Running fish & chips

Towards the end of September I received a mail from the travel agent doing the marathon tours that London had opened up for some more spots in 2023, so anyone who had booked for a later date could, if they were quick, sign up for the 2023 run instead, shortening the wait. I didn't think I was particularly quick, but apparently quick enough, so now I'm going to London in April 2023 instead of in 2025.

London is a nice city and I'm looking forward to going back, even if it is for a marathon.

20th - 22nd of April
Flying out to London in the afternoon I don't expect to be able to get to the expo on the first day. Instead I'll have Friday and Saturday to get there, and also spending time wandering the city and having (another) look at this fine old city.

23rd of April
Race day. The starting point is out in Greenwich and after a quick detour around Woolwich we return past the Cutty Sark, largely following the Themes before crossing the Tower Bridge, circling around in the opposite direction so you get to see the Cutty Sark and O2 Arena from the opposite side before going back, passing the Tower Bridge and ultimately finishing in St. James Park. It looks like a nice course, but also potentially narrow streets so I'm looking forward to see how congested the entire run is going to be.

24th of April.
Flight back home in the early evening. That means I get one last shot at fish & chips before having to return to the airport.

Ignoring the potentially (very) British weather I think this will be a great trip and run. The course takes you around to some pretty nice sights so it'll truly be a running sightseeing. 

SuperHalfs conclusion

Back in the good ol' days, in 2019, 5 European half marathons - Prague, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Cardiff and Valencia - announced they got together to give runners an opportunity to earn a fancy medal if you completed all 5 within 36 months from 2020 onward. Off course such a thing was right up my alley and I quickly signed up for all of them. And then that happened, so they were all cancelled and/or postponed. 

And postponed a bit more.

Until towards the end of 2021 where the first started again; Copenhagen and Valencia. So I participated in those though after the Copenhagen run I realized that they wouldn't start counting until the beginning of 2022. They argued they wanted a fresh start and fresh year, and while some of the community complained about this - the communication about this decision hadn't been clear before the Copenhagen run - they held onto that decision and I would have to also run them in 2022 despite completing them in 2021. The horror!

So getting through 2022 I have finally run and completed all 5 Superhalfs.

Prague (2nd of April); 1:44:41
Lisbon (8th of May); 1:46:35
Copenhagen (18th of September); 1:40:05 (PR)
Cardiff (2nd of October); 1:45:11
Valencia (23rd of October); 1:48:08

My goal on the half marathon distance is 1:45 which I didn't achieve for 3 of the runs. Fortunately, due to my fast time in Copenhagen I still managed to stay below 1:45 on average, more exactly 1:44:56. This meant that in Valencia I had 18 seconds to spare. A bit close to comfort, but I am happy I managed and it is now over and done with.

The SuperHalfs medal next to the Valencia HM medal.

23rd – 24th – Post-race and return home

Walking back to the hotel, goodie bag on my back and trying to prevent the two medals from rattling too much against each other, I relished in the thought that this was the last run in a row of many and I was looked forward to a month with no running and just relaxation. While the conditions during today’s run definitely had something to do with it I was looking forward to getting back to the hotel, have a shower and then lie down until going out for dinner somewhere. On arrival I passed by the kitchen where they were still serving breakfast, so filling my plate and going to my room I did exactly as planned; shower and relaxation, snacking on breakfast and goodie bag snacks. Trotting out for dinner I (obviously) ended up at a place where I managed to grab another pile of paella. And yes; smallest serving was for 2.

Having a flight just past noon fit perfectly with leaving the hotel in the morning, checking out (the receptionist recognized me from my visit last year – (not so) surprisingly not many people with my last name visit) and taking the train back to the airport where I checked in and had a nice flight home. Had quite a bit of a layover but fortunately there was plenty of food available. Not bad at all.

Having already visited Valencia once I feel like I have had enough of the city for now; the old part is really charming and nice to walk around in, but after two visits that feels like a done deal. The city is definitely worth a visit, I think, but going twice I feel is overdoing it. But I had a blast, the food was great and the half marathon there is done. Time to plan another one!

Full album can be seen here.

23rd – Valencia half-marathon

Staying in a hotel only 20 minutes’ walk from the starting area I relaxed with setting the alarm for 0630. With a snooze and slow shuffle around in the hotel room before leaving at 0715 I realized when coming outside that it was still dark (I had an internal room so I had no view of the outside). Arriving at the starting area, still dark, I shuffled around for a bit more waiting for the start at 0840 (with the elites leaving at 0825). Had I known that there wasn’t any water stations in the area I would definitely have waited a bit before leaving the hotel room. No water at the start (unless you brought it yourself) was a huge surprise to me. That was a first.

It turned out they had only installed speakers near the starting line so if you were anywhere else – and the area was huge – you didn’t have a chance to hear the music or the announcers. Coming up to the starting line it turned out I wasn’t missing much; it was all in Spanish and the announcers sounded like DJs on coke. 

Due to long lines at the porta potties I only made it to my starting group a few minutes before we were brought forward to the starting line. The group I was in contained the 1:30-1:45-runners and I only saw one pacer: the 1:45’er. While I would have preferred a more diverse pace team it was ok, but who’s idea was it to put him in the front of the group instead of somewhere in the middle?!

And, on time, off we went! At 21°-23°C along the way the temps were ok though maybe on the high side. The main issue was the high levels of humidity which made me struggle throughout most of the run. I didn’t seem to be the only one – only a few kilometers into the run I saw runners all over completely drenched in sweat.

The streets used for the course were quite narrow relative to the number of runners and how many they sent off at a time. That meant that it wasn’t until around the half-way point it felt like you could settle into your own pace instead of having to constantly adjust your pace and position due to the others. It was so frustrating. On top of this while running there were only water stations at 5, 10, 15 and 19km. For a warm and humid run like this it felt a bit underwhelming and certainly something you had to plan accordingly for. Personally I would honestly have preferred maybe 1-2 stations more along the way.

