Brussels running

I was in Brussels for work on Monday and Tuesday this week and I'd packed my running kit to keep up the training schedule despite being away from home. I've got a bit of a reputation at work now and am known as a running fanatic. Personally, I think that this reputation is a bit exagerated as anyone who runs regularly knows plenty of other runners who are more hardcore, more excessive, more fanatic than them. I see plenty at the club who run further per week, who run longer races up to 120km across the hills, who race more often than me and as such I consider myself as "normal". Unfortunately, it appears that running clubs are already perceived as exceptional havens for running fanatics, and runners who attend only judge themselves by the fanatics they train with.

Anyway, whatever my own opinion of myself, I'm perceived as excessive by my work colleagues. Luckily, there are other runners who also pack their kit when travelling and I knew that Bruce would be there this week and that he would probably accept to go running with me. Bruce and I and a few others had dinner together on Monday night and as I went to the bar for a last coffee, I noted that Bruce had slipped away off to his bedroom without organising a meeting time for a run. My last ally had deserted me. Not to be thwarted, I e-mailed him accusing him of backing out and he gave in to my hassling, arranging to go for a run at 6:00 am the next morning. I checked out google maps for a suitable route and the run was on.

We met in the hotel lobby the next morning for the run and the weather had turned distinctly colder. There was a layer of frost on the cars in the hotel carpark and we headed outside with a little trepidation, fearing the bitter nip as the cold hits the body before you start running and warming up. It was not easy to find a good route to run as we were staying at the Holiday Inn near the airport and any paths in the direction of the airport were impractible whereas in the other directions, main roads were the barriers.

We headed out of the office zone and across some tracks through the fields. We were running at just below 12 km/h and I was enjoying the pace, and feeling guilty that I wasn't running my 2 x 30' at marathon pace as specified in the marathon training. We reached the end of the countryside paths and hit the main road and after 1.5km, we turned around and headed back so that Bruce could get to his first meeting. We got back to the hotel after 45 minutes and 8.5 km and I headed back out for a couple of laps of a 2km loop that I discovered, running both of these at around 15 km/h before calling it a day and stopping at the hotel.

13.1km all up in just under 1:03 so an average of 4:48 per km.