Another ride/run with mom

Mom's ready to go

As the sky looked somewhat threatening, Mom and I set out for another ride/run this morning. This time we followed a beautiful quiet path along a canal called De Lage Vaart.

It takes less than a kilometre to get onto this path, which we followed for about 5km. Then we turned right for a few hundred metres, and back along a quiet road called the Wisentweg.

There are several farms and a brewery along this road. There's also the Warmonderhof, which offers a four-year study in bio-dynamic farming and gardening.

We had planned our route so that this time we had a tailwind on the way home. 

Aside from a few drops, we were lucky that the rain stayed away.  We could see the dark purple clouds move away from us with the expansive views the polder offers.

We got home shortly after an hour, taking my mom's riding volume to 30km in the two sessions we did in three days.

"Don't make it sound as if I am that sporty," she said when I told her about this post.

After a beautiful 1 hour/12km ride & run along the Lage Vaart

Ride/run with mom

I am still at my parents' in the Netherlands. At Sunday breakfast my mom asked how far I planned to run that day. So I told her 90 minutes, or about 18km.

She surprised me by saying she wanted to come with me by bike. My mom is 71. Like my dad, she is fit and active though her knees have curtailed her walking. These days she takes her bike to walk their dog Thara, who gets four outings a day.

Mom rugged up in a big jacket from Nike (where my sister worked for 13-odd years), a fleece from Whistler and a pair of comfy jeans, and we set out for our run/ride toward Kampen.

It was a beautiful winter day, last month was the driest since official record keeping began in 1906, according to the NOS. An average total of 9 millimetres fell in November 2011, compared with a usual 82mm. A year ago, the Netherlands was covered in a layer of snow.

We both enjoyed the ride, though on the way out the tailwind made sure I had to work hard to make sure she wouldn't have to ride too slow. It didn't seem like a particularly windy day, but the polder always surprises once you turn around; there's a good reason for the hundreds of modern windmills that mark its skyline.

We turned around at the same point as I did on my own a week ago, having reached it about 3 minutes sooner, and began the trip home. Now the wind levelled our pace. We chatted about everything and nothing, and arrived back home both happy with a great joined workout.

I hope she'll join me on another, shorter, of my runs this week if the weather allows. Then I'll make sure to get a picture.

Our run/ride brought my weekly mileage to about 50-52km, on track for the week as I slowly increase my mileage to start a daily running program on January 1.

The following day, Monday, was a rest day in terms of running. The thought crossed my mind that I will not have any soon, so I made sure to enjoy it. After we had breakfast, I joined my dad for the morning walk with Thara, their bearded collie.

Thara, 6, with my Dad

My dad, who is turning 70 this year, does most of the dog walking and covers at least 10km a day every day. That's at least 70km a week.

As we circled through the Wisentbos (the place where I got lost in thick fog the day after touching down in the Netherlands) we ran into most of the people and their dogs he comes across.

Thara is six, turning seven this month. This lovely gentle dog with a mop of blonde hair has been trained well by my parents. Rarely on leash on her outings, my parents have taught her to stop and sit at every road and bike path crossing.

She'll race ahead but wait until my parents catch up to her and reward her obedience with a small doggy biscuit. On the various routes my parents (dad in particular) reward her at the same, though not each, crossing every time.

 

Thara loves to play ball

Wisentbos, Dronten

Training for the program

I am a month away from starting specific training for my next marathon, Vancouver on the first Sunday in May. That means I am now training to be able to begin my training.

As I very much enjoyed my preparations for the Bellingham Bay Marathon (and the Victoria Marathon), I will use a schedule from the same book, Advanced Marathoning. As mentioned before on this site, I did not choose this schedule lightly. I followed personal guidance from two expert coaches for a decade, before finetuning what suits me as an athlete, and the type of training that I believe will help me reach the goals I want to achieve.

A 3:02 marathoner friend suggested I check out this book; the ideas and schedules were a perfect fit, as I ramped up my training to a record volume. For three months this summer, I followed a program that had me running an average of just over 100km a week. That was a lot of running, and I loved it, even as - and because - it was challenging. I hope to do more in the next four months.

The 18-week program I will follow from January 1 begins with a week of 104km, including a long run of 27km and a midweek medium long run of 19km. You can't just jump into that one, you need to train to begin the schedule.

"For example, if you've been running 40 miles (64km) per week and your longest run in the last several weeks is 12 miles (19km), now isn't the time to suddenly jump to a 65-mile (105km) week containing a 17-mile (27km), as the first week of the 18-week schedule calls for," according to the Advanced Marathoning authors.

"As a rule, you should be running at least 55 miles (88km) a week before starting these schedules, and in the last month, you should have comfortably completed a run close in length to the long run called for in the first week of the schedule."

