Although my garmin said my recovery time was 13 hours, I think it will take me 13 years for the mental scarring to subside from last night’s Indoor race. Today we were back outside, for the second City Race in Herentals, another typically Flemish town. At 5.1 km, it was the longest race of the week, and with very tired legs and only a partially functioning brain, I was in survival mode.
We lined up to start on the Vesteren, an earth embankment surrounding an innocuous looking park. We could see some hedges that looked a bit complex, but nothing beyond that. From the start triangle, we turned left and downhill, crossed a bridge, under an arch – and my brain exploded. I had entered the beguinage (or Begijnhof in Flemish), and was confronted by an array of buildings, terraces, tiny gardens, steps, and narrow paths. Most of my fellow competitors also stopped dead in their tracks at the same point, staring in disbelief.
A beguinage is a walled architectural complex with houses, a church, and communal buildings around a central courtyard, established in the Middle Ages to house beguines – devout, lay women who lived communally and led a religious life dedicated to prayer and charity without taking solemn, lifelong monastic vows. The Herentals beguinage dates back to the 1600s. Most of the buildings are now given over to social welfare. Street view images (they don’t show the complex bits):
After several attempts to orientate myself to what I was seeing, I went back outside and began again, carefully matching everything this time. Success! My first control was in one of those small terraced gardens. Now for no 2 – and a 90 degree error on exiting had me flummoxed again. By the time I relocated and found it, I was 15 minutes down.
The rest of the course was pretty standard residential streets, parks and laneways, and I am pleased to say I made no further errors – but I got slower and slower as fatigue set in. I enjoyed the last section, which had some good navigational challenges and route choice – but was very glad to finish this one. Margi beat me by the 15 minutes I wasted, and we reversed positions in the overall standings. Ian enjoyed it and said he wished it was longer. He moved up to 5th overall, and Ted moved into 2nd.
After sorting out the minor problem of having our Cologne accommodation cancelled with less than 2 days notice (we found somewhere much smaller but better located, so all good), I headed off on the tram to Berchem, south of Antwerp’s city centre. Berchem is famous for its astonishing collection of art nouveau buildings, and I’d been waiting eagerly to see it. It absolutely did not disappoint – almost every building was a masterpiece. The streets are very quiet on a Saturday afternoon, which was just as well, as I constantly zigzagged from one side to the other. It was a lovely way to end the afternoon.
dipidydoo 