was so bad he tried to pull me under!! So i totally cut him off at the steps. If you see a blue swimming cap next to you, and you’re a ‘veteran’ man, then you should be the gentleman and be nice to us girls. If you get me on  a bad day like today, I might look innocent, and you might be twice my size, but i’ll get back at you! HA. A bit shaken from this fight I got into T1, and almost jumped on the the wrong Moozes! there was one just like mine. I tried to get my wetsuit off but I was still a bit shocked that this guy was such an idiot, that it took me a bit longer than it should. oh well. 

out of T1, onto the bike, with one girl 200m in front of me, I was hoping to find my legs. But I didn’t. my hamstrings were so sore still from training, I just couldn’t push it today. after 1 lap I lost sight of the girl and just kept going at my own pace, trying to get the legs going. I noticed Reiny, Jess and Dillie along the course, yelling out at me and being silly :-)

At the end of the bike leg I felt terrible, I didn’t want to run and took my time in T2. Even got lost there for a brief moment, but thanks to the volunteers I finally did find my running shoes and started the run. My calfs felt like they were gonna explode and my hamstrings were so lactated, I told Reiny straight away: I feel crap! ‘just keep going sweety’ he yelled out :-S 

After about 1 km I started feeling better. then this guy, Rudi, passed me but sort of ran the same pace. And he really helped me getting through the run. when I got to km 2 i checked my stopwatch, and saw I was running for about 8min20 after leaving T2 ????? No, i’m not running that fast am I?? But apparently I was going allright because at the turn around point I noticed 4 girls quite close together in front of me. ‘how is this possible’ I thought. I’ll try and catch one so I’ll move to 5th position and get some price money. And I did! The first lap I was making time up quickly and got a lot closer, at the 2nd lap I passed a girl! ‘got ya’ I tried to keep the pace up but after about 8km I started to go flat so I just tried to keep going at a decent speed.  unfortunately I couldn’t catch anyone anymore but I was very happy with my run and swim after I crossed the finish line. The guy on the mic was saying that I won the first race of the year in Herderen and I couldn’t believe even anyone would of remembered :-S 

So not so sure of my swim and bike times yet but I got a pb on the 10k run! 43:36 and I think that might be including T2. that would be awesome. I think this is the best race I’ve done so far this year. It’s funny how things like that go sometimes. You miss your start, you feel like shit, but you go well. And my legs feel a lot better after racing haha :-)

Thanks Jess and Dillie for the great photo :-) 

Ironman 70.3 Rapperswill-Jona: a beautiful race!!

A 9am start in a beautiful lake in Rapperswill. Great, because I hate early morning starts and I had the worst sleep the night before.. Nice hotel but why do they have to have a band playing every first saturday of the month until late?

We got to the race with plenty of time to check my bike and get ready to rock and roll. unfortunately the whole ‘rock and roll’ feeling was far gone. When the gun went for the swimstart it took me forever to find a good pace. With about 500m to go I finally started passing some people and felt better. Got out of the water after 33min so I was a bit disappointed  with that. Sort of hoped to do 31-32 min swim. 

It was heating up nicely and I was more then happy to take my wetsuit off and get on the bike. Legs felt crap but they usually do for the first 10km so not too worried. There were several hills on the bike course and they seemed so steep that I was afraid I couldn’t ride up them with my 39x23.. I know, very stupid that I didn’t bring my 25 and 28 I usually do but of course the one time you actually need them.. So, not taking any risks, right at the bottom of Witches hill(first one of the day) 39x23 it was and I was relieved when I got up it. I kept thinking I should of ridden my Moozes here, with tt bars on. 

After a short downhill followed by a head wind section we got to the bottom of the second hill. The Beast, ow yeah it sounds awful. I started really steep so straight back onto the 39x23 and passing people. yeeeeeeeey. After a couple of 100 mtrs it sort of went slightly downhill again so had a little recovery moment and then back up. This one was a bit longer than witches hill but nothing too hard. Nina Zoller, the girl that I thought was gonna win the race in my age group passed me already by then. In T1 in noticed there was at least 1 bike missing so I knew it was gonna be hard to win. 

