That said, it was a good experience. Schoorl is located in the northwest of the Netherlands, right on the coast and consists of a large and well-known area of dunes, making the run far more testing than you’d expect for a Dutch event. It takes about 45 minutes to drive there from Amsterdam, tho being a small village (with quite a large number of racers), you’d be advised to arrive early as parking isn’t so easy and, when you do find a spot, it’s usually a good 10-15 minutes’ walk to the start area.
The problem with an ‘easy training race’ is that there’s a temptation not to take it seriously enough – one that I fell into completely. I had my traditional pre-race breakfast of bulletproof coffee but totally forgot to take any water or the small U-Can drink I’d usually sip on en route to a race. Through some general pissing-about type behavior, I then ended up not having a lot of time before the race start, so I essentially started having a) not topped up glycogen reserves whatsoever after a night’s sleep; b) having drunk nothing but a coffee all morning (11am race start); c) without the new Vega Sport gel (a totally natural, vegan, no added sugar gel I’m trialing… or meaning to trial). Idiot – tho, if I’m going to make stupid mistakes, better at this part of the season, right?
The first third of the run was pretty uneventful as I settled into that pace – the problem with losing run fitness, however, is that even running 30 seconds per km slower than I’d do when run fit felt pretty painful. At around 7km, the course becomes quite rolling, as it works through the dunes. It’s very pretty. By this point, I’d found a nice group to run with and I kept within this pack until around 12k. That’s when this run gets really tough – with some fairly decent uphill sections compounded by the fact that it’s extremely open here, with a strong headwind.
I was feeling pretty good and so decided to test myself on the hills, and steadily passed more and more people as I picked up the pace. It was painful but I enjoyed testing myself and felt pretty strong considering the lack of running in my legs. The final 3k headed back into the village and flattened out, and I picked up the pace a little more. Finishing in 1:37 with an average pace of 4:37/km… again, no great shakes in the wider scheme of things, but a solid performance for right now.
I managed a couple of sips of water as I went around but I find drinking in shorter races particularly hard, so they were more a case of wetting the lips. This just goes to show how little nutrition and hydration is needed when you’re well fat adapted. I didn't eat anything other than the BPC (all fat, zero carbs) between dinner the night before and lunch at about 2:30pm once I got back to Amsterdam.
So, on the whole, I’m glad I raced in spite of the fitness levels. It is something of an ego-bashing to be running 10 minutes further down the field than you’d like/know you could be. But that’s a lesson in and of itself. Plus, it was a great training session – there’s no way I’d have pushed so hard if just out running solo. More importantly, it’s a benchmark. Although running isn’t a main focus right now, I’ll aim to run more consistently over the next few weeks and I have another half marathon in the middle of March, where I’ll know if and how much I’m progressing if I knock a whole chunk off the Schoorl time. And if I remember to drink before the race!