The support was good – a lot of people had shown up and stood along the course but there were few signs and the noise level was not near what I had gotten used to from my previous runs. On the other hand that just meant it was easier to concentrate on not crashing into the other runners.

The run was going quite well, the course is flat and turns are relatively easy, but with 5-6km to go my legs started feeling very heavy. I ended up getting in at 1:48:08, slower than my goal of 1:45. I came in as 7128 out of 16915 in total (top 42,14%) and 1324 out of 2383 M40 (top 55,56%). I couldn’t find the number for the position among men. Not the result I had hoped for, but I keep reminding myself that because this was the 4th run in 6 weeks (3 halfs and on full marathon) and the fact I don’t do well in high humidity these were far from optimal record-setting conditions. On the other hand I stayed below 1:48:26 which was the limit if I wanted my SuperHalfs average to be below 1:45. So a win overall. 

Crossing the finish line and getting a medal, snacks and drinks in (another) bag, I located the SuperHalfs desk (very inconspicuous – somebody just sitting at a table in the middle of the crowd of finished runners) where I got handed my medal for running all 5 half marathons within 36 months. As the runs didn’t count towards the medal until the start of the year it meant that this was the first time one could collect this medal.  

20th – 22nd of October – Valencia pre-race

Returning to Valencia from last year to run the half marathon again – last year it didn’t count towards the SuperHalfs collection so I had to return and run it again to get the “necessary” medal. 

The flight was uneventful apart from the part where I had a 4+ hour layover in Frankfurt. Fortunately it turned out the lounge had food that was surprisingly good so time was spent eating that (and making sure everything was good) while enjoying the view of the apron outside. This meant I didn’t get to check into the hotel until the evening after dark so I hadn’t planned to do anything on arrival. I still ended taking a walk down to and around the aquarium, tech museum, IMAX theater and stage to once again enjoy the illuminated buildings in the night. They are so peculiar so I’d say they are always worth a look in the dark.

The following day I headed out to the runners’ expo. As opposed to last year it wasn’t located in the starting area for the run, instead it was now in a conference building a fair bit further away in the opposite direction (I assume this is where it usually has been, but due to Covid it had been moved out into the open temporarily). So I wandered off, passing through a large part of the park surrounding the central city area and through an older part of the city further north with a lot of small random streets which kept you on your toes, I was keeping an constant eye on the map to make sure I wasn’t suddenly going off in a completely wrong direction.

Arriving at the expo there weren’t a lot of people so getting my number and goodie bag was a smooth process. And the goodie bag surprised me just like last year with regards to how much stuff they put into it. Leaving the expo I returned to the center via a different path – part of it brought me out along a road without sidewalks going through what looked like onion fields. A slightly different view from the old buildings lining narrow streets. I ended up walking around a bit and booking a table for dinner before returning to the hotel for an hour’s break before returning for dinner – paella was obviously on the menu. And the smallest portion was “for 2” so yup: delicious. 

The following day I went to the IMAX to watch a movie about the Amazon jungle and a British explorer exploring it in the 1800s. I wasn’t too impressed – it seemed more like a movie filmed normally and converted to IMAX; I didn’t really see it using the strengths of the IMAX Dome format. From there I visited the aquarium, apparently the largest in Europe. It’s a large open area with various buildings spread out containing the pools and aquariums, with also a few pools outside. With regards to size it did seem larger than many others – my impression is that aquariums usually are contained within one large building with limited outside areas. A large part of the out door space was taken up by the dolphin show stage, and lots of cafes and restaurants. Nothing bad per se but overall it didn’t feel as good as advertised. It felt a bit like quantity over quality. 

I left and continued trotting around town before finding a place for dinner. I managed to finish in a timely manner so I returned to the IMAX Dome to watch the “Secrets of the Universe” which sounded promising and that it would compensate for the disappointing experience I had with the Amazon movie. It turned out to be a dry CERN documentary about when they tried, according to the sceptics, to create a black hole and flashbacks to scientists who made big & important discoveries. The headphones had various languages, but they mounted on your head in a way they didn’t sit close to your ears which meant that you could actually hear the sound from others’ headphones, all different languages. Also, there was a delay of almost a second between the visuals and audio which made it so much more frustrating. 

I had hoped to watch something that made me forget the previous movie – instead the second movie made the first so much better.

9th – 11th – Post race and going home

Having arrived back at the hotel and showered (thankfully I didn’t have a bathtub so I could just walk into the shower without having to lift my legs) I splayed out on the bed and moved as little as possible until it was time for dinner. I waddled along until I arrived at a restaurant where I could get (another) Chicago style pizza. Disgustingly beautiful. While the previous pizza I had had been 6 inches and for one, they didn’t have anything smaller than 12 inches here. Oh, well, the sacrifices you must endure on vacation. Unfortunately this was a challenge I couldn’t handle and had to leave a quarter of it. And I even skipped dessert! 

Returning to the hotel I managed to arrange a late checkout which could not be any later than noon. This meant that I’d still have time to kill before returning to the airport to catch my flight at 2200, and I wasn’t planning on spending most of the afternoon at the airport. 

Cars lining up for the Columbus Day parade.

Leaving the hotel at noon I deposited my bag and hobbled about for a few hours around town without any real purpose other than trying to get my legs moving normally again. I ended up going back to the hotel and spend an hour in the reception relaxing before retrieving my bag and leaving for the airport.

Check-in was quick and efficient but security not so much. Long queue and only two security stations tested your patience, but finally getting through the lounge turned out to be located literally across the hall so that was easy to find. It was probably the smallest lounge I have ever been in a very limited selection of food, and if you had to use the toilet you had to leave and find one somewhere else in the airport.

