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

1st race, 1st win

A good start of the season with a win in the sprint distance triathlon in Herderen! Just found out my times a couple of hours ago and pretty happy with them. As you know, this was a training race. I just had a really hard training week behind me a definitely didn't expect a win. On wednesday I felt great in training and was ready to race but by friday it was all gone. I had to do this really hard run and there was no way I could get my heartrates up to what they had to be. I suffered so much that day and just completely had it. Luckily I still had a 2,5 hour bike ride on saturday to look forward to.. yay. I do admit that my legs felt a bit better afterwards.
Then, a cruel sunday morning where we had to get up early. I got all my stuff ready the night before so we just had to load the car. We arrived in Bilzen, where the swim was, at around 10 am. there were 2 waves for the women and I had to start in the first one. 11:15 lane 3. I got the lane for myself which was great, did a bit of a warm up swim before and I felt ok. The legs didn't feel great but I don't really need them very much in the swim. I started off at a pretty good pace, trying to take long, strong strokes, never dropped my pace and even picked it up towards the end. in Lane 1 was Charlotte de Kort swimming, she had a great swim start but I saw her dropping back towards the end,  couldn't catch her though. In lane 2, next to me was Elke Conings, from the beginning of the swim untill about a 100 mtrs to go, she was just in front of me. I saw she wasn't doing her tumble turns so I knew what to get her on. the last 4 laps I accelerated end I finished 13 seconds in front of her. 7:43
In the 2nd wave was one really good swimmer, Lisa Stes. she kicked our asses by more than a minute!
After the swim we drove to Herderen for the second part of my race. it was a 4 lap bike leg followed by a 2 lap run. It was quite cold so I did a bit of a warm-up on the turbo and Reiny rubbed my legs in with warm up oil. reminds me of my bike racing times, good times :-)
since I ended up in 3rd place on the swim I was to start in 3rd position on the bike, 1 min 26 behind Lisa and 8 seconds behind Charlotte. I had no idea how strong the other girls were but I have to admit, they looked pretty fit and since my run isn't my strongest, I had to pass and get some time ahead of Charlotte and Lisa on the bike.
I started pretty fast, it was slightly uphill but I knew there would be a downhill bit just around the church. I saw Charlotte in front of me and yelled out at her, watch it: i'm coming. we sort of planned to try and ride to Lisa together and then attack her later. But I flew straight past Charlotte and she didn't get my wheel so I was gonna have to do it on my own. The bike lap was quite hilly but nothing too bad. there was quite a bit of wind as well and I was happy I only had to ride for 20km. At the end of the 1st lap, I completely loved my new bike, it's just amazingly fast! When we rode towards the finish there was a split, the men had to go left on this big hill and the women just had to ride straight ahead up a smaller hill. A few men passed me.., they took there corner and then I saw something that gave me wings: a good 100 mtrs in front of me was Lisa riding up the hill. I was still in the big ring and came back quickly. The last hilly bit to the finish was too steep for the 50 so I changed it back to my 34, spinned up the hill and went passed Lisa. Quickly back in the big ring on the false flat and .. attack! I dropped her, yess! Just had to keep it up now. After the 2nd lap I was using the small chainring a lot more and really thought I was going a lot slower because of that. Had some troubles with my chain as well, it kept coming off when I changed gears. front derailleur needs some fine tuning again.
Last lap I tried to 'recover' a bit and get ready for the run, really took my time to spin up the hill and get in Transition. Then, a quick change of shoes and off I was for a 5km run. I was sort of panicking because the last thing I heard Reiny scream was that they were about a min and a half behind and I didn't think that would be enough. My legs were completely powerless and I didn't feel like I was going anywhere. The guy on mic was convinced I was going to win but I thought he was a bit optimistic... There was another guy riding a mtb riding in front of me who said I didn't have to worry but I wasn't convinced. the 1st run lap was hell, I couldn't get in a rhythm, hamstrings weren't working with me and I couldn't breathe very well. When I first passed the finish line with one lap to go I heard Reiny, Jacob and his friends all yell out at me.  I looked back past the soccer field and didn't see any other girls yet so I knew the chance of anyone coming back would be pretty slim. After about 3,5 km I started feeling a bit better. I ran past the houses, had some little kids cheering me on and then I got to the soccer field. yay! a couple of hundred meters to go and it's over.
Reiny was waiting for me at the finish line, which was really nice! He took some nice photo's too and he filmed my swim!

