Running With Jack

This morning was for this ny-kid-who-has-lived-too-long-away COLD! -14°C (~5°F) I mean it was -10°F (-23°C) by my parents in Upstate NY last week, so to them this is T-shirt weather. But I haven’t lived there for 20+ years, I admit it, I’ve gotten soft. But my yankee blood is still proud of the fact that I didn’t see a single runner out yesterday, I was the ONLY one. I may be a softy, but I WAS OUT THERE!! Okay I got the macho thing over with - sometimes it just has to come out.

I signed up for the Bienwald Half-marathon yesterday (http://www.bienwald-marathon.de) in Kandel, Germany. The Bienwald (tranlated bee forest) is located in Rheinland-Pfalz, about 20 minutes southeast of Landau and maybe 30-40 minutes southwest from Heidelberg. There is a 2000-runner limit, so I thought I should sign up before it’s too late I noticed there were already about 1300 runners signed up, 516 for the marathon, 777 for the half-m. My co-worker who wanted to run, but has a leg injury (bummer) said this is a fast track, mostly asphalt, flat, flat and flat. So I guess I’ll waddle in about 700th place. No biggy, at 45 years old the competition is high (in Germany at least), half of those in the upper 10% are in my age bracket and have been running for a 100 million years or so.

My better half is going with me, moral support is good, she has already made plans to meet with a friend of her’s, Eva, who lives about 15 minutes from the sport hall. Man, two cheerleaders well not really, I think they didn’t even notice I was gone on my last 20K race as I came back in the sport hall Eva asked me when the race starts. Ugh-o-gosh!