Seven Kilometres, Snickers Ice Cream, and the Question of Balance

It was close to thirty degrees, and I was sitting outside with the good weather around me. There was a little music in the background because my daughter had a friend over, and honestly, it felt right. She had finished her last written exam that day, four hours of economics and law, after four hours of philosophy on Monday and four hours of management business the day before. So yes, I thought, she deserved a little party.

She still has the big oral exam in two weeks. Two topics to present, and then, after that, freedom until September. I hope she can work a little in July, maybe in a restaurant at lunch, serving the daily plates. In France we have these lunch plates, and she would prefer that to working evenings or weekends. But we wait for the answer. With young people, there is always waiting. Waiting for exams, waiting for jobs, waiting for them to put the car somewhere safe.

My weekend had already been full enough. On Thursday I went to the restaurant with my husband. Friday, nothing special, which is sometimes very nice. Saturday we went with friends to the fire station celebration. The firemen in the village were celebrating seventy years, and during the day there were activities to learn how to help someone in an emergency. In the evening there was barbecue, people outside, the big parking area near my house, and then fireworks in front of the church. The church stands a little higher, not on the same level, so the lights were there against it, and it was very nice. Really nice.

After that, we finished the evening at home with friends and watched the football match, Brazil against Morocco. Then on Sunday evening I took my daughter to the train station for Strasbourg, and because my husband was not at home, I went to the restaurant with my boss’s daughter. So yes, busy, but fine.

Here, the next weekend would be the music celebration in the whole of France, the beginning of summer. Every city, every small village, there is music. In the tennis group we prepare homemade food, and there would be gospel music during the day, and barbecues, and people from the village. But they were speaking about forty degrees, so I was not sure people would come for lunch. Too hot is too hot. Even for food.

My daughters, of course, would not stay in the village. They are young. They want the bigger city, where there are many groups and many people. I understood that. But I also worried about the car. That is the part that is not funny. In France, when people celebrate sometimes, some crazy people burn cars. Two weeks before, after a football match against England, cars burned in the parking where my daughter normally leaves her car. Luckily, that weekend she was at home and the car was with her. She sent me photos and videos. Completely burned. No reason. Just stupid, unstable people.

Fruitloop was shocked. I told her she could ask Frank — this is France. When PSG won, people broke shop windows. Cars, roads, shops, everything. And then the insurance prices go up. Every first of January, it is the same story. You know already that cars will burn. Some people are caught, many are not, and even when they are caught, the punishment is not really what it should be. So yes, maybe the car must go to a paid parking with cameras. It is not perfect, but perhaps better.

After all that, we came to health and lifestyle balance, which sounds calm after burned cars, but maybe it is the same question in another way. How do we not burn everything? How do we keep something steady?

For me, balance is between work, the mind, eating, sleeping, not being too stressed, and doing something with the body. Good eating habits. Maybe eight hours of sleep. Some sport. Or even an activity that makes you happy, like music. It does not have to be extreme. It must fit your life.

I like running the most, depending on the situation. That morning, before I started working, I ran seven kilometres. The weather was nice, sunny, not cold, and I had to motivate myself at the beginning. That is always the hardest part. Starting. But after I finished, even if the last kilometres were not so easy, I felt relaxed. The day could start. I felt light, proud, a little calmer inside.

I also like cycling, especially with the e-bike because then you can see new landscapes without suffering too much. And the garden helps too. Working there makes the mind free. You think about other things. Also, the garden does not wait for you. Nobody will do it in your place. It is the same with cleaning the house. Nobody else comes magically to do that.

Fruitloop and I laughed about this, because a clean house is a nice feeling, but it is never really finished. You clean the kitchen, then it is time to cook, and suddenly the kitchen is not clean anymore. Her husband had just cleaned, and then she started dinner. He came in and said, “But I just cleaned. What happened?” Yes. That is the house. You clean, you cook, you clean again.

Sleep is another part of balance, and I know very well when I do not sleep, I hate it. Sometimes my husband breathes too loudly in the night, especially when we have gone out. He falls asleep in one second, and I lie there, unable to concentrate on myself, unable to sleep. And when you go out late but know you must do something the next day, that is also hard. But if the evening was good, if there are good memories, then you can find a balance between being tired and being happy that you went.

Still, when we get older, recovery is not the same. Our daughters can go through the night and be fine the next day. We cannot. Not really.

With food and exercise, I try to keep both in my mind. I like eating. I like chocolate. I like ice cream. I like good things. So I eat them. But I know I must also move. At lunch, we always have vegetables or something like that. I like sugar, but I do not eat bars of chocolate all day. I prefer to appreciate the sweet thing, not overdo it.

The evening before, I had wanted a Snickers ice cream. It was late, and once I started thinking about it, that was it. I could not replace it with a salad. If the mind wants ice cream, salad is not the answer. So I ate it. Afterwards, I felt guilty because it was just before bed and there would be no movement after. But also, it does not happen every day. And if I move during the day, if I run, walk, clean, take the stairs at work, then the body has a better metabolism. It finds its balance.

Fruitloop reminded me of Belgium and the chocolate factory, where I also felt guilty. I think she knows me now. Chocolate appears, guilt comes also, but not for long.

