GPS-less in Bucharest (again)

Just checking in. I haven't posted lately for a couple reasons.

#1. We've been busy camping with the missionaries from Stepping Forward again at Camp Living Water on the weekends, so I haven't done any interesting long runs.

#2. My runs have really been boring since being kissed by the gypsy lady.

#3. Finally, I'm depressed since my fancy schmancy GPS watch bit the dust (again). I don't know what the cause of the problem is, but it died just like last year. As Yogi Bera said "It's like deja-vu, all over again"

But other than that, things are fairly normal here. The weather is warming quickly and its been in the 70's pretty much all week. Spring proceeds quickly into summer during the month of May here, so I expect we'll be seeing 80 degree temps soon. If nothing else blog worthy happens soon, we will at least have my race-guessing contest to fall back on in May for filler material.

Steve J out.

The party's over, for now...

So I'm back in Bucharest after a fun weekend in the really cool city of Brussels. Sometimes it is a letdown returning to Bucharest after running in the cleaner, more modernized Euro-cities, but you have to press on. Besides, those other really nice cities are also REALLY expensive which would put a serious dent in my travel budget if I worked there. Besides, with Spring in full swing, things are looking up in Bucharest. The trees are really filling out now and this does wonders for this city's appearance. Here's a quick recap of my runs on Wed and Saturday.

Wednesday: Kiss of the Gypsy Woman

By a wide margin, this is the most blog-worthy run this week, despite its short length (only 3 miles). The weather was excellent (near 70 F) and I walked outside of the bloc to stretch and give my training partner (yes, my fancy schmancy GPS watch) 1 minute to find all his favorite satellites. Anyway, there is this old gypsy woman that lives under our building in the utility area. (See the pic on the left which shows her abode, complete with a stray. She enters/exits from behind the green garbage can) She's really friendly, but difficult to understand - and mostly likely missing a few items upstairs if you know what I mean. I say hello to her often since I see her almost everyday going in and out of the building. So I was just doing a quick light stretch when I saw her come out of her little space. She usually just stays at the entrance and talks, but for some reason today, she came right up to me smiling and showing those not-so-pearly whites - about 1/2 dozen gold (or some other metal?) teeth. She was uncomfortably close to me (the Europeans don't understand the concept of personal space) going on and on about a bunch of stuff and I understood only a few words per sentence. She did ask me how far I was going to run and I replied "5 Km". She smiled and said a bunch of stuff - apparently impressed. Then, just when I was ready to take off, she planted a kiss right on my cheek!, said something and went back into her little space.

They're Back!

Ok, so I got my little "bit-o-sugar" from the gypsy lady and I was ready to run. It was a really nice day and after about 2 miles I was feeling normal again as I headed around Titan Lake. Unfortunately, as I reached the sunny bank of the lower lake, I looked up the hill and my run was ruined. Yes, the out-of-shape middle-aged Romanian speedo-wearing men are back. For some reason, when the weather warms up, these dudes start dropping clothes. I can still see Wednesday's fine specimen with his baby blue speedo like it was yesterday - nice.

Saturday's Long Run

I've been taking it easy since the race, but today it was time to get back into my training mindset. I've already picked out my late Summer/early Fall goal race which is another Half-Marathon. So, first priority is to restart my weekly long run (90 minutes or more), a critical training component for most distance racing. (Don't worry the guessing contest will happen - I have to get some research done and hope to have it ready for May)

Plant a tree, Drink a beer?

It was a spectacular day at the park today for my 10 mile run. The Sun was out, the wind was light and the temperature at 11:00 am was a perfect 64 or so. I noticed right away that Titan Park was packed. There was a huge group of volunteers planting trees in one of the bare sections of the park near the north side of the lake. This I thought was really cool. As you know from reading my blog (especially if you read my 10 mile trash run post), then you know that environmentalism, civic pride and cleanliness has a LONG way to go in Romania, especially Bucharest. Apparently the event was sponsored by Ursus, the most popular beer in Romania (think Budweiser with a bear instead of a Clydesdale) since all the volunteers had matching Ursus T-shirts on. Hey, if it takes a beer company to encourage some civic pride and clean up this town, I'm all for it.