After I got over the Beast there was a long downhill so time to get the pace going. Then another short uphill, downhill and back to Rapperswill for lap nr 2. During this race I really tried to get enough food in me. Usually I have 2 bottles max on the bike with just iso drink in it, not quite enough for a 90k bike leg though. I’m not sure if it was the extra food but I felt a lot better on the 2nd lap than the 1st one. Before I knew it I was ready for T2. a 2:53 bike leg was 3 min’s slower than I hoped but still ok. 

The run started good. really good, except for that my stomach didn’t seem to take in all the food I had before on the bike and started to bother me. every step I took it felt like a liter of water was jumping around in it :-S hmmm, this could be a problem. km 1-10 were ok, we had to got uphill and up some steps between km 7-8 but it was doable. going at 5min a km for the first bit and feeling like I could keep up the pace. Slowed down km 7-8 but then got it back together straight after the steps. 

At the end of lap 1 my body was screaming for some food but I still couldn’t get anything in. Of course my pace dropped dramaticly again and my legs started cramping up. Damn it! I was going so well. so km 10-15 I suffered big time but at least I could have some coke and take some of my isogel that I carried with me. Started feeling a little bit better again untill I got to the uphill bit. Last couple of steps I had to walk up.. dizziness!! Tried to find my rhytm again and I got to the finish. In 5th position.. aaaargh. Lost 2 spots on the run. So a shocking run time of 2:01, 5:33:15 in the race, and not sure if I was happy or not with this result I crossed the finish. And I just wanted to sleep ...

During the race I made a decision. It’s been playing my mind for  a while now and I’m sure. I don’t want to go to Las Vegas this year. It will be too hot, too hilly run course and will be too slow to do this how I want it. I rather go back in 10 years time when I’m ready and I can get a good result there. For now, I need to work on my running and cycling and swimming. 

Tomorrow I got my next race lined up. OD in Retie. Not riding on the TT-bike but my superfast Moozes. I’ve made that decision too: getting rid of the bike that i’ve never been comfortable on. I’ve never had the idea it was right for me, I couldn’t find the right position even after changing a million things. So i’m getting rid of it. It’s too small anyways! Never get too attached to a bike :-S 

Got some changes in my training scedule as well, and I don’t think we’ll see the results of that by tomorrow but i’m confident things will change over the next couple of weeks... Exciting times!! :-) 

DNF Geel

During the week leading up to this race I had a bit of a foot problem. Not sure what it was but I thought it would be gone by sunday. On saturday I had an 30min run planned but I had to stop after 20min because I was limping :-S a bit worried .. During the night it got even worse and when I woke up on sunday I knew I couldn’t run on it. so what’s the point of racing then.. Thank god, i’ve got 2 great coaches who convinced me to start and don’t do the run. 

Off we went to Geel. It was a really warm day and quite windy as well. I had to make sure that I would drink enough! Got my numbers, put my running shoes in T2(just so I had shoes to wear after the bike leg) and then rode to T1 and the swim start with Evy and Katrien. Reiny and Wim had to walk down there and it was a bit of a hike.. from T1 it was 1500 down the canal to the swim start. Great, foot was fucked by the time I had to start. 

Because of the warm temperatures it took me a while to get my wetsuit on. pretty hard when you’re sweating :-S the water was nice a refreshing but we didn’t get much time enjoy it. people were all crowded up and pushy on the right side of the canal so I just swam to the left to get some more room and concentrate on a good stroke and speed. I felt pretty good during the swim, practiced my sighting a bit(I even spotted Reiny!) and tried different stroke rates. 

we had to turn around a buoy as well and I got a bit aggro with some people trying to push me out of the way. I passed at least 3 swimmers :-) don’t be fooled by the innocent face.. hehe

I finished to swim in 22:15 so quite happy with that! 

