Stef's first ½ Marathon while sponsoring TASK™: Team Activities for Special Kids

At Solutia , we rely on ingenuity, productivity and performance to help improve the safety, comfort and energy efficiency of products used around the world. We also believe in promoting exercise as one way of achieving a healthy work-life balance. As a global company headquartered in St. Louis, we're proud to be the title sponsor of the 2011 St. Louis Rock 'n' Roll Marathon & ½ Marathon, and are looking forward to being part of a great race weekend focused on fun, fitness and music.

Team Activities for Special Kids, or TASK™ , is focused on creating a safe, accepting environment, where special young athletes have the opportunity to enjoy sports, recreation and social activities.

My Running Log

Week9 Good start with 3 times 3km runs
Week10 OK, went skiing with family, no running opportunities
Week11 NOK, need motivation, meanwhile charging batteries
Week12 OK, restarted with 3 km runs, preparing for longer distances (first Solutia group run week 13 scheduled)
Week13 Excellent running week with 3 times 5 km runs
Week14 OK, maintaining momentum with 3 times 5 km runs
Week15 Poor form being frustrated at work, in week-end able to run longest distance yet (6,5km)
Week16 Good week with 3 runs while increasing distance
Week17 Average week as also 4 days in UK with too many dinners and alcohol :-( Two runs only, though longer distances (7,3km), but at cost of some speed loss.
Week18 NOK, only one run
Week19 Again NOK, only one run, did got upto longest distance sofar, 7,5km, running with 4 colleages at work. Will have to change something to continue, therefor scheduled for next week is a 5km race in Gent, first offical race ever! End of June there is a 15km race at night in Gent which I intend to participate as well ... motivate ... motivate ...
Week20 Big week! 4 runs of which one race (5km, ended 353th on 506, fasted speed sofar @ 11km/hr), ran longest distance (8km) this week, as well as did more then 20km during this week! Feels all a bit better now … Need to increase distance sooner then trainingschedule due to 15km midsummernight race ... OK fun goes above strict schedule.
Week21 Good week, distance increased to 10km (twice)! Does start to hurt somewhat, therefor only 2 runs this week.
Week22 After last week running, heavy pain at shin-bones! To avoid injury (infection) took quite week to recover, therefor only one running and low distance. Hope things go better again next week. Training scheduled adjusted, targetted 500km but had planned 800km and was probably building up to fast. Now new training schedule for 500km.
Week23 Too late for preparing to run 12,5 or 15km this week, while having 15km race next week … Therefor increasing running distance from last week 5km to only 8km. Will do next week a running of a slow 10km, then 5km, and finally hope for the best for saterdays race of 15km …
Week24 OK with 10km (slow) and 5km (fast) runs early in the week, then resting for 15 km midsummernight race in Gent (never run longer then the 10km runs in the past 3 weeks). 15km race on saterdaynight 10pm, windy and somewhat cold, luckily it stayed dry. Now running with heartbeat measurement. Took it easy at 155-160bpm for first half of race, then continued running at somewhat faster pace with one of my colleagues at 170bpm. The last 2km were tough, went on to past some runners in the last km, heartbeat up to 180-185bpm (exhausting) at finish. Made it in 1hr 34min and 35 sec, speed 9,5 km/hr (faster then the 8,8km/hr target I have for the 1/2 marathon - finish within 2hrs 30min). Now resting because legs are really stiff ...
Week25 Quite week, recuperating from last week, with only one 5k training.
Week26 Building up training again (slowly) with 2 training runs of 5k and 7,5k each (good speed). Preparing for running 10k or more next week … hopefully :-)
Week27 Okidoki, doing OK with again 2 training runs 7,5k and 10k each (speed still OK). Should be going for 3 runs next week, the last one 12,5k if possible …
Week28 Change of plans, 2 runs of which last one is race of 10,5km in local town. Race was fast ... Ran initially good, unfortunate too fast (10,6 km/hr) and pulled calf muscle while completing last 2km.
Week29 Not able to run due to injury :-( Decided to rest until August 1st.
Week30 Still resting due to injury, hoping to restart next week.
Week31 Tried to run again, unfortunate calf muscle hurting again after 0,5km of running. Decided to quite running for longer period. Since going on vacation in Corsica (expecting hot weather and thus not ideal for running), decided to continue resting until September 1st (keeping finger crossed).
Week32 Resting due to injury
Week33 Vacation at Corse (France): resting body and hopefully healing calf muscle, while enjoying too much eating and drinking (last chance, need serious workout in weeks 35-41 to make marathon running in week 42).
Week34 Last week of vacation at Corse. Did one hiking trip in mountains (4hrs) without calf muscle pain, therefor hopeful for next week restart of running (and start of healthy food and no more alcohol until week 43 … one exeption allowed week 38 - 50yr Solutia Gent anniversary party: allow myself 2 glasses).
