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70.21km – 9H49’
Altitude : 7m
Serge starts at 6:30 a.m., knowing that it will be difficult for him to run 77km by 4:45 p.m., when we must board the ferry that will take us to Newcastle, England.
This morning Brigitte and Roger leave early, hoping to avoid traffic jams. As always when they are with us, they spoiled us with snails, macaroons, filet mignon and succulent homemade cakes. Brigitte and Roger cannot be surpassed in improving our daily fare and doing wonderful things without affectation: tables set with a beautiful cloth, lovely Champagne glasses and even an ice bucket for the bottle. As Brigitte said, “it was a setting to fit the event”.
Then it is Lee’s turn to leave. She is staying in the Netherlands for a few days and her friends came to pick her up at the end of the morning.
And lastly, Zette and Florent leave to take the high speed train for Paris at 2:00 p.m. They arrive at the station with a minute to spare… What a trip!
We find ourselves left alone, after a wonderful day, full of shared happiness. Thanks most especially to Michel, Bérengère and to Serge’s parents, for the presents they sent via our Carrier Pigeons and our travellers.
We received over 100 congratulatory e-mails in less than 24 hours and a great quantity of text messages. The telephone did not stop ringing all day yesterday. Serge was very touched by the message he received from the Managing Director of the Union Financière de France, Mr. Nicolas Schimel, and from his colleagues.
Now we have to think about our departure at 3:10 p.m. We take off from Spaarnwoude and its parking lot, where we have been anchored since last Monday. Before our departure we received the visit of William Eberlé, a Dutchman with whom we have exchanged e-mails and who is marketing manager in Speakers Academy. He managed to find the time to run a few kilometres with Serge on his loop.
At 4:20 p.m. we reach the dock. Serge has clocked 66 km and takes off again for 25 minutes to run 4 km more, so that his average will not be lowered. I know that he is only mildly satisfied at being obliged to run less and he doesn’t feel up to cutting into his hours of sleep. The only solution is to accept running fewer kilometres.
At 6:10 p.m. we eat, there is no Wi-Fi on board and I am sea sick. At 7:20 I am in bed in our windowless cabin, in the hold (which we share with René and Daniel) and which, due to its location in the ferry, enables us to take full advantage of all the noise of the boat’s machines. Even our young neighbors, who are very noisy, don’t keep us from falling into a deep sleep, for 11 hours. Serge also slept very well, but not as well as I. At 9:00 p.m. he got up to turn off the telephone next to my pillow, which was ringing to signal the arrival of text messages. He banged on the wall to calm down the children, who must have thought it was fun to jump around and bang on all the walls of their cabin. Serge ended up by using ear plugs. I don’t feel any joyful anticipation in our small team. If we had been able to fly over England and Ireland and reach France right away, I think there would have been more enthusiasm. Maybe it is because there are many changes awaiting us.
Town : Ijmuiden (Hollande) GPS : N 52.27’80.0° E 004.35’23.4° |