Apart from that everything went smooth – we took off on time, the flight was uneventful and arriving in Copenhagen arrival was perfectly timed with the trains so I was back home only 1,5 hours later.

Full album can be see here.

9th – Chicago marathon

My alarm went off at 0530 (I do this voluntarily…) but it was made easier by me waking up a few minutes before. I stumbled about for a bit and got ready – the temps were just a few degrees above 0 but I decided to skip long pants over my shorts and settled with a shirt and jacket to stay warm. Walking the 20 minutes to the starting area I found my choice of clothing wasn’t completely off, though my legs did notice the lack of covering.

I had expected it to be similar to the starting area for the New York marathon where you could get snacks, light food and various drinks (and dogs to pet!), but there was just water filling stations, the bag check tents and porta potties. Considering the size of the arrangement it just seemed a bit lazy to not have anything. Though I do seem to remember the NY starting area being bigger so they had room for more, I still think there’d be room for various booths here. Oh, well.

Around 0700 it was time to get rid of my warm clothes and hand in my bag, and wearing only my running shorts and t-shirt I really got to feel this morning temperature. Definitely close to freezing. I got stuck in the queue to a porta potty for 20 minutes (why is it that outdoor urinals are never used in the US? Is it really such a taboo to pee even if no one’s able to see your penis?! If you take out your penis to pee and nobody sees it, is it still sexual assault?).

After the long and cold wait I shuffled over to my starting corral and realized with absolute – sarcastic – joy that the pacers were carrying a small sign on a stick in their hand. So also here you completely lost sight of the pacers only a few meters away, and none of them were able to hold their arm out to keep the sign elevated for even a short while before the sign was swinging all over the place out of sight. The corral closed at 0745 and as the first wave were sent off we were slowly shuffled forward until it was our turn to stand at the starting line. And, as scheduled, at 0800 we were sent off.

The first 5km was spent going a bit back and forth in the center of the city before heading north, passing among other things the zoo. At the 8 mile mark (app. 13km) we did a u-turn and returned towards the center where we hit the mid-way point before turning west, another u-turn at around 25km with a few kilometers return before turning south until just past the 37km mark where we once again turned around and headed back north, into the center and finishing in the opposite end of the park from where we started, another marathon done.

Photo by MarathonFoto.

While it was cold waiting for the run to start it was clear it had already started heating up at that point (either that or I was slowly loosing all sensation in my body from the cold) making it more comfortable standing around. After the start it took a few hours for the temps to reach around 15-17°C making the entire thing much more bearable. It was also quite windy throughout the run, and while the buildings shielded us from the worst part, when we did get hit directly by it, it lowered the temperatures quite significantly.

Photo by MarathonFoto.

As with the previous runs in the US the support along the way was impressive for the majority of the course. There were parts where we ran “alone”, but when people were lined up there was a lot of energy among them. And I bet there will be a few worn-out vocal cords tomorrow; I’m impressed by the volume some of them were able to produce! A lot of great encouraging posters: “Blisters are braille for awesome”, “At least you’re not at work”, “World’s worst parade” and “You have stamina – call me!”. The latter I saw first fairly early on and having not seen that poster before I instinctively gave the girl (young woman?) holding a quick smile – and passing her and her friend I heard a shy giggling and “did you see that guy??”. Short interactions with the onlookers can be fun.

Photo by MarathonFoto.

There was also multiple posters warning against trusting farts during the run and puckering up instead. Last turn before the finish line, 400m to go, I gained on someone who was running funny. Which, for the record, a lot of people were doing at this point. Having noticed him and returned to my normal empty “who’s idea was this please let it be over soon”-gaze my mind started churning; “he’s struggling hard, legs also covered in mud, wait – when did we run through mud, that isn’t… sniff-sniff… that isn’t mud at all!”. Poor guy. Didn’t pay attention to the posters. I just hope it had only happened recently.

Glad it was over.

Photo by MarathonFoto.

I crossed the finish line in 3:58:02. This put me as no. 14033 out of 39301 total (top 35,71%), 9712 out of 20844 men (top 46,59%) and 1796 out of 3488 M4044 (top 51,49%). For Danish runners I came in 55 out of 101 total (top 54,46%), 46 out of 78 men (top 58,97%) and 9 out of 15 M4044 (top 60%). I had hoped for a new PR (sub-3:55:34) considering the flat course but at around 25-30km it was as if my body started realizing what it was being put through and started complaining so I was suddenly facing a massive mental hurdle. Combined with the two half marathons 1 and 3 weeks ago (the latter being a new PR)  I was happy with getting in below 4 hours. But crossing the finish line everything below my waist just felt like overcooked noodles. A few steps past the line I had slowed down and started zig-zagging, having to lean against a fence to not topple over. A volunteer came over and grabbed my arm – I reassured her I was ok but just needed a moment to recover, thinking that she would tell me to sit down. Instead she reached into her pocket and grabbed a water bottle which she shoved into my hand and ordered me to drink. Apparently I was pretty thirsty – it disappeared in only a few gulps. The water, that is, not the bottle.

I waddled slowly on, collected drinks, snacks and my medal before I lined up to get my bag. From there I slowly started towards my hotel, wincing every time I was faced with a curb or even worse: stairs. It took almost two hours for me to be back in my hotel room after crossing the finish line, a walk that under normal circumstances would probably have taken half an hour or so. 

The slower pace was definitely because of traffic and the large crowds making it hard to move around.

Definitely.

