{"id":1333,"date":"2014-09-25T10:34:03","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T17:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/?p=1333"},"modified":"2014-09-25T10:34:52","modified_gmt":"2014-09-25T17:34:52","slug":"running-in-the-amelisweerd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/running-in-the-amelisweerd\/","title":{"rendered":"Running in the Amelisweerd"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"amelisweerd-bis\"<\/a>
photo from: ed mather<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I ran around the Amelisweerd every day except Sunday while I was studying in Utrecht. It’s not everyday that an entire forest is in\u00a0my backyard.\u00a0I ran around it so much that I thought I may as well take it a step further and train for a marathon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Amelisweerd and the neighboring Rijnsweerd are nice\u00a0escapes if you’d like a bit of quiet time to think and relax. Lots of trails and benches to wander around and rest. (Some\u00a0students go here to\u00a0eat\u00a0magic mushrooms and start seeing interesting things they’ve never seen before — but that one’s up to you).<\/p>\n

Good things happen once you visit a place regularly. Familiarity breeds warmth, and you’ll know the\u00a0nooks and crannies and all the best spots to visit and take a moment to relax. Plus you’ll get to see how the seasons change the landscape, and that’s a wonderful show by itself.<\/p>\n

\"2013-08-18<\/a>
Some time in September 2013. Kromme Rijn to the left. Running and walking trails on the right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"amelisweerd-paint-shop-pro\"<\/a>
“De Kromme Rijn bij Amelisweerd” by ed mather<\/a>. I lived in the Netherlands during its warmest winter, so I never got the chance to see this much snow. But this is what it would look like!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

the usual suspects:
\n<\/b>You’ll generally see other runners, old couples strolling around, and people rowing their boat along the river or walking their dogs. This is as close as you can get to nature\u00a0in Utrecht.\u00a0Sometimes I’d bump into Marc and Torun on their regular walk.<\/p>\n

The cows and sheep will also keep you company, although the cows tend to hide a bit during the winter time. You can even see remnants of the old defense systems that the Dutch installed to protect the land against flooding.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

I got caught in a hailstorm once here. One moment I’m going for a cheeky run in the rain, and the next I’m getting pelted by chunks of ice falling from the sky (the trees in the forest can only give so much cover). The weather forecast\u00a0didn’t say\u00a0anything about this.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0started running twice as fast, as did the woman in front of me. Good to know that bad weather makes the feet lighter and the senses sharper, and that there was someone else in the same situation.\u00a0We exchanged knowing smiles and went off on our separate\u00a0directions.<\/p>\n

We never met again. But I’m sure if we did the hailstorm would have been our first topic of conversation. (“wat een hondeweer!”)<\/em>\u00a0Is it still fashionable, talking about the weather? Of course!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I ran around the Amelisweerd every day except Sunday while I was studying in Utrecht. It’s not everyday that an entire forest is in\u00a0my backyard.\u00a0I ran around it so much that I thought I may as well take it a step further and train for a marathon. The Amelisweerd and the neighboring Rijnsweerd are nice\u00a0escapes … Continue reading “Running in the Amelisweerd”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-netherlands"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3MSpn-lv","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1333"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1414,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions\/1414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}