Wet and windy

Woke up this morning to pounding rain and cold wind. Hmmm. I decided rather quickly to head off to the gym, where I also renewed my membership for the next 25 months!

I am always amazed at how busy the gym is on Sunday mornings, by ten it is just buzzing with people (I always try to get there by 9:30!), this morning there were even lots of little kids running around. After sorting out my membership renewal I got on my favorite treadmill and did 8 km in 54 min.

Next week (tomorrow) my 14 week training program for the half marathon starts. Brrr!

Thankful

My plan was to drop the boys at school and immediately run, as I am going to Brussels today with my friend Catherine and her daughter. So I was in my running clothes as we were walking to school. As we got to just one block away I was mentally plotting the route I would take to get about 40 minutes in, when suddenly Gillis realized he had swimming and had forgotten his things. For a split second I was crushed - now my well-laid plan would be shaken up! But then I was thankful I was already in my running clothes!

I told the boys to hurry off to school and that I would run home, fetch the swimming bag and run back to deliver it in time before the class left for the swimming pool. So that's what I did, running lickety split home (5 minutes) and back to the school (6 minutes) and into the schoolyard, up the stairs, where the class was just getting their things ready to start the day. I kind of felt like "Super Mom" as I dashed in and delivered the bag, saving the day! Got some pretty weird looks from the kids, too.

Then I walked out with another mom I know, and as she got in her car, I continued my run. I ended up doing 5 kilometers in 38 minutes. Got a quick shower and now am about to leave for the train station. I know I have many, many more things to be thankful for, but this was a nice way to start the day!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and good luck to all the Turkey Trotters! Can't wait to hear how your races went (I'll think of you while I am enjoying myself in Brussels!)

Quick Post

I never had a chance to post yesterday...I went to the gym in the morning and did my Tuesday run on the treadmill (5 k in 31 min.) followed by weights. My membership is up for renewal so I was busy in my head trying to figure out what would be the best deal, paying monthly installments or a lump sum, going for 12 months, or the discount if you sign up for 24 outright...hmmm. Always a dilemma. However, paying for the gym every year is one of the things that keeps me motivated to show up there on a regular basis - I hate the idea of paying for something and then totally blowing it off.

Then Linda and I met to plan our next workshops in 2009. We have been asked by a local yoga studio to do a workshop at their location, so we talked about what we could best offer them. We are also thinking of putting a book together to sell next fall. It's all very exciting!

Then I arrived home to find my youngest had chipped his tooth after being pushed and falling on the playground! So a quick call to our dentist, and luckily they could squeeze him in... Poor guy, but it all turned out okay in the end. Phew!

Rain, Sleet, Hail and Snow

Yesterday, we woke up to snow on the ground and thick, fluffy flakes still falling - exciting! Throughout the day we had rain, sleet, hail and more snow and it was just around freezing all day long - the warmest it got was 3°C. I was starting to think of a contingency plan (i.e. treadmill at the gym) for our Sunday run, just in case we woke up to more of the same today.

But it was dry when we got up. Cold (1°C) but no rain, sleet, hail or snow. Just a light dusting of frost on the roofs and ground. So we headed out - there were 7 loops on the schedule today. After one loop I sorely regretted not having put my long johns on under my running tights - my legs and especially my rear were painfully numb the whole time! There was one section of the lake where the wind just hit us bitterly, and I never removed my fleece gloves, hat or jacket the entire 10 km. I was so cold by the time we stopped after the 70 minutes it took us! I kept thinking, this is what it feels like for runners in Canada (but if you check out this post on Lily's blog you will see it is actually much worse!)

Everybody is predicting a long, cold winter here. I wonder if they will be right. In any case, I am looking forward to having a break from it in Florida in a few weeks! (And as I finish typing this...it has started snowing again!)

Blog Game: 4x4 Photo

I saw this over on Lily and Alex's blogs: "the game is to pick the fourth photo out of the fourth folder on your hard drive! Post the photo on your blog and then tell a little story about it." Hey, I am always up for a game and this is way easier than a virtual race! So here's my photo:



Well...the fourth folder was "Heirloom Pictures" and the fourth picture goes way back to 1988 when I was spending my junior year in college in Dijon, France. Mom and Dad came to visit me in April and we made this huge trip all over Europe in a tiny little Renault - from Paris to the Black Forest, to Geneva, to Alsace, to Bourgogne, to the Atlantic Coast of France, and via the Loire Valley back to Paris. It was a fabulous trip, the first time in Europe for my parents, and we had a wonderful time together.

This picture is taken outside of a little restaurant we ate at in Strasbourg - we happened to have a dog named Tootsie at the time, so we had to stop here. The funny thing was, everytime the waitress said something, Mom kind of nodded her head and smiled politely, and by the end of the meal, the lady was directing all her friendly chitchat to her, until at one point things got stuck, and I had to tell her that Mom didn't actually speak any French! Poor lady, she was kind of embarrassed!

