Friends and Family (and anyone else), welcome back! I’ve recently set my sights on a new big challenge, and a quick discussion with Ingrid resulted in confirmation that enough people got enough enjoyment out of following my adventures this past year in training for 2010’s Bataan Memorial Death March that I should continue on with the training blog as I get ready for the Next Big Thing™. I have waffled back and forth with doing Bataan again, but have waffled recently more towards the idea of doing something different this year. I’m fairly certain I’ll do Bataan again…it was just that good…but I don’t want to get into a rut with doing the same thing year after year. I’d like some new, some different. That something new and different presented itself this past weekend.
At a recent family reunion in upstate NY (hello Hydes, Travises, Heggoys, Berggreens, Richards and Zepps!) a contingent of Ingrid’s cousins from Norway were there and spent time conspiring about how to get the Zepp family to Norway next summer. The Evil Plotters brought up the Vierdaagse, otherwise known as The International Four Day Marches in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. I heard “four day march”, diligently fired up the iPad and was hooked in minutes. The idea as proposed by the Evil Plotters was for the family to fly to Norway and spend a few weeks experiencing and learning about their Norse heritage, while Jerry flies off to The Netherlands for a week of pain and then back to Norway for the rest of the “vacation”.
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Four_Days_Marches_Nijmegen), the Vierdaagse began in 1909 and has run every year since with the exception of 2006 and the years of WWII. It moved to being based out of Nijmegen, Netherlands in 1916 and has been headquartered there every year since. Attendance has gotten larger and larger over the years, and the event is now recognized as the world’s largest marching event, drawing just short of 50,000 participants these past several years. Once upon a time, this was almost solely a military event, but these days it is mostly civilian…although militaries from around the world do send units every year.
There are multiple options for walking the event, including civilian categories in the 30km/day, 40km/day and 50km/day, as well as a military category at 40km/day with a 10kg pack. Each day takes you to a new city, starting with Nijmegen to Elst on Tuesday, Elst to Wijchen on Wednesday, Wijchen to Greosbeek on Thursday and Greosbeek to the Via Gladiola in Cuijk on Friday. Being who I am, there is no question that I will be doing this thing in the 50km/day category…with the 10kg pack. Just ‘cuz.
I will be making a few changes to what I cover and when in the blog this year, having learned a few things about blog maintenance last year. This year, I will not commit to making an update every week, mostly because there just isn’t something interesting to say every single week. I will still break down a weekly coverage of events, particularly body weight, distances covered, workout overviews and that kind of thing…just don’t expect them to be posted each week.
As far as training goals; I haven’t quite figured that one out yet. I need to do more reading on what to expect. I’m formulating a plan as to the highlights of what I need to do, and I’m starting off with a much better general physical fitness state this year. I think in general I’m going to need to extend endurance and work on multi-day body wear and tear. I’m looking at back to back 30 milers for four days in a row. That’s going to take some doing. Fortunately, the pack will be lighter than Bataan, and the strength work I’ve done over the past year I believe will carry me through…I’m just going to have to maintain it.
My current thinking on this is that I need to acclimate my body to heavy stress workouts repeated over multiple days. In the interest of time management (simply because it takes a damn long time to walk 30 miles) I may be concentrating quite a bit on pack runs, relying on the extra weight to stress out the legs in lieu of the longer mileage. Again, I need to think about that some more.
There are going to be some interesting logistical problems to work out as well, such as where to sleep (I think I’m going to be packing a tent), what to eat, how to communicate, whether or not I will be able to blog during the course of the event (that was an unexpected big hit with Bataan, lots of people followed on the “day of”), whether or not Apple makes an iPhone charger that plugs into those funky European wall sockets, whether or not I’ll be able to find any funky European wall sockets, that kind of thing. Should be interesting, and I’m bound to learn a lot.
The Stats: My current body weight is 154 lbs. I’ve dropped about 6 lbs. since the beginning of April, having kept up a fairly heavy workout regimen. I cut back on weight lifting to about twice per week just for maintenance after Bataan and greatly decreased my running (had an interesting bout with several different –itis’s in the right ankle) but greatly increased time on the mountain bike for the past several months, with multiple weeks in the 120+ mile/week range.
That’s it for now. I’ve got 11 months and counting to train in as the event starts on the 3rd Tuesday of July each year. I think it’s doable.
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