Today was just a lot of fun! Despite having some early morning obligations, I found some time for a relaxed easy paced (heartrate zone 2) long run. The weather was just perfect - around 8 c with quite some sunshine.
I wanted to do a new route with some technical elements, I found one that featured paved (road, bikelanes and hiking paths, unpaved (grass, mud including a mountain bike trail) and a small climb.
The pace in heartrate zone 2 felt very relaxed. I finished the run as I had an other event scheduled for later today, but I felt this would allow me to do real long distances (50 - 60k) after the Februari beach marathon without any extra preparation (really looking forward to doing a first ultra in 2026!)
The route I found today was fun, running most of the time next to the water, giving typical Dutch views such as:
I did take some nutrition with me today, at 40 min in I took my first isotonic energy gel (sis), at 80 min in I took a second gel. Because I took my camelbag with me with electrolyte (sis hydro), I could drink a few sips every few minutes. Because I started a bit later than I normally do On Sunday’s I also had some breakfast, so when I returned around lunchtime , I was still having more than enough energy (huge benefit of zone 2 runs!)
This 26k run took my weekly total to 71.2 km running spread over 7 days of running (plus I did 80.9 km cycling). So overall quite happy how this week went!
Happy running!