New world record on marathon

He did it! Gebrselassi did what he had said he would do by running a new world record in todays marathon in Berlin. With 2:04:26 he improved the world record with almost half a minute. Want to read more...?

Gebrselassie goes for world record?

While checking out the elite runners that I might see before the start of the Amsterdam Marathon I realized that tommorow Berlin is on the calendar. Having a fast track on might expect some of the worlds best runners to start in Berlin rather then Amsterdam. I found that Gebrselassie has the ambition to beat the current world record of 2:04:55 and bring it down to 2:03 something, according to The Canadian Press . On the other hand in another article he states: "The marathon is the only distance I can't talk about a world record." I wonder what will happen and will try to watch the race.

In Amsterdam the toprunners will be last years winner Bushendich and world champion Kibet. Other Kenians that might be found in front are Mbote and Kirui. As I will be some 2.ooo runners behind them I will have to settle for a short report on the TV in the evening. The guys will finisch around the time that I cross the 25k point. Maase and Krotwaar, the Dutch top marathon runners will also start in Amsterdam.

Rotterdam Marathon

It has been a bit quiet in this part of the blogsphere. Busy at work and all the spare time left is spend on running. The last training boost for this autumns marathon in Amsterdam. I just wanted to let you out there know that the preperation can start for next spring season. Rotterdam Marathon has opened his website for subscription for the 28th edition of on the worlds fastest marathons....

Running for your life

A while ago there was a nice item on CRN on close encounters from runners with animals, including a picture of a birdhit.

During my stay in Portugal I had a different experience where it were not the animals that created the danger but fellow humans. For your information: Hunting seasons is September to April and hunting is allowed on Sundays and Thursday. So guess what happened when I went running in the early morning of Sunday the 2nd of September. There was shooting all around as it was the first day for hunting that season! It made me feeling a bit uncomfortable. I decided tot stay on the normal road and not to use the dirt tracks through the field which was my original plan. My thoughts were that the hunters would take into account that there are other people on the road and people passing by in cars so the would not point their guns towards the road. I got home alive, unhit so it looked the my assumption was correct.....untill.....I was cleaning my shoes a day later and see what I found in the profile of my sole.....

on the top of my index finger is a lead pellet of buckshot which was on the road and got stuck under the sole of my shoe. Turns out: hunters also shoot in the direction of the road. I tell you, I never run again when hunting is going on! Maybe there is a hit in it for Paul Simon: "Buckshot on the sole of my shoes" with fado influences....

Weekend of extremes: from 100 meters worldrecord to a 100k ultra run

Last weekend was a weekend of extremes in running term. Asafa Powell improved his world record on the shortest outdoor distance, the 100 meter. He set the new time to beat on 9.74 seconds. A lead physiologist for the English Institute of Sport says "There is no sign that the 100m world record is slowing up" on BBC sport. He also expects that Powell will be able to lower the record to 9.7 in due time thanks to his explosive start.

On the other end of the scale was the 100k run in Winschoten with the Dutch Championchips, the European Championchips and the WMA Championchips. This was won by the Russian runner Oleg Kharitonov in a time of 6 hours, 30 minutes and 22 seconds. Check out the site for more results.


And on the scale from profesionalism to well....lets say enthousiasm...
I took part as a member of the relay team from my work on the 10 times 10km relay. We had two teams taking part. Before we tried to balance the teams so we could have a compitition between the to teams which worked out very well. In the end we finished just over two minutes apart. Picture shows me at the start of my 10k as last runner of one of the teams. Great thing of being the last runner of the team in a relay? Every other last runner you are overtaking (to be recognized by the 0 as the last digit of the number) means you are climbing one extra place in the final results. I am clad to say I overtook a a couple of runners without being overtaken myself!

Running in Portugal

During the previous two weeks I have spend my holidays in the Algarve in Portugal and of course....the running gear came along. Coming from Holland where our highest hill is just over 300mtrs (which we have to share with the Germans and the Belgians) and the biggest climb in my surroundings is in the dunes along the sea I can tell you the rolling countryside of the Algarve is a great training environment.
The location
We stayed in a very nice place away from the more crowded coastline called Monte da Bravura. Set on a hill top on a dead end road towards a barrage. 6k to Lagos, in the west Algarve. I don't have shares in the place but as it was a very nice stay, a very good guest house and the owners and staff are very nice people: I can realy recommend it.
Besides running the Algarve offers great opportunities for walking, has great beaches with waves suitable for surfing and a lot of restaurants (I can recommend to stay of the beaten track because the best dinners we had in smaller restaurants outside the crowded touristic towns and off the major roads...)
The runs
I did various runs however all of them were along two routes I entered on mapmyrun. One route is from the hotel to the barage (2k - one way) and the other route is from the hotel, directly downhill turning north on a rolling gradual climb with a steep climb (according to MMR ~70m climb in 800mtrs) in the end (7k one way). Specialy this second one is - for a someone with no hill experience - challenging on the return leg when you climb back to the hotel (again some 70 meters climb in app. 800-900 meters with a very steep bit in the middle). These two routes combined to a 10k training (cutting the long one short by turing around at the 5k point and saving my self one of the very steep climbs), two 14k routes (either the 7k back and forth or the 10k combined with hte 2k run back and forth) and a 18k training (both routes combined).
Below you find the routes on the map. For the elevation go to the MMR site itself and let is show the elevation panel. This is however and indications because if you would believe the panel the run woould have been like on a roller coaster but I can tell you the roads were very nice an smooth and nothing like the jitter that is shown on the panels.
To conclude
For someone with no hills around the Algarve offers very nice running, in perfect weather conditions (early morning starts recommended in warmer periods) on quite roads.



Two other routes in the area:

Luz and Lagos. If you want to find other routes in a wider area...zoom out on the map, click the find button on the map and select 'show public route on map'. Have some nice runs during your stay!