Vossem 12km - 0h53:46

Vossem seems to me to be a quiet, sleepy village, surrounded by agricultural land and parks, close to the more famous Tervuren. Arriving here, I noticed two landmarks that were noteworthy. One is a large farm building, pictured above, quite striking as you're approaching the village centre. The other is the church dedicated to Saint Paul that dates back to the 12th century, with construction typical of very old structures, with bricks embedded in mortar, but very well kept. Pity I couldn't have a look inside, as I was dressed rather inappropriately in short shorts and running vest...

This weekend they had their Dorpsfeesten, whatever that is. The sleepy quiet character of the place was of course shattered on this occasion. There was a street market, a stage, someone shouting on a PA system, and lots of chips and beer stalls, always all too present in these races, without it being possible for me to buy anything since I don't carry any money with me during races!

Again, it was awfully hot today, as I embarked on my seventh race in the Watermolen Cup, which would ensure a placing in the final classification. Again, I had to drink lots of water before the race, and pour lots more on top of my head to cool down a little bit. And yet again I cursed the strange idea of race organisers in Belgium, who could easily schedule August races in the morning, or in the evening, so that participants might run in temperatures that are better suited for endurance events. But no! The races have to start in the hottest part of the day, in mid-afternoon.

Well, 10k is more achievable than 21k. But I made it a point to stick to a cautious pace, at least for the first third of the race. All this Watermolen Cup series has for me been a bit of a jump in the dark, since I have never done any one of the races, so I didn't know what to expect during the routes. So, again, today I didn't know if it was a single or a double loop, if it was a flat or a hilly race, or if we would be doing easy-going bicycle lanes and normal roads, or if we would be doing any treacherous forest paths that the Belgians seem to like so much.

For a couple of kilometres it was normal streets, going slightly uphill or downhill. There was a double kilometre marker after 2km, saying "2km 8km". How sweet of them, I thought, 2km gone, 8 to go. We entered a wood and the ground started to get rough. But I had settled into a good steady pace, even though the quality of the ground kept deteriorating. There were a couple of stretches of single file running. Luckily, it has only rained on rare occasions for the past few weeks, otherwise this would have been another mud feast. Instead it was bone dry and very dusty. It seemed as if I was running in Tunisia rather than in Belgium.

A second, cryptic kilometre marker: 4km 10km. What the hell? Did they mean the 4th kilometre of the 10km race? Maybe. Then an even stranger marker: 5km 11km. Never mind. But one question had been answered. It was not a double loop, since at the half-way point, i.e. 5km, we hadn't passed the starting point. Or so I thought. A few minutes later I started to hear shouting on a PA system, and suddenly it clicked and all the cryptic kilometre markers made utterly perfect sense: we were doing a double loop after all, the half-way mark being at 6km!

They had advertised a 10km race, but in actual fact it was going to be 12km long.

What a mean trick to play on a hot August afternoon. When I go out for a run, whether it's training or a race, I'm mentally prepared for the distance. When doing a 10k, at the end of that 10k I'm unable to contemplate any more, while two days later I would be quite capable of running 30km without any undue trouble. It's a psychological thing. But there's also the physical aspect. The pace of a 10k is faster than that of a 12k, and I had been running at the former pace, with consequent expenditure of energy. Now I had to keep going for an extra 2 kilometres, which was no joke in that heat. So, I switched to '12k mode', aiming to maintain the good position that I had achieved up till then.

Luckily, it was early enough for me to readjust and 'absorb' the additional distance into my race. I also happened to be in good shape, and it seems that I had hit on the optimum pace. Another advantage was that now, having done one loop, I knew what to expect, so I could prepare myself (mentally, again) for the hard parts, and again I overtook a good number of rivals even the second part. No stopping for drinks today - I reckoned I could survive the distance without having to stop to drink in the plastic cups provided, thanks to my extra pre-race hydration.

After the final bit of steep forest path I felt a bit groggy, but there were just two kilometres left to go, mostly downhill, and I quickly recovered a strong pace that took me beyond more rivals up to the finish.

It was a fantastic performance overall, one of my very best this year.

Zaventem half marathon - 1h38:55

Most people consider summer in Belgium to be a bit of a joke. "Summer? What summer?" they will say. This idea is apparently shared by Dwars door Zaventem, the organisers of the annual Zaventem half marathon that takes place on 15 August, the main summer holiday in Europe. It must be the reason why they don't choose a different time for the race, which takes place at the peak of the afternoon heat starting at 2 p.m.

To be fair, today happened to be abnormally hot. The maximum temperature has been in the low twenties since quite a few days, but it went up to around 30 C precisely on the day of the half marathon. Still, surely it's not unheard of that temperatures tend to be hot in the afternoon at the peak of summer. Would it be such a bad idea then for a half marathon in mid-August to start at, say, 10 a.m. rather than at 2 p.m.?

Whatever - 2 p.m. it was, and that's when I joined the small crowd of long distance diehards at the starting line, under a scorching sun at the edge of the communal park in Zaventem. I had known since close to a week that it would be very hot today, so I was well prepared, having taken a lot of water, plus poured another bottle over the top of my head to cool me down.

