Medal without racing
After testing my A.D. running abilities yesterday, this morning (after a night full of crying, feeding, cuddling and crying again) I left my bed at 6.30 am. I had to go running again…
I haven’t been downtown with my running shoes since last December and somehow, intuitively, that was where I wanted to go. One of the reason was the Singelloop, a 6.6km annual run around the historical city centre – my first race last year, my first running race ever! Last night I missed it so I wanted to check if there were still any remains of it today.
To my surprise, I haven’t found anything that would even remotely remind of a running race with 5000 runners along the city centre canals. All was clean and quiet. I guess the cleaning guys had a loooong night. 
I did not want to go further than 2 km down the main canal but then I suddenly remembered there was this one cemetary that I always wanted to visit but never had the time or opportunity. Funny enough, the gate was open this morning:
Half an hour later my 5.5 km loop was done and I was back at our city gate. What a beautiful morning!
And there is a bonus to it too – so that I always remember why it pays to get up early: at the end of my run, I picked up the Singelloop medal from the cobble stones. So here I am – no race but still one shiny medal!
April Runs 
Podle fotek nadherny vybehnuti.Rano nebeham, jsem k nepouziti, ale ted vidim, o co prichazim. A ta nalezena medaile..pekny, symbolicky – vis ty co? Ty si ji zaslouzis.
Zkus to, bude se ti to libit. Brzo rano mas pocit, ze mas svet jenom pro sebe.
Tak to určitě nebylo samo sebou, že jsi tu medaili našla 🙂 Taky se nemůžu moc přinutít k ranním běhům. Ale když to překonám, většinou je z toho krásný zážitek. To nízký sluníčko, klid, ranní chlad, krásně se dýchá … a taky mám takový subjektivní pocit, že ten den je nějaký delší 🙂
Renco, ta medaile, to je desna symbolika, vid. Jinak souhlasim s tebou ohledne rana: po rannim vybehu a sprse mam vzdycky strasne prijemnej pocit, ze uz mam za sebou nejaky vykon – den zacina tak nejak lip a je delsi.
I love your blog – I’m a Leiden runner too and am enjoying looking back through your posts on your routes etc. Hurray for the Singelloop medal – I can assure you the race was chaos – so I think getting up early to cover the route on your own was a good idea!
Wow, a Leiden runner! Will you be participating in the marathon on the 26th? Or any other nearby race?
It’ll be my first half! Eeeek! I ran the 5km there last year – only started running last year!
Great! Last year, we ran the Leiden 1/2M and it was my first half and it was really a great experience. But you probably read about it somewhere on my blog. This year, I consider 5K or 10K and then hopefully the full M in 2014. Good luck with your running!