Travel

The opportunity to travel was one of the reasons Kyle and I were excited about coming to Belgium.  Within a couple of hours we can be in several different countries, just like many of you in the US can be in several different states within a couple of hours.

What makes travel even easier for us is that SHAPE has a couple of organizations that do all the organizing for you.  There is SHAPE Trips and Tours which runs trips on Saturdays and longer ones during school vacations and there is SHAPE Travel Group which runs week day trips.

Trips and Tours offers Saturday day trips  to England, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Luxembourg.  Typically these trips leave early in the morning and involve a bus ride of 2-4 hours, some structured tour time and some free time to do as one wishes.  During school breaks they organize longer trips - for the Christmas break they are offering a trip to Egypt and during spring break they are offering a trip to a resort near Barcelona.

SHAPE Travel Group is more of a wives' group.  Yes men are allowed but it is typically the women who are free to travel in the middle of the week.  When I went to Versailles I went with this group.  Their upcoming trips are to a spa in Belgium and for shopping in England and in Germany.

It is easy to travel when someone else does most of the work - picking the place, the activity and arranging transportation and driving.  We just pay the money and get on the bus.

While we dreamed of frequent travel, we aren't getting out as much as we'd like for the same reasons many of you don't bop around your neighboring states - you and your kids are busy.  Even so, we are trying to push ourselves to find the time and make the effort - after all Flat Stanley is begging to have his picture taken in front of more landmarks.

Cross Country Meet

allen is the most obscured runner in this photo

Saturday was Allen's first cross country meet.  As the meet was significantly far away, I did not attend.

Significantly far = kids boarded bus at school at 1pm checked into hotel in England around 9pm.  Kyle attended as the male chaperone so he was there for Allen and to take photos.

This past spring (before breaking his arm) Allen decided to take up running.  One night he said, I'm going to go running.  As it was dark, I made him stay in the neighborhood - he put on some shoes and for three hours circled the neighborhood.

For the months when his activity was restricted due to his arm, he was anxious to get back to running.  So when we got to Belgium (and the months of restriction elapsed) Kyle and I encouraged him to give cross country a try.  He has been running daily with his team and training.

According to Allen his best skill is consistency of pace.  Running around the track his laps time the same.  He doesn't slow down he doesn't speed up.  His coaches like this and encourage this consistency.

 On Saturday, Allen got his first taste of American high school competition - in England. The course was in a local park close to Alconbury air force base.  It was a 5k course.

Kyle says there were about 40 boys running.  At about the 1k mark Allen was in the last quarter of the pack and by the 2k mark Allen was towards the middle.

In the end Allen was the fifth to finish of the boys on his team.  He finished 16th with a time of 22:13.  Allen says he was neither tired nor winded so next meet he's going to go for a faster pace to see if he can improve his time.

I look forward to seeing him run soon when he'll be a bit closer to home.