My bike was very close to the swim finish so I didn’t have to ‘run’ very far. couldn’t get my wetsuit over my left foot(sore one) so lost some time there. grabbed my bike and started hobbling towards the T1 exit. this took my a little while because I couldn’t put much pressure on my foot and several girls passed me. I was very happy to be on the bike and in my shoes, ready to hammer it. Legs weren’t too great the 1st lap but they got better through the 2nd and 3rd. We had to ride over a little bridge over the water with some cobbles on each side and take a sharp right hand corner straight after. I put a lot of pressure on my left foot to go around the corner and CRAACCCK. painfull for a second. after the 2nd lap, Dirk was yelling out: you almost got her!! and I was thinking: who the fuck is he talking about? but then I saw Evy in front of me, so I guess he ment her. As I didn’t think I was gonna start my run I wanted to go past her and tried to get her to sit on legal distance behind me but still close enough to get some benefit from it. Looked back a couple of times and it looked like she could follow so I kept going at a nice pace. Passed another couple of riders on the ‘climb of the day’ and a few km’s further T2 was coming up. for a moment I really wanted to put on those running shoes and do my run but I thought the risk was too big. I didn’t want to seriously injure my foot so I carefully jumped of my bike and walked to my shoes. race over. 

when I checked my speedo it said 1:11: something, so that’s from grabbing my bike in T1, hobbling down to exit T1, ride 40,9 km and put my bike in the rack at T2. so I guess the bike leg was allright as well. Still would of like to finish my race though. 

I rang the Osteo on monday morning and he fixed my foot the same day. Just a little bone that wasn’t exactly in place and causing me grief. bugger. good news is that I can do all my training again though. If I would of finished my race on sunday I might of done something bad to it and wouldn’t be able to do my long runs this week. And i’ll need those long runs with my 70.3 in Rapperswil coming up in 4 weeks.. 

the meaning of "a training race"

when I say i'm doing a race and I call it training then it doesn't mean I won't give it my all! since my coach was giving me shit for saying this I thought I should explain why I keep mentioning this on my blog. a training race means, for me, that it's in the middle of a 4 week training cycle. week 1-3 I built up, and week 4 I take it easy. Because you don't get fitter just from training, resting is the most important bit! 

all the races i've done so far this year, were all after week 1, 2 or 3. I was tired from training, not at my best to race, but still gave it my all. 

I love the competition, I want to compare myself to other athletes and I'd like to kick their ass: even though that doesn't happen very often :-S I live from one race to the next one,  and I want to be better, faster, stronger every time.  same in training, I will give 100% every day. I stick to my heart rates, I watch my technique, If i'm not happy with a swimming drill I'll do it again, and again.. When I have to go hard, I will, but when I should take it easy, I take it easy. 

the best thing of it all: I love doing this. the whole swim-ride-run thing, it takes my mind of the usual daily crap. I hate my job, and being here in Gent but I have a training to look forward to almost every day. whatever gets you through the day right.. 

Having a good coach makes things a lot easier as well: you don't have to think about what training to do and when. For me, I just get a weekly scedule every sunday and all I have to do is follow it. 

next race is in Geel. Olympic Distance and I'm really hoping to have a good swim, strong bike and fast run. that should give me some confidence for Rapperswil 70.3 a month after that. 

So coach, from now on I will call a training race a B-race. it’s important that I make the most out of it but I won’t have any sleepless nights if I don’t perform well. It’s not anything less important then my A-races because the B-races will make me stronger for those ones, ok?!  

National and European Duathlon Championships 15-62-7,5 in Horst aan de Maas

Before I started this race I checked last years results and was shocked by how fast the run splits were. I was very happy it was ‘only’ a training race.

