Last week we have presented you our running coach. Now it's time to reveal the second member of our expert team. Our sports doctor Ruben De Gendt. Dr. De Gendt is not only specialized in sports medicine, he is a (top)athlete himself. As a triathlete and ex rower, he is the right person to support us on our journey to the NYC marathon.
Once we decided to run the NYC marathon, found a good running club "club 365" and the perfect coach, we wanted to know where to start.
What about our condition? How fast should we run? How frequently should we run? To know that we had to undergo a treadmill exercise test at Dr. De Gendt's cabinet (luckily no pics exist of that).
We made an appointment with Dr. De Gendt and before we knew we we standing on a treadmill, with a slope gradient of 1,5% starting to run at 6 km/h for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes we had to pause for a few seconds to enable Ruben to take a blood sample from our ear (this sounds worse than it was in reality ;-)). The blood sample is necessary to measure our bodies lactate production during running. After the first 3 minutes and the first blood sample we both thought 'bring it on'. But quickly our thoughts changed into 'when does this end?' After every 3 minutes and 'the way to short' pauses in between, Dr. De Gendt increased the speed with 1,5 km/h. After 18 minutes and running at approximately 13 km/h for a few minutes, the test finally ended.
And then... the results. We both got similar feedback, our aerobic threshold is around 9 km/h. This together with the other results showed that compared to our maximum potential our basic condition is only moderately developed. For both of us a surprise considered our quite intense level of physical activity. But we are dedicated to improve our basic condition...
so we can't wait to know how we can improve & become better runners.
Dr. De Gendt advised us to train in our extensive endurance zone, which means we have to run at slow pace, in our fat burning zone (7 - 9,5 km/h), to improve our basic condition & our body composition.
That being said... improving our basic condition and reducing our body fat percentage is our focus and motivation during the winter months. Every week we run at least 1 marathon, 42 km spread over the week, on top of our full time jobs and our other trainings... We now run a few times a week at 7 - 9,5 km / hour, except for 1 interval training.
For us there is no doubt. Dr. De Gendt is the best placed person to follow up our health & condition level. He is an essential member of our expert team to make sure we can rise above ourselves & run the 2018 NYC marathon as well trained runners!
Dr. De Gendt is one of the nicest doctors we have met so far (not taking into account Elien's roommate Dr. Doucet ;-) ). Dr. De Gendt can help you with:
Effort tests
Medical sports advice
Guidance for training
Medical inspection (Dr. De Gendt is a registered medical examiner)
Would you want to know more about your condition, body composition or general health?
Get in touch with us or Dr. De Gendt directly. You can make an appointment at ruben.de.gendt@telenet.be or 0498 85 59 07
http://www.artsen369.be/sportgeneeskunde.html
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