That's what I am working towards now; as I have taken my usual post-A-race break, even as this one was unusual, what with a 3:09 marathon on September 25, followed by a 3:06 marathon on October 9, and a not-so-swift 7:57 50-miler on November 5.

I've been back running, easy short sessions, for the past two weeks. Last week was my biggest. I didn't bring the Garmin to the Netherlands, so I am running for time, guesstimating pace / distance.

Last week, I ran an hour on Monday, about 12km, followed by 31 mins on Wednesday, about 6km, 20 mins on Thursday, or 4km, and 90mins, 18km on Saturday. That's a total of 40km. This week, I am aiming for 50km. Then I'll have three weeks left to boost my training to the volume needed to begin the program.

(Keep in mind that I was running 100km-plus weeks in the three months before taking this break, so don't do the same without building a solid base first.) The summer schedule called for six days of running a week, something I had not done before.

A key indicator for success was my body's response; with minimal massage, or other treatments, I remained injury free. That's crucial. There's no point trying to do more training if your body breaks down, forcing you to stop training, as a result.

This schedule will have me running daily, another first. The biggest week is 140km. There are also weeks of 126km, 128km, 130km (3x) 135km, 135km, 137km (2x). At the moment I cannot quite imagine running that volume but that's not unusual; it's often intimidating to begin a task not attempted before.

Once you've made a start, you often find it's not as difficult as you expected. And even if it is tough, you'll usually find it is still doable. I am excited about accepting this new challenge and seeing what it brings.

NaNoWriMo rebel

Wow, November has been a crazy month. It included a 50-mile ultramarathon, a visitor from Australia, and a trip to the Netherlands, where I still am for another couple of weeks.

After starting on a couple of fiction ideas, both titled Sub-3 Marathon and totalling nearly 18,000-odd words, and getting stuck I decided to use the time to work on a nonfiction draft instead. In other words, I became a NaNoWriMo rebel.

The good news is that I did complete a first draft of 50,000-odd words so the main goal is accomplished. And I am glad I did. At the end of the day, the purpose of the challenge is to write. I write a lot, especially between books when I have plenty of ideas but not yet a clear focus for the next work.

It's in some ways a frustrating time as I will myself to produce but wonder how much progress I am making as I feel my way around the various topics and ideas. In the past month I wanted to do too much too well too soon. I wasn't able to let myself write without judgement.

Instead, I spent time researching the processes of novel writing such as in Elizabethe George's Write Away: One Novelist's Approach to Fiction Writing and James Smith's You Can Write a Novel, which has been helpful. Like in running, the process of writing is an ever-evolving one as the author finetunes what works best for her, helping her to get the best out of herself and adjusting as she goes along.

In 2010, the process of simply writing with a focus on quantity worked for me, resulting in my first novel From my Mother. I had a much better idea of what I wanted to write, even though I wasn't aware of it until it was there on the screen in front of me. This time, I was searching and still trying to distill what it was I wanted to say. I think I got a few steps closer because of NaNoWriMo, it just wasn't in the form of a novel this time.  

Now that NaNoWriMo is doing, I have the freedom and agony of choice; which manuscript to commit to next. It's time to focus. I think my 2011 NaNoWriMo rebel effort needs some time to hang out quietly on the hard drive, before I'll get back to it later.

Since I am in the Netherlands at the moment, the country where I was born and raised, I am once again drawn to the idea of writing a book in my mother tongue. I must admit though that these days I am much more comfortable in English, even as I am still fluent in Dutch.

It's like using a muscle you haven't used in a while. You still remember exactly how it's done but it feels a little awkward at first as the muscle needs to remember what it used to do. Likewise, my Dutch needs some warming up before it feels supple again. My thoughts are in English, and have been for at least eight years, and my main mode of communication in writing and speech have been in English for 15 years now.

At the same time, I think that is exactly what will make using the language again fresh and exciting. Aside from articles for a university magazine and some poetry (and of course some diaries) more than 20 years ago, I've not written in my mother tongue - certainly not professionally. But I think I am ready for the challenge.

I am thinking, naturally, a book on running in general and marathon running in particular, with a sprinkling of ultras. Of course I am checking out what has been written so far.

Like elsewhere, running is a popular topic for Dutch writers too. I'll try to get a hold of a few titles through the local library such as Jan Knippenberg's De Mens als Duurloper, Abdelkader Benali's De Marathonloper and De Zandloper, and Paul Rosenmuller's Ik loop dus ik besta.

The last time I was in the Netherlands, in April 2010, I began on a Dutch manuscript too. But once back in Canada, I found it too hard to continue. I think it will be different this time as I am also preparing to start my first translation project: creating a Dutch edition of Tim Moore's Sub Nine: History's Fastest Ironwomen.