It has been marathon day in Amsterdam, with the annual race snaking through the City. The chance to run through the falling leaves on a crisp Autumn morning under a fabulous blue sky was certainly inviting, but I definitely didn't want to run 42km for the privilege. Luckily there were other options for mere mortals like myself - and I signed up for a nice little 10km, which meant I was home lying in a steaming bathtub by midday. It was worth the effort to finish in the Olympic Stadium (with the theme tune from 'Chariots of Fire' playing in my head) and I managed to drag myself over the finish line after 58 mins, which was better than expected.
Peter was braver and went for the 21km (half marathon) option in the afternoon. He did look funny as he left home - I made him an outfit out of a grey plastic bin bag (with holes for his head and arms) to keep him warm (he didn't want to queue to leave a bag of pre-race warm up clothes so the disposable outfit seemed sensible). He borrowed my bike because his has a flat tyre. Seeing him cycling off on a bike with a big sunflower on the front wearing a plastic dress was very amusing.
Later on, I proudly watched him from behind the crash barrier as he casually powered up the Stadshouderskade (bin bag now discarded and looking significantly cooler). It was hard to imagine that he'd already done around 18km. He finished in 1 hour 52 mins, an excellent result. There's no stopping him now, and I'm getting nervous that he'll start signing us up for marathons soon.
And just to stop us all from getting too pleased with ourselves....
The winner, Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia, ran the full 42km marathon in 2 hours and 6 mins at an average speed of over 20 kph. That's TWICE as fast as I ran (and I only did a quarter of the distance). Incredible!
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Scary Belgian Giants
According to the web, there is a legend that the Belgian city of Antwerp gets its name from the Dutch for ‘Hand throwing’ (hand werpen).
The story goes that in years gone by a mean old giant controlled the bend in the river Scheldt where Antwerp lies. He demanded that all passing ships paid him a heavy toll. Those failing to pay would have their hands chopped off. A Roman soldier called Silvius Brabo decided that enough was enough, slayed the giant, chopped off his giant hand and chucked it in the river.
I wish I knew this story when we visited Antwerp last weekend. I could have impressed my fellow site-seers with my knowledge. Instead we all stood round the statue of a man with a squirty hand and wondered why someone had bothered putting it there.
We were given a tour of the city later in the day, but I gleaned minimal information from our tour guide because he spoke very fast and weird-sounding Dutch (I’m guessing he had a Belgian accent?). I was wondering why the man seemed to be overly-interested in stories about livestock until Peter told me he was talking about the city’s maritime history and it was ships not sheep to which he was referring.
Despite the confusion, it was great to check out this very pretty place – to crane our necks at the Cathedral (123 metres high, 169 years to build – thankyou web) and to wander through the beautiful old streets. Antwerp seems to borrow the French obsession with food along with the Dutch obsession with creating a lovely cozy ambience, and its countless restaurants and bars looked so inviting it was hard to walk past them.
Luckily we didn’t encounter any threatening giants, so we left Antwerp on Sunday morning with both hands intact, but we did have a bit of a hangover.
The story goes that in years gone by a mean old giant controlled the bend in the river Scheldt where Antwerp lies. He demanded that all passing ships paid him a heavy toll. Those failing to pay would have their hands chopped off. A Roman soldier called Silvius Brabo decided that enough was enough, slayed the giant, chopped off his giant hand and chucked it in the river.
I wish I knew this story when we visited Antwerp last weekend. I could have impressed my fellow site-seers with my knowledge. Instead we all stood round the statue of a man with a squirty hand and wondered why someone had bothered putting it there.
We were given a tour of the city later in the day, but I gleaned minimal information from our tour guide because he spoke very fast and weird-sounding Dutch (I’m guessing he had a Belgian accent?). I was wondering why the man seemed to be overly-interested in stories about livestock until Peter told me he was talking about the city’s maritime history and it was ships not sheep to which he was referring.
Despite the confusion, it was great to check out this very pretty place – to crane our necks at the Cathedral (123 metres high, 169 years to build – thankyou web) and to wander through the beautiful old streets. Antwerp seems to borrow the French obsession with food along with the Dutch obsession with creating a lovely cozy ambience, and its countless restaurants and bars looked so inviting it was hard to walk past them.
Luckily we didn’t encounter any threatening giants, so we left Antwerp on Sunday morning with both hands intact, but we did have a bit of a hangover.
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