At Last!

At last - we have some beautiful summer weather!  At last - I've gotten two runs in!

Yesterday I did a quick 4 km on the Finnish track - the good thing is that it is very shady there.  But it was still pretty warm and I don't think I am quite used to it yet.

This morning Stefaan and I did 7 together but with the warm weather and sun we ended up walking a lot, which is okay.  The good thing about walking is that you can converse much better than when running - at least for me this is true.  We probably should have left earlier to beat the heat, but as usual we were puttering around.  Oh well...  

This afternoon we are heading to the in-laws for a belated mother's day and an early father's day visit with them...have a great Sunday everyone!

Another Food Post...

This has been one of those crazy weeks where there were coincidentally a lot of things going on...today my friend Catherine and I attended a cooking class taught by another friend of ours.  It was held in a local assisted living facility with an awesome kitchen, and it was very different (in a good way) to be in that environment for a change - I was by far the youngest participant in the group!  One of the older gentlemen also played tunes on an organ while we were eating, which was lovely.

A couple weeks ago Linda and I spent a day in Hasselt and we treated ourselves to lunch at De Levensboom, a well-known vegetarian restaurant there.  We both had the plate of the day:

(Clockwise from top left: a mixed salad, roasted sunflower seeds, braised tempeh, potato and spring onion puree, a vegetable brochette and in the middle, brown rice pilaf)

All this good food I've been having lately - mmmmmhhhhh!

And tonight is pizza night!

Some weekend running is going to definitely be needed... ;-)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Trying Something New

Yesterday I headed into Brussels on the train for a few errands and a lunch date with my good friend Aisling...  Our plan was to meet up at a new Ethiopian restaurant not far from Place St. Catherine, Toukoul, which had gotten a very enthusiastic review in a local newspaper recently.


Neither one of us had ever had Ethiopian food, so we ordered the vegetarian platter for two, which came with four or five different things, mostly chickpea and lentil based stews (some very spicy), a bit of salad, sauteed mushrooms and some spinach.  It comes on a big flat plate, and is served with rolled up teff pancakes.  We had no idea how to go about eating it, so the waitress demonstrated it for me - you tear off a piece of pancake which you use to scoop up a little bit of a few different stews and then you pop it into your mouth.  She kind of took me by surprise when she popped the demonstration bite into my mouth!  (I'm afraid I might have accidentally chomped on her finger!)

Once we got the hang of it, we really enjoyed ourselves!  Believe it or not, we polished off the entire platter between the two of us.  The restaurant itself was comfortable and relaxing - a great place for us to sit and catch up with each other's lives, and the service was friendly.  And the food was delicious... I'd definitely go back!

Sunshine, Fresh Air, Hiking and Running (plus getting lapped by an Olympic athlete!)

On Thursday we (husband, 3 boys and me) went for a 2 hour hike in Vossem but I forgot to bring my Garmin to track the route.  Luckily we had our awesome walking network map that leads us from numbered post to numbered post (see picture) and also tells you the distance between the posts, so we were able to figure out we did about 8 km.

The countryside around Vossem is just beautiful and it was actually really good weather for a hike - not too sunny or too hot.  And, oh yeah - it wasn't raining for once!

We've had such a lame spring - much colder and wetter than normal - so I was pumped when I woke up this morning to warm temps and bright sunshine.  Saturday is normally my rest day, but I knew I couldn't waste the beautiful morning (plus the Sunday forecast looks bad) so I went out for a run.  I took my usual route, adding an extra loop around the lake for 8.3 km.  As I was almost home, I was lapped by one of the members of the Belgian Women's Olympic Field Hockey Team!  How cool is that?  She must have been doing a training run, and she was headed in the direction of the hockey field near our house.  Exciting!

Back!

I haven't forgotten you all!  Yes, it's been ten days since I last posted - things have been a bit crazy - some of it very good, some of it less good (life has a funny way of being like that - ups and downs, right?).  I know I promised a bit more about the Ladies Run - here is a picture of the medal and the great swag that we got in our goodie bag:

I actually really like the medal!  The shirt was nice too (it says "Running is Me-Time"), but I ended up giving it to my neighbor's daughter who has just started running - I have plenty of tech shirts in my closet and I knew she would enjoy having it.

Probably the coolest thing about racing in my home town were all the familiar faces I got to see.  People I know well, people I know just from seeing them around, ladies from my gym, and even some famous people!  It was so exciting to see Gella Vandecaveye in person - she is a famous Belgian judoka who won both silver (1996) and bronze (2000) for Belgium in the olympics.   She also ran the 10K here in Leuven - and she was fast - she finished in 45 minutes! 

I don't know what happened to Kim Clijsters who was one of the people who were supposed to be there when the race was first announced, but that's okay - we all know that Kim is pretty darn busy.  I guess she's like a lot of us these days - sometimes life just keeps you so busy you have to put some things on the sidelines for a short time.  Even blogging...(mea culpa)...

Have a great day!

Ladies Run yesterday!

I finished in 1:01:36 and was very pleased with that!  It was a nice course.

More to follow...

Awesome Rhap

Last night we went to see Jef Neve perform three Gershwin pieces with the Leuven Alumni Orchestra - and it was awesome!  Jef is an incredibly talented jazz pianist and composer - and he just won an Oscar for the music score in the movie "The Artist" (along with the Brussels Jazz Orchestra). 

We had great seats.  Jef has what you would call in Dutch "pretoogjes" - eyes that sparkle with fun, and it was clear that he was having a lot of fun last night. 

He played Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", "Variations on I've Got Rhythm", and "Rialto Ragtime" as an encore.   Rhapsody in Blue is an amazing piece of music (if you've ever flown United Airlines you've heard bits of it - it's the music they play while you are boarding the plane) - here is an old recording with Gershwin himself performing it: 

The parts where it sounds like the pianist is having the most fun are actually incredibly difficult to play! 

So after getting to bed much later than usual for me (but for a very good reason!), this afternoon I have the Ladies Run 10 K to do here in Leuven - so it's turned out to be a busy weekend.  More on that tomorrow probably...  Have a good Sunday!