Time Flies

Oh my, it's been more than a week since my last post...I have been working out and running but just have not managed to get to my blogs. In the meantime I signed up for the Knack Ladies Run which will be held this year on Monday May 12 in Kortrijk. I'm going to do the 11 kilometers again, and attempt to better my time from last year.

I am especially excited this year because my friend Claire signed up as well! She is going to do the 5 K, and I believe this will be her first race. This is a perfect one to do for your first race (it was my first ever, in 2006) because there is a great atmosphere and camaraderie among all the ladies. Good luck, Claire! I remember very well how daunting it all seemed, but also how incredibly proud I was of myself when I crossed that finish line.

This morning I did an extended loop of what I usually run around the neighborhood and when I mapped it out on http://www.mapmyrun.com/ I was pleasantly suprised to see I had run 5.3 km in 38 minutes, especially with all the hills I did. I have been making sure to do at least one run a week in the neighborhood going up and down all those big hills, to get ready for Kortrijk. The 5K is all downhill, but in the 11, you have to get back up, and that was tough last year!

DJ Bobby Ewing music download

The city of Leuven website is offering a temporary free download of the music DJ Bobby Ewing made for the run, "30:00". You can find it at this site (it's in Dutch, but if you scroll down you'll see where to click to download):

http://www.leuven.be/showpage.asp?iPageID=7318

DJ Bobby Ewing Run

This run was a blast! The funnest and funniest run I have ever done! Only 200 lucky people got to participate in this.

Check in was at the city library downtown Leuven. Lots of different types of runners turned up and we all got our cool race number (see above) and our own copy of DJ Bobby Ewing's CD "30:00", music to run past the most beautiful places in Leuven. The CD is great and includes a map of Leuven with 2.5, 4.5 and 5 K routes marked. I hope they are going to sell this in the city tourist office. You can listen to a sample of the music at: http://www.myspace.com/djbobbyewing

Right on the dot at four o'clock (I love how everything in Leuven is so well organized), we headed out along the Diestsestraat to the St. Pieters church, where DJ Bobby Ewing, announcer Steven Van Herreweghe and others were already on the top of a red double decker bus, which had huge speakers mounted on it. Everybody was so enthusiastic and the music got going and we started off, doing two slow rounds around the church as a warm up. Then we headed up past the town hall, which was looking even more gorgeous than usual in the bright sun, and down the Naamsestraat. Or rather I should say up, because it is a bit of an uphill and as the bus picked up speed ahead of us, we had to push the pace a little bit and that was a stretch for some of the runners, some people looked like they were struggling. (At this point I was very thankful for the last two years of training to run I had!)

Apparently somebody on the bus must have noticed there were stragglers because as they pulled into the Parkstraat, the announcer, Steven, said he had to stop to use the bathroom, so he got off the bus and went in someone's house! So all us runners stopped til he came back out and the bus got going again, but nobody minded - all this time DJ Bobby was playing the coolest music, some of it from his new CD, intermingled with other fun tunes.

Once we got going we turned down the Maria Theresiastraat. There were quite some spectators along the way, we must have been a sight. Then we turned down the Blijde Inkomststraat and passed by the University library and when we got to the bottom of the Ladeuzeplein, they stopped the bus and told us they wanted us all to go out in the center of the square and hold hands and dance around the Leuven totem in a circle, which we runners very obediently did, of course! It was pretty hilarious!

Then back behind the bus again for more music and running...we had another little rest break while the bus struggled to turn into a small side street, going forwards and backwards a few times. At this point, stuck behind it in a very narrow street, the fumes were pretty bad. (When our English friend Oliver heard we were going to be jogging behind a double-decker London bus, that was the first thing he said: Watch out for the fumes! He was right.) But the bus finally made it around the tight corner and we headed for the Justus Lipsius street then back down the Maria Theresia to the station. At the station we turned into the Bondgenotenlaan, the big avenue that runs into the center of town. DJ Bobby started playing "Love is in the air" and we had to sing along and wave our arms back and forth, and then he put the theme from Chariots of Fire on and they got us all to run in slow motion.

By that time we were back where we started. The whole thing took exactly 30:00. The bus was now parked and they put a slow song on and encouraged couples to dance, threw some Leuven sweatshirts from the top of the bus, and then we all got to have a drink on the house at the café at the library. What a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon. What a cool way for DJ Bobby Ewing to top off his two years as DJ laureate of Leuven.

He is going to be followed up by a chef laureate, Jeroen Meus. His restaurant Luzine is in the same building as my fitness center and he works out there, too. So perhaps there will be some kind of fitness-oriented follow up to the DJ Bobby Ewing run...a culinary run through Leuven??? That would certainly bring a new dimension to the term "eat and run"! www.jeroenmeus.be

Quick Post

Just a quick post...went to the gym this afternoon (I had one of my groups here this morning) and did the cardio/resistance workout again, only this time the resistance circuit (chest press, leg curl, seated row and leg press) is done twice, once after running short intervals for 15 min, then you bike for 10 minutes and do the resistance circuit a second time. After that, you cross train for 10 minutes and then do abs.

