IOM Parish Walk

Shaz and I settled well when we arrived in the Netherlands nearly one week ago.  It was terrific to reconnect with friend in the small city of Woerden.  It felt familiar and homely, after the last 18 months were spent in very different places across Africa and South America. We cycled to Rotterdam on Thursday, then rested on Friday.  We felt good, and thought we would do well in the continental centurion, due to start at 12pm on Saturday. Weather was perfect, with no rain for the event and a starting temperature about 16 degrees.  Mostly cloud in the sky, this meant the maximum temperature of 25 degrees never felt hot to us.  Some of the Dutch would have preferred a cooler maximum temperature though.  The wind was also generally very light, apart from a few hours where it was necessary to lean slightly to balance against it. Sharon and I started well, sitting on a pace between 7:30 and 7:35 per kilometer.  We ate every 3.805km lap, and drank just enoug...

Our world has sure changed in the last two weeks. We had a lovely 10 days in Rio de Janiero, and managed a few of the standard "tourist" activities while we were there.  A cycle and hike up Cristo Redeemer, a cruise along Copacabana beach.  An attempted hike to the summit of Sugarloaf Hill, and a few walks in and around lovely parks and gardens. We visited the science museum, did laps at Maracana, and in general had a terrific time. One last solid walk of 20km was complete at the nearly right on 2.0km loop at Maracana on 7 May.  That was nicely under 7:30 per kilometer pace, and felt comfortable. Our flight with Portugal Airlines to Amsterdam in the Netherlands happened without much fuss.  The first flight was delayed an hour, but once moving, everything went like clockwork. We arrived on the tarmac at 2pm, and had received our baggage, reassembled our tandem bicycle named Happier in the parking lot, and cycled 40km to our home for four nights in Woerden, to the east...

We left Sao Paulo on 27 April, and had a solid five days of cycling to get to Rio de Janeiro.  With over 450 kilometers and 4300 metres of elevation gain and loss, our bodies weren't keen on doing too much walking.  The very heavily laden tandem bicycle was enough to keep our muscles strong. And tired. Most days through that journey we did still walk to some degree though.  But there wasn't much about it that was very fast.  Instead, it was solid, and mainly for tourist reasons, as we visited some nice parks and gardens, and also the second largest Catholic church in the world.  Who'd have thought that was in Aparecida, a rather small city in Brazil. One night was spent at a roadside hotel, and in the morning after a good sleep, we made a decent and solid effort hill climb, for the beautiful vistas of the surrounding mountains.  So our legs certainly weren't idle. With the heavy bike stowed away in the underground garage of the apartment building we are sta...