Schwag

I know race directors do their best to come up with useful prizes, but the Digital Calendar Penholder we received for finishing the À Travers Romanel 10K looked so lame, some runners handed theirs back. At least last year we got a nifty shoe bag with the race logo on it! But on closer examination, the 2 batteries included with this year’s prize were enough to cover the signup fee. Besides a calendar, there is also a time and temperature display. Just the thing I needed to replace my kitchen clock.

Gotta run…

To catch a thief

Many people of my parents’ generation considered exercise for exercise sake a waste of time. “If you want some exercise, go pull weeds,” my father would say. But husband came home the other night and said all his running had come in useful. He interrupted a robber who had broken into our car and was making off with his iPod. This made Husband angry, so he chased the man down, tackled him and kept him in a judo hold till the police got there. He would have made Dad proud.

Gotta run…

Competitors, 2

Not all runners share the attitude I mentioned in my last post. At the “À Travers Romanel” 10.2K last Friday evening, I saw another cometitor who always finishes ahead of me. Well, that’s not entirely true, there was that one time I somehow beat her. She must have remembered that because she stayed right behind me during the first lap of the race, then passed me early in the second lap. I tried my best to hang on, but as we started the third and final lap, I knew this was not the day I could beat her again. She finished 17 seconds ahead of me. But as I neared the finish line, Husband (who had run the race much faster than I had) was there, shouting for me to pick it up because another woman was closing in on me. I had just enough energy left to keep her from passing me too.

Gotta run…

Competitors

A woman my age (and almost always a bit faster than I) passed me in the final half kilometer of my last 10K. We talked after the race and she told me that she was hoping we could cross the finish line together. I was touched. When I told Husband about it, he reminded me that I had done the same for her in a 10K back in April. I had forgotten about that. The word “compete” comes from the Latin competere: to seek together, to come together, to agree. I like that definition more than “to rival”!

Gotta run…

It’s dynamite!

My sports drink of choice is Ovomaltine (known as Ovaltine in English speaking markets due to a spelling mistake). This Swiss product, a mixture of eggs and malt, was invented in the mid 1900s by a pharmacist in order to fight rampant malnutrition. As early as the 1920s, Ovomaltine was advertised as a sports drink. Many top Swiss skiers have endorsed the brand. I thought you might enjoy this vintage commercial:

Gotta run…

Course à Dingler

Saturday afternoon I hitched a ride with Neighbor to Savigny for a 9.7K run. We got there two hours before race time, so I spent quite a bit of time lazing in the shade of a tree. Runners kept going by me on their way to the track to warm up. I tried to convince a few that with temperatures in the 80s for the first time this year there was no need to warm up. No one listened. I was glad that I had kept cool before the race because even though most of the climbing was in the woods, and I drank plenty of water at the midcourse aid station, and I stood under the mister at the finish line for a long time, I still had a headache till the next morning. I’m going to stick to morning or evening runs for a while.

Gotta run…

Jouxtens-Mézery

The village I run through three times a week held its annual 8.6K last Saturday. It’s so much of a local affair that I almost felt like I was crashing a party. Similar to attending a party, I was relieved to know a few people there I could talk to. It was fun to chat with M.B. before and after the race. My doctor was running too, so I told him how much better my leg was and that I had done quite well in the marathon.

About 50 of us, ages 14 and up, lined up for the race. Some were doing one 4.3K loop, the rest of us were doing two. As a first race after a marathon, the distance felt incredibly short!

Gotta run…