After Parties...

Just as soon as we arrived at the end of the race, the skies opened up, but we stayed dry in the giant tent. We each were entitled to one glass of local wine, but Jimmy managed to sweet talk some distributors into refilling our glasses. I chose this photo to highlight how muddy he got and that rather than a band, the entertainment was a man playing an accordion. 

Dylan didn’t let it get him down that he wasn’t allowed to have any wine.

Once the rain let up, we headed down to the main street to catch the bus into Gulpen, the nearest village with a population of 3,600. We were thrilled to get a table at Gulpener, an independent brewery dating back to 1825, with delicious beer and food. 

I don’t usually take selfies in bathrooms, but loved that the sinks were made from kegs. Ironically, a guy at the table next to us saw our hash shirts and struck up a conversation about hashing in Asia. 

The sky was crazy when we left to walk to the parking lot to catch a lift home with Reinhardt and Inga.

Was surprised to find a glass pyramid in this tiny village. 
 

Limburg Wine Marathon...

Perhaps it’s not a surprise that there’s a lot less photos from our group of marathon runners, but they did manage to get a few group pics while running...

…or enjoying a wine stop.

While I took the stairs down to the big drop down to the creek, my husband opted to treat the steep path as a mud slide. 

Eventually these runners passed us near the end of the route and warned us that the course would be closing soon. Luckily Richard was able to grab Dylan so Celine, Julia and I could run the final little bit. Good thing we did that short run as we were the last ones to cross the finish line just as they were closing down. 

Not only did we get our medals that we had clearly earned, but Jimmy had arranged with the DJ to call out our names.  
 

Limburg Agriculture...

On the last section of the trail, we went past a lot of crops. Here were onions...

…and potatoes, which made for quite dramatic photos.

As you’ve likely noticed, it was very scenic and I am proud of my accomplishment, so I got a bit carried away with posts.

 

Limburg Livestock...

Although we saw some sheep...

…and some cows, there were still lots of stiles that didn’t seem needed for the livestock.

 

Like a Hash Trail...

We discussed that we felt like we were on a hash trail with lots of variety and few signs. 

Luckily Dylan didn’t put up a fuss about being dragged around the Limburg countryside for 5.5 hours. And I was super impressed with Celine, who hadn’t done that kind of mileage since Dylan had been born.

We were also lucky that the rains held off until the very end.

We were surprised to find an American flag flying from a tree, but realized it was part of a memorial for an American soldier killed in 1944. Julia posed with me since she was soon to move to the US to be with her American husband that she married via a proxy wedding due to coronavirus. 

We arrived so late to the first wine stop that they had already closed up, but caught them just in time to get a snack. This stop served as a stop twice during the marathon, so it was still open when we came through complete with musicians playing. 

Immediately following the wine stop, we went through a vineyard...

…and then a corn field.

As the wuss of the group, I only pushed the jogger when it was empty. 

 

Mud + Water Crossings...

There was quite a lot of mud on the trail. 

This was by far the worst mud crossing we came across. Celine had to abandon the jogger to get Dylan down the hill.

Luckily Dylan was awake, so didn’t seem to mind being passed around like a game of hot potato, Celine handed Dylan to Julia, who then brought him to me...

…before she went back to help Celine with the jogger.

We faced another challenging crossing when we reached this small creek. While the water wasn’t very deep, the drop down to the water was very steep. We had no idea how we could manage it when this nice stranger came back from the other side to help. 

As you can tell, I wasn’t overly helpful with these complicated crossings since I was the least sure-footed of our group, but at least I could document everything. 
 

Stile After Stile...

Most of the route was on trails rather than roads. I was shocked how many stiles there were. Some required all three of us to get the jogger across.

Some were more challenging than others. This one required Celine to remove one of the back tires to maneuver it through.

When we got to this one, it looked like a lost cause, but strong Julia came to the rescue and managed to lift the entire rusted structure out of the way. 

She was definitely a stud!