A few weeks ago, I announced my bid for the 2008 Berlin Marathon (for those of you who read the 4-part series on my running history, it might be interesting to know that every time I try to type “2008 Berlin Marathon,” I start typing “2008 Chicago Marathon“), and today is officially the opening of Linden’s running season. It has been really cold this winter and Linden just doesn’t run in the cold. I could have started running last week, but there were some threatening cold days this week, and when I start, I don’t want to stop again.
So we rode our bikes the 10 minutes through town, straight to the entrance to Stadtwald Giessen, locked the up, and ran. As you head into the Stadtwald (“shtaught-vault,” or “city forest”), you run up a slight incline for about 2 miles. There are places where it levels off a little bit, but for the most part, it’s a long killer incline. I am used to running on flat ground, this even this baby “hill” leaves me way more winded than I should be. Nice thing is that I always go faster down the hill, so that means negative splits!
When we made it back to our bikes, we saddled up and headed back into the Stadtwald. We have heard rumor of Kloster Schiffenberg, or the Schiffenberg castle monastery, a castle which housed monks for nearly 800 years. We headed in the general direction, but turned around, we think, right before we got there. All in all, we were out gettin’ the blood pumping for just short of 2 hours. I like this bike riding thing! (Hint, hint, Vanilla!)
Some of my favorite quotes from today’s workout:
- As he ran behind me so we could make room for other runners and after the other runners had passed us, Rob said, “I can smell you. (long pause) You smell delicious. I wanna have you with some potatoes.” I can only hope he meant I smelled like a bratwurst or Frikadellen, because Germans sure do like those two dishes with potatoes.
- After the run: I had told him during the run that he was a bad running partner, so when we were done, he said, in his best Valley Girl impression, “If you had just finished running with Sarah, you would totally be chattin’ it up right now. (Throws his hip out to one side and twirls his imaginary hair) Well, actually, you’d be twittering to each other. You would talk like that, too: (Different girl voice) ‘Sarah is twittering: How was your run, Linden?’ (Back to Valley Girl) ‘Linden is twittering: I feel good, Sarah! What about you?’”
Sarah is definitely a better running partner because her Run Talk motivates me (Rob is, to me, most annoying when we’re running), but he sure does crack me up!
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by Linden
08 May 2008 at 15:27
@roadtrip10: First of all: Welcome to the blogosphere!
Second: Uh, last year was probably not the best year to judge Chicago on… I would still like to try it because it’s supposed to be a fast, flat course. And Linden likes flat for sure (it’ll be a few years before I’m fast!). Plus, the audience is supposed to be great. I would be very surprised if there is ever another catastrophe like 2007 at Chicago again.
@charity: Don’t worry! Running season has started, but not marathon training. That’s when I’m going to do the first fitness test.
@topher: I did, I did! And thanks for the bloglovin’, too! About that vote… my best friend was also nominated (SarahJoAustin.com) *cough, cough* so I think I kinda have to vote for her. *Yikes* What a pickle I’ve got myself in!
by Topher
08 May 2008 at 10:31
Dude! What’d you do? You nominated me? THAT’S AWESOME! Thank you so much. I gave you some bloglove in my latest post announcing my nomination.
Dumb question, but does that mean I can count on your vote?
by charity
08 May 2008 at 09:39
Eek – your running season has started and I haven’t even taken my first fitness test. I haven’t forgotten – I promise – it’s just been delayed. But finals are OVER and I WILL do it this weekend. Ugh – it won’t be pretty.
Oh – and I’m impressed that the two of you try to present normalcy for the sake of others. I’ve long given up (much to the embarassment of my husband and my mother).
by roadtrip10
07 May 2008 at 13:24
Ah Chicago Marathon (even though you’re not running it). Greg ran it last year and although he said he would run another marathon, he said never again for Chicago. It was a zoo.
by Linden
05 May 2008 at 03:33
@topher: Thanks, you too! He sure does. Man, I paid full price for my Pearl Izumis and he just gets the latest model for free?!
We never talk in Valley Girl, or any other voice, for that matter, when other people can hear us. Gotta keep up the illusions of normalcy. But I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one getting laughed at on the trail. :)
by Topher
05 May 2008 at 00:06
Good luck with the bike give-away. That Vanilla’s got some sweet hook-ups. I wonder if people would look at me funny if I incorporated valley talk into my runs. I wonder if they’d look at me funny because I’d be a guy talking like a valley girl, or if it’d be because I’d be talking to myself, or b/c I’d be talking to myself…in valley talk. Either which way, I guess it’d be no different than the way people laugh at me when I’m running to begin with.
by Linden
03 May 2008 at 16:43
You know how you speak for Ravi and now Mowgli? And you drug Chris into it? Well, our equivalent idiosyncrasy is that we talk to/at/for each other and random characters in all sorts of voices: black, valley girl, Russian, German, hick, stoopid, gay, woman, granpa, et cetera, et cetera. It’s funny. At least to us.
So I was Valley Girl (that’s Rob usual voice for me when he’s mocking me), and you were Woman. It’s similar to Valley Girl, but in this case, he just switched voices to indicate a different speaker. :)
by Sarah Jo
03 May 2008 at 15:39
Yea! Running season!
I’m confused. Did I get the Valley Girl voice or did Rob give it to you? In all fairness, that’s not what I sound like.
:)