On Saturday at 1pm I didn’t even think I would workout on Monday.  That’s because I completely bonked on my long-run.

I thought I could get away with a 36km run but there were a couple of factors that caused me to fall apart around 34km.  First, I did a good tempo run on Friday afternoon and drained myself pretty good.  I usually do long workouts in the morning and have 24 hours to recover but this time it was a quicker turn-around.  On Saturday morning I ate breakfast at 8am thinking I was going to run at 9am.  However, it had snowed and it was warming up so I figured I’d wait until 10:45 to get out the door for my only run of the day.

I ran 3km to the Around the Bay 30km course, ran the course in a shade under two hours and then proceeded to run home.  I was already feeling low energy levels around 30km and knew it was going to get a little ugly.  It got a lot ugly around the 34km mark.  I had to slow down to a shuffle slower than 5min/km (8min/mi).  Twice in the last 1.5km I had to walk for a bit.  I was dizzy, not thinking straight and utterly depleted.  I finally got home and quickly made a protein shake and had a big meal.

Sure enough a few hours later I was feeling fairly normal again.  But I cannot even imagine having that happen in a marathon and trying to stay on pace through that kind of wall. I’ve never bonked like that before and I hope I never do again.

***

I just got done watching this amazing documentary on Brother Colm coaching in Iten.  Eamon Coughlan travels to Iten to learn what the Kenyans are doing right, there is a large focus on David Rudisha.  It’s cool to see so many familiar places.

I got myself in good position after a loop of the soccer field.

The lead pack gapped me early into the race.

This hill was pure insanity. Looking up at the 10 stairs.

View from top of the stairs of the leaders.

Crazy course, tons of fun.

As the article said I raced a lot of that race alone.  That isn’t because I didn’t go out hard, my start was fine.  My problem was that I didn’t have the confidence to go with the move that was made a couple of km into the race.  I’ll blame that on not racing for four months (last race was the marathon) and not having the confidence which comes with racing.  So yeah, I let the group of eight get too far away although it was nice to be able to pick guys off every once in a while.  Little targets throughout the race.  The downside is that I could have challenged for 3rd place.  And I say challenged because Dame is known to have a strong kick.  The guys who went 1 and 2 are the guys who ran 13:10 and 13:11 earlier this week, they’re on a tear!

And for those who are wondering…  The Ethiopian who I helped was not Dame.  It was Endegena, who finished 16th.  You can see how that name, even after hearing it twice, escaped me and hence I referred to him as the ‘Ethiopian runner.’

Endegena’s over-dressed, it was his first time out of Africa. Yes, that is a jacket under the t-shirt and those are sweatpants.

Here is the “Road to London” trailer.  Paul has done good work here, enjoy.

Dierkirch Eurocross

1 20 KORIR Japheth KEN Kenia 1993 30’34”03

2 28 ROB Albert KEN Kenia 1994 30’35”56

3 5 DAME Tasama ETH Ethiopia 1987 30’59”56

4 9 COOLSAET Reid CAN Canada 1979 31’17”09

5 58 ZAHRAOUI Abdelhalim MAR Marocco 1988 31’23”00

6 1 EL ABBASSI El Hassan MAR Marocco   31’32”31

7 6 DAMTE Taye ETH Ethiopia 1987 31’35”47

8 8 EL HIMER Driss FRA France 1974 31’42”84

9 18 GIZYNSKI Marius POL Poland 1981 31’45”09

10 21 EL AMRI Khaled MAR Marocco 1977 32’01”47

11 4 WANJIRU Peter KEN Kenia 1982 32’19”44

12 2 NKUNZIMANA Onesphore BDI Burundi 1985 32’28”97

13 29 ENGELDARDT Ben USA Arizona 1988 32’30”12

14 53 ABDELILAH Jaadar ESP Spain 1987 32’35”28

15 26 DENGUIR Hamid MAR Marocco 1983 32’38”66

I know it’s actually “plain.”

***

Friday was an interesting day of travel…

My journey started Thursday in Iten and consisted of a matatu ride to the Eldoret airport and then a flight to Nairobi and then to Amsterdam. Eliud Kipchoge and Augustine Choge also had the same flights to Amsdterdam on their way to Karlsruhe.

In the Amsterdam airport I saw an Ethiopian runner (full national team kit). I wondered where he was going and looked at the sign, Luxembourg! Why the hell didn’t I book a ticket to Luxembourg instead of going to Brussels and taking a 3 hour train to Diekirch, Luxembourg?!

Anyways, I asked the Ethiopian if he’s racing cross-country, yep he is. I told him I would see him in Diekirch because I was taking another flight and would be 3-4 hours later than him.

I got to Brussels and took a train to Luxembourg (just over three hours). Upon arriving in Luxembourg I realized I only had two minutes to catch the next train to Diekirch, (Diekirch is about 40km North of Luxembourg City). As I was hustling to the train I saw the Ethiopian standing on the train platform and seeing that it took him over three hours to get from the airport to the train station (9km apart) I concluded he was lost.

