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.