This skill has served my mom very well with all of my in-laws. They all tell her the most interesting things in Dutch and she just nods and smiles.

Hey, this was fun...if you're reading this, why not try it on your blog?

And thanks to Dad for spending hours and hours scanning in all our old pictures - what a treat!

The Crack of the Whip

This is what it looks like today outside my back window. What you cannot see is the drizzly rain, the chilly wind, and the dampness that creeps into your bones. Not my kind of weather, and I sure did not feel like running outdoors this morning. Luckily I walk my kids to school everyday and doing that gets the blood going just enough to feel like maybe it isn't so bad out there after all.

On the way home from school I was thinking about David Servan-Schreiber. I just finished his other book, about cancer, and in it he tells about his own battle with a brain tumor. One of the things that struck me is that during the year after his surgery, while he was getting chemotherapy, he went out for a 20 minute run with his dog every day. In all kinds of Pittsburgh weather. He credits the running as one of the things that helped him beat the cancer. And I was thinking to myself, what a wimp I would be not to run in this mild Belgian fall weather.

Then I was lucky my husband was around this morning, so he wanted to run, too. So we did. We went to Heuvelhof Park, to run on the Finnish track, which was mucky and muddy but oh, such a different workout than running on sidewalks. We ended doing three loops on the track and then headed home, which took altogether 40 minutes and would be about 5 km, give or take.

The synchronistic thing is, when I sat down to check my emails, I had one from one of my oldest, dearest friends, and she wanted some advice on how to get some motivation for her own running, which she was having a tough time mustering up. Do you know that old saying about the thing you are called upon to teach is the thing you most need to learn yourself? Bingo!

This is what I wrote back:

About the running....it is so hard to be motivated without a stick! I am sure that I would not be training right now if I didn't have that half marathon in March hanging over my head. Stefaan and I just went running this morning and I told him, I just don't ever really "feel" like running, I truly don't. He,on the other hand, says he wakes up sometimes and just feels like going, so he does. Eck. Not me,
definitely.

So I know what works for me is having a race coming up. It also is a huge help that Stefaan runs the long runs with me on Sundays, because I would probably blow those off too, or run less than I am supposed to, without him being with me. So my advice would be: get a running partner who is more disciplined than yourself and who it would be hard to let down, and sign up for a race.

The other thing I try to do is focus on the benefits of exercising. Even though I don't enjoy it, I do know that I always feel better and have more energy on the
days I do it, than on the days I don't, and I really try not to forget that (although sometimes that's hard when it's cold and you really don't feel like going out.)

One last thing that helps is making yourself accountable to something, like the blog. I know Mom and Jenny and Christy and Mark and...are going to be looking to see if I've kept to my running and if I don't they ask me about it. It also gives me something to think about when running, what am I going to write on the blog - gives me an opportunity to get those creative juices flowing!

Finding motivation is hard but the key is figuring out what works specifically for you - so you'll have to be creative. For example, for me, rewards don't really work, but for some people they do. And I know some people where even being signed up for a race doesn't do it.

So, good luck to all of us this winter in our search for motivation - we all have our own specific struggles to overcome, but at the end of the day, it is worth it to make that investment in our own health that we get by being runners!

Busy Tuesday

I was too busy getting ready for our last workshop yesterday to blog...but I did get to the gym first thing in the morning for a treadmill run and strength workout. I knew getting the run in especially would give me lots of energy for my day and busy evening.

The usual treadmills I run on were not plugged in because the cleaning people were working, so I went to another set - and these have a TV screen built into their control panel. Oprah happened to be on, so once I got going I put her on. The nice thing about Oprah here is that she is subtitled in Dutch, so you don't even have to listen to the audio to know what's happening, you can still listen to your own music, while following the show.

Only...I felt too disconnected from my running. Something about watching TV, reading subtitles and listening to music while trying to run was just too much. So I switched the TV function off and just went back to my music and the treadmill. And found the running seemed suddenly much more focused...and better. I ended up doing 5 km in 35 minutes, not fast, I know, but I was just glad to get it done.

Back to a plan

I was looking at my running/exercise plan I had made with such great hopes back in September and thinking about that old saying about the best laid plans... But it is best not to worry too much about what is past and simply get on with it, as much as possible. So that's what I'll be doing to the best of my ability.

So the plan said 6 loops around the lake today, which I thought was doable (last week should have been 7 but we missed that). Luckily the weather was fine, not too cold and not raining, so we headed out. There were lots of walkers on the trail around the lake, for a long distance walking event (Belgium has a lot of walking clubs), luckily they were going in the opposite direction, so we didn't have to keep going around them, but instead got to read what clubs they were from on their shirts as we passed. By about 10:30 the usual Sunday runners were out - boy, some of the guys are fast! We did our 6 loops at a very comfortable pace (I haven't run this distance in quite some time) and ended up finishing the 8.4 km in 58 minutes (which included generous walking breaks, getting a rock out my shoe, and lots of nose blowing!)

