7 Marathons Challenge – Marathon 1; Gent, Belgium. 25/09/11

After many weeks of planning we have arrived at day 1 of Kevin’s 7 Marathons Challenge and what a nice day it turned out to be….well, nice for the spectators, maybe a little warm for those running.  The day dawned bright and sunny and promised to be a hot one.  After an early breakfast, Kevin went back to his room to get ready for running and I took a wander out of the hotel along the banks of the river outside.

Kevin with colleagues from Belgium.

At 9 we were collected from the hotel by one of Kevin’s colleagues from the Gent Site who took us to the Flanders Sports Stadium to meet up with Eva whose privilege it had been to be the local coordinator for the Belgium Leg. Quite fortuitously, we had chosen to be in Gent on the same day that the Gent Marathon was taking place and it seemed too good an opportunity to miss running in this large event and a number of other employees from the site were joining in doing various distances from 5km up to the Full Marathon.  Others also came along to simply support Kevin and there was quite a party atmosphere as Kevin prepared to run.

Multi-tasking....stretching AND texting !

Kevin with Jackie and Marie Claire

10am was the start of the Full Marathon and about 400 hardy souls set off on this distance including Kevin and two of his colleagues from Belgium, Marie Claire and Jackie.

On your marks....get set....go!

Half way round.

The marathon course was made up of two loops around a 21km route which turned out to be a very pleasant run for Kevin around the streets of the Gent suburbs and along the banks of the rivers and canals that crisscross the city.  Being two loops we were able to support the runners as the passed the sports centre at the end of their first lap and Kevin reached this half way point in a very respectable time of 2 hours on 10 minutes.  With the day getting hotter and legs getting more tired, the second half was a little slower and Kevin came in to the finish in 4 hours and 33 minutes, well ahead of his target time of 5 hours…..hopefully he won’t pay for this extra pace tomorrow !

One race completed....6 to go!

After a warm down stretch and a large bowl of pasta it was back to the hotel for the dreaded ice bath to help the recovery of aching muscles.  Two large buckets of ice acquired from the bar, Kevin disappeared back to the room…..he claims to have stayed in the bath for 23 minutes but I declined the offer of timing him on this particular part of his adventures !

It was then back into the hire car for the 2 hour journey to Waalwijk in Holland where we are staying tonight.  Maybe not surprisingly, it was quite a quiet drive as Kevin slept a good portion of the way.  We are also beginning to confirm one of our pre event ideas that perhaps the biggest challenge we face this week is to get enough calories into Kevin to fuel him through his running and we are pretty much taking every opportunity we get to stop for some food….I need to be very careful, if I eat as much as Kevin I will be rather large by the end of this week and I am not burning quite the same number of calories.

This evening we met up with Jacqueline, the lucky coordinator of the event tomorrow at the Dongen Site.  Over a quick drink (and more food) we had a quick check over the plans for tomorrow before heading off for some well-earned sleep !


......and don't forget.....you can still donate here !!!!

Distance travelled today:  150km
Total distance travelled:  875km


Distance run by Kevin today:  42.2 km