Hottest Day?

The weatherman was predicting that today will be the hottest day of 2008 here. So I made sure to get a relatively early start for my run (for me that means leaving before 9, I know that's pretty lame compared to how early our Florida runners head out!) Was also testing out my new 50% off Nike running shorts (yes, the tight kind that make your thighs look like a sausage!) - I finally caved in and bought some, with the Hottest Race 10K in Texas next month in the back of my mind. The nice thing was, the matching shirt was also 50% off so I got both - it's tremendously motivating to have a cute running outfit to put on first thing in the morning!

The shirt and shorts felt great! I started off on my usual route around the neighborhood and my run was going really well. I had been playing with the idea of running 8 kilometers (had mapped out a longer route on Map My Run on Tuesday) and as I got to the end of the "country road" part of the run, I could have gone left and run 7 kilometers or turned right and done 8. I crossed the street and paused, looking at how beautiful the corn and wheat fields looked in the morning sun. The previous song on my Mp3 had just finished and everything was perfectly silent, not even a car to be heard...and as I stood there a second debating whether to do 7 or 8, the next song began and it was Johan and his band and the intro to "Hoochie Cootchie Man" and that decided it for me, it was going to be the whole 8, for Johan, and for the fact that life is short and you have to make the most of living it while you're here, and for me, today, that meant going the extra mile (oops, I mean kilometer!)

Ended up doing 8.15 kilometers in 55 minutes and came home happy and grateful for the little nudge from upstairs.

Alone Again

My first run alone in three weeks...without my black belt body guard, my pace setter coach, my Garmin tracker, or even my faithful Sunday running pal who always lets me set the agenda. I was thinking to myself: I can't do this, it's too hard, I don't WANT to run, I can't do it ALONE. Like I said in my last post, thank God I am signed up for that 10K, I swear it is the only thing that got me out on the pavement this morning.

But my big stick got me out there...and guess what?

I was fine. I CAN do it. It was even quite enjoyable, the weather has cooled down, it was overcast and there was a nice breeze. I haven't listened to my Mp3 songs in those three weeks so it was nice to hear some of them again. I ran past friends' houses, followed my familiar loop, let my thoughts flow, and it felt good. Alone can be quite okay sometimes.

Ended up doing 7.2 kilometers in 48 minutes - wonder what my coach would make of that?

Longer Loops

Jenny measured our lake loop with her Garmin while she was here, and by adding in an additional bit of distance by going around the small fishing pond that is adjacent to the lake, we came up with an exact mile (or 1.6 kilometers, depending on how you like to to measure your runs).

So this morning Stefaan and I headed out and decided to run Jenny's big loops - we did five in 56 minutes which was certainly not very quick but at least we got out and did it, in spite of feeling tired and lazy, and the weather being hot and humid. Thank goodness I am signed up for that 10K in Texas at the end of August or I think I could be capable of slacking off the whole month! Sad but true. Sometimes motivation needs to be a very big stick.

Fun at the HEMA

One of the most festive stores to shop in here is the Dutch chain HEMA (just ask Jenny what she picked up there this trip!) In keeping with their fun image, they have a new webpage. Be sure to turn your sound up, don't bother to scroll down, just wait and see what happens: HEMA

Thanks to cousin Shirley in California for the tip!

Two more fun links, both from Jenny's food blog:
- what we ate while she was here
- what they brought back from Belgium

Have a great weekend...

Finally some summer weather!

The temperature in Belgium finally got to what we could call summer values today. Where better to spend a hot, humid afternoon than walking in the woods? My friend Ingrid and I got together with our kids to go to a special kids' wood just outside of Leuven with all kinds of games, obstacles and things to do - we felt a bit like Robinson Crusoes! It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

Earlier I went for a "run", but it turned out to be more of a "walk/jog" because my two youngest insisted on coming with me, one on rollerblades, and one who wanted to run, but decided it was too hard after he got a side stich. So it took me about 40 minutes to do the 3+ kilometers to the cemetary and back (including a short break at a playground)!

8 on 8/8/8 !

Nancy (who just got back from China, lucky girl!) has just instigated another virtual race: 8 on 8/8/8 to celebrate the beginning of the Olympics! What a great idea! I am definitely in. It's great to have a new challenge to look forward to.

