Changing waves and the rollercoaster of life

When I wrote the first part of this blog it was 28^th May and we made an inline skating tour of 47 km at Hoevelaken. That week and the week before that I have been skating in total at least 114 km and also made 35 km on a bike and at spinning class.

On Monday there was spinning class, one hour and 23 km, on Tuesday I went out skating to do at least a marathon distance and tried to make it within 2 hours. I started at the right pace but failed at the last 5 km to keep it up. I finished in a time of 2:05:01, again a better time and I know the 2:00:00 limit will fall within a month. Later that week I was skating a half marathon distance in 00:50:52, OK with the wind in my back but it felt good.

For the first time I was able to keep up my pace within 02:15 minutes for 11 km and even had enough energy left to speed up for the final 5 km again. And today I was skating with wind up front and good hold the pace around 03:00 for a very long time. We caught up some guys on our way who were struggling with the wind and saw us coming up. They asked if they could hook up with us and of course we allowed them to do so.

Last year (and this year) we usually started to skate in the direction the wind was blowing to, to avoid skating with head wind. For some time now I feel strong enough to skate either way and have enough power and energy to skate lower and faster. If I can keep this up I feel that I can make the NSIM within 01:30:00 and 01:45:00 especially while the road is more smooth as it is in our town, you can draft a good pace line if you’re lucky and most of the time it is a descending track.

I have looked at Christine Spurrs’ time before NSIM 2011 and her time at NSIM, there was a huge difference in time. I have decided to change my goals again and by the end of June I will make my final choice in which wave I will start in September at NSIM.

I have come from a long way, in 2006 my left knee wouldn’t move anymore, first they thought it was damaged  a damaged meniscus, but it turned out to be a piece of bone that was broken inside my knee. It took me seven months to get on the ice again and almost a year before I could play field hockey again and that because of a very small motorcycle accident a few years before that.

The operation to replace the piece of bone succeeded luckily very well, but running gives too much pressure on my knee. Therefore I chose for ice speed skating and inline skating as my new major sports.

I am not planning to become a professional speed skater (I am too old to start with becoming one :)), but I am eager enough to look for the best time I can get and keep on trying to improve myself. I have to thank my son for taking me out once last year, that made me change my mind again on inline skating.

Due to family matters and a flu I caught this week I wasn’t able to do some training. This week was a sad week for our family, my wife’s mother died on June 1^st in the early morning hours after an intense week of suffering, suppressed by morphine.

Her funeral was last Thursday and we are convinced she finally found her peace. She had a hard life with lots of bad things that happened to her and with her family. We will remember her fighting spirit that she showed us.

Ed van Harmelen

June 2012

Achievements	Goals 2012	So far achieved	2011
Weight goal	87.0 kg	99.2 kg	107.0 kg
Weight loss	20.0 kg	7.8 kg	5.0 kg
Kcal burned	200,000 Kcal	111,257 Kcal	48,500 Kcal
Distance exercises Skating distance	3,600 km. 2,500 km.	2,063 km. 1,029 km.	1,600 km. 737 km.
Best time half marathon (skeelers)	45:00	0:50:52	1:04:04
Best time marathon (skeelers)	1:45:00	2:05:01	2:37:36