Snow, Cold, and Food for Thought

We were "blessed" with a few more centimeters of snow on Saturday night. While it made our train trip to Wavre to visit friends yesterday afternoon very beautiful, it was not so nice this morning when we all had to get out to school on the slippery bike paths and sidewalks. I think I told the boys at least a hundred times to be careful.

So today I am making a big pot of bean and pasta soup and getting started picking up, cleaning up, boxing up, and putting away. It looks like the weather is going to stay very cold for the next week so we will just have to grin and bear it! On the exercise front, I am on standby right now, but plans are brewing...

I have just finished reading the latest book by Jonathan Safran Foer, "Eating Animals", an eloquent, thoughtful and thought-provoking search for answers about the real implications of our eating habits. I highly recommend it. It reconfirms for me the global and humane aspects of eating a vegetarian, vegan or near-vegan diet, and really reinforces me in my conviction that, with all the plant food available to us, there is really no reason why we have to be eating animals, certainly in the current huge quantitities that they are consumed. Less meat and animal products is better for our health, better for the environment, better for animals and better for a more just distribution of food and other resources in the world. Just some food for thought for anyone thinking of making positive changes this year!

Hope you all made it through the end of the year happy, healthy and sane!

To everyone: my very best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year!

And if you need some inspiration, here is a link (although probably only Fran will understand it!):

Marathon Man

...a 52-year-old Belgian man who will be running a marathon every day in 2010. His goal is to promote a healthy lifestyle. Anyone can go and run with him on his first few marathon distances here in Gent, then he will be running all over Europe.

Good luck to us all in achieving our personal goals and see you next year!

Corrida: Official time and TV report!

Our official time for the 8K was 52:59! A little better than I thought!


There was a nice TV news report on the Corrida on our local news - here is the link - you might not understand because it is in Dutch but it is a great way to get an idea of what our city looks like and what the race was like!

Leuven Corrida 2009

Our third time running the Corrida here in Leuven - this year it was chilly with gray skies and a bit of a nasty wind but downtown there was a great atmosphere with all the runners milling about. They even had honest to God real porta potties this year! We got downtown just in time to see the start of the 4 K race - here is a short video of those speedy people:

We were able to watch the 4K winners come in at the finish line before we had to line up for the 8K, which was pretty cool - they were amazingly fast! Just as we were about to start our race, it started to rain a little but luckily it stopped quite soon.

This year's course was a bit different, instead of one 4K loop that we had to do two times, it was one big 8K loop, covering some new parts of town. There were four big hills - two of them cobblestoned - and we had to go down two and up the other two. The cobblestones worried me a bit, since they were very uneven and slick from the rain, so I ran very carefully and even walked up the very steep alley that goes along the Saint Damian Church (he is buried right here in our town). But that was the only bit that I walked the whole race, which I am pretty proud about; for the rest of the race we kept up a nice steady pace and I am quite sure we came in somewhere around 55 minutes, but I will have to check the website for our exact time, because the finish line clock read 93 minutes (they start it at the beginning of the 4K and it just keeps ticking!)

Once we got through the finish chute we got our bottle of wine and a sports drink, which I was dying for, and headed home - a twenty minute walk through town, just the right cool down! All in all, it went very well - even though we missed Joy and Patrice running it with us this time!

Later this afternoon we are meeting friends of ours to go bowling and then they are coming here for chili with all the fixings, which I made yesterday. I hope I am not too stiff to bowl! Have a great Sunday everyone!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all things bright and beautiful

tonight

tomorrow

and all year!

The snowy weather, icy roads, and the storm that is expected to pass over Belgium tonight are keeping us from attending the traditional Christmas Eve dinner with the in-laws, so we have made some last minute preparations to have a cozy evening with just the five of us here.

I did manage, with Felix to keep me company, to get to the gym to run 7 kilometers on the treadmill. It has just been too dangerous to even think about running outside - the sidewalks are a mess and the roads are still very slippery. I also ran 6 on the treadmill on Tuesday and both that and today went well, so I hope that I am well enough prepared for the Corrida on Sunday (if the weather permits us to run).

Hope you all have a very merry Christmas, wherever you are!

Cribs was here!

Watch the video below to see what happened when MTV Cribs came to our backyard!

Let It Snow!

We got a big snow storm on Thursday afternoon and evening, and the next day we woke up to 15 cm of beautiful white snow! My two oldest boys, who only had to go to school for the Christmas breakfast and their report cards, recuperated all the snow we shoveled from the driveway and sidewalk and wheelbarrowed it to the back to make a snow slide:

It is still very cold (-8 C) and very slippery outside, so I won't be doing my usual Sunday run outdoors, that's for sure. I am also going to a Raw Food cooking workshop tomorrow with Linda. I may just end up shifting my run to the treadmill on Monday morning...