Juneathon Day 30: End

To be honest, I am happy it is over. Funny enough, it is not the running that’s killing but blogging… After a month of daily reports, there is really nothing to mention anymore. I guess my life is too boring to keep a diary. It is all work and running and eating and sleeping and planning my runs in logistically difficult situations.  Luckily I am not alone in this. My fellow Juneathoners and all runners/sporters go through the same issues daily. And that is what keeps us going: even when sometimes it feels lonely on the run, we are NOT alone.

So thank you for organising Juneathon (JogBlog), for participating in it (all my Juneathon friends) and for supporting me all the way (all other bloggers and non-virtual friends). With your support, I made it through June with 30 days of running totalling the I-would-have-never-dreamt-this number of 234 km!

It is Sunday tomorrow: there will be no running for a change but there will definitely be some sports and fun!

Juneathon Day 28: Almost there

How hard can the last three runs of the month be? Tonight my body simply refused to go running. So we went downtown first (found one cool geocache) and had something to eat. Then ice cream. Then returned home.

At the end of the evening I started negotiating with my legs again. We came to a mutual agreement of a slow 5 km run. And so I ran off to the warm night. And it was hard. Is it the heat or is it the general tiredness of my body after almost 30 consecutive days of running?

Juneathon Day 27: Perfect evening for dummies

1. For once, get home from work on time.

2. Load the GPS co-ordinates of a cool geocache to your Garmin.

3. Convince your significant other to join you (and to stop asking questions).

4. Drive to the dunes.

5. Start running.

6. Enjoy the treasure hunt and find the cache.

7. Run to the beach.

8. Take off your shoes and run some more.

9. Sing along with the waves.

10. Drive home and collapse on the sofa with Chinese chicken noodles (cooked yesterday).

Juneathon Day 26: Shortest?

Long day with many issues and problems and back sets – sounds familiar? At the end of the evening, still with nothing to eat and no Juneathon run I managed to sneak out of the door for a short run along 2 geocaches. The plan was an easy 4-5 km ‘recovery’ trip. I first had to cross this bridge (so much for wildlife in Leiden):I found the first cache nearby and started worrying about the second one which was presumably placed in somebody’s garden. But then again, it is the charm of the game to overcome all kinds of fears (and besides, it was really getting dark). So a couple of minutes later I found the second one and ran home crossing this bridge: 

At home my Garmin showed 4.7 km. Probably the shortest Juneathon run. But on the positive end: I crossed the magic line of 200 km in June (my plan was 100 miles so I am kind of ahead of my own schedule…).

Juneathon Day 25: Run & Cache

I used to geocache quite a lot. Back in 2005, when I discovered the handheld GPS device, I was sort of addicted to puzzling the waypoints and crawling in mud under narrow bridges…. Then after finding and logging 700+ geocaches, the excitement washed away. The Garmin went to a large box at the attic named “Old hobbies” and it stayed there until last week. In France, I started combining running and geocaching. Searching for the waypoints while running through new places breaks the boredom and these days, for me it works better than the mp3 player.

For tonight (the last Juneathon week) I planned a 8 km run with 2-3 cache retrieve attempts. It was the first time that I actually used my Garmin Forerunner 310XT to navigate to the caches (have Garmin GPSmap 60CS as well but thought it was too ‘heavy duty’ for my gentle run). The first one took a while as I was disturbed by this cute baby that looked scared to death as I was looking for the micro container:

The second one was a breeze (except the 3 km d-tour) but the third one, the third one is definitely worth showing to you (Geocachers in Leiden, please don’t look as this one is a spoiler). In the default stage, it looked like an ordinary bird house:But that only lasted until I pulled the chimney:

No, I did not break it – it gently opened itself and after retrieving the geocaching box and logging my visit, I could bring it back to its original shape so it is ready for whoever comes after me. Brilliant!

Run total: 12.8 km

Caches found: 3

Bird houses opened: 1

Juneathon Day 24: Cat

According to the weather forecast, the only dry moment of the day would be long enough to squeeze 5 km run in it. So between washing machine load nr 2 and nr 3, we quickly changed and went to ‘our’ lake. After the 5 km yesterday evening when I was tired and sleepy and yet managed to run under 29 minutes, I was wondering what my legs could do today. Well, surprisingly, I ran another fast 5 km. At least, fast for my books: 27.33!

Immediately after that I added 2.3 km of recovery run in an attempt to spot something interesting to blog about. There were many dogs around but all of them too fast to be caught for a photo. So I found a cat. One that did not move:

I seriously hope it will not be used to damage the beautiful lake banks. We’ll see next week.

Oh – have I mentioned the rain and wind??

Juneathon Day 23: Fat liver

After 1300 km in the car we arrived home. I was too tired to unpack but not too tired to run. After 20+ days of consecutive running I did not want to give up. Not tonight. So I plodded my 5 km route around the river Aa, thinking of how good the holiday was and how I will miss foie gras…. and then suddenly these 4 girls crossed my path:Ok ok, I am not keen on the geese force feeding either but did you know that already ancient Egyptians prepared foie gras? In other words, sorry girls but I will not turn to a vegetarian any time soon…

Tomorrow the last Juneathon week starts and I am back in the cold and rainy place. Having said that, the hilly/trail training in France did its magic as my 5 km was probably the fastest I ever ran (under 29 minutes).

Juneathon Day 22: Last day

Today is our last day here in France. I went to ‘our’ trail again and returned home with fresh bread while everybody was still asleep. What a feeling to be back at home, after a good run, with hot cup of coffee, while the house is still quiet…

Despite the sweat and pain, I will miss these stones:

Now off to the lake to discover new bays and beaches.

Juneathon Day 21: Longest

It is the longest day of the year today. And for us, this morning it was the longest trail of our holiday. It did not start so nice, at least not for this guy: As usually, we ran above our village and lost our breath in the first 2 kms. But then again, the views around here ARE breathtaking:

And instead of turning back down, we crossed the main road and disappeared in the wilderness to discover some additional paths. No people, just sheep and rocky paths. What an excellent exercise for our ankles!

After about 6 km we reached a small summit above Tourtour and from there, it was all downhills – better/wider paths and at the end regular roads. The two creeks we were supposed to pass were both dry.

Back home it turned out that our run was over 12 km long.

Ehm, and one girly remark to top the story: on our way home, we even managed to buy a table cloth for our garden table. It fit perfectly in the camelback (all water was finished by then, anyway).

Juneathon Day 20: Bad signs

Sometimes life does not treat us well and shows us signs like these:On really bad days, you can even bump into this one:Luckily, for all the days, good and bad, there is always the road:Short post today, sorry about that. The run was great though: for 8.5 km, I had the entire world for myself.