This season's first marathon speed skating race on natural ice in Groningen

This evening the small village of Noordlaren (located in the northern part of the Netherlands, in Groningen) had this year's première of a speed skating race on natural ice. A few nights of frost is all the Dutch need to get completely mad about speed skating. To be fair I am no exception, although I am also a bit disappointed that my Tuesday-evening kayak routine stops this early this winter.
The water around the boathouse of the local kayakclub in Woerden iss covered with ice since this morning. It's not enough ice to skate, but enough ice to make paddling impossible. I hope this "ice-break" won't last as long as it did last year (in the winter of 2009-2010 it was 7 weeks impossible to paddle around Woerden).

Paddling (and biking) buddy Alex helps me to get over my deception: tomorrow-evening we are not going to paddle, but are going to skate (on the indoor ice track of Utrecht)!