La Llanera Trail - Sabadell - 42k

Today an "odd" day of training. Sundays have long runs scheduled at a rather high pace, but today I went out for a full marathon on the trails north of Sabadell. Friends that live there are members of the UES (Excursionist Union of Sabadell), helped organize this race. Also the course was unfamiliar for me, and it is always nice to explore new areas while running on trails that one by himself would not easily discover unless guided by the experts in the specific territory.

After the cold last week slowly temperatures have been rising again and for today it seemed like it even could be warm. I stood up early around 6am and soon after left for the train station to take ride to Sabadell Centre. The start of the race was very conveniently situated at some 100m from the last stations of the line and soon after picking up my bib I went to change into running gear. Contrary to the predictions it was rather cold and I walked around to stay warm.

At nine o'clock we were shot away and the pack of some 600 runners slowly picked up pace, apart from the front runners who right from the start set a high pace at this rather runnable course. After a some 10 minutes of running through the centre of Sabadell we go down to the river Ripoll and run along a path on the banks

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MOLEVELT, WOUTER

VetM

02:46:34

04:36:32

The video of the race:

La Llanera Trail 2016 - marató de muntanya - Sabadell from Wouter Molevelt on Vimeo.

Cursa Sant Antoni 10k + 1 mile

Winter is here!! It arrived yesterday, finally!! So now, running in shorts and just a T-shirt on a Sunday morning I will do during race only! After a few minutes of shivering the warming up did exactly that and with only minutes to go to the start I entered my box for the last 10k race before the marathon next March.

The first kilometer was as always, crowded and tricky but I still managed to get it down in 3m45, so a good start for trying to break 39 minutes. Upto the 5k marker I was running fast and well on schedule for doing so, passing in 19m20 with 10 seconds margin, but I knew the second part was harder having more uphill streets. Just before 8k someone tripped me from behind! I did not fall, but it completely broke my rhythm and I passed the 9k marker with 12 seconds above the schedule now and not really feeling like sprinting it completely so I just kept good pace and accelerated the last few hundred meters to finish in 39m08. Still very happy with that. Only some two weeks ago I struggled with 40 minutes so I have improved much in a short time. Now onto the marathon, still 7 weeks of training to go.

This morning Jordi also had race. It was still very cold when he and Montse arrived at the start area. After watching 2 races of younger kids, it was Jordi's turn. He has done so many races now, that he moves around with confidence and even starts to play with how exactly he wants to run. He started in the middle of the pack. The first few runners were way out ahead, the first one finishing well under six minutes. Jordi was in a second spread out group and finished 23rd in 7m06. He said that he was happy with how he ran. Going faster and faster near the end in a controlled way. Next for him is la Cursa del Corte Ingles in April.