One of the few positive legacies of the lockdown was the fact that it spurred us to organise our own club-race. On Saturday 08/06, we continued to build our new tradition in what has quickly become one of the red-letter dates in the CACE calendar.
32 runners took the starter’s gun in the 4th edition of 11km race along the Chemin de Fer. While many of the 30 CACE runners have been there every year since the beginning, it was really pleasing to welcome so many new members and first time CACE Chemin race runners (the 2 Miguels, Monika, Pawel, Angelo, Franco, Alberto). The influx of new members and raw running talent is a huge boost for the club and a sign that we are moving in a good direction.
The 30 CACE runners were joined on the starting-line by Anna Liesenfeld and Ruben Schellingerhout (Sportivamente runner and regular participant in our race). Both ‘visitors’ would take the winner’s crown in the women’s and men’s categories respectively, with Anna clocking an impressive 44’48 – 10th person over the line and only 3 minutes behind the male winner. For Ruben (41’11), victory was particularly sweet after being pipped on the line by a trademark last-gasp sprint by Stormin’ Sam Whittaker the previous year. This year, Ruben took no chances and built an unassailable lead through the race, with Sam finishing 14 seconds behind him. I’m already looking forward to the next round of this heavyweight rivalry. David Ciliberti completed the men’s podium and was 3rd in 41’57.
The ladies’ podium was completed by An Renckens (we are very happy to see An back after a longer period of various injuries – she finished hand in hand with Olivier – very sweet!) and Charlotte François (thanks to Charlotte for making sure that the committee had someone in the winner’s enclosure). The standard of running was high with 6 of the fastest 20 Running for Europe runners from the Brussels 20km present. The rest of us mere mortals trundled along as best we could, and as is recorded in minutes of parish-council events all over the world « a good time was had by all ».
Then it was on to the serious business – cracking open beer and wine-bottles in the post-race picnic and wolfing down a mountain of savouries, delicately arrayed on Maaria’s beautiful picnic blanket (sorry Maaria, I couldn’t possibly not mention). We were joined for the picnic by Sandra and Philippe who cleverly skipped the preliminaries and saved themselves for the serious business. Jesper’s 2 Hungarian hunting dogs also made a starring appearance.
A huge thanks go to Enda (who travelled over from Ireland for the race) and Jesper for taking care of all the logistics and communication. Thanks also to Paulina, Mary, an injured Stassi, Inez and Willem for organising the start, time-keeping, water-stop half-way and the prize-giving ceremony. It was also great to see Rudy Mathijs, our long-time President looking in such great form at the start.
The CACE Chemin de Fer race is now a well-established and winning formula and we can already look forward to the 5th edition in 2025.
Niall (CACE President)