Hi all! Today was the end of my holiday in the Belgium Ardennes. Early morning we packed our bags and cleaned the appartment before driving back to the Netherlands. Luckily today the traffic on the road was not that bad (especially compared to last week) - it took us roughly 4 hours today to drive back from Walcourt (BE) to Rotterdam (NL).
The Ardennes were pretty cool! Also from my running perspective as they offered some hills - which is something the Netherlands is very shy off. There were also some downsides which mostly had to do with the time a day that I went out for my runs - during the daytime loads of people were active (both cyclists aswell as runners) in the evening I seemed to be the only one in the wider area - on wednesday that allowed to to see a wild hog cross the road I was running on (20 meters from me) which was very cool.
But people were also allowed to drive 90 km on these roads, without traffic lights and they drove like they didn’t expect to come across someone. Which was fun, but not that relaxing as I expected.
Today I really wanted to go for a run, despite the afternoon temperature being well above 30C. When I started my run it still was a little warm, but a very nice breeze turned up.
I decided to go for a route that covered a mix of paved and unpaved routes including some high grass kilometers. Which I always find very enjoyable!
My pace was again based on keeping my heartbeat within zone 2 (below 150 BPM) - depending on the roadtype varying between 5:00 to 5:15 / km.
Quickly the evening set in and it became a really comfortable temperature.
Basicly a perfect reset for body and mind after a longer drive!
happy running!