A Couple More Pics and Musings

Rukiye, who we work with, took a couple of pictures of us all during the weekend in Istanbul. Below, we're at packet pick-up. Dale's race number was 666. That's right. Good thing he's Muslim and doesn't have to worry about such suspicions!
See the tulips behind us? Such a pretty weekend in the city!


Here's Tim and I going through the starting line a minute back. This is right where Tim began to realize that instead of charging his ipod the night before, the battery was actually run down. He got no tunes for pumpage :-(

And here's me at the finish. See how I'm all by myself? That's hard to do in a race. I prefer people being around--I feel like it makes me go faster. And here's a goal for me: one day, I want my finish shot to have my actual time over my head. In other words, I want to be close enough (fast enough) to the start that my finish time is the official time. Somehow, 1:56 does not look as cool as I imagine 1:55 would have.

The marathon is coming up in October. I think I should try to run it. I mean, it's that horrible race where you have to stand around in the rain and the aid stations are just water. But as far as I can tell, it's the only game in town. Perhaps we could travel to one, if it's nearby, say, in Bulgaria or Romania in August. Too bad there are no trail marathons or 50ks to speak of. Because there are plenty of trails and mountains and national parks--perfect settings for such events. The World Mountain Running championships were even held here 2 or 3 years ago. But nothing else like that is going on. Oh, what to do? I need a new goal....