Sticky Situation

Last night I was running and it was great, towards the middle I started to feel something sticky in my left shoe. I have had changes made to my orthotics so I thought maybe the glue was melting or something. I thought well there is nothing I can do about it now so I started to ignore it and then forgot about it. Which is why I was so freaked out when I took my shoes off when I was about to shower.

    

Cleaning up was a bit of a mess, Luminol and blue light would make things look interesting.

It is amazing how much blood can come out of one toe. Also it amazes me how toes don’t complain much so I can see why people with Diabetes need to look after their toes.

Matters of the heart

Last week I was quite worried about my heart rate, I thought that I was getting sick or something because my heart rate was too high. I have only managed to get it to 207 thBut I think I am over it now maybe it is this strange does not kill you but does not go away virus that is affecting people in Cape Town. I am happier now that I have an expert opinion that maxing out my heart is okay at my advancing age :) July promises to be a better month for my running. I really have taken a rest this month, should get my orthotics fixed up. Some how I think my plan of adding cardboard cutout inserts under my shoe inserts is not going to get rid my shin splint issues that are rearing their head again :(

Favorite running partner

I never realised how much I missed running with my Colleen until we went away last weekend. We went to Houw Hoek Inn (we go once a year). I was feeling a bit stressed because being in the land of no hills really killed my hill climbing. Houw Hoek has a pretty good mountain to run up so that is what we did. Also took the camera along, I need something that I can attach my camera to. As usual I had already mapped the course using Google Earth.

It energized me to be running with her. She amazes me how she glides up hills (being roughly half my weight helps) and lifts my spirit when we are together. Also managed to see places off the N2 that we have driven passed and never knew about. It had been ages since we last run together even before I went away. Also ran on a railway track quite a workout, because the sleepers where forcing me to take smaller strides. In the end we did not run far, but so far it will be one of the more special kilometers of the 1609 I want to do this year.

Found it!

I finally managed to run around what I now call “The Google circle”. Good thing I did because in few years it will just look like an intersection of paths through very tall trees. I never planned to run last night it just happened only realized this when I was driving along the Rhine with my heart rate monitor strapped on. I see from my watch that I only started running at 20:30 that would be a crazy time to start running where I come from. I did not want to find it too soon because then I know I would have not run as far but I did not plan on running 11 km before I found the place. I was so happy when I did, I ran around the circle. I love drawing in Google earth with my runs, just wish my GPS was more accurate. I saw more bunnies and a deer type thing. But no foxes I think they wiped all of them out here. I started to get frustrated and only after sunset according to my watch did, I find the ring.



There is no way anyone would be able to find it easily because it is surrounded by very tall trees. In a few years I would love to come back there one day and sit on the benches round the big tree in the middle.

Another interesting run

Well it was interesting for me. It all started when I was looking for other runs that people had been doing in the Rhenen area where I am now. Most of them looked really boring. So I was looking around on Google Earth and found this really interesting circle where all the trees had been removed. I could not resist wanting to run there, don't know why. So I was really anticipating the run when the company I am working at decided that everyone needed to unscrew all their desks so they can get smalled ones. The only thing is everyone needed to do their own, desk. Lucky me I am sitting in what I imagen must be a mega manager's desk that is away for a few days. So geting all the screws unscrewed took some time. A good thing was that they gave everyone pizza for their trouble. So without having to make supper I was off, got back to the farm house got ready, punched the closest road into my German GPS for the car and I was off. Well I soon discovered that the "road" was not a real road, but a bike track something a sign would have helped before having to reverse a km :(

While looking for the road I spotted a sign for a castle so I could not resist. Drove into this really tiny village with tiny houses and tiny road and fast cars and lots of big motor bikes. I just ran through the castle gate and carried on running inside the grounds. It would be cool to have a house like this one, with a moat and draw bridge, one day *grin.





The ran around the grounds the castle, and then all hot and sweaty I got into my German navigated car. 2km just to run around the moat.

Well eventually I got close well what I thought was close to what I was looking for. So I stopped the car and dashed off. I the forest was amazing even saw bunnies and a couple of birds.



Also what I enjoyed the most was that it had a descent hill to climb. So I ran around looking for the circle I never found it. But even so this was the best run I have had since I have been here. Now it is off to the UK to run in another country. Trying to do 3 countries in 7 days. So far two for two.

Perfect evening

Last night was really great, the weather was perfect actually hard to describe. The temperature was perfect and there was no wind. I suppose that why all the air balloon people all came out to float. It was the most air balloons I have ever seen at one time.



Even though I knew it was not going to be an epic run I just could not let the great conditions slip though my fingers. I kept on looking up at the balloons some of them came really close to the ground, I think it was me missing having something to look up to. There are no mountains where I am staying, but there are hills on the other side of the river Rhine. My progress along the Marse dyke that keeps the Rhine in check is going okay. To speed my coverage of the area I think I will drive where I have not been and work from there.

Cell phone SIM search continued ...

I ran all the way to Rhenen and bought a SIM card from a cell phone/photographic shop. I was so glad that the SIM card worked straight away and went around looking at all the shops. I was impressed by the variety of shops that are available for such a small town.
	There is a Windmill in the town centre but I don't think it has worked in ages.

The town is really tidy no litter that I could see maybe it because they make throwing litter away a bit more fun.

The shops where all open and I was surprised that the town was not full of people doing all their shopping considering that the shops close at 1:00 PM and are closed on Sundays. I see crime is a problem here aswell fortunately I didn't see anyone that was carring a crowbar and wearing the mask of Zoro, well at least none of them looked like they had skipped a few days of shaving.

The circus is also in town and great seeing a giraffe again even if it was in the distance.

Why is a country with more bicycles than people would anyone want to ride a bike to no where. Especially really old school low tech rides like these.

Today is the Sabbath for the people that I am living with at the moment so it has been quite interesting seeing how they do things from the time between Friday evening and Saturday morning. I ran past a Albert Hein (SA equivalent: Checkers, not quite Pick ‘n Pay) and bought some Cookie Dough ice cream that people here really like but are unable to buy themselves and can't ask me directly to buy for them. Lots of rules and exceptions is all I can say. But I think it is good that they are keeping the customs like that alive.