I finished my 2 hour bike ride on saturday with an ok feeling in the legs. Instead of having a bit of a rest we drove around half Belgium to get stuff that we usually don’t have time for. checked out the ‘skinfit’ shop in Nokere for some running stuff for Reiny, then to Oudenaarde for a different time trail saddle, followed by a stop at ‘de berghut’ in Hamme where we met my mum and dad. Around 5:30 pm we arrived in Venray, about 10km from Horst aan de Maas where the NK/EK duathlon championships were on the 17th of April. Check in, go to registration, get numbers, go to pasta party, have a chat to Diedrik and Els who were also racing and get some rest. I didn’t sleep very well, never do really, first night in a hotelbed. 

When the alarm finally went off I just grabbed my stuff and went downstairs for dinner with Reiny. Brekkie was great, but because I was racing I tried to stick to the usual cereal and milk. Couldn’t resist the krentenbollen so had a couple of them. 

I only had to check my bike in before 9 am so it was kind of a chill morning. In Transition it felt a bit funny not having to leave my nr on the bike to put on after the swim.. Seriously had the idea there was something missing :-S 

Last minute I decided to race in my Nike victory shoes. tried them a couple of weeks ago during a track training and loved them. Fast racing shoe if you’re used to Nike air zoom elite. 

We started at 9 am together with all the pro women. first we had to run 6 laps of 2,5km then ride 3 laps of 20 and a bit km and finish with 3 laps running of 2,5km. At the start the pro’s took off immediately. after about half a lap I saw someone running in front of me at a slightly faster pace than I wanted to do so I closed the gap and tried to stay with her. it was either that or running by myself. we were making a good time coming through in 11:30 after 1 lap. about a minute faster than my goal. I tried to work together with her but she was just a bit stronger than me and had to sit behind her until we came to T1. I took of my shoes, grabbed my energybars and helmet and started the bike leg. I made sure I wasn’t going all out because I wanted to do a 2nd decent run. goal was under 40 min. After the 1st lap on the bike in noticed the wind started to pick up a bit. But I was passing some women which was good. It felt like I was racing a crit more than doing a time trail. but i realized that was the same for everyone. Wouldn’t race with a tt bike again, too many corners. next time i’ll just put some aero bars on my road bike. In the 2nd and 3rd lap I passed a couple more women and I was hoping none of them would pass me on the next run. At T2 I quickly put my bike and helmet back and started my 7,5km final run. My hamstrings were really pulling at the beginning but that slowly went away. calves started giving me some trouble, but it was only  a couple of km’s to go so it wasn’t too hard to deal with. I finished in 3 hours 42 min and 27 seconds. before the race I told Reiny I would be happy with 3 hours 50 and stoked if I would go under 3 hours 45.. 

Looking back though, I should of gone a little bit harder on the bike. my bike leg was ok but I reckon I could of done 3-4 min faster and I don’t think it would of affected my 2nd run much.  my times were: 15 km run: 1:10:20 62km bike: 1:49:41 7,5km run: 39:45 and I got a first place in my age group, was the only one though ;-) 

I’m getting a bit more confident that I will do well in Rapperwil, it’s only a good 6 weeks away from now and it will be my 1st chance to qualify for the 70.3 worlds in Las Vegas this year. should be fun!

aquathlon Irongirls wachtebeke

On Saturday the 26th of March the ‘Irongirls’ organized an aquathlon in Wachtebeke. it’s a 500m swim followed by a 5,5km run. After my half marathon on sunday I had another hard training week but this was just another training race. I really looked forward to this one because it was just gonna be awesome :-) we had some big names competing in my category: Carmen de Ridder; a girl I used to swim with about 10 years ago. she’s been in the ‘nederlandse selectie’ for a while and goes really well in open water swim races! Sophie de Groote; her 1st year as a full time pro athlete, she’s going for the same goal as me: 70.3 World Championships in Las Vegas. and Jolien Lewyllie: a young girl who’s got lots of talent and is part of team 185 coached by Marc Herremans. So no pressure.. ow and I almost forgot: my mum competed as well! 

