Vaals-Venlo Estafetteloop (relay race)

This week was a low mileage week. I did easy runs on Wed, Fri and Sat. Thursday I did not run at all because I was very busy with work and also had a function that night. It was probably a good idea to take a complete day off because the legs and body were feeling fatigue the previous days.

I mentioned in my last post that I decided not to run the US Army Europe 10-Mile qualifying race yesterday because it was just too far (5-hour drive). However, what I didn't mention was that I would run one leg in a relay race on Sunday (today) instead. The Dutch running club I train with on Tuesday nights asked me to run Paul's leg because he is injured. I figured that since I wasn't going to run the USAREUR 10M, then I'd run in the relay race. The relay race, 25th Vaals-Venlo Estafetteloop (sorry, it's in Dutch), is a 100 kilometer (62 miles) race consisting of 7 runners. It's a stagger start with slower teams starting at 8am and other teams starting in increments of 5 minutes (total of 55 teams). Our team (Wilma Running Team) started last at 0905 and was the favorite to win.

I ran the 3rd leg, which according to the race program is 17.4Km (10.8 miles) and probably one of the toughest legs with quite a bit of rolling hills. My Garmin 405 measured the course at 10.7 miles, which may be a bit off because the course runs through lots of tree canopies. Regardless, I ran a good leg and felt strong the entire time, especially on the hills. I ran 59:50 (5:32 pace or 3:26/km) and was the fastest in the 3rd leg. I was very fortunate to have many runners ahead of me because it gave me some motivation to catch and pass runner after runner. I'm not sure who won because I didn't tag along for the remainder of the relay due to other committments. However, we were in the lead when I finished my leg.

Here's the weekly summary:

22-28 June

Mon: Noon - 7M @ 7:12 pace including 7 x 10 sec. hill sprints; PM - 5M @ 7:13 pace
Tues: Noon - 3M @ 7:23 pace; PM - 8M including 15 x 300m w/ 100m recovery
Wed: 8M @ 7:03 pace
Thur: DNR
Fri: 10.6M @ 6:54 pace
Sat: 6.6M @ 7:02 pace
Sun: 10.8M @ 5:32 pace (Vaals-Venlo relay leg); 14M total

Weekly Total: 62 miles