2:20pm
I’m at Espace 53 booked by the company and I receive the official T-shirt. Given I’m replacing someone who dropped, the guy handed me the size the girl asked: XS. He looked at me and asked whether I would prefer a M. I know I lost weight but not to fit in a XS. So M it is. I quickly changed, found Alice, chatted with Aurelie and Kathy and at 2:45pm we walked outside. Direction the starting block.
2:50pm
We’ve made our way into the crowd to the extreme end of the block where we’ve been assigned. Those guys are going to run so it’s safer for us to stay at the back. Tradition is that the race starts after the Bolero from Ravel and the national anthem. Patiently, under the sun, we waited. Part of me was excited, part of me was wondering if I shouldn’t leave before it’s too late.
3:15pm
It’s time for our group to go. We start to walk towards the entrance of the park, official start of the race. Once we stepped on the chrono mat, we started our distance tracker (Alice’s job) and the timer (my job). Target: 1.5km every 15min.
0-2km
Easy. We walk. Too fast as we have a pace of 1.8km/15min. It’s hard to walk at our pace as everyone is running. Despite we put ourselves on the right, runners try to bypass from there. We quickly realized that sidewalks are fast tracks, to be avoided by walkers. We also start to fear we would be the only one walking. EVERYBODY is running but us. What will we do if we are the last ones? Well, we’ll be proud to have finished it.
Rue de la Regence, time for a picture of the crowd ahead of us. Incredible to be part of it.
2-7km
Avenue Louise and the tunnels. We go down and up and down again and back up. Why did we have to take the tunnels and not stay up on the road? Strangely a man was running next to us uphill and asked how come we are at the same pace. Well. We walk fast… or he runs slowly… you can imagine which theory we prefer. So far so good. We keep the pace, we keep the smile, we go for it. At 5km, a quarter of the race, we even raised our arms (Ole!) to celebrate.
7-10km
Bois de la Cambre. This is nice to walk in the woods, with shadow to protect us from the sun. The group is now fully dispersed. No more crowd, we can walk at our pace. Amazingly we’re keeping up with a 1.7km/15min. Must be the excitement of the race. 9km, I’m thirsty. Novice that I am I didn’t know you should take 2-3 bottles when they provide water. I only took one and it’s long gone. We’ve implemented the “turbo”. To ensure we keep steady pace, each time it goes uphill we start the turbo and climb at a steady pace. And it’s hard!
10-13km
I want water!!!! There is none. We keep walking. We’ve done half of the race in 1h30 or a bit less. Suddenly we start thinking we can do the whole thing in 3h15… maybe even less. But where is the water? Km 12, Alice grabs water at the Red Cross stand. We really needed. It’s getting harder and harder especially with the sun right on us. No more shadow but we keep going.
Km 13
Isostar point. They give you a can of Isostar… and it tastes bad. Like a bad Fanta without bubbles. We tried to take it in but couldn’t. We threw it away and ate a cereal bar and dried fruits.
13-17km
It’s hard. I’m feeling down. Alice is motivating me and making sure we keep the pace. We’re now down at 1.5km/15min. That’s the minimum we should keep. 14km I text Wolfram so he gets ready. Each sign that shows we’ve done one extra km is a celebration… mentally as we focus our energy on walking. 14.5km a sign on the bridge “14.5km… Keep running”. Is it some kind of a joke? Most people must have arrived now. The fastest probably in a bit less than 1h. The bulk of the crowd in 2h. After that, all those people who started to run and will finish the race walking or walk uphill and run downhill. When I see how they suffer trying to run, I admire their effort but seriously, why don’t they just walk… especially because we’re now going faster than most runners. Crazy, right?
17-19km
Avenue de Tervuren and its famous hill. This uphill is tough, really tough. We’re tired and now have to face almost 2km uphill. Alice is suffering. We exchange the role of motivation. I don’t know exactly what I said and probably it doesn’t matter but I got us up the hill. Only 1 more km to go and it looks like we will do it within 3 hours. I wouldn’t say we speeded up but surely we wanted to finish it within 3 hours and all the crowd cheering at us really helped keeping the pace till the end.
19-20km
Where is the finish line? Once you get to Montgomery you see a big white arch… well that’s not the finish line. You have to go around the roundabout then make a left curve and finally cross the line.
Nestor happened to be there and took this picture of us in our final 20m… always with a smile.
20km
It’s done! We’ve made it! I can’t believe it but we walked 20 kilometers in less than 3 hours. We’re exhausted but happy. Probably the most smiling participants arriving at that point of time.
We picked up or Mars bar, a 1L bottle of water and… the medal. I can’t even remember the last time I had a medal for a sport achievement. I must have been 8 or so.
