frankfurt marathon

  
Just over a week ago, on Sunday, October 27th, I ran the Frankfurt Marathon, which was actually awesome! I had a pretty solid plan in place (run a mile, walk a minute) which I'd used in training and which meant that my knees felt good the whole way through unlike in some early training runs where they started to be seriously hurty after the six-to-seven-mile mark. The weather was kind of messy -- warm, rainy, incredibly windy -- but I turned out to have dressed perfectly for it, so I had no particular complaints.

I'd worried that running a home-city marathon would be kinda boring, especially since I knew that the route looped out toward the middle of nowhere right around the toughest part of the race. That no man's land section between miles 14 and 20 where the end is still incredibly far from sight took place way out toward Schwanheim and Höchst and it's true, there was just not a lot going on out there. But overall running my first marathon in the city where I live turned out to be stellar, since it meant that a bunch of my friends could come out and cheer! A couple of them even ran some of the way with me (including Stephen, who got a bunch of funny looks from the Germans for running while wearing jeans and carrying a messenger bag). Also, Frankfurt felt different, more fun, during the marathon than it normally does. Even areas I see basically daily, like Hauptwache, were transformed during the race. Plus, since I'm planning on moving to Nuremberg soon, it felt like a fitting sort of goodbye lap through a huge part of the city I've lived in for the past few years.

Speaking of which, today, November 4th, 2013, is actually the four-year anniversary of the day I moved to Frankfurt. When I moved here in 2009, I never in a million years would have guessed that I would still be here four years later. As much as I angst about living in Germany, clearly it's not all bad. After all, if I hadn't come here, I wouldn't have gotten to travel all over the place all the time, get a heck of a lot better at speaking German, or date that guy in the photo above. I still miss my family like crazy and despise the weather the majority of the time, but it probably comes out close enough to even.

2013 resolutions: check-in

  
[photos from that time I went to Positano with Ann last year]
I made some resolutions at the beginning of 2013, and just like last year, I figured it was about time to take a look at where I stand on my goals and how this year is going.

1. Run a marathon.
Happening! I signed up for the Frankfurt Marathon on Sunday, October 27th and I've been training for it since late June, using a barely modified version of the Hal Higdon Novice 1 training program. Training is time-consuming, unsurprisingly, but it is also inspiring to see how much progress I've made since I ran my first 10K last September. Yesterday's totally normal and un-intimidating seven-mile training run was longer than the longest I had ever run in my life just nine months ago. This is helpful to remember when I'm staring down that week in mid-October where I'll be running two file-milers, a ten-miler, and a twenty-mile monster within five days of each other. Takeaway: our idea of "normal" is not static; it changes and adapts with us. Which is really, really cool.

2. Learn calligraphy.
In February I bought myself the I Still Love Calligraphy online class by Melissa Esplin and the supplies for it and finally gave learning calligraphy a try after having wanted to learn for ages. Turns out there's a good reason they call it a calligraphy practice. I wouldn't say that I've already learned calligraphy at this point, but I am a heck of a lot better at it than I was before I started. We can go ahead and count that as a win.

3. Complete the first draft of a novel.
I like Nicole Antoinette's writing about the power of obsession and how there's just no way to be equally committed to a bunch of different projects at once. As the fact that I've had this goal on my resolutions list for the past two years and have made basically zero progress on it proves, clearly this isn't a priority for me at the moment. And that's okay! It doesn't mean I'll never be a novelist, but it's pretty relieving to be able to let go of the idea of being one right now, at the same time that I am already way committed to making my other big goals happen.

4. Move.
Happening! Stephen's starting a new job this fall and I'm on the hunt for a new one of my own, and hopefully by the end of the year we will both be in Nuremberg. Maybe even living in an apartment that isn't a single room? And in the not-so-far-off future getting a dog? High hopes around here!

As for the list of other things I wanted to do this year:

* go on another Weinwanderung -- done! * continue the hunt for the world's most magnificent beaches -- Sardinia trip in July = done! * be more conscious of my spending -- hahaha. this is a work in progress. * prioritize swimming for exercise -- if by "swimming" I meant "running", then sure! * add speedwork and strength training into my running routine -- I've gotten after this recently, with inconsistent results, but certainly more of each than I was doing in the past * go on a wine weekend in the Pfalz -- not yet, but the year ain't over * concentrate on people photography -- haven't exactly prioritized this*

For the rest of 2013 I'm concentrating on:

+ finding a new job & moving to Nuremberg (resolution #4)
+ running the Frankfurt Marathon (resolution #1)
+ taking slow, deliberate steps toward turning my excessive dorky love for all things calligraphy/stationery into a business (extension of resolution #2)

I'll let you know how all that works out for me!

gran canaria half marathon

Just over a week ago I ran the Gran Canaria half marathon, and I have never been so glad to be done with 13.1 miles in my life.

