The Race

6:25am this morning, my alarm goes off and as always I was already awake. Well how could I still be sleeping on such an important day. The day of The Race, Victoria's annual Times Colonist 10k. It's 7am and I am leaving my house to pick up Flo. Shortly after, there we are: downtown among all the other thousands of runners. Most of them are already warming up and running around the parliament building. So we decided to warm up as well and ran about 200m. That's enough, there were another 10k to go, so why run lots now. Shortly before 8am, we went to the starting point, where runners were divided according to their estimated time. Meaning Flo in the front and I am in the back, but that's okay. I put on the running music Russ gave me and was pumped. May the race begin!

There were so many people, you can't imagine, and each and every single one was in a great mood and highly motivated to run, jog or walk. There were even parents running with their kids in a stroller, amazing (and some of them were faster than me...).

The race started of behind the parliament building, went though the Beacon Hill park and then along the ocean, which is an awesome scenery for a race (see map). It was a little depressing to see the first people passing the 6km sign when I didn't even finish the first 2km, but oh well I knew I wouldn't win the race. And it didn't matter how fast you were, there were people standing at the side of the road cheering for everybody. The whole atmosphere makes you run and keeps you going without even thinking about how long you still have to go and all of a sudden you reach the point where somebody screams, yeah only 1k left. By now I was actually quite tired, but there was only one 1k left and I could almost see the finishing line. And there it was, the last turn and I am trying to sprint the last meters. DONE. I feel great, but, boy, I am tired and I need some water, water, water. Besides water they also provided all runner with cookies, fruits and yogurt drinks. I quickly graped some cookies and 2 drinks and went to find Flo, who was supposed to wait for me at the parliament building. I didn't find him there, instead he was trying to take a picture of me running, but hehe I guess I was faster than he thought. And there we are the happy runners.

After a little sunbath in front of parliament building, we went home, where I took a nap outside on the tramp. I was way more tired than I actually thought :-)

Oh and yes, you can call me Speedy Gonzales from now on, because I managed to run the 10k in 59:18min (see results), which for somebody who only started running in February (and that not even on a regular basis) is awesome.

As for me I will run next year again. Are you joining?

10k Race Training Diary

Thursday April 27, 2006, 6:25am Elk Lake parking lot, ready... GO...

1k: Why am I doing this?
2k: Why am I not in bed sleeping? S*** the battery of my mp3 player just died. No more music… arrr
3k: I could just turn around and only run 6k. My shin hurts...
4k: Should I turn around, 8k does not sound as bad as 10k? Should I? Hmmm , if I run further there is no way back, I have to run the whole 10k… But no, I can do it!
5k: Yeah half way though, wonder what the time it is. My shin does not hurt anymore, yeah.
6k: Hey I am not as tired as I was last time, cool…
7k: I still have energy, strange… hmm I mean great yeah…
8k: Only 2 more left and I am still not breaking down, yeah I can do it… even a little faster… Oh no the hill… ahhh… I can do it, yeah yeah
9k: That’s great. Come on push it, run a little faster. Go girl Go.
10k: Christina you are awesome, 10k all by yourself without giving up, but now I am tired. Uhhh what’s the time 7:30am, not too bad after only 5,5 hours of sleep.

BTW I feel great now and maybe on Sunday at the race I can push it even a little more… We’ll see. I'll keep you updated.

It’s there!!!

YEAH YEAH

Jen just told me that my tetherball has arrived. YEAH YEAH, now I only have to think about how I can fix it to the pole and then the tetherball season will begin!!!

YEAH YEAH …

First match Saturday night @ Nyumba Rafiki, till then I will practice...

Update (Wed: 11:45pm): It's really here, it's yellow, it has a rope and I just pumped it up. THE tetherball! Too bad it's so late and dark otherwise I would be playing right now... for about 2min till the ball hits my head... Can't wait to play...