He was very happy to see me. I told him “c’mon we gotta catch the train on platform 4!!” I started running and then realized he wasn’t following. I turned around and told him we have got to go NOW to catch this damn train to Diekirch.  I just took off in hope that he gets the message to follow. I got down a couple flights of stairs and he was just staring at me from the top. At that point I realized I had missed the train. He didn’t follow me because he wanted to get on another train that left a few minutes later from the platform we were on. That train went to Frankfurt, Germany.

After talking to him for a while I realized he was trying to go to Germany because he thought Diekirch was in Germany and whoever sold him the train ticket in Luxembourg made it out to Frankfurt (he doesn’t speak much, other than Ahmaric). I explained that Diekirch is 40km away and Frankfurt is hundreds of kilometers away and that he doesn’t need to go to Frankfurt to get to Diekirch. And then some random, local Ethiopian stopped to say ‘hi’ and I explained the situation and got the local to explain to runner guy why he should get on the next train with me to Diekirch (the train to Diekirch runs once an hour).

After lots of talking the runner decides to stay in Luxembourg with his new Ethio-friend. I gave him the website and contact details of the race and parted ways because all of a sudden it was time to get on the train. I rushed to platform 8 and jumped on the train with a few minutes to spare. As I got settled I looked up and I didn’t see Diekirch on the screen, some other city, ‘Altun’ or some shit. I asked someone if this train was going to Diekirch, nope! I jumped off and looked down the platform, there was another train on the same platform with signage to Diekirch! I started running for it but as I got closer it took off.  Sweet, one more hour in Luxembourg train station!

After the second miss I went outside to some shops with 6 weeks of gear/clothes in tow.

View from hotel room in Diekirch

This morning (Saturday) I woke up to -13C (-20 with windchill) so I decided to wait until after 10am to go for a run. Sunblock is replaced with layers of running gear and I headed out to the XC course.

My god the hills on the course are steep and there are seven laps! There was a dude running around the course with a massive parka, and sure enough it was the Ethiopian from yesterday. He stayed with his new Ethiopian friend and will again tonight. We ran a couple laps of the course together, this is his first time running on snow. As I parted ways I thought of how close he was to traveling to Frankfurt and that if he beats me tomorrow maybe I should have let him go to Germany, hahaha.

***

If you haven’t seen my tweets lately I’m absolutely loving Eurosport right now (minus the German language).  Last night I watched the Dusseldorf Indoor track meet.  Today I watched the downhill race in Sochi where Canadian Benjamin Thomsen was second.  Right now I’m watching the women’s slalom in Soldeu, where Canadians Erin Mielzynski (Guelph) finished in 18th place and Marie Gagnon in 8th.  After the slalom they’re showing a 30km XC ski race in Nove Mesto which features 4 Canadians, including the only person ever to beat me on XC skis, Lenny Valjas. See post from February 2009 to see what I’m talking about.  Tomorrow at 6:30pm they’re showing the Karlsruhe meet, hopefully I’ll be in Liege, Belgium by then to watch it with Pieter Desmet and JP Weerts.

View from my hotel room in Diekirch, Luxembourg. It’s COLD here.

If you look carefully you can see the fartlek train

More fartlek photos. I’m on the left side.  This is very early in the session, before most of these guys drop out.

pics www.reidcoolsaet.tumblr.com

Last year when I came to Kenya I was coming off a six week period where I ran a total of 60km, basically what I do in two days. Last year’s trip was all about getting back on my feet and enjoying a new experience. By the end of my trip I did a few workouts but no real quality.

This training camp in Kenya I was able to train hard. This past December was a productive month where I had a few weeks around 200km and a bunch of decent sessions. I was able to take it up a notch over the past 5 weeks here in Iten and truly get a taste of Kenyan training. After last year I knew this was a brilliant place to train but I didn’t realize it’s full potential until the past weeks.

On Tuesday afternoon I was running with Pieter Desmet and this guy was running pretty fast coming towards us and Pieter thought it was Abel Kirui. I agreed it looked like him but couldn’t see him wearing an old, faded red jacket.

On Wednesday morning I ran one last time with my regular homies. At one point we were passed by 6 guys and the guy I was running beside said, “that’s Abel Kirui.” I looked over and saw an old, faded red jacket fly by us.

And to make it a true typical Kenyan run after I parted ways with my group  (I only wanted 18km in the morning)  a guy (Eliud Kirui) caught up to me who had finished finished 6th at the 2004 World Cross Champs in Brussels, he beat me by 45 seconds.  We also crossed paths with the guy who finished 5th that day too, (Shaheen).  Yes, there are a lot of fast runners here.

Tomorrow evening I fly from Eldoret to Nairobi. Then Nairobi to Amsterdam overnight. Amsterdam to Brussels the next morning. And finally a couple of trains from Brussels to Diekirch via Luxembourg.