8th – Chicago 5k

The following morning started off with the official 5k run at 0730 from the Millennium Park and around the loop in the center. Meant as a social run as a warmup for tomorrow’s marathon there is no reason to push yourself in any way. The weather was nice but cold, and it stayed dry with only a breeze. Quite nice conditions everything considered. App 7300 runners participated and the fastest ran it in app. 15 minutes. I ended up finishing in 25:48, putting me as 1072 out of 7115 overall (top 15,01%), 814 out of 3455 men (top 23,56%) and 140 out of 594 in M4044 (top 23,57%). I obviously didn’t catch the part where it wasn’t a competitive run – it probably wouldn’t have hurt to relax a bit along the way. Oh, well – it’s nice getting a good result, and it was only a 5k after all. Crossing the finish line you were handed drinks and snacks, and to my surprise you were also handed a medal. I did not see that latter part coming!

Photo by MarathonFoto.

After having returned to the hotel for a shower I went out for breakfast. Following that I decided to just visit the Institute of Art, apparently a very famous and large museum at the park that has a large variety of stuff. And yes – from the old classics from Europe (and especially the Netherlands) including a lot by Monet to modern stuff that at best could be defined as “odd”. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand modern art. A rock cut into three pieces. It was a nice Japanese rock, but apparently the artistry was through the roof because you could “see how beautiful the pieces are as how they fit perfectly together”. Or the self portrait that was just a pile of sweets. “Optimal amount: 175lb”. Or the self portrait “White acrylic paint on wall”. The wall was white. There was no difference between the color of the wall and the paint, so the resulting “art” was basically just a blank wall. The a collection of statues that each were accompanied by three questions that the artists had answered to explain their creations. One of them a wiggly shape forming a circle and the question was “Is it wiggly or circular” (which one could say is a reasonable question) but the answer was “The onlooker does not know what they are looking at. But it is grounded like they are.”. And the rest were equally if not even more out there. I couldn’t help but think they were high on their own supply. Maybe I wasn’t high enough? A more reasonable explanation (in my mind) is that they are having a bet among themselves trying to see who can come up with the most outrageous idea and still manage to sell it as “art”. 

Or maybe I just don’t understand modern art. 

The good weather brings everyone out to the Bean.

After a somewhat confusing visit to the museum I returned to the hotel where I relaxed until dinner. Fastest service ever. Arrived at 1800 and left 45 minutes later after having both lasagna and tiramisu. I can be an efficient eater when I want to, I admit, but it was the wait time for the food that was the shocking part – 2 minutes was the longest I had to wait at any time throughout the meal. And the food was genuinely good and didn’t seem rushed. 

6th – 7th – Chicago pre-race(s)

Slightly jetlagged I woke up before the alarm went off, though at that point I had had more than 10 hours of sleep, so one could argue it was time to go.

Leaving the hotel I found my way to Millennium Park to figure out how long it would take to get to the starting area on Sunday, and from there slowly made my way to the runner’s expo. Walking the main concourse in the massively huge facility I passed multiple ridiculously large halls (several of them were larger than the hall at Royal Arena in Copenhagen) before crossing a walk bridge into an equally large building where the expo was held.

When I arrived there were multiple long queues to get in and they didn’t move at all. It took me a moment to realize that today, on the first day of the expo, they didn’t open until 1100 and I arrived maybe 10 minutes before that. When they did open the queues started moving at a decent pace which effectively funneled people through security before being directed to the booth that had your bib. After having received my bib I also picked up my kit for the 5k morning run on the day before the marathon before entering the expo hall. Here I picked up the marathon kit (which contained my t-shirt and mostly just vouchers) and had a walk around looking at the booths of various more or less running-relevant stuff. There was nothing really interesting, though I did leave with two boxes of energy bars which were pretty much tossed at me when passing by the booth.

The Bean.

Walking the waterfront.

Leaving the expo I wandered through Chinatown before circling around and ended up back in Millennium Park and seeing The Bean (I am a tourist after all). And while the official name is Cloud Gate everybody calls it The Bean, and seeing it that name makes perfect sense. Crossing through The Loop and walking the Chicago Riverwalk brought me to the waterfront where I continued a bit north before crossing through Millennium park and returning to the hotel. Perfect timing, as it had just started raining when I entered the building. A few hours later I left for dinner, something I had been looking forward to; Chicago style pizza. It’s basically a cheese pie with pizza toppings, so when you cut it the melted cheese, while still relatively firm, lightly oozes out. For dessert I had a cookie which ended up bigger than I would ever been able to imagine. It turned out it was made in a individual-size pizza pan (6 inches), filled up the pan and topped with ice cream and whipped cream. Just like the pizza it was disgustingly obscene and I loved every single bite of it. And I am pretty sure it’ll prevent me from getting a sub-4 hour time on Sunday.

Do you want some pizza with that cheese?

When leaving the hotel the following morning I went to grab breakfast nearby; 2 pancakes, sausages and eggs before heading north. My plan was to go along the waterfront but the weather made that a miserable idea. It had gotten windy from east-ish and it varied between drizzling, pouring down and the occasional break until past noon. So instead I wandered through the city streets until crossing the Chicago River where I headed towards the water to see Navy Pier. It is basically a large recreational area built on top of a very large pier, but as it was out of season and morning everything was closed, and the few other people out there looked like me; having a look around trying to ignore the disappointing weather.

Standing in the center below the Bean looking up.

I continued north and found myself up alongside the zoo which is free to enter which meant I ended up entering and had a walk around to see what they had to offer. Nothing really spectacular, but I assume if you have a zoo which rely entirely on donations it does limit you one way or another.

Returning south towards downtown I took a couple of hours rest in the hotel before returning outside to grab dinner. It was surprisingly hard to find an Italian place with room for one (third time was the charm and I still ended up sitting outside) so when returning to the hotel in the evening I found a place online and secured myself a table for Saturday night. Or tried – it took half an hour just to find a place that had room for one and was willing to book only one! The dinner was pretty great, but I am baffled by the size of the desserts. The piece of cheesecake was enormous – and dense – and I am sure the calorie contents dwarfed that of the creamy pasta with bacon I had as a main.