Having had a few disappointments in racing recently, owing to having started too fast, my aim today, also given the prevailing conditions, would be simply to complete the run, without aiming for any spectacular finishing time. So I positioned myself in the middle of the pack, and for a good while simply ran along with them, trying not to exert myself at all. It was a bit the same way as I run a marathon.

It was amusing how many runners were jostling to secure a place wherever there was a little bit of shade. Zaventem is famous for hosting the "Brussels" international airport, but I was quite surprised that neither at the start nor during the run was this evident at all. In fact Zaventem turned out to be a typical Flemish town with the main feature (apart from the airport) being the church, and consisting mainly of residential streets, parks and cycling lanes.

To my huge relief we didn't have any treacherous forest paths to negotiate. It was simply terra firma all the way, and also relatively flat, so I could easily settle into the steady pace for which I had been aiming. For the first time ever, I stopped at water stations, where we were (yet again) offered water in cups. I was prepared for this too, and had already decided I couldn't afford to spill the precious fluid. I would stop for 5 seconds to gulp down the entire contents of the cup and resume my run. Four such stops would only cost me 20 seconds, and were more than worthwhile since the alternative would be to eventually give up due to dehydration.

In the middle part of the race I gained quite a few positions. As I passed one particular runner, he jokingly told me "professional", and I replied, "well, almost but not quite...". But in fact I was doing well, and soon realised that there were just 5 km remaining. I hadn't overtaken anyone for a good stretch, and after another kilometre decided this was the time when I could push myself a bit more, encouraged by the fact that I had been told that the final 4 km were mostly downhill.

I'm still undecided whether it was the right decision. I did, in fact, overtake various other rivals, but with 2 km to go my steam ran out, and they were a very tough final 2 km. As if this wasn't enough, there was a 'sting' in the final few hundred metres, as we had to do a loop in the park, part of which was a rather steep hill, turning into a finishing downhill stretch on the grass. Still, no one overtook me at all in those last 2 km, so I suppose in fact I actually gained a few positions by deciding to force the pace.

What a race! A half marathon under the hot afternoon sun in mid-August, with the temperature in the shade at 29 C. Unfortunately, there was no complimentary beer or wine or memento here either. They gave us an apple. Maybe they're concerned for our health, although there was lots of beer for sale... I also got a ticket for a lottery ("tombola") with prizes including a mountain bike. The draw would take place two hours later, at 6. I didn't have a single cent on me, so I staggered towards the car and drove back home. I probably won the mountain bike, but wasn't there to claim the prize. I still have the tombola ticket, number 720.

Kortenberg - 12.4 km - 0h56:28

A week ago I yearned for the "quiet, peaceful, clean, car-free shaded cool of a forest in Belgium". Well, today I got my forest with a vengeance, but it was just a bit more than I had bargained for...

It was certainly quiet, there were no cars threatening to run me over, it was reasonably cool and also shaded, much too shaded, so shaded that running as I always do without my glasses I could hardly see where I was going and seriously feared twisting an ankle. It was also clean. Well, sort of. That's if you consider ankle-deep mud to be clean. At least there wasn't any vomit on the ground, as there had been in my 'Pigsty Run' of last Sunday.

There's this thing about races in Belgium. If there's a forest in the vicinity, they'll take you there. And they're not happy to simply route them through well-worn and well-made forest paths that are wide enough to allow overtaking, and smooth enough to be suitable for running fast. No! They prefer narrow, treacherous paths, preferably with tree roots growing on the surface, perfectly placed to trip you up. The paths are inclined sideways, with a sharp drop into a ravine next to the lower edge. When it rains, the ground becomes muddy and slippery, so after struggling up a steep hill, side-stepping across a watery trench or sometimes through ankle-deep mud, you get no reprieve at the downhill parts, as you have to be extra careful you don't slip and hurt yourself badly.

I have to admit, irrespective of the horrid ground conditions, that I wasn't in good shape today. It happens sometimes. Maybe I was hampered by the fact that I haven't been doing any speed training recently. Or my legs are tired through too much long distance running. Or the extreme heat of the past three weeks in Malta have sapped my energy resources.

Whatever... I console myself with the fact that, even though this is now my second successive race which ended in disappointment, I'm still doing very well in my long runs, and that's what really matters if I want to run a successful Brussels marathon this October. In fact, as I struggled through the mud of the Kortenberg forest today, I decided to forget about racing and satisfy myself with simply completing the run and avoiding injury, thereby bagging points for the Watermolen Cup.

Back on terra firma in the last kilometre, where I could finally run properly, I tried to re-enter into the spirit of the race by competing and trying to overtake some of those whom I had allowed to pass at the one-man wide passages in the forest. Even this was only a partial success, as I had to contend with an occasional sharp cramp in my left calf. It really wasn't my day today.

At the finish I grabbed and drank a can of mineral water, named Vlaams something and labelled strictly and exclusively in their blessed Vlaams language, then immediately proceeded toward the car to drive back home. They didn't give us any memento or a bottle of beer or wine as most other race organisers do.

Or even a bag of crisps.