Month total 1612

808 minutes ahead of the 1200 per month schedule now.  So about 20 days 'normal' running as reserve. 

Dusk Run

59 min
Start 20.00

 

First run since the birthday 50k, but lots of cycling on Monday and Tuesday.  From Wednesday I've had a bit of a cold but that seems to have faded now so I felt able to go out for a run this evening.  The Friday night skating event was going past as I crossed the Biltstraat on the way out of town.

Birthday Run

Am preparing this on Wednesday 15th August in Utrecht, hoping it will automagically post itself on the afternoon of my birthday.  This is the Garmin map I made of the route I want to run.  There are a few kilometers 'extra' in it for if I wander a bit off-route on the south side at any point; from the other side of the bridge the Fife Coastal Path should be marked. The plan is to end on Pettycur beach and if I still have some kilometers to go before my Garmin says I've run 50 k I'll run through Kinghorn up to the loch and end there instead.  Will report at some point if all this went to plan.
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Monday 27th Run went well yesterday, perfect weather, lots of stops for photos and birthday text messages.  Bobby met me in Inverkeithing with a top up of food and drink and the present I'd put in my bag from Carin to unwrap on the way and Tanya provided us all with a champagne picnic on Pettycur Beach at the end. There was even a medal and a souvenier t-shirt! More techno details when I get back home and can process the Garmin data.

Thursday 30th August
Back in Utrecht.  This is the actual trail I followed in the end.

Time:	7:08:26
Moving Time:	6:41:42
Elapsed Time:	8:31:50

Avg Speed:	7.0 km/h
Avg Moving Speed:	7.5 km/h

As can be seen from the Garmin stats, I took it easy, lots of breaks for photos and phone texts along the way.
Starting at Max's house in Broughton, down through the dark scarey path to the coast (which wasn't as scarey and full of drunks and druggies as I'd suspected it might be when I did the reccie on the bike on Friday).  Ended zigzagging about the sands at Pettycur for a while at the end to make up some missing kilometers where I accidentally pushed the stop button somewhere around Aberdour - I don't understand why there isn't a 'keylock' option on the Garmin to prevent this happening.  Off to post some of the photos I took along the way now.     





 



   

 Brief panic here when I thought I would

  be sent back but soon realised it was

only 8.30 and so I'd be past

before the shore walk was closed.

Downton Abby lookalike, Dalmeny House

 
 

 

 

 

Another runner on the
muddy path up from Braemar.

 

 

Burntisland

Ditched my shoes here.

 

 

 

Tanya lighting the sparklers.

 

Ruigenhoekse polder

115 min
Start 6.00

Used the Garmin find-a-point system to get the most direct route back to the park I'd found and marked as a location point last week.  Ran out there through the town and then back via Groenekan. 

Barefoot and Friesan

80 min
Start 6.00

Another run in the park - this time doing circuits on the grassy paths through the fields.

Week total 356

Earnwâld

94 min
Start 6.00

Trotted about the nature park in Friesland where we were staying for the weekend. 

Following the track (or not)

115 min

Start 8.00

Anther experimental run with track following, the route I'd run being divided up into different parts by the Garmin as I switched between Route and Running displays.  But every time I go out I learn something new with it.

Map test

79 min
Start 5.30

Just tried to save the map image from the garmin data but that doesn't seem to work as I'd hoped it would... Ah well, run was slowed down by the sandy bits on the bridle path. Fairly standard pre-sunrise Groenekan/De Bilt circuit with dozy cows in the mist and the occasional hare. 

Later: with PrintScreen and then saving to Paint and cutting and saving as image I did finally manage to extract a usable map from the data.

Test run with planned route

40 min
Start 20.30

Finally found where the long route I'd stored on Saturday actually was in my Garmin.  Rather than being under Navigation/Routes, it was under Training/Routes.  So fiddled with that whilst out, just to see how it worked as I followed a path which touched on the 'to follow' route only occasionally.  Ended up accidentally dividing my run into 3 sections.  But at least I feel I'm a step further in learning how to work with the technobeast. 

Saw this poster for a production of Macbeth in Wijk on the way home but it's on when I'm in Edinburgh so I won't be able to see what a Dutch translation makes of that.

Dead Slow Recovery

28 min
Start 19.30

Planned to do a circuit of the cemetery just to shake the lactic acid out of my legs from Saturday's long run but it was shut so just meandered about Bloeyendaal before getting back in time for the Olympic highlights stuff. 

11 day total 601

Long runs starting to add up now. 

31k

240 min
Start 5.15

 
Apparantly the route I thought I'd planned and loaded onto the Garmin last night wasn't actually on it this morning so just set off in roughly the direction I'd planned.  One road under the motorway was a dead end and so I ended up going to Maartensdijk and back instead.  Pace sunk noticeably in wet grass and sandy bits.