It looks like the weather is going to be bright and sunny for our DJ Bobby Ewing run this Sunday! Yay! This will be his last event as the official DJ of the city of Leuven. On the email confirmation we got for the run, they suggested bringing something for the DJ since it is his last performance...does anyone have any ideas about what to give to a DJ (besides records)?

Chi Running Anyone?

Today the plan said I needed to run for 40 minutes. Since the weather has radically changed recently from sunny and nice to foggy and freezing, I decided to do it at the gym and avoid the much dreaded itchy leg syndrome. I was also looking forward to trying out something from a new book I got about running, Chi Running by Danny Dreyer, and I thought I might be a lot less fumbly on a treadmill than tripping along a treacherous sidewalk.

Has anyone else heard of Chi Running? Apparently he has been in Runner's World and is a well known coach and running teacher from San Francisco. Anyway the basic idea is using the core, as in Tai Chi, yoga, or Pilates, while running, which should improve your running form and drastically reduce injuries. Having done both yoga and Tai Chi I was intrigued when I saw this in the bookstore! I also thought it might be something for Stefaan to try to possibly eliminate his knee pain. It's a very interesting theory.

There are several techniques he advocates, and he also suggests that you work on one at a time, until you become proficient at it, before moving on to another one. One of the techniques he recommends is leaning forward while running instead of being more upright, which is what I was trying out today on the treadmill. The theory (which is explained in detail in the book) is that the force of gravity will pull you forward and you will therefore have to use less muscle power for running. You have to keep your ears, shoulders, hips and ankles in a straight line, so it is not like you are bending over at the waist, just leaning gently forward.

I must admit, it felt kind of weird and I was so busy concentrating on it at certain moments that I almost felt a bit light-headed, but I do think it made my run seem a bit easier. I ended up doing 5.8 km in the 40 minutes. I'm going to keep trying the Chi Running techniques, if anyone else has any experience with it, I'd love to hear about it.

A new program

For the next six weeks I am following a program from the Matt Roberts book Fitness for Life Manual which I think I have mentioned here before, and a fitness book I really like. It has a lot of good basic information and excellent programs for different goals. From time to time I look at the "marathon training program" or the "six week beach body program" but they are still a little too hardcore for me, and so I set my sights at a bit more realistic level: my program is two days of resistance combined with cardio intervals, and two days of running (or other cardio of your choice). In the book it's called the "fat-loss program" but I prefer to think of it as the "beginning runner's winter maintenance program"!

So today at the gym was 10 minutes of hill walking on the treadmill, 10 minutes of stationary cycling, 10 minutes of cross training and then chest press, lat pull, leg curl and leg press, followed by four sets of ab exercises. I know it doesn't sound like much, but knowing that I so easily psych myself out around the weight machines, I am aiming for something I know I can do, rather than being too ambitious and end up throwing in the towel. Today went well, although I was starting to get a little freaked out when I couldn't figure out the leg curl machine at first. But in the end I got it - phew!

Welcome to the year of the Rat!

It was Chinese New Year last week - I wish we would have gone to Antwerp and seen the parade in Chinatown but we forgot and saw it on the news instead! Something to do next year?

The Daily OM did not forget and here is what they have to say about it:

Since the rat sign is the first in the Chinese zodiac calendar, we may feel the energy of a cycle beginning. We may also feel a pioneering spirit that helps us to forge ahead with a completely new endeavor. .... A competitive nature may develop within us, leading us to use the rat’s ability to focus on priorities. The rat can also remind us to be less worried about pleasing everyone we meet and more focused on our goals. (http://www.dailyom.com/)

I am definitely feeling the energy of a new cycle beginning...my pioneering spirit is awake after a month's hibernation and yes, I am ready to forge ahead with a new endeavour! I've got six weeks til Easter and my goal is to get two resistance workouts in per week plus 150-250 minutes total of aerobic exercise (including but not exclusively running) and to build my long Sunday runs back up to 8 loops around the lake. My running goal this spring is to beat my 11 K time at the Ladies Run in Kortrijk in May.

Yesterday, we were having beautiful sunny warm weather (all the plants and birds are thoroughly confused around here). We went out to the lake with the intention of doing four loops, but as we finished the third one, Stefaan had to poop out on me, as his knee was killing him. Not good. I continued on while he set off to find the boys on the playground, and I ended up doing the total four loops (5.6 km) in 36 minutes. Not a bad time for me at all. It felt good but I was thinking a lot about the Disney race and how it felt and remembering some of the harder parts of the course and what it felt like to run that distance. It still amazes me that I did it.