we started with a 500m swim. Because it was training and I wanted to get the most out of it  I started at the front. we shared a lane with 5 girls and I had no idea how they were gonna go but they could pass me if they wanted to. the day before I had done a swim training plus power training. push ups, dips that sort of stuff with a backpack. Kind of felt that after 200m, my muscles were a bit sore. I tried to keep my pace the same through the swim. the last 50m I tried to safe my legs a bit. I got out of the water 1st of my lane. Jolien, Carmen, Sophie and Evy were all in front of me plus maybe a couple of other girls. Not sure who was in front of me. 

When I ran into transition Mieke was on the micro keeping the public up to date who got out of the water. I saw there was one girl just leaving transition and I quickly jumped in my shoes and grabbed my nr, and started the chase. after a couple of hundred meters I was just behind her and because it was quite windy I wanted to run out of the wind for a bit but she was going to slow, so I had to go past. I saw Evy running in front of me and I tried to catch her. after the 1st lap I noticed the gap got smaller but Evy wasn’t gonna let me get to her. damn! I ran as fast as I could to get some good training in and I finished in 5th place. I saw my mum starting her run and yelled out at her. she looked strong! 

Sophie finished in 1st place, surprise surprise.. Carmen did awesome and finished 2nd and Jolien got a well deserved 3rd place. they definitely were the strongest ones out there. 

you can see the results here: http://irongirls.be/files/uitslagen/2011_dames.pdf

I had a great day and really enjoyed it! Would love to do more of these races. and it was surprisingly well organized for being such a small race!  a day to remember :-)

half marathon disaster

on sunday the 20th of March was my 1st half marathon of the year planned; in Sluis. I really thought that I would run faster than last year even though I had my 2nd cold in 4 weeks and I was in the middle of a 4 week training cycle.. it was a disaster. From the start on I didn’t feel very good. because of my cold I had trouble breathing and I couldn’t find a rhythm. In the 1st kilometer Reiny jumped passed me and just took off! I was a bit scared he would get hit by the man with the hammer around km 16-17 but he finished really strong. 1:40:54 for you first half marathon is awesome! 

km 1-10 were ok, I couldn’t cool down and kept throwing water over me and that sort of got me through half the race. From then on my lungs started burning and I felt like I couldn’t get any oxygen out of the air I was breathing in. my race was over. switch button from ‘racing mode’ into ‘training mode’ and just finish. It sounds easy but trust me it isn’t. I really had to keep telling myself: Ok, Gwen, take it easy. Don’t force it you’re just gonna do yourself more harm than good. finish it, and use this as training. 

km 10-18 were a bit of a mental rollercoaster. a lot of people passed me! It felt like everyone passed me! I just wanted to stop and go home. but from km 18 things got a bit easier. only 3km, that’s ‘if you would run at the slow pace of 6min/km” only 18min untill you cross the finish. piece of cake! so, I finished in 1 hour 49 min and a bit. I wasn’t even really upset because I was kind of proud at myself that I could just ‘switch the button’. In the passed I would of been really pissed, angry and upset but this wasn’t the race I’m preparing for. this is just part of my training, and training isn’t supposed to be easy. not just physical but also mental training is what I need to work on to go better in my half ironman races. So it probably didn’t feel as the best training I could of done for my body but my mind learned a lot that day! 

Mike, Pieter and Celine also raced. Mike didn’t do any running over an hour for about 8 months and finished in 1:39! Pieter, we all know he’s just an amazing athlete, finished in 1:22. and Celine beat her pb by 5 min and finished in 1:45! 

If you want to see the results you can see them here:

 http://www.racetimer.eu/uitslagen.php?v=%25252Fnl%25252Frace%25252Fresultlist%25252F486%25253Flayout%25253Dracetimer_eu%252526amp%25253Brc_id%25253D2968