Once a Runner, Always a Runner?

Sunday we met a couple whose 17-year-old son had just competed in a track meet here in Kessel-Lo, and had come in 6th in the final of the 5000 meter.  I was curious about what his time was, so I asked.  His father was pleasantly surprised that I was interested and when he told me the time (around 14 minutes), he was pleased at how impressed I was and that I had an understanding of how fast that was.  "You must be a runner," he said, "most people have no idea what those times mean."

You must be a runner.  I'll be honest, it felt good to hear that!  Even though I haven't really felt like "a runner" for some time, I have actually been running here and there, so I guess that does mean I'm a runner.  Right?  What are your thoughts on this?  Is there a certain amount of running you need to be doing to call yourself a runner?

In any case, motivated by this nice conversation, I took myself out for a "real" run on Monday morning.  Yes, I've been doing interval runs on the treadmill for the past few months, and I've done a few run/walks with my husband on Sunday mornings, but it had been a long time since I'd just gone out by myself on one of my old routes for what in my book qualifies as a run.

Just me and my Garmin, the path through the woods and the neighborhood and past the old abbey farm where the horses graze...it felt great.  I was doing ten minutes of running alternating with 2 minutes of walking and I hit 5000 meters at 36 minutes.  Not too shabby, I thought to myself.  I may be slow but I'm still a runner.

Summer Recap: 5 Teenagers (including1 Niece), 3000 Kilometers, 4 Weeks, 7 Countries!

Outside the cathedral in Bourges

So, my niece Maddie came to visit us for nearly a month this summer, and we really wanted to give her a chance to see as much as possible while she was here.

We managed to get her to seven countries while she was here (Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain, England, the Netherlands and Germany), the highlight of which was a big road trip to the south of France for ten days.  It was a lot of fun - all five teens (Maddie, my three boys and Charlotte, Florian's girlfriend) were great company and good travellers.  I had been wanting to take my kids to the area for years to see the medieval city of Carcassonne, which I visited when I was a teenager travelling with my French host family.

Cloisters in Narbonne Cathedral

Hiking down to the natural bridge in Minerve

We stayed in a gorgeous gite in Pouzols-Minervois, a small village in the middle of vinyards located about a half hour inland from Narbonne, which was really well located for the Mediterranean coast as well as neat places like Carcassonne and our new favorite spot, Minerve (which inspired our running joke of saying "tu Minerve" while we were driving there) - a very cool ancient Cathare city built on cliffs and with an amazing natural bridge in the ravine below - and much much less touristic than Carcassonne, which really put the kids off.  Most days we went and visited things in the morning and then headed back to the gite late afternoon to spend some time relaxing before making dinner.  And one day we drove the 150 kilometers to Spain, to visit Figueres, which happens to be the birthplace of Salvador Dali, and where they have an incredible museum showcasing his life and work.


We could not get over how busy it was at the Dali museum!  The line to get in stretched right around the building and the place was jam packed.  The crazy architecture and the sheer number of Dali's works of art made the trip more than worth it, however.  It was quite an adventure!

I feel so lucky to have been able to get to know my niece better, spend time with her, my husband, kids and my son's lovely girlfriend, and get back to one of my all time favorite parts of Europe.

Enjoying a relaxing boat ride on the Canal du Midi

Can you tell I'm in my laughing place?

Maddie wrote some very nice blog posts about her European adventures on her own blog (including lots of pictures!):

France Part 1
France Part 2
London
Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany