LUX marathon

Medal

This marathon was long awaited one. I have made initial contact to organizers of the event back at the end of 2015 when I was pacing Munich. After some time after that I was contacted by Michael from Luxembourg who is responsible for pacers. We had agreed that 4:14 will be ok time for me, for my first time. And couple months later me and my Wife were in Luxembourg to run and support. I suppose to meet new pacing team and experience new marathon. When I was discussing with Michael times option he has advised me that Luxembourg marathon is one with quite an incline and challenging finish (last 12 km). He told me that usually it takes 15-20 minutes more than usual marathon time to finish here and same thing applies to pacing. So, instead of usual 3:45 or 4 h I was in pair with Holger to pace 4:14. Read more

Timing is everything

Tired selfie in Ryanair

Wanted to be in my best shape this season in late September and October. Won’t happen. I think I already got my pick for this year and it was in July. I was able to pull off b2b on the hilly course in 3:17 and 3:14. And after that it was slippery slope for me. I know that I just let myself to do things I shouldn’t. Ate too much, ate crap food. Haven’t been working on my core muscle enough. Basically I just let additional kilos to stick to my body and muscle were substituted by bad, bad fat. I never was very skinny but last year was able to put so much work that actually weight went down quite a bit and the ‘belly tire’ was gone. That cost me a lot of work but was able to do that. So, seems that now I’m just lazy and cannot force myself to do the same.
In my case weight has a huge impact on my running abilities. Every additional kilo is slowing me down. Lack of core muscle adding up to fast tiredness during the race. I never loved running. Even now I’m not very convinced that I like it (especially when results are not as I would expect). I enjoying very much when running ok race. Hate when making mistakes on the course. I’m not very talented runner. I think that all I have achieved till now was a result of work I have put into training. So, now, when training (running and diet) not going as suppose I suffer. I again need to find my Zen… Should stop complain and start ‘doing’. Last week I have tried a fruit and veg diet, with some addition of sushi. Was actually doing OK till couple of days later we started to be very busy in work. No time for lunch break (running or proper food) and I was trying just to grab whatever I could just to kill hunger. I was even able to do 24 hours fasting day. Didn’t have that in ages. But it was just 24 hours and after that I just everything what was in the fridge.
I hope that sharing with all of you will somehow motivate me to get back on track again. I know that support is very important. Thanks Theresa. Sorry, slipped a little bit with my diet but will start again and hopefully for good this time. And if food will be sorted fat will disappear as well. And when fat will disappear muscles should start to grow again. And that should give me good platform to get good times again.
So, my chain would be:
diet –> fat ⬇ –> weight ⬇ –> muscle ⤴ –> health ⤴ –> speed ⤴ –> times ⬇ –> Alan ?
And happy Alan is the ultimate goal. Of course if that would bring as well sub 3 marathon then that’s class. Read more

Hamster – part one

Medal for first day

That was night to remember… For the first time I have run during night. Start was scheduled exact for midnight… Hard to work out when to eat last time and how to fight tiredness after early start in work that day. Again new experience. Lately have plenty of these. And last but not least that was marathon run on the track… 95 laps on the lane number 7 or 8 (measurements were taken on the inside on lane 7). And I think that was the biggest challenge. Get the head around that… Read more