5th of October – Arriving in Chicago

In spite of it being an almost 9-hour flight getting to Chicago was (almost) without issues along the way. Obviously, as we are in Denmark, there were problems with the train signals towards Copenhagen so only one train departed my station every hour which didn’t leave any margin for error going to the airport. Also, the flight didn’t have internet. What is this? The stone age?

Arriving in Chicago it was fairly uneventful getting through immigration. The officer did point out it was suspicious that I had been in Iran in ’17 while eyeing me up and down, and I had just started worrying about if this would be the end of the trip for me, until he continued grinning pointing out the suspicious part was that I still had my head on my shoulders. Hah-hah. Humor of airport security. 

Arriving in Chicago.

It took a bit to find the train to the city – it required a trip across terminals with the airport train before I could get settled into a seat on the train that took me on a 40-minute ride to the city center. From there it was a 5-minute walk from there to get to the hotel. 

The hotel has some weird quirks. There are rooms on floors 3 to 22, except for on floor 9 where the reception and restaurant is located. There are three elevators, and it seems like two of them stop at every three floors. It doesn’t open its doors – it just slows down and stops for maybe 4-6 seconds before it continues for another 3 floors until the next stop. Staying on the 18th floor and wanting to leave it was infuriating that the elevator stopped 5 times before reaching the ground level. The doors never opened until I had to exit. Leaving on the third elevator was mind-blowing – leaving the room and being able to leave the building only a few seconds later? Wild!

Despite having a room on the 18th floor I didn’t have much of a view; there was a taller building across the street blocking the view. Lots of large windows and it looks like most of the interior is apartments. And not all apartments have curtains so you have a fairly unobscured view into other people’s home. As someone who enjoys his privacy that concept gives me the willies. As an example; right now maybe one floor below me there is a woman lying on her carpet in the middle of the living room on her phone. Butt-naked. Not a care in the world. 

One would think that as this height you’d be far away from the street noise, but I suspect that being across from an even taller building the noises are just channeled up past my window giving me the full experience of the traffic. Also doesn’t help that the window doesn’t fully close/seal; I even had an employee up to see if I was doing something wrong but nope – couldn’t fully close, adding a slight draft throughout my stay. Marvelous!

3rd – Return home

I had a ticket for the train back to London at around noon but with a relatively early check-out time at the hotel I had a bit of time to kill before heading home. There wasn’t much to do and weather wasn’t really “walk-the-town”-weather though still dry. It resulted in some slightly bored trotting around before getting on the train and getting back to London and Heathrow airport. From there a break in the lounge before flying home – the end of a generally very uneventful trip home.

Cardiff was a nice old city (town?) with a very interesting and charming castle in the center. I was honestly surprised by how much I was into the tour there and would not have minded to be on a more extended tour to get to see more of it or being told more details of the rooms. But Cardiff is also part of the UK which means that having sun on the race day was near-miraculous. The weather most of the time was just moist and grey. But in spite of all that it was a very nice visit. And I completed the 4th of my 5 Superhalf runs.

Full album can be seen here.

2nd – Cardiff race day

Being so close to the starting area I was in no rush in the morning – I set the alarm to 08:00 so I could faff about at my leisure before leaving. I woke halfway up 20-30 minutes before the alarm went off and all I registered was what sounded like torrential rain coming down outside. What a day for a run! I nodded off again, and when the alarm did go off the rain had mostly quieted down and not long after completely ended.

Half an hour before start I left the hotel and joined the flow of people going to the starting area where I quickly found the section where my wave was located (which was pretty easy as it turned out it was at the end of the street where my hotel was located). I positioned myself in the middle of the group and shortly before start the 1:45 pacer moved up towards the front – and then he left and ended up in the rear of the 1:30-1:45 group with the 1:30 pacer in the front. As it wasn’t possible to move around in the now gathered crowd of runners I decided to run without a pacer – and if the 1:45’er passed me I’d hook up onto him and have him pull me home.

Wheelchair racers where sent off at 09:50 followed by elite and sub-1:30’ers at 10:00, and as they were leaving the starting area we were moved up towards the starting line and at 10:04 we were let go.

While waiting at the starting line it was getting obvious that the risk of rain was rapidly decreasing as the cloud cover was lightening and the sun was coming out. While waiting we were in the shade but somewhere between 2 and 3 km we took a 90 degree turn putting us straight towards the sun which meant that with all the water on the ground from the morning’s rain and the rapid increase in temperature the humidity skyrocketed. Not quite the start I had been hoping for. Throughout the race I overheard multiple locals comment on the weather noting that the current situation was far from what they had expected.

Around the half-way point it became a common sight to see people hand out either Haribo or Bassett winegums or Turkish delights. That was great! It was also around that time where runners finally had been spread out enough that it wasn’t uncomfortably congested anymore. It wasn’t because there were more runners than at similar runs, the streets were just quite narrow for the entire course so while they were quite nice it was a bit impractical with this many people gathered all at once. 

We circled south from the castle past and across Cardiff Bay over the Cardiff Bay bridge, which turned out to be significantly flatter than I had expected. From there we went through the center of the city and further north before doing a (roughly) 180 turn and returned to the center and the finish line behind the castle. While there weren’t spectators everywhere, where they were they were very supportive. 

Crossing the finish line you were handed your medal, (very pink) finisher t-shirt and various drinks and fruits. I managed to find my way through the finishing area and a short walk later I had returned to my hotel. Extra bonus: the receptionist noted that I was the first runner staying at the hotel to finish. Yay? 

I crossed the finish line in 1:45:11, right above my goal, but without a pacer I was pretty happy with the result. Also considering the Chicago marathon next weekend I tried not to push myself (too) hard. I came in as 1718 out of 12.783 overall (top 13,44%), 1528 out of 7236 men (top 21,12%) and 265 out of 956 M40 (top 27,72%). So relatively speaking it was a very nice result which I am pretty happy about. You had to get to M75+ or F60 to find a group winner who was slower than me!