It felt nice to be back and I am sincerely hoping that I stay well for the next five weeks before we leave for Florida and don't have to miss any more workouts. Because as I said to my doctor, when you are not feeling well, and you can't do your usual activity, you really miss it and feel even crappier! I've been reading a book* by David Servan-Schreiber which confirms this - he says that exercise is one of the most effective ways of positively influencing your brain chemistry. But we runners knew that already, didn't we!

*The book was originally written in French under the title "Guérir" but I got it from the library in Dutch, "Uw Brein Als Medicijn". It was translated into English as "Healing without Freud or Prozac". Check it out, it's excellent! I also got his book on cancer prevention from the library and will be reading that next. I'll keep you posted!

Follow the Sun

I've been in a hiatus (like Lily!) for the past ten days or so, due to some health issues, but yesterday I got the all clear from my doctor, and so today I really felt like getting out, even if it was just for a short, easy run. The sun is out and since my mom was telling me recently about the importance of Vitamin D and how apparently many people are deficient, I decided to make my route follow the sun as much as possible. Which simply means running on the sunny side of the street - doesn't that sound cheerful?

It felt good to get out, finally, clear my head (and my sinuses - Jenny, you were right!) - and even though my legs felt a bit tight, I felt good the whole way through. It ended up being a 30 minute run and just over 4 km.

Hopefully my run will give me lots of energy for my workshop with my friend Linda this evening! We had our first session yesterday and it went really well, all the participants seemed pleased with it and with the food we served! This time our topics were seaweed and how to use it in the kitchen, and all about oils and fats in a healthy diet.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for my sister Christy, who is having surgery for her broken wrist today. I hope all goes well for her.

An Even More Historic Day

Ninety years ago, November 11, 1918, the first World War came to an end.

What happenend must never be forgotten

Flanders Fields

Historic Day

Regardless of differing opinions, beliefs, culture or personal background

We are all different but yet all the same

May hope and optimism uplift America and the world!

A Special Saturday

For my 42nd birthday last month, Stefaan surprised me with Aimee Mann's new album and tickets to her concert in Brussels - this was a great gift because I've been a fan for so long, and she seems to tour Europe every fall and we've never been. So yesterday was the big day!

We headed to Brussels and since we got there a bit early, we had time for a drink at Le Cirio, a well known art deco café and a personal favorite spot of mine. As we sat down, Stefaan noticed that Herr Seele was there (he is a Belgian artist, performer and cartoonist - see pic to the right). Of course the cool thing about Belgium is that people in public life can be out and about and no one bothers them a bit.

We got to the Ancienne Belgique and as we got in, we heard the opening act had just started. All I knew was that The Submarines are from Los Angeles, and as we were drawn into the concert hall, which was all decked out with starry lights, we were really pleasantly surprised by their music - the sound was fantastic, the songs grabbed me right away - they were well written and had such an imaginative sound- and Blake has the most amazing voice! The Submarines are actually a duo (Blake and John, right and middle in the picture) and for the tour, they are joined by drummer Jason (on the left), who was incredible. You can listen to their new album on their website - I'm listening to it now and it's great!

I think everyone was impressed with The Submarines, and they played a great set, full of energy. But then it was time to get the stage set up for Aimee Mann and her four musicians. More and more people crowded in (for this kind of concert the AB is a standing only venue). Stefaan went and got a couple of drinks for us while I tried to stay in a good spot (it's tricky when you're not that tall - I promised myself I would wear my platform shoes next time I come to the AB!)

Finally the lights dimmed and Aimee came on, and for the next hour and a half I was just totally engrossed and completely enjoying her music, the sound, the words... (I was completely in the NOW) She played a lot of songs from the new album (which is excellent), but also quite a few from "Bachelor No. 2", one of my all time favorite albums (I still listen to it in the car a lot - my kids know it backwards and forwards, because I sing along to all the songs when we drive somewhere) Aimee is amazing, a real artist. She and her band are wonderful - it just floors me how they make it look so easy to bring her songs to life! It was a great concert.

After it was over, we headed out to the Foyer of the AB. I saw that The Submarines were selling copies of their two CD's, so I got in line to buy them...they were so kind, they were taking the time to sign them for everyone and even exchange a few words with people. After Blake signed my copies (she noticed my American accent and asked where I was from), we asked John and Jason for their signatures as well, and spent a few minutes talking to Jason, who told us the AB was the best venue they had played in so far.

For us it was the best evening!

We headed home (yes, listening to Aimee some more) and after a good night's sleep we awoke to sunshine coming through the blinds....and so we had to take advantage of that and the kids being at Oma and Opa's...and go running! It had been a while for me, since I had been out sick for the past week, but amazingly enough, it went really well and we did 5 loops around the lake (7 km) in 45 minutes....and I didn't need an Ipod because the songs from last night were still playing in my head!

We are off now to pick up the kids and visit the family....happy Sunday!