After a great season, yesterday was the final road race for 2009. I ran the beautiful but challenging 15km ZevenHeuvelenLoop in Nijmegen, Holland together with my uncle. The race starts in the city center but quickly leads out into the countryside and features 7 short but steep climbs, mostly between the 4 and 11 km marks. The most challenging point is a steady 1-kilometer climb at the 10km mark which angles cruelly upwards towards the end, just before you reach the highest point and start descending back into town.

It was a mild but very fall-like day with wind, rain and lots of dark grey clouds. After getting changed and heading out towards the start, we used two garbage bags with arms and heads cut out to stay dry and warm and protect us from the rain. This works really well! When the starting gun goes, you just rip off the plastic and start the race warm and dry – rather than soaked and shivering cold. Great tip for early and late season races.

Over 30,000 runners took part in this race, and it was a great feeling to run amongst such a big crowd. At the top of the hills you have a wonderful view of  the multi-coloured string of thousands of runners carving a path through the valley below.

Both my uncle Frans and I ran well and finished within our time goals. Each of us had our own demons to face: I had injured my right knee in training just 5 days before race day and Frans had little free time available to train and prepare.  We stuck together until the first drink stop @ 6km, after which we both found our own pace and mingled with the masses. I felt strong throughout the race and had energy left for the last 1km dash to the finish, which was reached in a decent 1:20:01.  My splits were 27:40 at 5km and 54:07 at 10km, which means I ran a very flat pace of 5:30 min/km for the entire distance, with almost no delay for the hills in the second 5 km. Not exceptionally fast, not too slow, but steady as she goes!

The train which took us back home was completely packed with runners, but after 45 minutes of sitting still my injured knee hurt like @#$%^ when I got up. A sharp stabbing pain on the outside of the knee, radiating down to the shin and up to the outside of the hip. The physiotherapist I saw today tortured my leg muscles for half an hour and diagnosed it as iliotibial band syndrome, a common overuse injury for runners. He sent me home with muscle rub and ibuprofen and told me to take a vacation from running.

Perfect! The holidays are comin’ :-)
Time to stop sweating and start eating. I need to gain about 2-3 kg to get back to a “normal” weight. Must say I’m looking forward to that part! Gaining weight is just so much more fun than loosing it.

Beautiful course + great company + solid result = perfect season finale!