Polder run and more lessons learnt

Completed the fifth week of the holy Half Marathon Schedule, half way now! Did two more runs in the weekend, which were to be 70 minutes according to the schedule.

Yesterday's run was fun, I was down south in Sluis with my parents, on the Belgian border. Instead of the planned 70 minutes, I ran 85 minutes, completing 13.75 KM. I used www.runnermaps.nl to plan my route which one can easily transfer to a Garmin devixe, love it! Again here though the Garmin 405CX sent me in the wrong direction on one occasion, which is remarkable considering the wide open space?! I think it happened due to a missing waypoint.

Anyway, the last 20 minutes were pretty tough, but other than that it was a nice run through the polder, only bumping into 1 cyclist, a farmer and numerous pheasants in the fields. The dense mist made for a mysterious vibe, only seeing the 100 meters or so around you. Temperature was great at 4 degrees, but it was very drizzly, wet and gloomy. Need to start carrying fluids with me during these longer runs.

On the flipside, the 70 minute run scheduled for Friday turned out to be a bit of bastard. And unfortunately primarily due to my own bad planning. Only left the house at 21.30, which of course is too late at the end of a busy working week (I am however glad I made it out at all!). Moreover, the lovely pasta that I had for dinner was sure to bug me throughout the run. And to top it off I had pretty severe sidepains after 20 minutes (still haven't figured out why that happens), and legs that felt like they were filled with concrete. So didn't have too much fun there. Anyway, still did it and that's what counts I guess! :)

Totals week 5: 3:23 Hrs, 31,6 KM's

This week a 60 minute run, more speedwork -which I'll need to do on a treadmill as I'm traveling, and I haven't been able to locate a park close to my hotel-, a 55 minute run and a 80 minute run. So quite some distance planned and an ambitious frequency.