WRD:: Week 11 — Getting Closer

17 March, 2019 Off By Renée

Deborah and Kim are the amazing hosts for the Weekly Run Down! Feel free to join in as well to wrap up your week in fitness!

This week has been cold, rainy, grey and dreary. I’ve tried to make the best of it. I’ve tried to not let it get me down. By Friday though, I’d seriously had enough of the rain and the wind. I’ve had to wear my rainsuit all week on the bike. Boo frickin’ hoo, right? I know. It could have always been worse. It could have been a Dutch version of Chiberia. We need the rain for the flowers, of course. (ok so why do we need the wind, though??)

GetYourGuide photo of the Keukenhof – it better look like this too after all the rain we’ve had!

This Week in Fitness

  • Monday – not sure yet (running? lunch walk, BodyPump
  • Tuesday – maybe run with BRENG, depends RPM
  • Wednesday – Progressive interval, Pilates
  • Thursday – Long lunch walk, Course check Nijmegen 5Km (total run 6,5KM)
  • Friday – maybe Runiversity no training (so… REST)
  • Saturday – RPM
  • Sunday – 5KM Race in Nijmegen (with Ron as my pacer)

I wasn’t as busy at work this week as I was for the past month, so on Monday, even though it had been raining since the wee hours of the morning it had died down to a tiny drizzle around lunch so I went out for a quick walk to do some necessities shopping. After work was BodyPump, another mix week with instructor Mark. It was so busy, I think he even had to turn a couple of people away! The weirdest thing is, though, I always go to the front of the class, not because I’m all “look at me!” but because I can see much better, and every single time I have a ton of space around me. Why does everyone go to the back or the side of the room at these classes? Why would you want to be crammed in the back with no space to workout instead spreading out and coming further to the front?

Rain Gear Chic

Tuesday, nothing too exciting to report, RPM on Tuesday night with Anne. Same mix as last week, a quad killer!

Early to class means getting my favorite bike

Wednesday another rainy day, in fact it was bucketing down at lunch so the lunch run with colleagues was cancelled. I knew I had a run on my schedule and I also had Pilates in the evening and I wasn’t sure if I could manage it all so at least a walk would get me moving a bit. The rain started again around 3pm and would. not. let. up. Then as if the universe had been listening to my pleas, the rain stopped around 5:30 so I quickly got my gear on and went out for my scheduled run. I got back, ate something, showered and then it was time to go to Pilates.

the park across the street from my flat is so perfect for a quick , short run.

Thursday was busy at work but mostly just in the morning so I managed to get out for a walk, luckily. It had been raining all morning but stopped around 12:30. I needed to drop by the bank so I just did a long walk around it to take advantage of the fresh (dry) air. I got back right on time since about 5 minutes after I was back in the office the rain started coming down again. It was absolutely coming down sideways! The last thing I wanted to do was run in this crap, but alas, I had an appointment at 5PM with my trainer to check the 5KM course in Nijmegen. When I left for home it was still nasty out. By some sort of miracle it actually stopped at 4:45 and that lasted for several hours. The wind was still insane but we managed to run the course and come up with a few plans of attack. But the last part of the course has been changed due to construction and to be honest I’m really not sure now how it’s all going to go down. Nijmegen is the oldest city in the Netherlands and that means cobblestones. A lot of them in the old center of the city. My nerve pain in my foot doesn’t take too lightly to cobblestones. It is only about 1 KM that I have to deal with that and then about 600 meters uphill to the finish. Let’s see. At least I got ice cream afterwards.

From my lunch walk in Klarendal
it was Pi day after all

Friday – my day off! I slept in a wee bit (I think it was almost 9 when I woke up) and didn’t do much around the house. A bit of laundry and tidying up but it was most just chilling out and watching Netflix in between laundry loads. Even Nena was chilling out with me; something she never does since she prefers the Pied Piper of Cats (aka Ron) over me. We did not have training with Runiversity Friday evening – our trainer was on his way to Ameland (one of the Dutch islands) to run a trail race on Sunday. Ron made us dinner and then we were off to the movies for date night! Yay! We saw the Green Book. I really enjoyed it! I had no idea Viggo Mortensen was in the movie; I’d only seen one preview and kept it in my memory bank to go and see if I had a chance. He’s such a great actor!

Saturday I wanted to go to RPM because it was likely my last chance to see my favorite instructor before he left and before my operation. Unfortunately he’s decided to stop teaching RPM, not because he doesn’t enjoying, but just because he feels like it’s time to try something else. I’ m bummed but yeah, I do get it. I have another favorite, only I don’t get to her class often enough (She teaches on Tuesday and Sunday). I’ll go next week but after my surgery it will likely be about a month at least before I can go back.

The rest of the day we did literally nothing (unless you count napping as something haha!) in preparation for the 5K/ Half Marathon on Sunday.

thanks for everything, Dick. You made me feel like I belonged in class from the first lesson!

Sunday – Race Day! Oh man was I nervous, but why??? It’s just a 5K! So I think I built this up a bit too much in my head and the Doubtful Donna started burying herself in my brain telling me that I wasn’t going to manage it. The weather was incredibly crap on Saturday; I had very little hope for anything but crap on Sunday but when I woke up THE SUN WAS SHINING! OMG call the press! We were up around 8 and out the door at 10 meeting up with the BRENG guys (and had Martine from Runiversity with us as well) at the train station. Once we were in Nijmegen we worked out way towards bag drop and had plenty of time to chill out and have a coffee before starting (wait. didn’t I say no more coffee beforehand??? luckily it had no ill effect). Ron was going to pace me in the 5KM and then later run the Half Marathon (my friend Jeroen ran the 5/10 and Half – runners are crazy!). As we stood in the starting corral I felt increasingly nervous and almost burst into tears. No time for tears though, we heard the start shot and were off. The first kilometer went REALLY fast, so much so that Ron told me I had to slow down! Luckily I ran the route on Thursday so I knew exactly what to expect (except the parts where I was running into a wind wall). And… as expected everything went well until about almost the 4th kilometer where we had to weave in and out a few neighborhood streets and then up a huge hill (Did I tell you all it’s NOT ALL FLAT here in the Netherlands?) to reach the last 500 meters of the race. Nevertheless, she persisted. I crossed the line at 28:44. Officially for a 5KM race distance a PR (December didn’t really count in my mind because the course was short and there is no official time registered anywhere). Super pleased.

Yes, gurl, I AM wearing my sunglasses
Tine and I celebrating our 5KM success.
Ron flying up to the finish line after an hour and a half Half Marathon.

Coming up Next Week

  • Monday – REST (meeting friends for dinner in Amsterdam)
  • Tuesday – Day off switch – RPM in the evening
  • Wednesday – Pilates
  • Thursday – PT with Chantor
  • Friday – Last Runiversity training
  • Saturday – not sure yet, looking at a 10K race in the area
  • Sunday – not sure yet, looking at a different 10K race in the area

And that’s pretty much a wrap!

How was your week? If you’ve done group classes before where do you usually stand / sit for the class? What are you watching lately on Netflix? Did you eat pie on Pi Day? Is it raining cats and dogs where you are? Have you seen the Green Book? Did you race this weekend?