It certainly helps that Jenny measured out a perfect one mile loop for me with her Garmin while she was here!

It's not the running, it's the "wine"-ing

Oh yes, too many late nights and too many glasses of good wine do tend to have an effect on your running, unfortunately!

On Saturday we topped off our great visit to the Stella factory with good food, good wine (and yes, some beer), Sunday we had a long train trip out to Ieper to see the Flanders Fields museum and the monument to World War Two, and then Monday we were all invited to both Linda and Annemie's homes for delicious food, drinks and good company to celebrate the Belgian national holiday. It was a very festive extended weekend!

On Tuesday Jenny, Stefaan and I planned to run together out to the lake, do two loops around the lake, and run home. Boy, was that a tough run! My legs felt like cement bricks and I just could not keep up with them. Finally I just told them to go on ahead and I took a shorter way home, and ended up bumping into them the last block home. So we all ended up running 60 minutes, I did 8 kilometers (they did slightly more).

This morning we had to take them to the airport and say our goodbyes, which is always hard. But we just have to start looking forward to our next time together and not think about being sad right now. I know there are a lot of people and three dogs who are anxiously waiting for them to get home!

It's not the running, it's the walking (part 2)

We are all a little achy (legs, hips, and feet), but we think it is from all the walking we've been doing on our outings!

Wednesday Jenny and I did manage to get out to run in the afternoon when the rain finally cleared up - we ran opposite directions around the lake, so we kept passing each other, because I was really tired and told her I didn't think she wanted to run as slow as I was going to! It also meant we could be really silly and give each other high fives as we passed each other! I did 4 loops (5.2 km) in about 40 minutes and she ran a little bit longer and did 6 loops.

Thursday we took the train to Kortrijk, a city in the west of Belgium, to see the musuem commemorating the Battle of the Golden Spurs that took place there in 1302, where the Flemish beat the French, and became a great symbol of Flemish identity. We also visited the town hall, begijnhof, cathedral, and baggaerthof - it's a nice small, very accessible town with lots to see.

Today is a "quiet day at home" which means we all got to get out and run - Stefaan, Jenny and I did a neighborhood run of about 5.8 km which took us 38 minutes. I took them through the scary long path that I did and posted pictures of a few months ago - but of course it wasn't scary to do it with them with me! But it is so narrow we had to run in single file. The fun thing was I didn't have to take a watch, because Jenny tracked us with her Garmin. It was weird not to have my own watch on and have no clue how long we were running. We ran the whole thing with no walk breaks, except slowing down to cross streets.

Tomorrow afternoon we have our visit to the Stella brewery here in Leuven - you have to have a minimum of 15 people to book the tour, so I rounded up some good friends and their families who were willing to join us and then everyone is coming back to our place afterwards for drinks and dinner. We are looking forward to making some yummy vegan foods for everyone and having a nice evening together!

Hope everyone has a great weekend - and a very happy birthday to both Katy and Christine tomorrow!!

It's not the running, it's the walking!

Yesterday we took the train to Brussels and spent the afternoon wandering around - the boys wanted to see Manneken Pis and we stopped in at the big Chinese supermarket, found a wonderful bookstore that was open and not only had a great kids section but also free coffee and a nice bathroom (rare in Belgian shops!) so we ended up spending quite some time (and money) in there. Then we ate pizza near the Grand Place and visited the Eglise St. Catherine and the cathedral. It was fairly nice weather and it was a good day to be in the city, as it wasn't too busy, but full of people simply enjoying the day.

Jenny and I headed into Leuven today for our traditional girls day out and after lunching at one of our favorite restaurants (Greenway!) we did some shopping and ended up by meeting Christine and her mom Patricia for coffee, which was really nice except for the very loud roaming accordian players that seemed to be difficult to avoid on such a beautiful sunny afternoon. It's hard to ignore them when they are playing right in your ear!

11K Rijkevorsel: PR's all around...and around...and around!

Jenny, Mark and I headed out yesterday afternoon for Rijkevorsel, a village northwest of Antwerp, very close to the Dutch border, for our 11K which was to start at 6 pm. When we were looking at the map of the course (a 5K loop, followed by two 3K loops), Mark wanted to know why Belgians always seem to run in loops. Well, it's a small country, and if we don't run in loops we might end up in the Netherlands, or Germany, or France...