Returning to the hotel I had a much needed shower and relaxed the rest of the day. I left again around 17:00 and walked around for maybe an hour before I found a place for dinner – a burger place named Fat Hippo seemed right up my alley.

Returning to the hotel – again – before 20:00 I indeed felt like a fat hippo and did absolutely nothing productive the rest of the evening.

29th of September – 1st of October – Cardiff pre-run

The easiest path to Cardiff from home is flying out to Heathrow, take the train to Paddington and from there the train to Cardiff. I had planned with an hour from arriving in London to catch my connection to Paddington so it was absolutely wonderful to find out the flight was delayed for almost an hour.

The scheduled 2-hour flight ended up being 1½ hours, and rushing through the airport (why do you always arrive at the one of the furthest away gates when you are in a hurry??) a couple of dense and slowpokes in the automatic passport gates did their best to delay me, but I still made it to the platform with 5 minutes to spare. Considering the size of the airport I was pretty impressed with that.

The train to Paddington went swimmingly, and apart from maybe 10 minutes’ delay the connecting 2 hour train to Cardiff was a satisfyingly relaxing adventure. From Cardiff central it was a short 10-minute walk to the hotel where I checked in at around 2130.

An hour later after settling into one of the smallest hotel rooms I have ever been in I went for a short walk to take in the surrounding area in the dark. Turns out I’m less than 10 minutes from Cardiff Castle which is where the run will start and finish so at least that will be easy on race day.

River Taff with Principality Stadium on the left.

City Hall.

The following morning I left the hotel and went to the castle where I got myself a ticket for a tour of the castle which for an hour brought us around in the main building where we were presented to some of the rooms. The were all gorgeous and beautifully decorated – and lots of symbolism and references. The children’s room had the walls lined with painted characters from numerous fairytales. The men’s drinking/smoking room has decorated with zodiac signs relative to the seasons, the people the weekdays are named after and the cycle of the sun and the moon and “their” gods/personifications – the theme of the room being time. Another room’s theme was John the Elder (the guy that wrote the last book in the bible). Greek, Latin, English, Runes, hieroglyphs, Hebrew and other were all represented in one form or another. The 3rd Marquess of Bute (who was at the time considered the richest man in Britain if not the world) who ordered the remodeling of the castle under the architect William Burges knew 23 languages and wanted to be able to enjoy the bible as originally as possible. We also came through a roof garden, a small dining room (where you’d call on the staff by pressing a button disguised as a carved squirrel’s nut – a nut in its mouth, that is), the large social hall all castles have, a room where you went to talk after dinner which was also where the tour ended. This is called the drawing room – not because you draw in the room, but because you withdraw yourself from the dinner and in here afterwards. 

Leaving the building you passed through the library which still held a lot of old books in various languages. Coming outside it had started drizzling on and off which didn’t prevent me taking a walk on and inside the battlements (the insides had been offered up and used as bomb shelters during WW2) and the central keep. The latter was basically now an uncovered circular wall which previously had been filled with small buildings on the inside lining the wall. I finished off in the war museum which presented a historical walkthrough of Welch and British military.

About to leave I realized it was pouring down so I ended up staying for lunch. Having finished lunch and it was still pouring down I decided I couldn’t be bothered to wait for it to stop so I left and had a walk down to Mermaid Quay to have a look around. Walking around I realized that my insistence on not being holed away in a hotel room when travelling was being trumped by the weather, so mid-afternoon I returned to my room where I stayed until dinner (where it fortunately had stopped raining).

The ventilation in the hotel room is almost non-existent. There is a vent in the bathroom but it is small and can barely cope after having a shower. I managed to figure out how to turn on the radiator and used that to try and dry my clothes, though it’s making the room both hot and humid. I guess it’s still better than having to wear soaked clothes when going out.

The expo for the run was basically just for international runners as GB runners apparently had their kit sent to them instead. So I was told to pick up my kit at the expo on Saturday at 0800-1000 or 1300-1800. I never made it out the door to be there in the morning (what a surprise!) so I relaxed and had a walk in Bute Park all the way to Haily Park. At that point it had gone past noon and with no breakfast or lunch yet I thought it would be time to return and find something to eat.

A pair of racoons on the Animal Wall at the castle.

I got all the way back to the City Hall and the expo – there had been a lot of talk and writing about gathering at the expo and seeing al the sponsors and booths but the only thing that was open when I arrived was a tent where I collected my kit without an issue. The t-shirt is a finisher shirt so I won’t be getting that until I cross the finish line. The problem with that is that if you finish late (there is a 4½ hour limit) there is a risk that your size is gone if too many grabbed a size they hadn’t been registered for. Apparently it happened at the Royal Parks HM when I ran it. I got my stuff, got something to eat and being mid-afternoon at that point I retuned to the hotel to relax. I went out in the evening for dinner close by, but apart from that I spent the rest of the day being fantastically unproductive.

French silliness

With 3 half marathons and 1 marathon planned for the coming two moths one would think that I'll be getting enough running for a lifetime. But I have nothing planned for next year so I've been feeling the need to plan something for then. And with these thoughts churning I saw an ad for Paris marathon next year in April, which sounded very interesting. Also, if I'll be hit by extreme luck and have my spot at London moved this run won't interfere. In any case, London will be taking priority regardless, so I'd happily cancel other plans if I got to do London sooner than originally planned.

So seeing no downsides (apart from the running part) I ended up booking a spot at the Paris marathon. 

30th of March - 1st of April
Flying out to Paris in the early morning which means I will have most of the day in the city. I expect to go to the Expo already on the Thursday to get it over and done with, and as they don't open until in the afternoon on the first day I'll have plenty of time to get there before I'll even be able to get in. Also, on the Saturday (the 1st) I've signed up for the breakfast run which goes from near the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower where breakfast will be served. Other than that I'll spend time checking out the sights and generally just being a classic tourist.

