Hayden McLaren blog: Europe Take 2

Hi Everyone,

Well it has been a good two weeks since arriving in Ede-Wageningen, Holland. My first week here was rather rough in trying to recover from the flight, but after some easy long running in the forests around here, things started to return to normal quite quickly.

Jeroen and Neeltje have shown me around all the local running routes, and introduced me to many nice people. I have truly been made to feel welcome here and I can’t thank them enough.

My days at the moment are spent quite relaxed. I wake up, train, spend the day watching movies or reading National Geographic (I can tell you all about the evolution of the feather later…) and then train again in the early evening. After that is a bit of dins dins and a beer with some locals who are always too willing to pay for it!

I was meant to run a 1500m in Nijmegen last week. However I decided to skip this and make my European debut in Lokeren, Belgium. Here I managed to solo an even 3:43.00 and win feeling relatively comfortable. This has at least given me the confidence that I am in shape to run fast and also that it is time to do so!

Next race is this weekend (4^th June) at the IFAM meeting in Oordegem, Belgium. It has a good strong field and the pace is set to be quick so looking forward to having a real good crack.

In other news… “Doo Doo” The Cat has stopped attacking me. This is not through some new friendship that we’ve formed though, but because it is my duty to feed her when Jeroen and Neeltje are not around!!! It seems she knows this!!!

I am also trying very hard to learn some Dutch… it is a bloody difficult language though but here is a small sample of things so far:

“Kikker is verliefed” = “The Frog is in love”

“Lekker” = I like… (with many different contexts)

“Snell” = Fast… (they got that one right with Peter Snell or Peter Fast)

Anyway hope everyone is happy down-under in winter time; fantastic weather here!

Hayden