Some lessons learned:

+ Just because your hotel tells you over the phone that they are the hotel right next to the starting line for the island's only marathon does not meant they actually are said hotel. "Oh, no, that's our sister hotel!"

+ You might assume that water and a PowerBar or a banana would be relatively easy to come by at the start of a multi-thousand-strong race. You would be incorrect.

+ You would also be incorrect to assume that it would be possible to pick up your race numbers on the day of the race. Everyone knew that it was necessary to pick up the race packets the day before and that they would totally not be available after that point; why didn't we?

Ultimately we were allowed to run the race (thanks ever so kindly, race volunteers!), but I started out about a full minute per mile faster than my goal pace and the first refreshments stop was 5K into the race, so I spent that first 5K feeling miserable because I was dehydrated and starving, the second 5K feeling miserable because I horfed down too much banana and water, and the last 11K walk/jogging with Stephen, whose left leg has been hurty for a couple of months and decided to give out on him. So basically overall, nobody's greatest race ever.

Having said that, my offical time was 2:29:33, which is pretty good for a first half marathon! It's also about 20 minutes slower than my goal pace, so in spite of the fact that I finished the Gran Canaria half cursing everything about running, I am glad to have a chance to try again in the Lufthansa half on March 10th -- you know, just over six weeks away. (Ahh!)

2013 resolutions

I started out this post with a list of 18 things that I wanted to absolutely definitely do in 2013, which is . . . kind of a lot. Let's try again, with four.

1. Run a marathon.
In high school my assistant track coach told me he was convinced I was going to run a marathon someday, and I basically laughed in his face. And now I've got two half marathons on the schedule for 2013 already (Gran Canaria on January 20th and Frankfurt on March 10th) and have figured I may as well accept my fate. Pretty much the only questions I've got are: when and where? I'm thinking fall, but the location is TBD.

2. Learn calligraphy.
I did not quite get my act together enough to buy myself the supplies and coursework for the I Still Love Calligraphy class by Melissa Esplin, which was my original plan for Big Thing I Want for Christmas 2012. I've been obsessed with stationery and hand lettering for ages, and am excited to get into developing my own calligraphy practice.

3. Complete the first draft of a novel.
This was a goal last year, too, and I didn't precisely set myself up for success by putting it off until NaNoWriMo in Novemeber -- when I was also already training for a half marathon five times a week. I like the NaNoWriMo concept, and am going to be picking a different month to give it another go this year.

4. Move.
I'll consider this resolution satisfied if I'm living in a different apartment this time next year, but really the goal is not to move for the sake of moving so much as it is to be moving forward. I've been in the same apartment for not quite three years, and in addition to being physically stationary I'm feeling stagnant.

From the original list of 18, some other stuff I would just plain like to do this year:

* go on another Weinwanderung * continue the hunt for the world's most magnificent beaches * be more conscious of my spending * prioritize swimming for exercise * add speedwork and strength training into my running routine * go on a wine weekend in the Pfalz * concentrate on people photography

Current travel plans on the agenda:

+ Gran Canaria with Stephen - January 19-23
+ ski trip to the Innsbruck, Austria area with friends - late February
+ Kelley visitation to Frankfurt or elsewhere - late March
+ Mom visitation to Frankfurt or elsewhere - spring, maybe?
+ Conor's college graduation in Vermont & some time in Stone Harbor - late May/early June

energizer night run

I was going to post more pictures from this past weekend in Cologne with Mandie, but a) I only took pictures of pancakes with my DSLR, and those pictures are still sitting, unedited, on my computer; and b) this one iPhone picture basically sums it all up anyway. One of my 2012 resolutions was to run a 10K, and Mandie agreed to run one with me! So at the end of August we signed up for the Energizer Night Run and I'd been training for it ever since (I even packed my running stuff for Sardinia, though I skipped those runs in favor of beach lounging, whoops). And then at the end of September Mandie and I got together for a weekend of tons of TV, lemon poppyseed pancakes (pretty-looking but unfortunately not the tastiest thing either of us had ever made), cauliflower soup with sour cream and bacon and crusty bread (yum all around), and running a 10K at night with headlamps on our heads.

