Sunny Race Day Overshadowed

Friday: gym, 1:30 hrs
Saturday: slow jog, 10K, flat, 1:06 hrs
Sunday: race, 8K, hilly, 37:33 min

Today was a beautiful day with a cloudless sky. Temperatures perfect for spectators and race organisers, but rather high for running. After all my orthopaedic gouts I looked forward to being back to racing but did not expect to be fast.

Photo above: Taking water after the second of 8 laps. The course was not easy. Every lap had a height difference of about 40 meters.

Photo above: Passing the finish line after 6 of 8 laps. The yellow doors are a special way of metering the time. An electronic chip is built in everyone's running number to send the signal.

Don't worry about the way I am looking. That's my normal expression when trying to run hard. I finished after 37:33 mins what was about 30 seconds slower than last year. This was okay as it is little more than the usual age caused decline. I was particularly happy that my foot didn't moan about the burden.

When I was waiting for my friends to reach the finish suddenly the nice part of the day terminated. Everybody around was shocked to see my friend J - you remember: the nice blond lady I love to run with - collapsing a few yards in front of the finish line. She had to be carried to the First Aid Station and was transferred to hospital later. As I heard she is better now but has to stay in the hospital overnight and undergo more checkups tomorrow. We all hope it was just a temporarily weakness of her cardiovascular system. She had a cold last week and took up the hard training probably too early. Being an experienced and highly successful competitive sculler she is able to push her body to its very limit. A bit too far today.

I will visit her tomorrow morning and hope to see her well again.