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Running With Balloon: Höchster Kreisstadtlauf 10K
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temve Race Unattended.
So, today is a public holiday in Germany - Ascension Day to the Christians, Fathers' Day to the guys, and to the local running community, the day of the local season-opener 10K, the Höchster Kreisstadtlauf.
This one is a Local Race writ large - virtually no pro runners participating, all proceeds got to a local children's charity, local volunteer fire brigades taking care of safety and water stops, and the local paper organizing the whole mess. Traditionally, this is the season opener for many runners in the area, not least because it's a net downhill course which makes for good times. And the weather is usually glorious, today being no exception.
So, early this morning I got on my bike, rode to the nearest train station, boarded the local train with a couple hundred other runners (and absolutely nobody else) and trekked out to the start line - this is a point-to-point, and while I no longer live at the finish line like I used to, it's still only a short bike ride away. I get to the start line, pick up my race number, pin it on... and realise that I've forgotten my timing chip at home. Oops.
See, that's what happens when I try to run races withoutell, who is off to Poland for a long weekend of aikido today. Without her meticulous-bordering-on-OCD packing, I managed to bring a water bottle, a banana, a warm jacket, my phone, the house key, a little cash, and even some reading - but not my timing chip.
Oh well, I thought, I'll just treat it as a fun 10K run in the sun, with lots of company. That was when I spied a dude with a helium bottle and a couple of large red rubber balloons and a small sign informing the public that anybody who ran the race carrying one of those big red balloons advertising the local paper would get a free drink and food at the finish line.
Sure, I thought. Sign me up.
Pre-race me with red balloon doing its thing. Yes, that is a Japanese torii in the background. No, I don't know either.
Unfortunately, while the Local Paper's Balloon Dude was quite adept at tying balloons around the waists of runners (and appeared to visibly enjoy finding my narrowest bit and attaching a piece of string to it :), he clearly needed lessons in how to properly tie up the actual balloon. While it held up nicely pre-race, making for some amusing shenanigans trying to get into the porta-potty with it, by the time we crossed the start line it had already deflated so much that it was no longer above my head but trailing behind me at about shoulder height. Which gave me a nice excuse to line up all the way at the back with the slower folks and the thinner crowds because I didn't want to keep hitting people in the face with a big red rubber balloon...
By kilometer 2 I looked like I was walking my pet puffer fish (and I got to yell "anyone got any helium?!" at the crowd of spectators on the highway overpass, which got a bit of a laugh), and by kilometer 4 I had roped the sad floppy red thing in and tied it to my waist, attracting the odd comment from fellow runners. One woman said to her running companion, "I feel the way that balloon looks", and he said, "Yeah, but I'm not carrying you like that", to which she said, "Shame", and I narrowly avoided telling her that bouncing up and down on my butt for a good half hour is probably not such a fun way to spend the morning :)
My complete lack of timing (I wasn't even wearing a watch) and my status as the one with the deflated red balloon made for a rather relaxed and fun run actually, and I even got to pose for the newspaper photographers twice, although not having a timing chip on my foot meant that the emcee couldn't yell out my name at the finish line as he usually does with anyone who has anything memorable about them such as, you know, wearing rainbow arm warmers and brandishing a floppy red balloon.
The sad deflated remains of the red balloon at the finish line. Not even enough helium left to do a silly voice with! Still, the white envelope marked "Balloon 18" in incredibly confident handwriting contained two food vouchers and two drink vouchers, for which I furnished myself with a sausage and a cup of hard cider (because this is Frankfurt after all), to be followed later, after a bit of a bask in the sun, by a piece of very nice carrot cake made by someone from the local kids' charity and a cup of pretty terrible black tea.
Impressions from the finish line party on the meadows between the old city wall (just out of shot on the left) and the river (just out of shot on the right). Very much in shot: everyone's bicycles, banners advertising everything from the local paper to the local electricity company, and well-deserved post-race beers. Picture the smell of bratwurst, the happy chatter of about a thousand runners basking in the early-May sun, and the unobtrusive sound of a jobbing rock band playing ABBA, and you have an idea of what this particular Local 10K feels like.
As we speak, I'm about to file the remains of the balloon in my racing binder with the race number, still glowing a little from the sun and the free cider, and pretty content that I'll never find out how fast I ran today. I ran 10K, I amused some people, and I took just about an hour to do so.
Pretty good for a day off. Cheers :)
temve Race Unattended.So, today is a public holiday in Germany - Ascension Day to the Christians, Fathers' Day to the guys, and to the local running community, the day of the local season-opener 10K, the Höchster Kreisstadtlauf.
