Guus Bosman

Yesterday I arrived in New Jersey for an engineering conference of my company that starts this morning.

After work I went for a run on a small dike that separates a canal from the river, on a recommendation of a colleague. When I was halfway my run and ready to go back I took a short break. All of a sudden, a pretty big snake dropped from its tree on the ground next to the trail: I must have startled it. Needless to say, the sudden sight of a big snake moving startled me even more and I continued my run immediately with an inspired sprint.

The trail was very nice; it's well maintained and beautiful. It is part of the D & R Canal Park. It's pretty cool, so much nature in the middle of a city. I looked at the few waterlilies with some suspicion but of course there are no alligators in New Jersey.

Sunday I tried a new, excellent running trail.

It turns out Duke University has a golf course fairly close to our home with a running trail around the golf terrain. Esteban and Belen had mentioned it last week -- thanks a lot!

It's a great 2.5 mile long nature trail with distance markers and a public water fountains. It's a little over a mile from our home so all together I ran about 5 miles on Sunday. This was a bit more than I should have done and it took me 2 days to recover.

I hope that I feel good enough to go for a shorter run in the morning. It's Fourth of July tomorrow so a day off, and before all the festivities start I hope to try out my new running shoes.

Inspired by the website with routes I found I went for a longer run tonight.

It wasn't too hot so I ran before dinner. The route took me across the Duke campus, which is beautiful. I saw squirrels and another animal that I don't know the name of. It looks a bit like a fox, but with longer legs. It was wandering behind a bush, very close to people and apparently used to humans (no, it's not a dog).

Tonight I had only one break instead of my usual two when I ran.

I left around 9.30 pm and it was colder than usual. When it's not too hot, I prefer to run a bit earlier in the evening that this, especially when I'm alone. The route goes mainly over the Duke campus and it's completely safe, but it just feels better when it's not fully dark.

We run a few times per week, usually the same track. Tonight I calculated the exact length of our route. It's 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) which is not as far as I was used to running in the Netherlands, but the route is much more elevated than in Haarlem.

The last two months I have been running a few times per week. It's fun to do, especially in the beautiful summer weather.

Lately I discovered a new track to run, the track of the Haarlem Grachtenloop. There are two distances: 4.6 and 9.2 kilometers; I must say that the 9.2 km track is way out of my league. But the 4.6 kilometers is just right for me, and I have been running it a couple of times now.

It's nice to compare my result with the official times of this year's Grachtenloop. The quickest guy runs the track in just under 15 minutes, it still takes me about 35 minutes.

This was a special weekend. Not only with my first driving lessons, but also my very first visit to a soccer game! My employer Chess gave us tickets for the match. Together with my colleague's Joris, Pascal and Sabine I went to AFC Ajax vs. NAC Breda.

We planned to go to this match a long time ago, and it was really a happy coincidence that this was the match in which Ajax became Dutch national champion. Ajax won with 2-0 of NAC.

I've never been a big soccer fan, but I enjoyed yesterday's match a lot. It's a very impressive experience to be in a stadium with so many people shouting and waving banners.

We didn't go to the celebrations at the Leidseplein.