Every year, I take part in the wonderfully mad tradition of “De Warmste 110” organized by Digging Deeper: where a group of runners making their way, stage by stage, along the route through Hoge Kempen National Park.
I join every year, but this time I decided to do the whole thing. Which, in retrospect, was perhaps a slightly ambitious decision for someone who had broken an ankle only three months earlier.
Still, there I was. One day, several stages, a rather alarming number of kilometers, and an excellent collection of people who seem to share the peculiar belief that spending an entire day running through the woods is a sensible way to have fun.
There was laughter. There was friendship. There was running. There were probably also moments when my ankle quietly questioned the choices that had brought it here.
Since we run the route in fixed stages, there are compulsory breaks between them, meaning everyone's clock is more or less destined to stop somewhere around the 15-hour mark. It is less a race against the clock and more a long-running social experiment involving forests, fatigue and questionable amounts of enthusiasm.
But I was the first woman to do the whole distance and cross the finish line, and frankly, I decided that was enough of an achievement to submit it.
One day, I hope to run the entire route again on my own, without the enforced pauses, and see what I can actually do.
For now, though, this will have to do.
Three months after breaking an ankle, a full day on my feet, surrounded by laughter, friendship and people who love running as much as I do.
Not the fastest time. Perhaps not even a particularly sensible one.
But a wonderful memory.