November thoughts

 This picture was taken on an unseasonably balmy November afternoon last week, while on a walk with a friend I hadn't seen in a while.  It kind of reflects how life seems to me at the moment: bright and beautiful, but fragile, in the foreground (all the good things in life for which I am so grateful) with some threatening dark clouds always just on the edge of the frame (the hard things that have happened this year to so many people around me).

My father passed away on October 2nd.  It's very difficult to get used to the idea that he is no longer there.  We are all working on that.  And continuing to honor his love for the outdoors.

Monthly Hike with Ingrid

We were so lucky with our planned walk yesterday!  It was supposed to rain, it was actually sprinkling as we drove from Leuven to our starting point in Vossem, and the sky was full of ominous dark gray clouds the entire time we were walking.  But every now and then the sun would come out and it felt like spring!

I had planned out a 15 km route, with a 10 km alternative if the weather was bad.  But when we got to the point where we had to decide whether to take the short cut or not, it was still dry.  So we continued on the 15 km route.  Even though the sky still looked like this:

Ultimately the wind began to pick up, and in our last three kilometers it finally began to rain, lightly at first and then hard, so that by the time we got back to the car, it was pouring.  But still, we felt lucky, considering that our February walk was three hours of  non-stop rain. 

Leuven Corrida 2016

I talked my youngest son, Felix, into doing this with me, and it was his first organized race event!  Thankfully it wasn't too cold this morning but there was a nasty wind and a constant drizzle of rain.  At least it wasn't pouring, right?

We walked downtown (the second best thing* about this race is that it takes place right in the center of Leuven - we can just walk to the starting line!) and bumped into our neighbor, Bram, who was volunteering:

 Felix and I were signed up for the 4K.  Maybe you remember that in 2012/2013 I had to stop running for about a year because of a persistent hip injury that turned out to be high hamstring tendinosis...all that time, the one thing I wanted to be able to do again, was participate in the Corrida in my home town.  And this year, after changing my whole approach to running in particular and movement in general, I finally have been able to add running back into my life.  So it was a great feeling for me to be able to do this again, even if it was "only" the 4K distance.  Felix stuck with me the whole way and we ended up finishing together in 26 minutes.  

*And of course, the best thing about this race?  The bottle of wine they hand you after you cross the finish line!

Hope you had a very Merry Christmas, and all my best wishes for 2017!

Summer recap, part 1: walking weekend in Germany

Despite the fact that we are going to have summer weather at least through the next week, I can definitely feel that summer is drawing to an end.  Felix just started his final year of secondary school this week.  Florian and Charlotte are travelling in Japan, and Gillis is interrailing across Central and Eastern Europe with friends - they'll all be gone for the next three weeks until university starts at the end of the month.  So it's quiet around here but at the same time back to routine.

Which means I have some time to post about some fun things from the summer.  Ingrid and I decided to celebrate ten years of walking together with a walking weekend in the Eifel region in Germany.  We stayed at a bed and breakfast in a very small village.  We were given maps and detailed descriptions of five different walks ranging from 13 to 28 kilometers.  Once we made our choice, the lady who runs the B&B drove us to the starting point of the walk and dropped us off - and it was up to us to find our way back!

We were blessed with incredibly perfect walking weather - bright and sunny and just on the good side of not being too hot.  Our first walking day took us around the famous three round lakes (Maaren) near Daun.  Gorgeous!

Our second day was our longest: after being dropped off by the B&B lady in the morning (with a picnic she made for us), we took the whole day to do the 20 kilometers back, enjoying the rolling hills, forest, and little towns on our way.

Finally, our last day, we stopped on our way home to visit the little town of Monreal (picture below) and the much bigger and more touristic town of Monschau.  Both are renowned for their half-timbered houses and narrow streets, and both boast a castle that sits high above the town center.

 It was a very enjoyable weekend and a great way to celebrate our walking anniversary.

Weekend in France

We just got back from a quick two days in France - my friend Joy, her husband and son (my godson) are there visiting her in-laws and we were invited for the weekend.  Always a treat to be in France, even if it's short.

A walk through the village on Saturday afternoon so the boys could score some pastries:

Fun times with good friends, what more do we need in life?

Great Breweries 25K

My walking buddy Ingrid and I signed up for this new running/walking event months ago and despite struggling with high hamstring tendinosis since I returned from the US, I was looking forward to it.  Both my doctor and my physical therapist said walking was perfectly fine for me, and I didn't really want to have to cancel.  I've been having most discomfort from sitting and driving, so I knew the worst part was going to be getting there and coming home afterwards in the car.