Fun fact about races in Germany vs. races in the U.S.: Americans would basically never wear the race t-shirt to run in. It's actively uncool. Germans? Don't understand why you WOULDN'T wear the race t-shirt for the race itself. "Isn't that the whole point of having the race t-shirt?" my coworker wanted to know. Mandie and I went American-style (though Mand's all-black-minus-the-shorts ninja outfit was a little more subdued than my flag leggings).

Mandie unfortunately busted her knee partway through the race and didn't get to finish. I finished in just over an hour (1:03:39) and agreed to run a make-up race with Mandie once her knee is through with being a jerk -- but next time, we're going to make it be a daytime run. It was cool seeing the bobbing line of lights against the nighttime sky, but it made me more nervous than I'm really comfortable with to run through a park at night, even with a headlamp (tree roots! random holes! surprise slippery sandy bits!).

In addition to the make-up 10K, I've decided I want to run a half-marathon next, possibly because I am a crazy person. (13.1 miles doesn't sound so wild knowing that I can do 6.2 already, though!) So I conned Stephen into signing up for a half-marathon in mid-January, because I started out looking at half-marathons in Germany in early 2013 and then it dawned on me: there was no need to constrain myself to just Germany. It just so happens that there's a race in the Canary Islands on January 20th, and if there is one place Stephen has been talking about wanting to go for absolutely ages, it's the Canary Islands. First travel plans of 2013 AND a half-marathon to train for? Done and done.

resolutions: check-in

>
[a few outtakes from Stephen's and my trip to Sardinia]

In January, I wrote about my resolutions for 2012. I've been thinking about them a lot lately, since -- as much as I'd like for summer to last forever -- it's mid-September now, which means that winter is coming, which means that the year is almost over (what?!). So, a little check-in:

+ Figure out job/country/life situation. -- Ha.

+ Write daily. -- Not so much.

+ Run a 10K. -- Happening! I signed up for the Energizer Night Run in Cologne about a month ago, and Mandie and I are running the 10K version.

+ Write the first draft of a novel (= at least 50,000 words). -- In progress, kinda sorta. (There's still NaNoWriMo!)

+ Take a cooking class. -- Not yet, but there's a cooking school in Frankfurt that offers vegetarian group classes in English -- important if I want to involve Stephen the vegetarian whose German, while marvelous (Ich muss machen Sie pee-pee.), is not yet quite up to speed for a cooking class.

+ Take a photography class. -- Three-hour photography walk = done, with David Hagerman.

+ Be open to randomness. -- To the extent that I tend to equate "randomness" with "excellent and relatively spontaneous travel", so far so good: Malaysia with Megan. Freiburg with Mandie, as well as more than one trip to Cologne. Berlin, repeatedly, with Conor. London with Lucy. Munich, Valencia, Copenhagen, Sardinia with Stephen. Rome + the Amalfi Coast + Capri with Ann is coming up in under a month (!) -- although, given that this trip has been on my calendar for two years, I don't guess I can really categorize it as spontaneous. (It will, however, surely be excellent.)

I guess my main take-away here is: I travel kind of often, and with some good, good people. And even though I still consider myself a photography beginner, I feel as though I've had some fabulous opportunities to take pictures in very cool places, and a decent amount of the time I am actually taking the pictures I want to be taking. And improving as I go! As for the rest of my resolutions/goals, I'm going to go ahead and consider the list more of a push to move in the right direction than something that I need to hold myself to extremely rigidly.

Having said that . . . November looks like a mighty fine month for banging out 50,000 words of a crappy first draft of a novel.

resolutions and plans

[Full photo set here. Is it really possible that between last August and now I had forgotten how incredible the Côte d'Azur is? Guess so.]

Some resolutions for 2012:

+ Figure out job/country/life situation.

+ Write daily.

+ Run a 10K.

+ Write the first draft of a novel (= at least 50,000 words). It's all right for it to be terrible! That is what first drafts are for.

+ Take a cooking class.

+ Take a photography class.

+ Be open to randomness, such as the solo four-day trip to the South of France I planned at the last minute last year upon having a fit of feeling that I wasn't getting out of Frankfurt enough. (. . . This was approximately thirty seconds after returning from three weeks in the USA, mind.)


Last year at approximately this time: I was getting ready to go to London.

Three weeks from today: I will be on a plane to visit my brother Conor in China for a week, followed by a week in Malaysia with Megan. I think that's what we call starting 2012 off right.