Exercise helps me with more than the body. It helps me sleep. It helps my mind. If my daughters make me nervous or angry in the morning after I have run, I can stay more quiet. I have already taken some stress out of myself. I am proud because I did it. That is also important. Not proud like, look at me, I am a champion. Just proud because I did what I said I would do.

I do not run every day. My plan was not to run again the next morning, but on Friday. I try two or three times a week, and I organize it in my mind. It is not good for me to run one day and then again the next. I need a break. Seven kilometres is not much for some people, I know. Sometimes I even say it is a shame. But for me it is enough, and I am happy with it.

Fruitloop told me about her Color Run, five kilometres, last November. She finished it and realized she needed to exercise more. Then life happened. And then winter came, rain came, the place where she ran was muddy and underwater, and after that it was too cold in the mornings. So she said after winter she would start again. I understood that very well. It is always easy to say, “I will start on Monday.” She has an inside joke with her husband – “We will start on Monday, but we do not know which Monday”.

She prefers to run alone because with groups, the times and dates do not always fit. I agree. Running is easy like that. You need nobody. Only motivation, which is already difficult enough. Tennis is different. For tennis you always need someone else.

Then we started speaking about people who do not stop at seven kilometres. Fruitloop told me about the Comrades Marathon in South Africa, about ninety kilometres of running. I could not imagine it. Ninety kilometres. And then I thought about my brother-in-law. He is fifty-seven, and he runs extreme mountain races. Last year he did the Swiss Peaks, more than seven hundred kilometres. Seven hundred. In the mountains, with snow sometimes even in summer, sleeping one hour here and one hour there. Before, it was “only” three hundred and sixty kilometres in one week. Now it is seven hundred in two weeks. Only. We laughed at that word. Only.

He has no wife, no children. Running is his passion. He trains every weekend and does many competitions. He has a very strong mind, that is true. But when I speak about children, he is not really interested. Only his competitions. So when I say I ran seven kilometres, I cannot speak with him about sport. Seven kilometres next to seven hundred feels like nothing. But also, maybe my seven kilometres belong to my life, and his seven hundred belong to his.

Fruitloop told me about long cycling events in South Africa too, from Johannesburg to Cape Town, something like one thousand two hundred kilometres, with people carrying their own things and sleeping a little in open places. No assistance. Then mountain bike races, gravel bikes, e-bikes in different categories, men, women, age groups. My nephews have bike shops, so I know about gravel bikes. They put publicity everywhere now. It is very fashionable.

We spoke about Iron Man too. Swimming, cycling, running, cut-off times, all in one day. I had the feeling more and more people are interested in extreme sports now. I do not know why. I would be interested to understand it, but I am not interested to do it. I do sport for myself. I do not need to prove anything to anyone.

And I am not sure all this extreme sport is really balance. If you ask those people, they will probably say yes. But from outside, I am not sure. There is so much pressure. Special food, training, selection races, proving you can do the next one. My brother-in-law has almost nothing else in his life. If he broke a leg, or had a health problem, what would happen in his mind? That worries me a little. If everything is built on one thing, what happens when that one thing stops?

Fruitloop follows a South African runner on Instagram, Gerda Steyn, a woman who wins the Comrades again and again. She lives in Switzerland and trains there, in the mountains, then comes back and wins. She has won Comrades five times and Two Oceans seven times. She runs three times a day sometimes. Twenty kilometres, thirty kilometres, ten kilometres. Rain, sun, snow, she runs. She even quit her job. That is her life now.

It is impressive. Really. But also, I wonder. What if she loses? What if she is injured? What is left then? Maybe that is my question about balance. Not whether you can do something amazing, but whether you are still okay if you cannot do it tomorrow.

Once, more than ten years ago, my husband and I went running after work. It was not planned, but we ended up doing twenty kilometres in the forest, up and down. Usually we did ten at most. At the end I could not walk properly. I had pain everywhere and needed medicine. The next day we went on holiday, and I still remember my body saying, no, this was too much. It was one time and the last time. Now I am happy with seven.

Fruitloop remembered her first big cycling surprise. She was used to ten or fifteen kilometres, and a friend invited her for twenty. They rode far, took shortcuts through farms, reached a coffee shop, and by the time they came home it was seventy kilometres. It was summer, hot, dusty, with sunburn and wind that was sometimes not even cool, just warm. She came home, showered, and went straight to bed in the middle of the day. Her mother had to wake her to eat. She was finished. But later she recovered and did longer rides, even ninety kilometres, because the group was good and nobody left anyone behind.

That is also balance, I think. Not only the kilometres, but who is with you, whether you are cared for, whether you can stop, whether you come home still yourself.

At the end, the music outside had become quiet. My daughter and her friend were eating ice cream, and I said I would eat some too. Fruitloop told me to enjoy it, not feel guilty. And I thought, yes, it is a good time. I ran this morning. I have the balance.

So I ate the ice cream.

Not as a reward, exactly. Not as a failure either.

Just because sometimes the body runs seven kilometres, the sun is warm, the daughter has finished her exams, the house is full of small sounds, and an ice cream is simply there.