The race headquarters, start and finish, was located at the famous Duvel brewery complex in Puurs.  Despite being extremely crowded and busy, the event was well organized and we quickly got our race bibs, t-shirts and hit the porta-potties before lining up to start.  The full marathon started earlier in the day; we started at the late time of 11:30 after the 25K runners, as the day quickly turned from gray and misty to sunny and hot.

The course took us through beautiful countryside and fields on the way to the Palm brewery in Londerzeel, where we walked through the restored castle as well as the modern brewery building, and got a free taste of their new beer, Cornet, while we took a break to eat our sandwiches and get out of the sun a bit.  

The course continued - this area of Belgium is not far from where all of my in-laws live so it was fun to pass through.  There were tons of walkers, of all ages, shapes, sizes and speeds.   We particularly liked the clown in the beer barrel suit we passed several times:

The day continued to be extremely hot and muggy.  We, along with many other participants, were not really prepared for the heat - the forecast had been rain and storms - and so I didn't have sunglasses or my usual hat.  It got pretty uncomfortable, and at the next two beer-tasting spots we stuck with water, sports drink and a banana.  Lots of people were partying pretty hard at those stops, where there was always a bar, live music and beach chairs, but we kept on going.  We were afraid if we had another beer and sat in a beach chair we'd never be able to get up and keep walking.

At about 18 km, we started to hear thunder and in the distance a dark cloud started to roll towards us.  The wind picked up and it suddenly got cooler which was a huge relief.  Luckily, we only had to put our raincoats on for about 15 minutes or so - we were spared a really big storm.

After a bit more than 5 hours of walking we finally made it back to the Duvel brewery, where after you came in and got the usual stuff (a medal, a cookie, another sports drink) they had a big tent with a bar where, with vouchers on your race bib, you could have three different beers from each of the breweries we passed.  

Ingrid only had one beer, since she was driving, I tried two: a Tripel Karmeliet and a Palm Special Hops.  Nom nom.  I can tell you, after walking 25 sweaty kilometers, those beers tasted so good!  We got a gift box with three bottles of the beers to take home, too!  Quite a marketing event for the breweries, I guess.  

If you look closely, you'll see that the medal also serves as a bottle opener - how convenient!

All in all, it was a very well organized event with a great atmosphere.  My legs, while I definitely felt it in my calves and feet, were fine and while I was very stiff when I got home, my tendinosis didn't seem to be aggravated by the walking, which is great.  Ingrid and I felt like 25K was just about as far a distance as we would want to walk at this point - any longer seems like it would be too long, and five hours sounds just about right - as long as there's a cold beer waiting at the finish, that is!

Three races (part 3)

Ever since the inaugural Illinois Marathon/Half-Marathon I've been saying to Joy that I was going to come and do this event with her.  We met when we both studied abroad in Dijon, France in 1987 and have been friends ever since, and we both graduated from the University of Illinois together in 1989:

In 2007 we ran our first race together, in my hometown - the Leuven New Year's Corrida:

So doing the Illinois Half Marathon with Joy has been on my bucket list for quite a few years now, and this year, things worked out!  

Unfortunately (and this is why I don't have any pictures, except the one below after we finished) the weather was terrible.  The evening before, for the 5K, it was perfect.  But we woke up to pouring rain, and a chilly 54 F.  Luckily, there was no thunder and lightning and the race was not called off, as it had been the year before.  So Joy's husband drove us as close as possible to the starting corrals and we tried in vain to stay dry and warm while we waited for the start.

Once we got going, despite the rain, wind and cold, dare I say we enjoyed ourselves?  We did, actually - we talked the whole way, thanked the volunteers along the course (they had it worse than us, we reasoned - they had to stand still), laughed, looked forward to refueling stops, and sloshed along in our sponge-like shoes.  I can tell you, for a fact, that cold and rain is good for one thing - preventing blisters!  My feet were very comfortable - perhaps because they were numb?

The course itself was flat, started out going through campus, wound through Urbana and some beautiful neighborhoods with old stately homes, through a nature preserve, and some newer neighborhoods, and finally back to the University of Illinois campus.  It would have been great to do it on a sunny day, but we both said blistering heat wouldn't have been fun either.

It was a relief, though, when we finally made it to the finish, in nearly four hours, crossed the line in Memorial Stadium and at last, chilled to the bone and completely soaked, were able to get out of the wind and rain.  Patrice, God bless him, picked us up, and we spent the rest of the day curled up in front of a wood fire, proud and happy of our accomplishment:

And we weren't even last:

I'd do it again in a heartbeat (but I'd pray for no rain).