WRD: Vacation Catch-Up

14 July, 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!

It’s been a few weeks, my 3-week summer holiday is officially coming to an end and, to be honest, I have no idea how I’m going to start up again; work, training, keeping up with housework, cooking, etc. UGH. First world problems right?

I’m going to try and keep this short – I know no one wants to read a huge ass blog post about what someone else has been doing with the last three weeks of their lives; feel free to skip through and just look at the pretty pictures if you don’t really have time to read through it all.

Week 26 – First full week of vacation

Yoga 1x
Pilates 1x
Running – 4 runs total; 30KM
Biking – total 20KM

Highlights: 2 concerts (Rammstein and Muse) with my friend Babette. First week of marathon training was a bit challenging since these concerts were already planned ages ago, but I completed all runs, so I’m happy about that.

And yes!  I tried Yoga.  It was super chill – I loved it!  Unfortunately the class is on Monday mornings and usually I’m at work so I won’t be able to take that particular class again, but I’m not against trying another class at a different time.  Was nice to go with Wendy too – really felt like a relaxed vacation day, especially since afterwards we just lounged, had coffee and a good chat.

Rammstein in Rotterdam with Babette!
Intervals in Nootdorp/ Pijnacker
and… here we are again for Muse!

First Week Sunday Long Run – CHECK

Week 27 – vacation in Denmark

Running – 3 runs, total 16KM
Biking – 58KM

Second week of marathon training; We drove just north of Hamburg on Monday so that we could have a relaxed first day of vacation. On Tuesday morning Ron and I did a little round in Bad Bramstedt (the town where we stayed), had breakfast, and then hit the road for the 3.5-hour drive to Odense.  We did track training on Wednesday in Odense and on Thursday we ran with the Odense Running Crew.   Friday we were in Copenhagen and did a bike tour (just over 9KM) to the main touristic sites.  I was planning on doing my long run on Saturday because Sunday the weather would be a bit better and we wanted to do a long bike ride then, but Saturday’s wind and rain was so crap I ended up scrapping that idea.   Sunday’s ride was epic though, absolutely loved it!  It was super windy but at least we had some sunshine.   I figure 48KM on the bike was an ok substitute for 12KM running.   Won’t be scrapping my long run from now on though.

First Day of Vacation Beers are a FACT!
Track Wednesday – super cool track at Southern Denmark University
interesting old buildings in Odense, near where HC Andersen grew up
Funen Village – a sort of open air museum of “the old days” on Fyn (the island where Odense is located)
Friday in Copenhagen
The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen
The sky was amazing that day!
New Harbor
Back in Odense
It was raining the whole day so we went to the Brandt Museum where there was an Anton Corbijn exhibition.
Denmark’s weather is really “wait 5 minutes, it will change” – makes for very dramatic photos!
In Kerteminde
We walked around a bit where there were many narrow streets with very old houses.
Heading back to Odense (our rental bikes were 7 speed junkers but did the trick!)

Week 28 – back home and chilling out

Running – 4 runs, total 33.4KM
Biking – total 37.5KM approx
Gym – Bodypump, RPM Sprint

Week 3 marathon training; Monday we travelled back from Denmark so on the road all day.   According to my schedule I have 4 runs to do and so far I’ve done two.   On Wednesday I wanted to just get out and do something besides zap through Netflix so I biked 23KM through town, Meinerswijk, Arnhem South and back up home (I live in Arnhem North). 

Vincent asked me to go to the gym with him on Thursday; I’d already done a pretty rough recovery run (Intervals are going well, it’s the slow running that’s actually been difficult – start too fast, struggle to slow down, too slow is tiring, rise, repeat), but I went ahead and joined him for both BodyPump and the RPM Sprint class.  WHOAH.   I really love RPM, I love the build up, peak and cool down; Sprint is a super intense HIIT cycling class, like we just hit the ground running and the heart rate stayed up around 150 almost the whole time.   I think I’d do it again- the class is only 30 minutes but man, what a workout.

In long run news; struggle bus again, not feeling great about my lack of endurance, but it is what it is right now, I’m doing what I can and that’s all I can do, right? I am hoping to reframe my negative feelings into something good for next week’s long run.

dramatic weather also back in Arnhem, taken on the Sacherov Bridge over the River Rhein
I was so glad to see the bridge today!! This meant I was only about 4km from home!

Oh and one other update – I’ve been to the hairdresser (my alternative one, since my hairdresser is currently on maternity leave) and am happy with the result!

Hair is pink and purple again – yay!

Coming up Next Week

Next week will again be a challenge; it’s 4-Daagse week again and I’ve offered to massage clients who especially need it after each day of the 4 Day Marching event in Nijmegen (40/50 kilometers walking for 4 days). So I’ll be working my normal job 4 days, and 3 evenings I’ll be doing sports massage. How am I going to get my workouts done?

  • Monday – was a rest day, but I’ll be switching out with Tuesday’s intervals (3 x 1200 / 200 rest)
  • Tuesday – walk at lunch
  • Wednesday – 5KM run (AM)
  • Thursday – switch out with Friday (REST)
  • Friday – 8KM Fartlek run
  • Saturday – Intervals (3 x 1600 / 200), gym?
  • Sunday – 16KM long run

That’s a wrap!

How have you been? Have you had a summer holiday yet this year? Are you training for a big race or have you run your “big race” already? Have you ever been to Denmark? Have you heard of Anton Corbijn? Are you a fan of museums on holiday? Would you ever dye your hair funky colors?