Illustrations

  Remember the strange birds I mentioned two days ago? It turns out they were spoonbills!!

  So, I prepared to go for a run, checked a weather-app to make sure it was not going to rain (it showed me a blue sky for the next hour, no hint of rain whatsoever). I left the house,

  Today I saw some very strange birds (or odd ducks if you want) along my usual route. They were further away than this drawing suggests, I am also not totally sure if they were wearing hats and purses. I

  If you ever bought SERIOUS running shoes, this might look familiar. In the running shoe store, the shoe sellers are like gods. You can’t just walk in there and say you’d like some purple running shoes, please. NO! You

  I have to run at a specific heart rate, which is higher now because of my fast 10k last week. Today I somehow couldn’t manage to get to that heart rate though. Not even when trying to think about

  Remember my Achilles tendon giving me trouble? Well, I took it (relatively) easy for the past week, and today my physical therapist said that she doesn’t think it’s going to be much of a problem anymore! That doesn’t mean

  Due to the success of Dutch racing cyclist Tom Dumoulin, there is apparently something going on now that’s being called ‘the Tom Dumoulin-effect’: cycle racing has become even more popular than it already was! I noticed this today, the

  Remember yesterday’s really fast 10k? Well, my legs certainly did today! Perhaps I overdid it a bit yesterday, since I could barely walk today. And yes, I really walked around town with a book about marathons in my hand

  Today was special: usually I have to stick to a specific heart rate when running, but today I got to run 10k as fast as I could. First it was fun, then it hurt, and somewhere in between my

  On my usual route, I run past some fields, sometimes there’s cows in those fields. And today they looked so supportive somehow! (‘mooportive’?)