Week35 Running succesfully! Running slow to avoid re-injury, and managed to run 7,5k and 9,5 (stopped before 10 as felt something in calf muscle). Hope this is a good restart.
Week36 2nd week: again did slower then usual, managed 7,5k and this time 11k (started for 10, then wanted 12,5 since going OK, but passed my home at 11 and died …). Shoot for 12,5 or 15k next week … :-)
Week37 Only able to put one run in, 15km, back where I was end of June … Somewhat dizzy however, and knies hurting, therefor going for new and better running shoes (and yes the ones I had were not good enough - not enough support on inside of feet where my pressure points were ...)
Week38 Shooting for another 15k or 17,5 to up the distance, however exhausted after 10k (started too fast but especially too warm wheather). As a result after 10k, hartbeat at 190, and I had to stop (had to be carefull or no running in US).
Week39 Already one run of 5k to relax muscles, I'm shooting for a SLOW 20k on Sunday (it's only so hot so need to wait for late evening) to get some milleage, and especially the confidence I can make it … Weeks 40 and 41 are for running frequent small distances (5k) to keep muscles flexible ... that's what I'm told anyhow :-) OK, ran the 20km ... slow, even slower then I wanted ... as it hurted as hell (everything, especially knies) in those last 5km :-( OK, now I know I can make it at this pace ... but it will hurt again probably ... maybe could speed up in last miles and make that time of 2,5 hours ...
Week40 Big rest from last weeks 20km. Short run at fast speed to relax muscles. Exactly 2 weeks to go !
Week41 Taking it easy now in preparation of 1/2 marathon race, one small 5k run.
Week42 Departure for St-Louis on Thursday. In total some 250 Solutia runners from worldwide sites/offices gather in Hilton hotel. Thursday evening we have a cheese-wine evening to get to know everyone, apart from our large Belgium group (20), also big participation from Brasil, Germany and of course US. Next to the hotel, there is a baseball worldseries game ongoing (2nd game of max. 7 in final - St-Louis Cardinals against Texas Rangers, we can watch from hotelrooms, St-Louis wins and will eventually win the final as well with 4-3 !). Friday we have a rooftop VIP reception with Solutia topmanagement, Taskforce- and Competor Marathon organisators. This is followed by a Rock concert nearby with Five for Fighting. Saturday is even more impressive, Solutia holds an evening dinner with all St-Louis based employees + all runners at the arch museum (gateway to the west). Good music, excellent food and trips up into the arch ! Not staying too long, need rest for next day race. Sunday morning getting up at 5am. Breakfast, followed by gathering in Solutia VIP tent near the startline. Some more breakfast, drinks and toilets ! Race starts at 7:30am. There are 22,000 runners, we start off in blocks of 1,000, I'm in block 16. There is a rockband at every mile, lot's of spectators, lot's of cheers, lot's of music, it's fun ! I'm starting quick, 6min per km, too quick. Difficult terrain, it's going up and down all the time. First 10 km goes fine, then starting to get tired and running slower (6,5 min per km), meanwhile taking every opportunity toi grab water and/or energy drinks. The last 5km are difficult, going up too often, completely exhausted, now running 7min per km. Arrived in 2hr20min, I knew I could do 2hr45, I hoped for 2hr30, this was great !!! Getting medal, pictures and off back to the Solutia VIP tent ... one more energy drink, some pasta and with that champagne !!! 15 Gent runners have arrived from 1/2 marathon, we are waiting for the 5 remaining who are running the full marathon ... thus we keep drinking champagne and telling stories, while enjoying the sun ! The 5 full marathon runners arrive, they are in much worser shape at least for 4 of them, it was long and especially hard with the lot's of climbs. The day ends with another great Italian restaurant diner with the Gent team. The day after we return to Brussels. Great experience !
Week43 Heh heh - want to continue running, but will stick to 5k - 10k max. (minding especially knies).

My Running Space                                                                                   (updated October 30th, 2011)

How I'm doing in preparation for the ½ Marathon, scheduled October 23th in St-Louis, US.

                                                                                                                                                              DONATION

My Personal Objectives:
- Collect personnaly 500€ donation in sponsoring TASK™ (+1,000€ by company sponsoring)
- Healthier lifestyle, loose weight by 5kg from 74kg (Feb'11) to 69kg (Oct'11)
- Run a minium of 500km in preparation
- Run and finish the ½ marathon
- Run the ½ marathon in 2,5 hours


My Weight
Feb.28th Week9
Now Week42
 Target Oct.23th
74kg
72kg (-2)
 69kg
Running Km's
Now Week42
 Target Oct.23th
353km
 500km

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