Thoughts on Being an Urban Ranger (and hike #10)

I've been listening to podcasts by Katy Bowman lately while cooking and cleaning (my favorite time to listen to podcasts!)  Bowman is a biomechanist who is a proponent of natural human movement.  She talks about how most of us are starved for more variation in our movement nutrients - because of factors like doing the same repetitive movements all time, sitting a lot, wearing shoes most of the day and being in primarily flat environments.  It's fascinating to hear her ideas, and think about my own patterns of movement, and how they effect how my body feels and functions.

I learned the hard way that doing too much of the same thing (running) all the time was not good for my hip.  I took a full year off of running, let my body heal, learned to incorporate other types of movement into my routine, and finally was able to add running back into my life.

One of the things that Bowman promotes is walking as an ideal exercise, and especially if you can get off the usual flat sidewalks and into uneven, hilly terrain that makes your body move with even more variation.  But in an urban environment, that is sometimes tricky to figure out.  So I was thinking about the Grandes Routes long distance hiking paths that run through our community and how I could add more trail walking to my urban rangering (this original idea of purposeful sustained walking comes from Reinhard Engels ) - which means, bascially, trying to add more rugged terrain to walks I do for errands.

I often walk or bike to one of my favorite stores, the Bio-Planet organic grocery store.  By the most direct route, it's 2.7 km away and takes about a half hour to walk.  Aside from one part of the walk that goes through a city park, most of it is along a busy road, which is loud, smelly and kind of boring.  But I figured out how I could get there by a completely different route, which includes a long chunk of trails that go through fields (and part of a GR route!), which is what I tested out this morning.  It was great - I felt like such an adventurous urban ranger!  The new route included lots of rugged ups and downs, and ended up being 3.85 km and took me 45 minutes to walk.  It felt really good to be out in the cold spring sunshine, seeing all the green, and the best part about much of the walk was the traffic noise I didn't have to hear.  The only bad part was a lady with a very large dog who was trying to get the dog to sit while I passed her and just as I was almost past them, he lunged at me.   That really startled me.  I never used to be afraid of dogs but the more I walk and hike, the warier I've become.

After getting to the store and buying the things I needed, I did go back the usual way which made for a total of 6.55 km and about 75 minutes altogether.  A good way to spend my morning - enjoyable walking with a purpose!

Hike #9: Langdorp

Distance: 12 km
Time: 3 hours
With: Ingrid

Having been forced to cancel our February walk because of the flu, I was looking forward to meeting up with Ingrid yesterday.  We picked a circular route that started in Langdorp, a village just outside of Aarschot.  As is often the case, our route started at the church:

We were a bit apprehensive about the weather, but as we started out the sun was shining, despite ominous clouds on the horizon:

A few unusual sights during our hike - a windmill:

And this funny sign -  "yield to gnomes"???  Unfortunately we didn't see any gnomes.

So through the woods we went...

And then back into the fields for the end of the hike

We did get rained on, and it was cold, but here is proof that the sun did come out at some point:

...and at times the sky was gorgeous:

We ended up back where we started, at the church, where we found a cafe and had some hot tea to warm ourselves up.  It was a good day.

Hike #8: Dijlepad

When: last Saturday
Distance: 7 km
Time: 1.5 hours
With: my husband

The flu hit our house pretty hard in February, so it had been a while since I'd been out for a hike.  But last weekend, just in time for my middle son's 18th birthday, spring suddenly arrived here, and we had to take advantage of it.  So my husband and I headed for the Dijlepad, a path that runs along the Dijle river between Leuven and Oud-Heverlee.  I've done this path with Ingrid but it was a first for my husband.

You could actually take a train to Oud-Heverlee station and then walk the full path back to the center of Leuven, which would make a total of 9 kilometers.  We just did a small out and back starting from the engineering campus of the university.

This is kind of interesting: we wandered by a small creek that was full of watercress (see above)!  It looked like someone had actually facilitated the watercress growing there, as the creek was carefully cleared of leaves and branches, unlike other sections we passed.  It was tempting to think about all the nice soups and salads you could make with that watercress!

 Here are some non-watercress parts of that creek...

...and some more of the path through the wooded area...

 The bulk of the path goes through a low-lying area along the river.  There was a group of swans resting on the fields; I wanted to get a picture but they flew away before we got close enough:

All in all, a good outing.  Looking forward to getting back in the swing of things now that the weather is starting to improve.  Oh, and here's a birthday picture (it was even nice enough to sit outside for lunch!):

Me, Gillis and his girlfriend, Liesbeth