Yesterday marked the kick-off of the local yearly festival, Kermis. Part of the reason I chose to travel when I did was so that I could partake in the festivities, seeing as R could not accurately describe them to me.

My original plan was to watch (and support R and his team) in the marathon, however one of his friends' aunt's team lost their team member and back-up, so they called R and asked if I was interested. I had done a bit of running earlier in the month, so I figured it would be much nicer to participate than to just watch, and boy was I right!

The weather was terrible - windy, raining and 16 degrees C. I seriously debated what to wear, and ended up bringing a few options with me.

We arrived at the designated meeting point, where I met my team, Lady Powe(b)rrr. The theme for this year's race was Après Ski, which to the Dutch means dressing up like Germans or the Swiss. Thankfully my team just had tank tops made. Other teams had whole outfits, including wigs!

After we all got registered, they took each group's picture next to the 'chalet.' They also took pictures of the individuals who ran the marathon as individuals.

Lady Powe(b)rrrr

R's Team, Er lauft ein loel in my way!

I was runner #1 for my team, so I went to the 'start' line, where the proceed to escort us through a crazy narrow set of laneways, and over a bridge (the portion of the race in the water in the below image) to a bigger starting area.

The relay route

At the start, two people spoke for at least 10 minutes. I tuned them out because it was all in Dutch (naturally) but everyone else seemed quite put-off by their lengthy speeches. We were all so cold given the weather conditions and our attire.

The Racers, looking enthralled

The speakers

I know the speakers talked for at least 10 minutes, because I thought the race was supposed to start at noon, and we didn't get going until at least 12:10. That was the last time I looked at my phone before moving to the stopwatch app.

Finally, we were off

I noticed a bunch of cameras and go pros, but only found these two photos below of R and I. As more shop up, I will post them.

R is so fast he's blurry!

Me, realizing I should have started closer to the back

My first round was awful, thank goodness it was shorter than the rest! My official time was 12:17 for about 2.5 km. I had a stitch like nobody's business!  The 2nd round was much better, I ran the full 2.66km in 18:46 and felt good the whole way. In the 3rd round my IT band started acting up, and I knew I was going to have to pull out. It took me 20:37 to get through the route, and I could barely walk afterwards. Thankfully one of my teammates' daughters was on-call, and she was able to run the last 2 rounds for me. My team finished with a total time of 4:19:48.

I think this would have been a super fun race to participate in if the weather hadn't been so bad (rainy and windy). Everyone was so happy to be there, and had so much enthusiasm about the theme. Seriously, you need to check out the event photos! If I'm here at this time of the year again, I will definitely be looking for a team who can handle my slow pace as well as Lady Powe(b)rrrr did!!