Wallonie - Belgium

In Belgium on business, staying in a fantastic hotel in the middle of nowhere: Chateau de la Poste. Plenty of hard work on the cards, but also the opportunity to go for an early morning run with Bruce and my new boss, Jason.

We set off at 6:00 am from the hotel and ran down the drive which lasts for almost 1 kilometre. I was already fully aware that I'd under-estimated how cold it gets in the Ardennes, and the frost in the fields only highlighted my inadequate level of clothing as we ran. It was cold and dark.

I followed the pace set by Bruce and Jason at about 5:30 / km which was very pleasant to run at but didn't help in getting me any warmer. We decided that we'd head away from Brussels direction and run along the small road that headed uphill, thinking that the road would be quiet at this time in the morning. It was actually surprisingly active and we had to take care not to be mown down by mad Belgian motorists starting their commute into Brussels.

We ran a large loop around back to the castle/hotel getting back their after a little more than 8 kilometres and several hills. I decided to carry on and did another loop in the opposite direction from the end of the drive, taking the total distance to just under 14 kilometres in 1:10. I ran the last few kilometres at 4:10 pace along the road, before climbing some pretty monster hills to get back to the hotel on top of the ridge.

Great run overall.