So, looking back at the race, with racing times next to me, I can say that i'm quite happy with my result. I think I kicked ass on the bike, the only thing that went wrong there was my chain. lap times were: lap 1: 9:43 lap 2: 10:39 lap 3: 9:58 and lap 4: 10:08
I swam ok, but there is still lots of room for improvement, especially after watching my stroke on camera!
And for the run, I was very surprised to find out that I got the fastest running time! a shared, fastest running time, Elke did 21:36 as well. Still need some work on my run though, but i'm very happy with the improvements so far.

below you can see the results from the race:

Uitslag Herderen 2011 Dames
Pl.	Naam		Cat	Swim	Fietstijd	Split	Looptijd	Finish
1	Lossie	Gwen	Dames	0:07:43	0:40:32	0:48:15	0:21:36	1:09:51
2	conings	elke	Dames	0:07:56	0:45:33	0:53:29	0:21:36	1:15:05
3	Stes	Lisa	Dames	0:06:27	0:46:30	0:52:57	0:23:21	1:16:18
4	Debock	Julie	Dames	0:09:28	0:44:52	0:54:20	0:22:25	1:16:45
5	De Kort	Charlotte	Dames	0:07:35	0:47:36	0:55:11	0:24:43	1:19:54
6	Rinkes	Els	Dames	0:11:24	0:46:49	0:58:13	0:23:28	1:21:41
7	Berden	Jessica	Dames	0:09:46	0:48:56	0:58:42	0:24:57	1:23:39
8	Van den Bossche	Ruth	Dames	0:11:34	0:50:38	1:02:12	0:26:05	1:28:17
9	broechoven	an	Dames	0:10:41	0:52:02	1:02:43	0:29:48	1:32:31
10	Nijs	Greet	Dames	0:12:26	0:56:59	1:09:25	0:27:40	1:37:05
11	Callebaut	Klara	Dames	0:11:02	0:59:26	1:10:28	0:33:29	1:43:57
12	Wauters	Ellen	Dames	0:11:37	1:28:51	1:40:28	0:03:32	1:44:00
13	Vermeerbergen	Kirsten	Dames	0:09:21				DNF

The organization was very good as well! Really enjoyed doing this race. I loved the challenging bike circuit :-) Looking forward to seeing the photo's online.
check www.sport-events.be triathlon herderen!!

racing scedule 2011

Hey,  I just entered all my races for this year and thought it was time to let you know what i'm up to. I've got a couple of shorter distance races, duathlons and half ironmans. the shorter distance will be mainly for training.

6th of March: sprint distance in Herderen, Belgium
20th of March: half marathon in Sluis, Holland
26th of March: aquathlon in Wachtebeke, Belgium

the sprint distance in Herderen is gonna be very interesting. 500m swim in the morning, so I can go all out, recover, and then ride 20km and run 5km in the arvo. And... i'll be racing on my brand new Moozes Mistral! check out the www.moozes.com website they got some pretty cool bikes!
for the half marathon in Sluis I would like to beat my pb 1:44:45 and I got the confidence I can do it.
and for the aquathlon in Wachtebeke: my mum is competing as well!!! I've been the mean daughter and entered her for the race. it's only 500m swim and 5km run so i'm sure she can do it.

17th of April: National and European championships duathlon in Horst, Holland
I'm a bit anxious about this one. my first duathlon and since running isn't my strongest discipline, and I have to run 15km at the start and 7,5km at the end of the race, i'm a bit nervous.. at least we got a 62km bike leg as well. After checking last years results i'm really hoping i'll be quite fit by then, the times were fast!

8th of May: Olympic distance in Geel, Belgium
Just a nice training race. hoping to do well and get some speed going for my first big goal this year:

5th of June: Ironman 70.3 in Rapperswil, Switzerland
I'm hoping to qualify for the worlds 70.3 in Las Vegas here, but I think the field will be quite strong. last years winner of the Worlds won this race! It will be my first time in Switzerland so that'll be fun. bike looks challenging but the run is pretty much flat so that should suit me.

19th of June: Olympic distance in Retie, Belgium
I was planning on competing in Brugge(Bruges) but I couldn't get in so decided I would race here. looks like a nice race as well, good training.

2nd of July: Clubchampionship in Vlissingen, Zeeland.
24th of July: Ironman 70.3 in Antwerp, Belgium

i'm racing Vlissingen because i'm from 'Zeeuws-vlaanderen' and as a real 'Zeeuw' I gotta race there. And it's gonna be a good training race for Antwerp.

Antwerp.. not really the race I wanted to do, but it's close to home and my 2nd chance on a Worlds ticket so, .. planning to go waaaay under 5 hours here ;-)

14th of August: Ironman 70.3 in Wiesbaden, Germany
European champs, which I loved last year! really good organized and great swim, bike and run leg. swim is just out and back in relatively clean water, bike is hilly and beautiful and run is pretty much flat. false flat on some bits but nothing too hard. last year I was injured at this race so not my best time still ended up in 3rd place.

If all goes well i'll race the worlds in Las Vegas this year. Clearwater was a great experience but because the course was flat and fast there was a lot of drafting. I had pelotons coming past me! Vegas on the other hand will be more like Wiesbaden, so hopefully I can get a top 10 or (if it all goes well) top 5 place.

Next week is my first race, i'll keep you all up to date on how things go. I am so happy the season starts again! :-) Ready to rock and rollllll