Ready.. steady…off we goooooooooo

Ready steady off we go!

It’s about time we gave you an update on our training progress, right!

First of all let me start by telling you that our Virgin Just Giving page is up and running and we can finally start accepting donations for the Born Free Foundation and the Rudolf Steiner School both in Kenya.
Go check it out, spread the word through all the possible social media pages out there, personal email etc.. and if you want to.. give us a donation as well 

http://www.virginmoneygiving.com/team/kellysylvietriathlon

We appreciate every little penny, dollar, cent that you can spare because together we can give something wonderful to those adorable children and all those fluffy creatures out there.

But you are all still waiting to hear how we are doing. Can we run the 10KM, cycle the 40KM and kayak the 10KM yet.. hell no!! But we are trying to get there.
Training is something that takes time.. and patience and endurance. Of course neither Kelly or myself can do this alone so we called upon some people or gyms to help us getting into shape.
Kelly’s busy working out at the Health City in Brussels together with her mate Paul who’s always shouting at her… only to get her to push harder and harder.. Every possible spare moment she is spending in there working the weights, running the tread mill to get into shape. Besides those exercises she’s also doing body combat at home which is a mixture of karate and judo! No messing with this girl!!! She’s ready to kick some ass so you are all warned. And of course to practice those leg muscles she can also be seen cycling the streets around Brussels to get ready for those 40km.

I am not doing any gym training but relied on the experience and knowledge of a personal coach, Judy Garcia . She gave me a training schedule that should make me get into shape and able to do all that has to be done. The first week I stuck to it but soon found out that I needed to change it a bit. From experience I could feel that leaving 3-4 days in between my running days was way too long. I always fell back a bit and the running is really something I had to start from scratch. So running is the major part of my training now, combined with the core body exercises to get all the muscles ready for this big challenge.
And it is paying off! After about 6 weeks I can now run 45 minutes in one go! Not the fastest of runners out there just yet but I am hoping to up the pace a bit. I have also reached the 5km mark and I am pretty proud of that. Never in a million years did I expect to be able to do this so fast or at all! But I can now say that I actually enjoy it!! It clears my mind, I love hearing the sounds of all the different birds around me (so no iPod for me). And to my astonishment I have seen some wildlife as well: the other day I had a deer watching me, I have seen frogs running into the ditches, baby sheep are encouraging me when I pass, horses come over to say hello and of course dogs go ballistic when I pass with my colorful rain jacket on 😉 No need to say I am loving it all.

During the next couple of weeks I’ll be getting in touch with the kayak rental place in Hasselt. It takes some organizing to get everything done in one day that’s for sure. We will probably have to start real early on the morning of Sunday October 13th. As we see things now we’ll start off with the 40km cycling tour in the Hasselt area. After that we’ll probably need some food before stepping into those kayaks for the next 10km down the Albert canal. Well up and down really as we’ll have to make a loop since we have to be back in the city later that afternoon for our run. That one starts at 14:30 in the city center. And we won’t be alone there that’s for sure. We chose this date and place because that day is the ‘Dwars door Hasselt’ run and that has a 10km event in it.
By the time Kelly and I reach the finish line we’ll probably need some drains to and CPR haha.

We will keep you posted on exact hours of all events as we would love YOU to join us. Maybe you fancy joining us for the cycle tour, the kayak or the run .. or maybe ALL three events. We already have some people willing to do all three with us.

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