2nd of April
Race day - start and finish will be on opposite sides of the Arc de Triomphe, both near a metro station that will take me directly to and from my hotel at Montmartre. The course will go east and circle around in the Vincennes Woods and return almost parallel (but separate) from the start of the course, before reaching Notre Dame where we'll be following the Seine until circling around the Auteuil racetrack and head back north to the Arc and finish. Apparently this run is second to only New York marathon when it comes to number of participants.

3rd of April
Got a flight home in the early afternoon, so if I can get a late-ish checkout at the hotel it means I can spend the morning relaxing doing nothing before having to go to the airport, resting my legs which they'd probably appreciate.

Historical weather data seems to imply that the weather can be very variable in the beginning of April in Paris. As in one day it can be around freezing and the next day it could be 10°C-15°C. So with two running days I might have to bring all kinds of clothes with me, just in case. It'll be interesting. 

14th – 16th – Return home

Waking up in the hotel the following morning I was surprisingly un-hungover so after getting my stuff together and checking out, I trotted back to the station and took the train back to Toronto airport and checked into my hotel for the third – and last – time on the trip. 

Not planning on just staring out of the window for the rest of the day I got myself a ticket for a night boat cruise and returned to the Toronto center. Walking around, enjoying the weather and killing time, I unfortunately realized that NomNomNom Poutine was closed on Sundays, so I had to find a different place to curb my hunger for one last pile of poutine. 

Belly completely filled with heavy poutine I trotted about until I ended up at the harbour where I boarded the boat and spent an hour or so travelling back and forth on the river taking in the full beauty of the downtown skyline. Definitely a better view than from the tower – especially because the windows were open letting you get an unobstructed view of the sights.

Walking along the waterfront in the evening.

Toronto skyline.

For the trip home I believe the easiest would be to quote my Facebook post from when I came home. Uncensored – sorry mom & dad; my language is foul when I get annoyed and you aren’t around.

My airport hotel was excellent; flexible check-out times so I was able to check out at 1400 so it fit with my departure. I had checked in to my flight in advance and I just needed to print my baggage tag at the airport and hand it in. 

The airport doesn't have dedicated bag-drop counters so I got in line in the BC check-in line - first in line. The order of people to go the counters next was controlled by two employees. When it was my turn - no it wasn't! An elderly couple had made their own line and rushed to the counter as soon as it was available, completely missed by the employees and I didn't realize what had happened until it was too late. I can't be mad at them, though, they obviously didn't see us/the "real" line because with their heads so far up their own asses all they would have been able to see was darkness. And they were Very Important Couple (tm) so of course they should be able to jump the line and ignore everyone else. And they took so FUCKING long. Finally I could hand over my bag and I was done in literally seconds.

Fast track scanner for security didn't work, so had to talk with a security guy - he let me through manually but pointed out it probably wouldn't have made a difference (next time I want a security guy that can count - the "normal" line was clearly at least 3 times as long). Success! Until my bag got randomly picked for thorough inspection - number 7 in line, and they all took a couple of minutes each. Waiting, among several large families including all generations, including toddlers and small kids. The fucking NOISE!

Finally got done and escaped to the lounge. Peace and quiet for a while. Delicious desserts. But why do they always only have ruby ports and not tawnies? :(

Went to the gate to board. The Very Important Couple (tm) was of course in front. Chaos, as another plane - even larger - was departing at the gate next to us half an hour later. We started boarding at departure time. Of course. And why is it SO FUCKING HARD for people to understand what order to board in? A majority in front of me were not BC so when they were turned away and told to wait for their group to be called they stood like deers in headlights and couldn't or wouldn't understand that they had to step away so others could pass them (WHAT? There are other people on this flight than ME?!? NO! That cannot be!!).

Finally got settled into my seat. 

There were problems with the on-board APU so they had to use one from the ground. It arrived quickly, but it turned out it wasn't big enough, so they had to call for a bigger one. It took close to an hour before it had arrived and we could pull away from the gate, and the mean time they couldn't run any cooling in the plane - and Toronto is/was mid/high twenty degrees. The fucking temperature in the plane... At least the entertainment system was turned on when we sat down and not as when I flew to Toronto where it didn't get turned on until after takeoff. 

The flight was a nice diversion from all the shitty things that lead to this. I do want to know who the fuck turns off the entertainment systems 5 minutes before arrival at the gate. I might be biased; I had 2 minutes left of an episode I was watching, perfectly timed for our arrival. I might have growled a bit too loud as the woman sitting in front of me turned around and looked at me.

Oh, didn't really sleep, either, so of course I was a normal pleasant patient human being arriving in Copenhagen.

Getting off the plane went well, arriving in the new part of the terminal (E for those in the know) but as they had closed the passport controls there they had put up a sign directing us to the control at C instead, including fencing so there was no doubt where to go. A group in front of me went in complete shutdown and blocked the entire hallway because having the employee who was standing there telling them what to do - basically just saying what the sign said - was apparently too much for them to handle. Again; deer in headlights. When I got tired of waiting for their braincell to reboot I started saying excuse me and pushing through which apparently kicked them into gear and they started moving again towards the escalator. For fucks sake (or is it "for fuck's sake"? I want to appear professional): you walk to the left and stand on the FUCKING RIGHT! It's not rocket science, uncultured swine!

Got through passport control - the officer seemed like the most competent person I had met since I checked in - and went towards the baggage pickup. Before that there are those one-way doors; there are two next to each other, and dear man who was short enough to be 12 but bald and grey enough to be 70: if you are aiming for one door go for that one. Don't, at the last moment, switch over to the other one without looking behind you, because it will result in me almost tripping over you and no stop fucking looking at me like that look where you are FUCKING going you are NOT alone in the world. 