Red Wings vs. Oilers or Russ vs. Mike

Not that I would care about hockey and the NHL at all, but last night was Mike’s last night here in Victoria. (Yes, he is moving out *cry*) and the Nyumba Rafiki crew went out for wings and hockey. Playing teams Detroit Red Wings vs. Edmonton Oilers. I should mention that Russ is a big Red Wings fan and Mike is cheering for the Oilers, so yes this night had lots of interesting potential. Since I needed to do so some schoolwork, I got to the pub a little later then the others. I think I got there in the middle of the 2nd period. And since I didn’t care that much about hockey, it took me about 15 min to notice that on TV there were neither the Red Wings nor the Oilers playing, they showed the wrong game on TV, sucks! But what I noticed right away was the Russ was not in the best mood ever. Guess why!

Even though they had the wrong game on TV, once in the while they updated us with the scores and highlights of the game we actually wanted to see. The rest of the eve I like to document with pictures, since pictures say more than 1000 words.

The Opponents:

Current Score 1:3 for Oilers

10 sec later update on TV score 3:3

3rd period is over and we decided to watch the overtime, which was now on TV, at home. So hurry hurry, we have 15 min to get home...

Russ: praying for his team. He even moved closer to the TV.

Russ: when his team scored

Mike: 30sec later when he found out the Red Wings goal was not valid

THE END, Guess who won...

Five Star Dinner a la Flo

Couple of weeks ago I convinced Flo to cook for me. And let me say that it was not easy to convince him, took me about an hour, but due to my good argumentation skills or should I say Being-Very-Annoying-Skills, he finally agreed to cook for me. Now we only had to decide what we wanted to eat, or what he wants to cook. Well we had the best idea ever. German Food. Yumm yumm I didn’t have German food since ever (ever meaning xmas when my mom cooked for me). Flo then suggested to cook “Semmelknödel mit Rahmschwammerln”. Yep, I had the same look on me face as you have now, because I didn’t know what Rahmschwammerln are either, some Bavarian dish, but Flo was so kind to translate it so that me, the Prussian who does not understand Bavarian dialect at all, knows what’s on the menu. So “Semmelknödel mit Rahmschwammerln” are dumplings with a cream-mushroom source. Wonder why he didn’t say that right away. But didn’t matter that sounded awesome! And since I didn’t want to be the lazy bum, who watches Flo cooking, I agreed to take care of the dessert and to bake a cheesecake.

Sunday night should be the Happy German Dinner Day. But such a rich dinner needs to be earned, which is why we decided to train for our 10k race, which btw is next Sunday ahhhhhhh, before dinner. I have to tell you 10k isn’t that easy and I guess if Flo wouldn’t have been there I would have given up after 2km, but I managed to survive and ran all the way, yeah. After that we quickly went groceries shopping and cooked. Meanwhile it was already past 9pm, so that the planned dinner became a midnight snack, but one you only can dream of. Thanks to the master chef Flo!!! After eating the dumplings, we were so stuffed that there was no space for the cheesecake anymore, but eating the cake the next day was just as good. (More photos of this fun and super yummy evenning, are posed on my web page)

Now I am just wondering how long I will have to wait before I can convince him to cook for me again…

Me the Klutz, Mike the Hero

You know I am a clumsy person, but I have never felt more like a klutz before. Last Saturday, I was running late for the BBQ at my place. Still had to pick up a friend and prepare my food and that all in 15min before the guest were supposed to arrive. So to say I was in a big hurry, which is equal for me not paying attention to anything. So I arrived at my friend's place and wanted just quickly go to his door to tell him that I am here to pick him up. I parked the car, locked the door and left. Two and a half steps later I recognized that I didn’t have my key. Guess where it was! Yep in the car. Stupid me, locked my key in the car. But wait it comes even better. The car was still running. So KLUTZ me looked the running car. Oh where you wondering whether I have a spare car key? No I don’t. So I decided to call my roomie Mike, because I needed the number of a locksmith. Well instead of giving me the number he quickly came by, with a coat hanger to help me out. It took him about 15 min to open my car using a normal coat hanger, which is actually quite scary, but made me very happy, because I first of all had my Pepe (that's the car) back and I saved me about 40-80bucks for the locksmith. So Mike was and still is the Hero of the night. THANKS MIKE, best looking locksmith in Victoria!

Oh for sure the party started without me, but Jen already prepared me a drink when I got home, which by the way I really needed at that time.