There were a total of 1089 people signed up for the various races: marathon, estafette marathon, 11K, 5K, kids runs. So the field for our race was not big at all. Especially after the 5K people finished after the first loop, it was lonely going (except when the fast runners started lapping me!). The course went through the village, through the main street and some residential streets, and it was perfectly flat. The weather was perfect, 18°C, no rain, no wind, partly cloudy. What a contrast to the Ladies Run 11K two months ago which was hot and hilly!

Jenny and Mark, encouraging as ever, kept telling me I should be able to get a PR on this - and I kept teasing them they would probably get one, too (they have never run the weird distance 11K in a race before, so whatever they ran, it would be a PR for them). But I am never that ambitious starting out on a race - my main objective is to finish and not make a fool of myself.

I came around the first loop after 5K and the clock said about 30 minutes, which I thought wasn't too bad. My sports watch had died on me, so I only had a regular watch and couldn't really track my time per kilometer very accurately, so I just tried to go by how I felt and run a nice steady pace and not worry about it too much. Mark lapped me just after the 6 km marker, and shouted out some encouraging words as he sped by. I kept going and passed the finish the second time at about 49 minutes. As I went around the church to start my last lap, a man who had finished told me to just keep going at a steady pace. A guy on a bike started following me and was telling the volunteers along the road as I passed them, "this was the last one", which was making me mad. I wanted to turn around and say, "Hello! I can hear you! Quit saying that!" But it turned out he wasn't saying I was the last one, it was the last group of runners he was indicating, because there were still people behind me. But I didn't really figure that out til I finished so it was still kind of a bummer. At that point I was wishing I had just signed up for the 5K, but I had to finish, and if you think you're going to be coming in last, you have to go for it and try to finish strong.

As I came up towards the finish, I heard Jenny's voice, she was shouting at me to sprint, sprint, Amy, sprint, and then I saw the clock and it still said 1:08:something, so I started to sprint as fast as I could, and as I came in it had just hit 1:09, I was so amazed, I had not expected to have been running that well. Jenny and Mark found me and they were saying I got a PR, I couldn't believe it at first, and then I turned and saw someone coming in behind me, so then I realized I wasn't last after all.

Mark told me he came in at 46 minutes, Jenny at 59, so (of course) they both PRed and were really pleased with their times. As we were standing there, I saw a photographer, so I went up to him and said that Jenny and Mark had come all the way from Florida to run this race, so he went and got the race director, who came over and talked to them for a few minutes, asked them their times, and took down their names, and said to please stick around for the awards ceremony at 8. So that is what we did and after all the awards were announced, he called Mark and "Jean" up to the stage, and said they were pleased to have participants all the way from Florida and gave them both a big bottle of Westmalle Trappist beer!!! How cool is that! They took a lot of photos, so there will probably be some pictures of them on the race website.

We had a great time, it was a fun race, and we drove home, all very pleased with ourselves and our PR's!

Our visitors have arrived!

Their flight was delayed by more than 2 hours (an emergency medical stop in Bangor, Maine) but Jenny, Mark and the boys arrived safely yesterday. Funnily enough, Christine's mom was also coming in for her visit on the same flight so at least I had a chance to chat with Christine and her husband while waiting at the airport for our travellers to get in.

It is so great to finally have them here, after so many months of anticipation of the visit. We didn't do too much yesterday, just hang out, get everyone acclimated to the time change and the rain and cooler weather here.

This morning, since we have our 11K race tomorrow afternoon, Mark and Jenny and I all wanted to get a run in. So Jenny and I went off first, I was planning to take her on my usual neighborhood route, which is about 7 km. It was great to run with her - she kept track of our progress on her Garmin, and was kind enough to run at my slower pace. We ended up doing 7.2 km in 50 minutes and felt really good we had gotten it done. Then Mark went out, accompanied by Florian on his bike, and it sounds like they had a good run/ride, too.

Not sure what the plans are for the rest of the day - a lot depends on the weather! But we don't mind too much...just being all together is enough!

Congratulations Christine!

Friend and fellow vegan Christine Vardaros has just become the new fitness columnist for Veg News magazine! Not only is she a talented athlete but she is also a gifted writer. You can check out her inagural article on her blog here.

Way to go, Christine!