Experience the Joy of Running: European Championship (Half) Marathon Weekend Recap

This weekend of 12 & 13 April 2025 the European Championship for half and full marathon was held in Leuven and Brussels. On New Year’s Eve our daughter decided to run the half marathon which was held in Leuven on Saturday. She aimed to run it in 1h40 and succeeded to reach her objective. I always use my age to justify being a lot slower than her but watching the runners on Saturday I could not ignore seeing a lot of ‘elderly’ runners that were even faster than her. Guess I have to blame it on my genes. Still trying to figure out what that means for her genes though. Seriously, the running event was also fun as a spectator. Runners had their names printed together with their number and people were cheering on runners by name. There was a lot of music along the course and the weather cooperated although it was better weather for spectators than for runners. On Sunday, when the full marathon was run it was the other way around. There were professional athletes competing and serious and not so serious amateurs. The latter ones needing between 2.5 an 3 hours to complete the half marathon. Besides the festive and inclusive atmosphere there was also an international vibe with runners from all over Europe participating. In total more than 10000 runners participated in the half marathon event. It would almost make me want to run a half marathon myself. Almost but not quite. I will stick to 10k for the time being.