All things Flemish

We are here in beautiful Harelbeke and the weather is not as bad as they say!
We arrived on Wednesday to clear skys and sunshine. Not that we saw much of it as we were stuffed and went to bed at 11am only to wake up at 5pm. I have never traveled to europe in this direction before and it is much harder than the other way. It is now Sunday at 5am and I am up and running around. The first two days we were all out of wack and training went by the wayside. By Friday we had sort of gotten it together and managed a fantastic 3 hour ride through the local surrounding countryside. We rode in a big loop stopping to ride a lap of the famous Roubaix Velodrome. After a very funny coffee stop we were off again. The local pool is really well set up. Except for the fact that they do not seem so keen on using the lane ropes so people are swimming in all sorts of random directions. We found out that most people leave by 7.30 pm so they recommended that we lap swim then as there was more likely to be room. Saturday was a really interesting day as we found the local running park. It was a five km loop that was a bit like a mud run but hey I always enjoyed cross country running. Another ride in the late evening was to top the day off.

Somewhere in all that was the food.
I dont have to tell most of you about my love of food and cooking. This place had a little market on the Thursday and we went down to pick up a few freash things.
OH MY GOD ..... THE CHEESE!!!THE SALAMI!!!!THE BREAD!!!!THE FRENCH FRIES!!!!!!!
After cooking up a storm for breakfast everyday of omlettes and fresh fruit I have come back to the training plan. I would be the size of a house if I lived here on any long term basis.
Pierre and Myriam had us over for lunch yesterday as their son Joe was down for the day from Brussles. More amazing food. Myriam is healthy and cooked some beautiful beef and veg but Pierre sabotaged us by bringing out the Creme Brulee. Clearly one can not say no it would be rude :)

Today we are off for the final day of the tour in Paris. We will be staying the night in a hotel and returning to Belgium on Monday. We have packed the trainers and plan to run the streets in the morning. I hope I can resist the chocolate crossaints.... ha not bloody likely!!!!

Stay tuned for photo´s. It is proving to be quite tricky to post them as the keyboards and all the instructions are in Flemish.