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Newsletter February

Ups and downs, I guess that would be a good way to characterize this month… Things just didn't seem to go in the direction they needed to go.

Early February and my project had stagnated. After two months of promises, people who had said they would help suddenly didn't seem to have time for it any longer. My website had gone nowhere. I had more and more difficulties adjusting to time differences during my travels. My body started showing signs of annoying and returning minor injuries. So there wasn't really much to be cheerful about. But I wasn't going to give up that easily. However, the further February advanced the better things got.

I started having more problems with my right hamstring. I had continuous pain after longer runs. No matter how much I stretched, it kept coming back. So I went to see an osteopath who had helped me before when I suffered a back problem during my time in the military. The outcome of my visit was fairly surprising and where I thought the pain was because of a typical muscle injury, I was told that the pain originated from my liver caused by bad food habits. And I thought I was eating pretty healthy. Apparently I was eating too many dairy products which become toxic to one's body if one does long endurance workouts. So the osteopath put me on a diet of all kinds of natural products (spelt, buckwheat, flax-oil, soy protein, lemons, sauerkraut juice (Yuckie !!) and all kinds of other things). I think it took me about a week to find all these things and by the 3rd week of February I was testing out this new diet just to see how my body would react to it.

But February did have its good moments. I took a week off from work and went skiing with my little girl Renee in Bretton Woods (New Hampshire) and we had a wonderful time together. I even maintained my training at a fairly reasonable level because I alternated skiing with Renee with long runs and hikes in the deep snow, uphill snow shoeing and did interval training by pulling Renee uphill on a tube. It was fun and it was wonderful spending some time with her and with our friends Maryann and Peter!!! Returning home was a little less pleasant because I caught a real bad cold which combined with my eternal jetlag problem took me several days to shake off.

More good news came about through my friend Kelvin Tin in Kuala Lumpur. I managed to get in touch with the President of the RMCC (Ronald McDonald Children's Charity) who had done a similar project in 2005 and who was willing to support my charity project. This was a huge step forward!!!

On Feb 24th another milestone took place in my preparation for the CCC because I had subscribed for a first longer trail race in Belgium. The 'Magnétoise' was a 64 km trail run with 1900 m positive altitude, not quite the same level as the CCC for which I was preparing for, but it would be a good test-run to see how I would manage the distance, how my equipment (shoes, running poles, backpack) would survive the run and if the food I had prepared would provide me with enough energy and won't be too heavy on the stomach.

On Feb 24th another milestone took place in my preparation for the CCC because I had subscribed for a first longer trail race in Belgium. The 'Magnétoise' was a 64 km trail run with 1900 m positive altitude, not quite the same level as the CCC for which I was preparing for, but it would be a good test-run to see how I would manage the distance, how my equipment (shoes, running poles, backpack) would survive the run and if the food I had prepared would provide me with enough energy and won't be too heavy on the stomach.

Very early in the race I started running with Bernard, another Belgian who was preparing himself for the 'Marathon des Sables' (an endurance event over several days in the desert). We had a fairly good rhythm and did the first 37 km in a little over 4 hours, which for a trail run and all the mud we encountered, I thought, wasn't too bad. But then Bernard started suffering from severe stomach cramps and it became very hard for him to run. Since he had been kind enough to run alongside of me until then, I thought it would not be fair to leave him behind and I decided to stay with him till the end. I gave him some of my food, water and electrolytes and we did the last kilometers really easy and finally finished in 8 hrs and 45 minutes. It was nowhere near a good time, but for me, my goal was achieved, and I was happy. I had done the distance, my legs felt relatively ok and my equipment was tested. The backpack was ok, although I would prefer to have a few extra pockets in the front. The shoes were good and even though they were relatively new, I only had a few small blisters and lost 2 toe nails. But the running poles did not pass the test. They were foldable ones, easy to store in a backpack and ultra light. However, one pole broke not even half way through the race so I did the rest of the race without them. Since I usually rely heavily on my running poles I will most probably buy a pair that is fixed, and also less flexible, because for a runner of my weight class the ones I had seemed to be a little too light. It was good that the problem happened during a training run and not during the race itself.

Immediately after the race, I flew back to Geneva because the following day I had to go on duty travel to Japan. The trip was long…nearly 36 hours to reach my final destination in Nagasaki. Needless to say my legs did not feel too good. I spent the remaining days in February resting and giving my body time to recover as much as possible.

MARCH PLANS

March will be a travel month.

After Nagasaki (Japan), I will have to go to Kobe (Japan) until March 8th.

From March 8th until March 16th I will be in China.

From March 17th until March 27th I will be Malaysia where I hope to meet the people of the RMCC (Ronald McDonald Children's Charity) and the Pantai Hospital with whom I will do the project together.

© 2008