Hike #12: spotting wildlife in Meerdaal Forest

Location:  Meerdaal Forest
Distance: 8.9 km
Time: 2:20
With: Kristien

We were lucky - with the storms the previous evening and the storms that were predicted for later in the day, the time we had planned to walk together was actually dry and pleasant walking weather.  We did a big route through the forest.  At one magical moment, we suddenly noticed a young deer in a sort of clearing just off the trail.  We stopped to watch, expecting her to dart away, but she simply took notice of us and then continued leisurely foraging for food.   We stood there for several minutes, watching her, and then continued on.  Very cool!

Hike #11: Vinyards and Orchards!

With: Ingrid
Distance: 15 km
Time: 3 hours 40 minutes

Spring is just such a great time to do long walks.  We were very lucky with the weather this Saturday, too - no rain, not too warm, and not too sunny.  Perfect walking weather.  We set off from the village of Nieuwrode, a rural community in the Hageland region, which meant rolling hills, lots of orchards and vinyards would be on our path.  The countryside is idyllic at this time of year:

We passed many orchards with young apple trees; the blossoms were in full bloom:

There is a great network of paths through this area.

Finally we ended up making our way through a series of vinyards.  More and more wine is being produced in the Hageland area.  I'm going to have to buy some and do some taste testing!

A chapel out in the field, dedicated to Saint Joseph;

could he be the patron saint of wine?

Tired but happy we completed 15 kilometers!

Public service announcement for runners, walkers, hikers and bikers

It is a gorgeous spring day today, so I went out for a run this morning.  But I've been doing something different the past month.  Instead of just putting my shoes on, strapping my Garmin to my wrist and grabbing my key, I took two other items with me:

My phone and my ID.  Which in the past I never bothered to take.  Especially for just a short run or walk around the neighborhood.  But now I do.  Every time I run or walk or hike or bike.

Last month my mother, who is a pretty active 72-year-old, went out for a walk, and less than a half mile from her house, was hit by a car.  While crossing a street at a crosswalk, with the traffic light, she was hit by an SUV turning left into the street that had not seen her.  She was really lucky: aside from being really shook up, she suffered a broken wrist.  We all realized it could have been a lot worse, and are grateful it wasn't.  She's had surgery to repair her wrist in the meantime, and is doing well.

But the thing is, had she been knocked unconscious, no one would have known who she was or been able to contact anyone in our family.  Because my mother did what I usually did when going out for a short walk or a run - she left the house with nothing more than a key in her pocket.

You never think anything is going to happen to you in your own neighborhood or on your familiar trails...but it can happen anytime, to anyone of us.  So don't forget your ID and/or a phone!

Inagural running event in Brussels and my first race in 3 years!

 I just checked my records and it's been three years since I participated in an organized running event!  My last race was the Ladies Run in Leuven in May 2012; I ran the 10K in 1:01:36, a pretty respectable time for me back when I was running very regularly.

As some of you know, I took a whole year off running for a hip injury and have been slowly reincorporating running back into my routine the past two years.  My oldest son, Florian, has also been doing more running, mainly to participate in a 24-hour relay team to raise money for cancer research in a few weeks.  So when I saw there was a new race in Brussels, I asked him if he wanted to do it with me, and I left the choice of distance up to him.  There was going to be a 5K and a 10K; he chose the 5K, which was fine with me.  Much less daunting to get prepared for!

We were so lucky yesterday, the weather was gorgeous and we headed to the big King Baudoin Stadium in Brussels where the race would start.  This stadium is where all the national football (soccer) team's matches take place, as well as a very well known athletics meet, the Memorial Van Damme.  So it was pretty impressive to be able to walk out onto the track and be able to start our race in the stadium.

The course was surprisingly hilly!  We went straight up a hill as we ran out of the stadium, and then through some parks in the area with quite some ups and downs.  This is not the race you would want to run for a PR.  Towards the end we got to run right under the Atomium, Brussels' answer to the Eiffel Tower, which we decided was worth pulling the camera out and taking a short stop to get a snapshot of:

By the time we passed the Atomium, my Garmin was telling me we were very near to 5 km, which we hit right around 35 minutes.  However, the course kept on going and led us into one of the big expo halls, where there was loud techno music, flashing lights and cheerleaders to welcome you as you finished.  By the time we crossed the finish line, were handed our medals, and I remembered to turn it off, the Garmin said 5.37 km and 39 minutes.  We were pretty pleased with our time, considering the hilly course and that it was actually longer than 5K.  We got our sports drink and waffle and got the heck out of that loud, dark hall and back into the gorgeous spring weather...

Doing the race yesterday reminded me of how fun it is to do a well organized big event in a neat location.  Especially when you have a great person to run with - Florian stuck with me the whole way, and was great company.  We really enjoyed ourselves.  So yes, we have already decided we'd do this one again - but perhaps the 10K next time...

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