And today, I could download the certificate.
I’m at Espace 53 booked by the company and I receive the official T-shirt. Given I’m replacing someone who dropped, the guy handed me the size the girl asked: XS. He looked at me and asked whether I would prefer a M. I know I lost weight but not to fit in a XS. So M it is. I quickly changed, found Alice, chatted with Aurelie and Kathy and at 2:45pm we walked outside. Direction the starting block.
2:50pm
We’ve made our way into the crowd to the extreme end of the block where we’ve been assigned. Those guys are going to run so it’s safer for us to stay at the back. Tradition is that the race starts after the Bolero from Ravel and the national anthem. Patiently, under the sun, we waited. Part of me was excited, part of me was wondering if I shouldn’t leave before it’s too late.
3:15pm
It’s time for our group to go. We start to walk towards the entrance of the park, official start of the race. Once we stepped on the chrono mat, we started our distance tracker (Alice’s job) and the timer (my job). Target: 1.5km every 15min.
0-2km
Easy. We walk. Too fast as we have a pace of 1.8km/15min. It’s hard to walk at our pace as everyone is running. Despite we put ourselves on the right, runners try to bypass from there. We quickly realized that sidewalks are fast tracks, to be avoided by walkers. We also start to fear we would be the only one walking. EVERYBODY is running but us. What will we do if we are the last ones? Well, we’ll be proud to have finished it.
2-7km
Avenue Louise and the tunnels. We go down and up and down again and back up. Why did we have to take the tunnels and not stay up on the road? Strangely a man was running next to us uphill and asked how come we are at the same pace. Well. We walk fast… or he runs slowly… you can imagine which theory we prefer. So far so good. We keep the pace, we keep the smile, we go for it. At 5km, a quarter of the race, we even raised our arms (Ole!) to celebrate.
7-10km
Bois de la Cambre. This is nice to walk in the woods, with shadow to protect us from the sun. The group is now fully dispersed. No more crowd, we can walk at our pace. Amazingly we’re keeping up with a 1.7km/15min. Must be the excitement of the race. 9km, I’m thirsty. Novice that I am I didn’t know you should take 2-3 bottles when they provide water. I only took one and it’s long gone. We’ve implemented the “turbo”. To ensure we keep steady pace, each time it goes uphill we start the turbo and climb at a steady pace. And it’s hard!
10-13km
I want water!!!! There is none. We keep walking. We’ve done half of the race in 1h30 or a bit less. Suddenly we start thinking we can do the whole thing in 3h15… maybe even less. But where is the water? Km 12, Alice grabs water at the Red Cross stand. We really needed. It’s getting harder and harder especially with the sun right on us. No more shadow but we keep going.
Km 13
Isostar point. They give you a can of Isostar… and it tastes bad. Like a bad Fanta without bubbles. We tried to take it in but couldn’t. We threw it away and ate a cereal bar and dried fruits.
13-17km
It’s hard. I’m feeling down. Alice is motivating me and making sure we keep the pace. We’re now down at 1.5km/15min. That’s the minimum we should keep. 14km I text Wolfram so he gets ready. Each sign that shows we’ve done one extra km is a celebration… mentally as we focus our energy on walking. 14.5km a sign on the bridge “14.5km… Keep running”. Is it some kind of a joke? Most people must have arrived now. The fastest probably in a bit less than 1h. The bulk of the crowd in 2h. After that, all those people who started to run and will finish the race walking or walk uphill and run downhill. When I see how they suffer trying to run, I admire their effort but seriously, why don’t they just walk… especially because we’re now going faster than most runners. Crazy, right?
17-19km
Avenue de Tervuren and its famous hill. This uphill is tough, really tough. We’re tired and now have to face almost 2km uphill. Alice is suffering. We exchange the role of motivation. I don’t know exactly what I said and probably it doesn’t matter but I got us up the hill. Only 1 more km to go and it looks like we will do it within 3 hours. I wouldn’t say we speeded up but surely we wanted to finish it within 3 hours and all the crowd cheering at us really helped keeping the pace till the end.
19-20km
Where is the finish line? Once you get to Montgomery you see a big white arch… well that’s not the finish line. You have to go around the roundabout then make a left curve and finally cross the line.
Nestor happened to be there and took this picture of us in our final 20m… always with a smile.
20km
It’s done! We’ve made it! I can’t believe it but we walked 20 kilometers in less than 3 hours. We’re exhausted but happy. Probably the most smiling participants arriving at that point of time.
We picked up or Mars bar, a 1L bottle of water and… the medal. I can’t even remember the last time I had a medal for a sport achievement. I must have been 8 or so.
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