Waited for my bag that never showed up so after an hour I reported it lost and went home. Apparently I was not the only one from Toronto that had a missing bag. Had to buy toiletries on the way home because someone in Toronto thought it was important to not send my bag with me (it's probably living its best life in Japan or on the beaches on Bali by now - asshole). Everything is hot and humid here with no relief. There is more wind out of my ass than in the air outside.

The worst part is that Very Important Couple (tm) did get their bags and left long before I gave up - but not before they found some of them on one of the carrousels that wasn't for our flight. 

But don't worry. I am different than before. I have grown. In spite of this I do not sit here and hate people.

Now I fucking hate everything.

For the record, the bag arrived 3 days later so I’m assuming it came over with the next same flight as I was on, and a few days later everything was back to normal. 

Once again big congratulations to Mira and Jeff for getting married. Big thanks for letting me be part of it and experiencing the wonderful wedding (and all the delicious food and snacks… and wine!). Thanks to Lisa for the fun company on my first night back in Canada. Big thanks to Angele for guiding us around Churchill and to the group for such a great time; Chris & Lorne, Dennis & Ruth, Kristi, Dorothy, Donna, Ana, Marina, Jenny, Jeanne and Hillary (and anyone I've unintentionally forgotten). 

Full album can be seen here.

12th – 13th – Wows and vows

I’ve always been a bit weirded out by train stations not letting passengers onto a platform until last moment or not informing the passengers of what platform the train will be arriving at until it has already arrived. Arriving at Toronto Union Station I got in line with a pile of other people who were carefully led onto the platform after showing our boarding passes when the train arrived. Seeing the platform the controlled access to it made a bit sense, as it was wasn’t raised and you were looking straight into the wheels of the train. The ride to Belleville was a pleasant less than 2 hours ride through the Canadian landscape.

On arrival it was a mere 40 minute walk in the blistering heat to get to the hotel where I checked in, settled in and left to have short walk into town and have a look around. A half an hour’s walk brought me into a town that felt almost dead – people were apparently not in a hurry getting out and about on a Friday afternoon. After having passed the marina and walked through a spot of green area I ended up in an Italian restaurant near the center, where their “garlic bread with mozzarella” should rather be sold as “bread with mozzarella with a clove of garlic next to it when toasted”. 

The ice seems unsafe in these hot conditions.

The following day I had a short walk mid-day before getting picked up at 1430 by a bus – a school bus, even – to take us to Potter Winery where a friend of mine who I met on my trip to southern Africa in 2013 was getting married. The location was gorgeous, the weather likewise, and the wedding went without a hitch apart from the part where the now husband and wife got hitched. With excellent snacks, food, desserts and wines I’d consider it a very success evening. The company was pretty nice, too. The party ended at 2330 when the last bus departed. 

10th – 11th – Toronto

I had a flight out of Winnipeg a bit past noon which despite a half hour delay went smooth and uneventful. We arrived in an orderly fashion but did end up having to wait for our luggage for close to 45 minutes. 

I checked back into the hotel and retrieved my bag in storage, trotted about for a bit before getting a ticket for a late entry to the CN Tower and grabbed a train to the city center.

Walking around Toronto.

Nathan Philip's Square with the city hall to the left 

and a large city sign if you've forgotten where you are.

I had planned to have dinner while in town but I realized I wasn’t really hungry so I ended up just having a walk around in the fading light until around 2130 where I could get into the tower and enter the viewing platform. An amazing view of the city below and in the clear weather you could see quite far. The view was partially obstructed by the countless hand-, finger-, cheek-, forehead- and other sticky prints all over the windows. And due to the interior light and people using flash there was so much reflection. Apparently there is an outdoor platform you can walk out on without the glass, but it was currently closed due to renovation. Ascending to the top floor there were fewer people and therefore a bit less chaotic and noisy. Some of the windows were angled downwards so there were less reflection, but due to their angles they let a ton of light in from the colored lights lining the tower.

It is really annoying with all these viewing platforms where you’re stuck behind glass and I don’t know why I keep paying (often a good chunk of money) go gain access to them. Ah, well, vacation-me is less critical than after-vacation-me when it comes to spending money.

Leaving the tower at around 2330 I returned to the station to grab the train back to the hotel/airport, and thinking I had plenty of time I wasn’t in a rush. I arrived 12 minutes before the next departure which turned out to also be the last departure, so despite I had no problems making it in time I was very glad that I hadn’t spent more time getting back to the station.

The following day I went back to the center to spend the day walking around seeing the city. The sun was out and the temps were high, but the many tall buildings gave some nice much needed shade. There are a lot of large tall buildings in the center – many more than I expected, I think. The roads were pretty wide so it’s fairly easy to get a good view of them despite standing near them. I tried booking a spot on a night harbour tour to get the skyline from the water, but due to a power outage in that part of the city (I thought I was in Toronto and not Toroffto?) they only took cash. Too bad. I grabbed some delicious poutine at a small booth called NomNomNom Poutine – which certainly lived up to their name. Fries, cheese curds, meat and gravy – what’s not to like? 

Poutine. Way better than it looks.

Trying to get out of the heat and maybe resting my legs I spent the afternoon in the Toronto Aquarium. There wasn’t much you wouldn’t see in any other aquarium around the world, though they did lead the guests past the water treatment and purification systems which introductions to what the various parts did, which I thought was pretty interesting. 

Mandatory "jellyfish in front blue background"-shot.

For dinner I ended up in the financial district in a basement restaurant where I had a delicious burger (priced as one would expect for a nice place in the financial district) with a dessert consisting of an excellent pile of 5 small donuts. While they called them donuts I’d argue these were closer to donut holes stuffed with cream.