Duivelse Uitdaging #1 and #2

If you dance with the devil you should not be afraid to burn your fingers

The Devil and someone else

This was #1:

51 days for 666 km

This was #2:

44 days for 666 km

In total I lost 79 days of my life to this bullshit. 79 days for 1332 km means 16.86 km/d. Not too bad at all. Although it was sometimes fun and I am easily motivated by stupid things it was also a challenge. I learned the hard way what it means to just ignore all arguments and just get things done. No matter what nice things could have been the alternatives. No matter how much I hated it sometimes to not just run as long as I wanted but to run as long as it was needed to cross out the next distance of that funny lists. I encountered it with a new mental strategy. You start a run of lets say 33.30 km and you force yourself to think of something nice the first 28 km of the run. By that you really forget that you are running and by this basically just “wait” until its over. To endure is a big part of endurance. And this is no coincidence. The last 5 km you enjoy your short run. Now I am afraid of that point in future I will use this strategy in a real race.

But lets forget about this. Thanks Maarten for the fun. Enough is enough and done is done. I am so tired of checking an Excel sheet before I start a run, so tired of starting the run with putting a distance goal on the watch (does it even works without entering something there?) and so tired of not being “allowed” to just run as long as I want. It was a good mental exercise but it is time to say goodbye.

I am going back to where I belong. Into the woods, into the void and into the endlessness. Hoping to meet a few people out there to run some tracks together and to come back destroyed but with tons of nice stories to tell.

Final Countdown 2019

It will be the end of an interesting year 2019: only 4 days and a few hours on this final countdown. What is announced as to be “just the best Christmas party” will be a 100 Mile race in Belgium. And whatever they say: those are never easy.

It will be extremely dark with a dark start at 4 a.m. on Saturday, a few brighter hours and probably/hopefully a finish before the sun comes up the second time. Plus, if the weather forecast is not lying: it will be pretty wet too.

Good to know that I will be with M. again. We spend a nice time together during The Great Escape and learned how to survive while time is ticking.

One last effort to finish Ultra number 4 in 2019 and to finish run number 2 in the Legends Trails Grand Slam. Bring it on – stay tuned for the live-tracking link!