This Thursday wrapped up my last run of the week on American soil, which is good news because it means Janel and I are off to a vacation! Cheers to our adventure from the Austin airport!

We are off to the Czech Republic and Luxembourg for a week. As they say in Czech, Wooohoooo! I’m sure their woohoo has to be the same as here. Everyone likes a good ‘Woohoo’. Anyways, Janel and I have never been to this side of Europe and we are excited I’m super excited to see a friend of ours visiting us from Germany and embracing the cooler weather. She’s pretty excited to see our friend too but less excited for the cooler weather. At least Texas heat will be waiting for us once we are back.

What this means for running, we shall see. I hope to do some training by getting lost in Prague and Luxembourg city and make it back to our hotels in one piece. My next post will verify if that actually happens or not. Janel is looking to get some runs in too so we will be trying to find some 2-3 mile loops around the hotels we stay at.

Finishing Up USA Training

My last week in Texas featured my biggest amount of elevation gain in a week period in quite awhile. Well, my best prediction of it anyway. In April of 2020, I had covered over 11,000 feet of elevation gain in the month which would average out to be around 2,566 feet of elevation gain in a week. It may have been a little more or less in a certain week of April but we will stick with that number. I certainly haven’t don’t more in a week since April of 2020. The beginning of Covid had me away from others and so I spent a lot of time climbing the local mountain.

I had two big runs in that week I was pretty happy with. I ran (glorified jog) up the Hill of Death, which has beat me up many times this summer, and managed to get up five times one day and six the next attempt. A personal record of suffering! The sixth attempt put me over 1,600 feet in one go. Oof-da. That puts me at 5% of climbing the height of Mt. Everest.

Between those two runs, my elevation gain was over 3,000 feet and if I were a gambling man, I would wager that I would be super sore on the plane. Bad pre-flight decision? Probably. Maybe one day I won’t be the middle seat in basic economy. Back to the running. The first run of five times didn’t hurt too bad which means my hill attempts are getting better. It still was tough so no doubt about that. I have no idea how I would get up this hill 102 more times if it were to be the Everest challenge…

I got in a smaller run on Tuesday (1 mile) and Thursday (2.6) miles with less elevation gain but still got my milaege up to 17 miles for the week before the flight. It was an average of at least 4 miles per day so I was not unhappy with that. The next run would be in Prague, very exciting!

In the last week of running, I managed a total of 17.8 miles and 3,536 feet of elevation gain. Not too shabby for kicking off marathon/Everest training. I saw a professional runner’s data that I follow and he got in 27,000 feet of elevation gain in a week with 95 miles of running. Something tells me he could summit Everest no problem. At least I got a fun vacation planned!

Goodbye Texas, Hello Europe!

Janel and I waved goodbye to the lone star state and flew overnight into London. With an airline meal of mystery meat (chicken I think) and lots of cheeze its (not a sponsor, I wish), I probably gained a few pounds before the vacation really began. I would be taking the day off of running and Janel and I were probably going to cover quite a few miles of walking between the airports and finding our hotel. I say that is a success in the cross training books.

To wrap things up, greetings from London! I had a traditional breakfast of a cheese bagel and croissant (no idea if it is traditional) it was time to find our next gate! Here is where I need some of your all’s help,

For those that have been to Prague and Luxembourg City, any recommendations for things to do and places to run? Right now, I have two recommendations. My Dad said to check out the big church in Luxembourg so we will see what the locals respond with when I ask them to show me the big church. English is not the local language and I speech no French, German, or Luxembourgish so people really may not understand me.

On the other recommendation, my Mom said to eat some good food. That would be no issue for me. Besides that, we have a whole lot of nothing planned but we are hoping to find some good sights here and there. Which, in Europe, is a pretty easy task.

Hope you all have a fantastic week of running and all I have to say is “Na zdraví and Prost!”