Busy week but not on the running front!

Lovely flowers & card from my hubby!

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! Hope you've done something romantic with your loved one!!

Not much has happened this week on the running front. It's an extremely busy period at work and haven't had much energy for running to be honest. Did go training with the group on Thursday evening and did 9.6km at 10.8km/h, so suppose that was too bad.
Will go for a run with a few from the group tomorrow morning. Not looking forward to the early start but need to get another run in this week.

Next week should be better, as I am not working Thursday and Friday. Planning to do a run Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday to get milage up a bit. Not planning a 1/2 marathon until Chester in May but feel I need to run further and slower during some sessions to cope better with 10km races and longer ones.

Now a re-cap on my running weekend in Belgium. Photos can be viewed on the website from my club, De Gavertrimmers and on the Ludo Depoortere's blog. I've had some problems uploading these photos on my blog and haven't got the time or patience tonight.

Sunday 8th February 8am: Gavertrimmers Club championships: Tiegem-Harelbeke
Early start that morning as family friend Ludo Depoortere was picking me up a 6.30am from my parents' house in Lendelede. From there we picked up brother Pascal to go together to the sportshall in Harelbeke to collect our starting numbers and get on the coach with other club members to the start in Tiegem. Just some time to spare for quick stretching and a group photo in Tiegem.

The race itself went very much as planned really. Start a bit too fast (nothing new there for me!), guess approx 13-14km/h and managed to run at 12/km/h until just before the 8km mark. Was running on my own and because my breathing was all over the place with my cold, I slowed down before halfway and let the lady in third position, Liane catch up with me. I knew from her past results that she would be a contender for 2nd place and although we were not running in the same age category, she used to be a much faster runner than me!
I managed to 'hang on' for a while but had to let her go in the end. When we came to a bridge over the motorway in Deerlijk, I managed to catch up with Liane again going uphill (probably due to my hillsessions here in Chester) but she ran away from me again in the downhill and I had to watch her run 40-50 metres in front of me for the next few kilometres.

Luckily, brother Pascal who finished ages ago in a super 2nd position, came to find me and ran with me for the last mile or so. I had said to Liane that I was more than happy for her to take second place but Pascal wanted me to put up a fight, so I managed to outsprint her and secured second place in 1h15'42", as expected just over 4 minutes behind the ladies winner Veronique Timmermans.

More about the afternoon's cross country race in Dadizele, Belgium, tomorrow!