Soon coming up: a half marathon, YEEEEESSS

Dear reader,

The coming weekend, on Saturday, I will run a 1/2 marathon. Over the last 3 months I've been exercising quite much. Or should I say, as much as my left knee allows me. Last autumn I have a look & feel operation in my knee. The doctor concluded that ma patella is in a bad condition at the back side. The soft bone tissue is degraded to a level 2-3. Zero is optimal, 4 is no tissue at all, including constant pain, no active sport, no stair climbing and probebly a new knee. I should also tell that a normal healthy man of my age (50) has a level 1 patella.

So the conclusion was, no jogging, swimming, cycling are much more appropriate sports when it comes to my knees. At the revalidation I contacted a physiotherapist. He explained, jogging we have a try. So I got exercises and started to jog after 2 months. First short distances, later longer ones. On top of that there were 2 things to do: a) "listen" to my knees, if they hurt, don't jog and do something else b) run only on "soft" tracks like grass/lawn, forest etc. avoid any hard tracks.

So I did and it worked out great. I run a bit less than last year (120 km/month), only soft tracks and attended a clinic to prepare for this 1/2 marathon. For 1,5 weeks ago I tested my condition in a 15 km run. I managed in 1:17:06, which is pretty ok, since I had fever 2 days before. Average speed 11,7 km/hr. The picture was made just 2 km before the finish line. You can see some sign of fatigue..



Next Saturday I hope to finish at about 1:50, which means 11,6 km/hr. I keep you posted.

Stay save, Oculus

Sentiments.....

Dear reader,

Today a short post about how I feel....well kind of sentimental....the weather is great, finally after a long, I say too long winter ending. Outside it's finally more than 15 degrees Celsius. You might imagine that I don't long after work...instead my thought run away with me in fact all day.

The picture I took this afternoon visualizes want I really wanted to do. Let me tell you:

1. The bottle is a small plastic bottle with syrup. Soon, in 1,5 hour, I start a 90 minute jogging run.
2. The bottle is of the brand Perfekta, a Swedish company making bottle belts for runners. Sweden reminds me of my 3 yrs stay in Småland, lond and winding roads and endless forests..wow what a country........I would love to move there again...
3. The clear blue sky in the back of the picture shows how beautiful the weather is today, it's too much of a pity to stay inside
4. The phone on the right is an old GSM phone from 2001 or so.... as I work a lot with phones (telecom industry) it's museum part right now, however only 7 years old..

How about your thoughts?

Have a nice day, Oculus

Jogging

Dear reader,

Like many others in the (Western) World, I like to keep in a good physical shape. So I care about my nutrition (healthy and too much), don't smoke, drink alcoholic only occasionally and try to do my exercises, mostly jogging.

When I was young I started with speed skating, later cycling and as a student (already 30 years ago) jogging/running. Upto 2003 I ran 1-2 time a week, for about 5 - 10 km (3,5 - 7 miles). During that year many things happened in my live and I looked for a way to not only stay healthy, but also stay mentally well. And from the past I knew that lond distance running felt good. So I increased the number of training sessions and the distance as well.

So from 2003 I train 3 times a week, steadily increasing from 7,5 (5) to 10-11 km (7,5 - 8 miles)per training. Summing up the total during 2006 I made over 1500 km. In 2007 I was not able to do so much, because of an injury. I have/had heel spurs and nowadays I can cope with that and I'm very glad about that fact.

At some occasions each year I like to run events. From 7 - half marathon distance. On Dec 31 there is always a run close to my home town called the “oliebollen race”. 7,2 km cross country running. I have been participating 4 times in a row now and due to the changing weather conditions this time of the year, each year was different. Snow and ice, wind (almost storm) and rain, frost and warm temperatures.

The Dutch landscape

At the start

Cross country

Oculus