The ultimate Pick-Up Move (copyright by Mike Cote)

Last Thursday, just before going out, Mike shared his knowledge with Jen, Russ and me and told us THE ultimate and 100% successful move to pick up a girl in a club or bar. You should have seen how exited we (esp. Russ) got, when Mike started to explain. The move it's easy said and done, is called Grab and Twist. Yep, Grab and Twist, good name, eh? I am sure you can take a guess what Mike wants to grab and twist, right the boobies, as he likes to say. Jen, Russ and me just stared laughing out loud, wondering how it comes that he does not have to black eyes, from doing that. But since he is convinced that it is the ultimate and 100% successful move, we asked more questions. So he just said it again, when he dances with a girl, he just grabs and twists. Even Russell was on the girls site and said you can't do that and Jen and I both confirmed that he would get slapped from us. On yesterdays BBQ, Mike finally “proved” his move and showed us how to pick up, the German girl Brunhilda. Luckily his cell phone has a camera and we were able to capture this pressures moment. So check out THE move http://www.cs.uvic.ca/~obry/GrabNTrist.3g2

The Pole

Today I got home from work and my roomies Mike and Russ were sitting on the couch. First thing they said to me was „Leave the shoes on we are going in the back yard!“ I was wondering what this was all about, but soon I got it. Mike kept his promise and organized the pole for our new tether ball. Yeah!!! The cement was still fresh and so we decided to put our finger prints into the cement. Not that you can see them later on , because grass will cover the whole thing, but it was cool. Now I am just hoping that the ball arrives in time for the BBQ on Saturday, otherwise we have to have a pole-dancing completion instead of a tether ball tournament.

Tetherball

Uhhh I am soo excited. I just bought a Tetherball at ebay. Okay for everybody who does not know what Tetherball is. It’s a game that here in North American is quite popular if you are a kid. So a ball similar to a volleyball is tied to a ten-foot, vertical pole by a slender rope. Two players, each confined to one half of the area surrounding the pole, try to hit the ball repeatedly in one direction so that the rope wraps completely around the pole. Whoever managed to have the whole rope rapped around the pole first wins. Sounds great, doesn’t it?!!! I saw it the first time in the movie Napolion Dinamite and I thought they made the game up since it looks quite ridiculous, but I guess I was wrong. Anyways, since then I was thinking about getting on of this balls and play the game. Just to know how it’s like. Yesterday my roomie Mike and I were talking about it and he said he is organizing a pole if I get the ball. So I just bought a ball and a pump at ebay and can’t wait till it gets here and we have the first Tetherball competition in our backyard. I will report more once the ball is there and the pole is up.

Yeah Tetherball...

Men Think Like Mammoths, Women Don’t

I went to see the movie “Ice Age The Meltdown” last Sunday, which btw is really funny and I enjoyed it a lot. Don’t worry I won’t tell much about the movie, in case you haven’t seen it yet. But the baseline is that the icebergs and the polar ice cap are melting and the water levels rise, a temperate climate begins to emerge, and the animals begin a long trek to save themselves from drowning. There is said to be a hollow log at the end of the valley, in which they can float to safety. On the way to the log Manny, the mammoth, and co. are meeting Ellie, who is also a mammoth, but believes to be a possum. Anyways I said I won’t tell you much about the movie itself, you should go and watch it. But in one scene Manny is hitting on Ellie the conversation is similar to this:

Manny: For a mammoth you are very pretty.
Ellie (smiling): Really, what do you think is beautiful?
Manny (shyly): Hmmm, your butt.
Ellie: What is with my butt?
Manny: It’s HUGE!
Ellie (blushing, smiling): Oh, you are just saying that…
*both walk happily away, together*

Okay, I have to admit that the whole scene was quite cute, since both of them were super shy and have no experience with flirting at all. However, I just want to let you guys (and I actually mean men here) that even if you may sometimes think like a mammoth and you think it is a complement to tell some girl that her butt is huge that chances are you get slapped. Because and that is 100% sure women do not think like mammoths!

That’s all I have to say today and now guys and girls go out and flirt like there is no tomorrow, but remember don’t be a mammoth!