Out at the speedway some kinda Elvis thing

Here’s a quick running update since Nationals.  On Saturday I ran twice very easy for recovery and Sunday ran a 90 minute long-run (shorter than my typical long-run) to end the week with 135km.  On Monday I had a good workout with quite a bit of volume, about 7km of fartlek on the trails followed by 3 X 1000m on the track.  That will be the last time until Heusden where I do that type of volume in a workout.  Tuesday and Wednesday I did one easy run a day since I’m travelling and I am tired.  I’ve learned over my 8 or so trips to Europe that its better to take it easy on travel days and when you first get over.  Its easy to try and stay on your normal running schedule but, it can tire you down really fast.

Gillis and I flew over on Martinair, yes Martinair.  The flight to Amsterdam was almost $600 cheaper than other carriers so we decided it would be worth it.  Its a low cost carrier and we were greeted at the airport by 100’s of people… oh that was just a massive line, never mind.  Once we got to our seats there were these foot rests that moved up and down… when the right was up, the left was down, kinda weird, but whatever.  Once the plane took off the beverage and snack service was a candy and three pop machines at the back of the plane.  Then I decided to read with a light.  That’s where the foot pedals come in,  just like the oldschool sewing machines you pump the pedals to make your own electricity for your light.  Except my pedals were for Gillis’ lights and vice versa.  “I want to read Gillis, keep pedalling!!”.  We landed in Amsterdam and we saw this plane take off way in the distance, I thought it was strange that there would be another big airport that close, relatively.  Oh, that’s our airport the captain informs us.  We drove the plane for 15 minutes to get to the gate, I guess its cheaper to land way outside of Amsterdam.  If it was legal to walk on the tarmac I’m sure we would of.

Almost 3 hours on the train and we finally got to Leuven where we’re staying in dorm rooms.  There are tons of runners here this year.  At the Leuven University track on any given afternoon there are tons of runners.  Flotrack has been keeping track of some of the going-ons in Belgium so far this summer and they will be at the two meets I’m racing on the upcoming Saturdays.  Leuven is great for running and since this is the 3rd summer I’ve been here it really feels like a home away from home. 

Right when I flew into Amsterdam I noticed right away how much greener everything is compared to Southern Ontario right now.  Here’s pic I took yesterday when I got here. view from Leuven dorm room