• Hours on the run: 4:44
• Kilometres: 49.82
• Calories burned: 37 choco soesjes (Dutch profiteroles)
• Worms crushed: I’m sorry!
• Wildlife: About 8 great egrets (and a thousand skinny worms)
• Soundtrack: Bad moon rising – Creedence Clearwater Revival

I learned quite a valuable lesson on this week’s long run: Don’t assume your running routes from 5 years ago still exist! I had a nice circular route mapped out (in my head) for the 26km run on Sunday. It was a route that circles around a wetlands nature reserve and basically hugs the huge IJsselmeer lake, so it’s pretty remote – I didn’t actually pass a single person for a good 16km (my kind of run!). Three-quarters of the way around, as I was starting the home stretch, I hit a dead end – the bridge was being repaired with no way around it. The other cut-through I knew, ended up as another dead-end at a bird watching hut…. (see where the two red lines fork in the map below – next to Almere Buiten). There was nothing for it but re-tracing my steps about 6km back into powerful headwind along the ridge next to the water until I finally hit a turning to take me home.

This looping back on myself meant that when I (joyously) hit the 26km finish (red stop icon on the map), I was still a half-hour walk from home. On a clear day, I wouldn’t mind, but I was soaking wet from 2.5 hours of non-stop rain. My running jacket had started foaming, and my white socks had turned blue! Still, half-running, half-walking (I was getting cold by this point) I made it home and then not much further than the front door! 🙂

On the run itself I was really excited to see about 8 great egrets (don’t recall ever seeing these in the Netherlands before). I tried to take a picture, but it spooked them. So here’s one from the google 🙂

I also saw two slightly mad paddle-boarders out on the choppy IJsselmeer. I was psychologically battling the headwind and my dead-ends at this point so didn’t have the energy to stop for a photo, but below you can see the pretty bleak conditions they were out in (taken from the start of the run):

Rather them than me!

Overall, the long run this week went well, definitely up to the half-marathon point. After that, things got heavy but definitely not unbearable. I know I’m going to need a lot of sleep this week (only been averaging about 6 hours a night, which isn’t really enough for all the recovery your body needs to do for these distances) so early to bed from now on – that’s my aim! And bring on next week’s 29km, with hopefully no more dead ends and a little less rain!

The soundtrack to this week: Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival – despite the name (and lyrics!) it’s got such a great bouncy beat for running – always puts a spring in my step!

Please consider sponsoring me for the London Marathon. I’m running for Chance for Childhood, a charity that protects children from the devastating consequences of extreme poverty, conflict and disability.

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