Word learnt today: German for Wasp (Easy enough – Waspe)
On Wednesday I saw a brochure at work for a Half Marathon nearby on Sunday. At that stage I was planning on flying to the next job on Sunday, so I went for a run that night to beat myself about missing the race. By Friday, the plans had changed, I would be in the area, but would have to work the Sunday. So I went for a faster run after work to further mourn the missed opportunity.
Saturday night (at 11pm), after working 14 hours and completely failing to carbo-load (salad for dinner doesn’t cut it) I get a call – my colleague thought that the work was going well enough that I could run if I wanted.
So I got up early, jumped on the bike and rode to Altötting – 15km up the road. Luckily the race was scheduled to start at 10:15 (why so late?) so I managed a late entry. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so hot, or a course that was 17km of forest trails – it was pleasant and picturesque though.
I managed to stick to my plan pretty well, for the first half (go out easy, pick it up later). I think I ran low on energy at about km 17 – I just couldn’t go faster! Maybe I should have eaten better, or run less on Friday. It couldn’t have been too bad though, the outcome was roughly the same as my Houston Half time. And I can’t say I’ve been training.
So what’s with the wasps? Just after we left the start and town, we ran on the road for 3km, to get position and pace sorted out. I didn’t realise the rest would be trails, so I was just cruising along, enjoy the run. As soon as the trail started, passing became difficult. But I was just running slightly off the track (when there weren’t trees or mud) to pass people. At one of these (before km 4) a swarm of wasps were upset by something, perhaps it was having a few thousand people rumble past their home. They took a significant dislike to the Australian (I can confidently predict there were no other Aussies there) and tried to turn my head into Swiss cheese. One tried to hide up my shirt and another just wanted to make friends with my shoulder. Shoulder wasp was the dummy – he didn’t do any damage, but he was the only one I actually saw. I can only deduce the others existence by the lumps on my head and back and the pain. Man, it hurts. And I was slightly worried when my vision blurred and I started seeing big white blotches, but I kept running and my vision cleared (well, as clear as normal for running). The pain stayed until I found drugs much later (the first aid people tried to help, but their magic cream didn’t do much).
A pity really, having a massively sore head didn’t do much for the post race enjoyment. I don’t think I’ll be running too many Bavarian half marathons, so I wanted to enjoy it. Luckily I had a quick look around the (pilgrimage) town of Altötting before the start. I did hang around for a massage (never managed that before!), and a second stint in the medical tent, mainly to make sure I wasn’t going to develope a reaction to the wasp stings – before riding back to Burghausen, getting a subway and riding into to work.
Now I’m buggered. I suspect I’ll sleep tonight. I even took the elevator to the second floor. And had desert (mmm, Apfel Strudel… with Vanilla sauce… Specki!). AND took drugs for my sore head.
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