I started an hour before sunrise. It was pretty warm for October but excellent for running. As I was recovering from an ankle injury this was a good test to see how the ankle would handle the hills in beautiful Limburg. The first kilometers I had to climb to the hill of Landgraaf and I was just in time for a beautiful sunrise. After that it was through Germany with a bit of headwind. In Vaals after 28 km I bought some cola and water at a shop. There are not to many shops along the route so it was good planning especially because it was pretty warm and humid by now. The clim to the ‘drielandenpunt’ was nice. It was not too busy because it was a Monday. It was beautiful as well due to the autumn, sun and golden leaves in the trees.
i had a few times I made a navigation error, not paying attention to the route due to enjoying the scenery.
After 60 km at camping Oosterberg I found an open watertap, luckily. I was a little low on water and the nearest shop wouldn’t be before 72km in Sint Martensvoeren. My ankle did great, only some minor issues when I misstepped a few times.
I arrived in Eijsden at the ferry (stops sailing after October 31) around 16:40 and it wouldn’t sail before 17:00. By now it had started to rain as forecasted, so I took a seat at the cafe next to the ferry and drink two cola’s. At 17:00 sharp the ferry took me to the other side, I was the only passenger. It was only 14k to the finish, by now it was muddy and wet but luckily not so cold. The climb to the Observant was nice, lots of small tracks so paying attention was important. I arrived at the ENCI groeve around 17:50 and then I noticed the groeve was closed at 17:00. I had not anticipated this, bummer. What to do now? The ENCI groeve is only accesible through a gate and it was closed, no way to clim over the fence as you can’t geft out on the other side to get to the stairs. I looked at my garmin and found an alternative route that would get me at the other side of the stairs at the lookout point on the north side. That is the endpoint of the famous Pieterpad (I finished that 500 k route in June 2022). It was around 2,5km of a detour and an extra climb. The last few kilometers in Maastricht are flat and fast. I finished just before sunset and was very happy to have finally been able to do this route. It’s always beautiful to run in Zuid Limburg as it is so different from where I live at the Dutch coast.