Heidagen

Two days of solid training – 40 km – on the moor with friends. First the Amerongse Berg Trail and then a reunion of the MST Lanzarote group.

In January I participated in the Mud Sweat Trails training camp on Lanzarote. They are all good runners with whom I am more of a rookie and who I have trouble keeping up with at speed. When you agree to run 20 km on the heath near the Posbank during a reunion, you want to start fresh, right? However, once again the heart was stronger than the mind.

The day before the reunion some friends of the Rotterdam Marathon participants went to the Amerongse Berg Trail. Franny was still abroad, I had to train together with Ramona because of the Gent Marathon and also as a training for the Airborne Freedom Trail a split long training was good. Those were my official arguments, but of course I just wanted to run a trailt with friends. As long as you do it in a controlled way, it's possible, I explained.

Harem

Among the regular core of RMD there are quite a few trail runners. Richard and Frank were present. Because of the social trails of RMD, more and more people find their way back to nature. Often encouraged and carried along by fellow Team-Raidlight-ambassadors Olav Sammelius and Marco Overduin. Olav already walked the social trail in this area with an almost entirely female group, including Claudia, Ramona and Simone, who also joined in today. But strangely enough, Olav was nowhere to be found… so I took over the harem.

We all started as RMD, with Frank and Richard of course quickly gone. I joined the ladies for the fun and to prevent myself from blowing up. However, after a few kilometers Claudia thought she wouldn't be able to keep up with us and also went her own way.

The nice thing about trails is that everyone can follow their own pace, without being pushed around by a horde of runners behind them. Still, we were a bit worried about Claudia, who was nervous about the distance beforehand. So we decided to wait for her at the first aid station, after about four kilometers. We got some oranges and drinks, and then we waited along the side. And we waited. We stood there for at least 6 to 8 minutes, watching carefully for the arrival of a pink shirt. Finally we decided to walk on.

At the finish

It was a beautiful route over heath and through the woods. A bit humid, but we could keep a steady pace. In the meantime I had figured out where Olav had gone and I didn't miss a thing during the run (not to mention dubious souvenirs, but Ramona didn't allow me to tell her that). No kidding, we had a great time and were able to walk at a reasonable pace while talking. And the blood sugars went well on the combination of Ucan, Heed and nougat.

At supply station two we stayed a bit longer and asked if there was a last runner. There was. Nobody would be left behind. We assumed Claudia had stopped. Big surprise at the finish: she was already there. Apparently she had passed us when we were eating at the first post… so she was almost directly behind us until that time. The lesson from this: don't worry unnecessarily and just let someone run their own pace if they tell you to. I did feel a bit nerdy when she was already there with a finishing beer.

Reunion

The next day with the Lanzarote group immediately felt familiar. After riding with Remco and then together with Bart and Marjon, we arrived at a parking lot at the Posbank. There Wouter, it's his training area, had set out a small route of 19.5 km.

Well a route, that can Wouter do. He was heavier and secretly also nicer than the Amerongse Berg Trail. The Posbank has much larger heathlands which are in full bloom. And hills, forests, stairs, mud.

To accommodate the injured and slower runners, there were several points to cut off a piece of the route. That went wrong immediately when Anik and Marjon cut a loop of 1.5 km. The situation of yesterday repeated itself: we were waiting at the top of the stairs for the ladies, but they had already run a bit further.

Too much?

While I often wonder if I train enough, one after the other I got the question if I don't train a lot. Some of them are pretty fast ultra’s who actually win prizes. Among them are Sophie (Claus) and Mark (Groeneweg). I know from the camp that top runners like Ragna Debats don't train much in terms of running, but they do train a lot in terms of strength. I have now divided my training into Me-Mover – as an alternative strength training – and running. Maybe I post relatively much compared to the running.

Yet it is exemplary that I had a double shift that weekend. Although that was normal during the training camp, now it felt a little heavier. When Wouter said we were only halfway, it was a bit of a shock… In the end, I ran almost all the pieces as I did on Lanzarote.

A few kilometers before the end, I wanted to slow down. I didn't feel like it anymore and told the others that I would slow down if necessary and come back in my own time on the GPS. After I said that, I grabbed some food and took the last sips of Heed. Then I kept running behind, but still kept up with them. The fact that I could pull my own pace if needed also took a load off.

At the dinner afterwards it was also good to hear all the stories again. From multi-day hikes of 230-270 km on the calendar to tips about the Airborne which will probably be some kind of reunion. For both groups described here by the way.

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