DJ Bobby Ewing Run

This run was a blast! The funnest and funniest run I have ever done! Only 200 lucky people got to participate in this.

Check in was at the city library downtown Leuven. Lots of different types of runners turned up and we all got our cool race number (see above) and our own copy of DJ Bobby Ewing's CD "30:00", music to run past the most beautiful places in Leuven. The CD is great and includes a map of Leuven with 2.5, 4.5 and 5 K routes marked. I hope they are going to sell this in the city tourist office. You can listen to a sample of the music at: http://www.myspace.com/djbobbyewing

Right on the dot at four o'clock (I love how everything in Leuven is so well organized), we headed out along the Diestsestraat to the St. Pieters church, where DJ Bobby Ewing, announcer Steven Van Herreweghe and others were already on the top of a red double decker bus, which had huge speakers mounted on it. Everybody was so enthusiastic and the music got going and we started off, doing two slow rounds around the church as a warm up. Then we headed up past the town hall, which was looking even more gorgeous than usual in the bright sun, and down the Naamsestraat. Or rather I should say up, because it is a bit of an uphill and as the bus picked up speed ahead of us, we had to push the pace a little bit and that was a stretch for some of the runners, some people looked like they were struggling. (At this point I was very thankful for the last two years of training to run I had!)

Apparently somebody on the bus must have noticed there were stragglers because as they pulled into the Parkstraat, the announcer, Steven, said he had to stop to use the bathroom, so he got off the bus and went in someone's house! So all us runners stopped til he came back out and the bus got going again, but nobody minded - all this time DJ Bobby was playing the coolest music, some of it from his new CD, intermingled with other fun tunes.

Once we got going we turned down the Maria Theresiastraat. There were quite some spectators along the way, we must have been a sight. Then we turned down the Blijde Inkomststraat and passed by the University library and when we got to the bottom of the Ladeuzeplein, they stopped the bus and told us they wanted us all to go out in the center of the square and hold hands and dance around the Leuven totem in a circle, which we runners very obediently did, of course! It was pretty hilarious!

Then back behind the bus again for more music and running...we had another little rest break while the bus struggled to turn into a small side street, going forwards and backwards a few times. At this point, stuck behind it in a very narrow street, the fumes were pretty bad. (When our English friend Oliver heard we were going to be jogging behind a double-decker London bus, that was the first thing he said: Watch out for the fumes! He was right.) But the bus finally made it around the tight corner and we headed for the Justus Lipsius street then back down the Maria Theresia to the station. At the station we turned into the Bondgenotenlaan, the big avenue that runs into the center of town. DJ Bobby started playing "Love is in the air" and we had to sing along and wave our arms back and forth, and then he put the theme from Chariots of Fire on and they got us all to run in slow motion.

By that time we were back where we started. The whole thing took exactly 30:00. The bus was now parked and they put a slow song on and encouraged couples to dance, threw some Leuven sweatshirts from the top of the bus, and then we all got to have a drink on the house at the café at the library. What a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon. What a cool way for DJ Bobby Ewing to top off his two years as DJ laureate of Leuven.

He is going to be followed up by a chef laureate, Jeroen Meus. His restaurant Luzine is in the same building as my fitness center and he works out there, too. So perhaps there will be some kind of fitness-oriented follow up to the DJ Bobby Ewing run...a culinary run through Leuven??? That would certainly bring a new dimension to the term "eat and run"! www.jeroenmeus.be