This one is a Local Race writ large - virtually no pro runners participating, all proceeds got to a local children's charity, local volunteer fire brigades taking care of safety and water stops, and the local paper organizing the whole mess. Traditionally, this is the season opener for many runners in the area, not least because it's a net downhill course which makes for good times. And the weather is usually glorious, today being no exception.
So, early this morning I got on my bike, rode to the nearest train station, boarded the local train with a couple hundred other runners (and absolutely nobody else) and trekked out to the start line - this is a point-to-point, and while I no longer live at the finish line like I used to, it's still only a short bike ride away. I get to the start line, pick up my race number, pin it on... and realise that I've forgotten my timing chip at home. Oops.
See, that's what happens when I try to run races without
ell, who is off to Poland for a long weekend of aikido today. Without her meticulous-bordering-on-OCD packing, I managed to bring a water bottle, a banana, a warm jacket, my phone, the house key, a little cash, and even some reading - but not my timing chip.Oh well, I thought, I'll just treat it as a fun 10K run in the sun, with lots of company. That was when I spied a dude with a helium bottle and a couple of large red rubber balloons and a small sign informing the public that anybody who ran the race carrying one of those big red balloons advertising the local paper would get a free drink and food at the finish line.
Sure, I thought. Sign me up.
Pre-race me with red balloon doing its thing. Yes, that is a Japanese torii in the background. No, I don't know either.
Unfortunately, while the Local Paper's Balloon Dude was quite adept at tying balloons around the waists of runners (and appeared to visibly enjoy finding my narrowest bit and attaching a piece of string to it :), he clearly needed lessons in how to properly tie up the actual balloon. While it held up nicely pre-race, making for some amusing shenanigans trying to get into the porta-potty with it, by the time we crossed the start line it had already deflated so much that it was no longer above my head but trailing behind me at about shoulder height. Which gave me a nice excuse to line up all the way at the back with the slower folks and the thinner crowds because I didn't want to keep hitting people in the face with a big red rubber balloon...
By kilometer 2 I looked like I was walking my pet puffer fish (and I got to yell "anyone got any helium?!" at the crowd of spectators on the highway overpass, which got a bit of a laugh), and by kilometer 4 I had roped the sad floppy red thing in and tied it to my waist, attracting the odd comment from fellow runners. One woman said to her running companion, "I feel the way that balloon looks", and he said, "Yeah, but I'm not carrying you like that", to which she said, "Shame", and I narrowly avoided telling her that bouncing up and down on my butt for a good half hour is probably not such a fun way to spend the morning :)
My complete lack of timing (I wasn't even wearing a watch) and my status as the one with the deflated red balloon made for a rather relaxed and fun run actually, and I even got to pose for the newspaper photographers twice, although not having a timing chip on my foot meant that the emcee couldn't yell out my name at the finish line as he usually does with anyone who has anything memorable about them such as, you know, wearing rainbow arm warmers and brandishing a floppy red balloon.
The sad deflated remains of the red balloon at the finish line. Not even enough helium left to do a silly voice with! Still, the white envelope marked "Balloon 18" in incredibly confident handwriting contained two food vouchers and two drink vouchers, for which I furnished myself with a sausage and a cup of hard cider (because this is Frankfurt after all), to be followed later, after a bit of a bask in the sun, by a piece of very nice carrot cake made by someone from the local kids' charity and a cup of pretty terrible black tea.
Impressions from the finish line party on the meadows between the old city wall (just out of shot on the left) and the river (just out of shot on the right). Very much in shot: everyone's bicycles, banners advertising everything from the local paper to the local electricity company, and well-deserved post-race beers. Picture the smell of bratwurst, the happy chatter of about a thousand runners basking in the early-May sun, and the unobtrusive sound of a jobbing rock band playing ABBA, and you have an idea of what this particular Local 10K feels like.
As we speak, I'm about to file the remains of the balloon in my racing binder with the race number, still glowing a little from the sun and the free cider, and pretty content that I'll never find out how fast I ran today. I ran 10K, I amused some people, and I took just about an hour to do so.
Pretty good for a day off. Cheers :)
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And separate foot chips seem to have gone the way of the dinosaur here. They're mostly disposable chips embedded in the bib, though one race I do every year has a separate chip.
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For this one, I knew I was going to run exactly 10K (because I do keep track of mileage run) and that it was going to be just under an hour - but whether it was 59:59 or 58:00 in the end didn't matter when my PR is just over 56 minutes and I knew I wasn't going to break that.
Germany's still in the clutches of Mika Timing and its ubiquitous foot chip; if anything they're getting more popular here rather than less. Go figure!