The other major event going on was for children. Near the south side of the lake a stage was set up for Itsy and Bitsy and the kids were going wild. Itsy and Bitsy are alien bug-like things that DJ the kids radio station 99.3 FM. So how do I know this? I have to admit I listen to 99.3 a lot and not just for Maria. The station has been a big help for me to learn basic Romanian since all the conversation is at a level elementary kids can understand.

Well, that about wraps up the running in Bucharest this week. I will probably get another 4-6 miler in tomorrow (Sunday) to finish this week in the the mid 20's for total miles. It's a nice start towards building my base so I can smash my Vienna time in the next race.

Brussels Part Deux

After a long day of walking (and of course, eating) in Bruges, we got back to the apartment and I decided to do a second run Monday evening. I decided to try to get away from the urban jungle and ran southeast towards a big green spot on my map called Bois de la Cambre. After about 1.5 miles uphill, I finally reached one of the entrances. I forgot my camera on the way out, so you have to deal with a few stock internet pictures and my geeky GPS plots, courtesy of my "training partner".

Bois de la Cambre

This park is considered by some to be the nicest park in Brussels. According to Wikipedia: "The park layout was created in 1861 by Edouard Keilig, a German architect. Queen Marie-Henriette, wife of King Leopold II, often went horse-riding in the park." It is a huge park with many paths, athletic fields and a nice small scenic lake. There were all kinds of sports going on in the fields. I saw soccer (of course), cricket and others. At one point I even saw a few discs in the air, including some "flick" and "hammer" throws - the tell-tale signs of Ultimate Frisbee players. They were just fooling around though - if there was a game on, my run would have ended right there!

This was much nicer than my run yesterday since this park is big enough to minimize the noise of the nearby city traffic. There are lots of hills here though, so it was a good workout for the 3+ miles I spent inside the park. Now, my only challenge is not to be depressed when I return to Parcul Titan in Bucharest.

Steve J runs Brussels!

Late Saturday after we got back on the train from our Antwerp visit, I decided to head out for a run. It was probably the worst weather day of the trip with 50 degrees and partly cloudy, but not too bad. Seriously, after the nonstop eating all day on Saturday, I really felt like I had to do something. Just FYI, if you want to get started on a low calorie food thing, this is NOT the country to visit first. Brussels is not only the capital of the European Union (EU), it is also the food capital of Europe - possibly the planet. There are restaurants and snack bars (including moving ones) everywhere! The best is that you don't have to eat at a 4 star place and spend 100 Euro to get something good. What I love about the Belgians is that they appreciate the value of a top quality snack. Yes, this is a Steve J kind-of-place.

Anyway, after I somehow fit in supper at our apartment I was ready for a run (Ok, that's not quite true. I had to make a quick run to the store to buy the next morning pastries ahead of time - then I was ready). I decided to visit two parks in the modern section of Brussels instead of trying to get through the historic section. At 6:45 PM the historic district would be packed in with tourists on very narrow streets - not good for running. You should be able to get plenty of pics of this area on the family blog in the next few days.

My first destination was Parc de Bruxelles to the north, which is situated in the city center directly in front of the Palais Royal (which I got a couple pictures of). Parc de Bruxelles is a rectangular shaped park with several wide lanes criss-crossing through it. The park is about 1 mile around the outer perimeter and the surface is hard-packed gravel/dirt. I would imagine the local business people and diplomats who run use this park frequently.

Also, they have frequent displays of art and other cultural stuff here too. Today, they had a display of really interested aerial photos taken from around the planet.

From there, I headed down one of the "urban canyons" of downtown Brussels to the next park, Parc Du Cinquantenaire. The traffic was heavy, but unlike Bucharest, there was actually order in the roads and the sidewalks where clear of parked cars (and traffic!). So, it was pretty easy to run downtown. I saw this bridge thing near one of the EU buildings that I thought was neat.

This park is in the shape of a simple house drawing and comes to point on the east side. Here there are a couple of massive structures which are now two big museums. The one that interested me was the Military museum. It had guns and stuff outside it and hey - I'm a guy, so anything with guns involved must be cool.

Both of these parks have really nice landscaping, but I can't be filling my "manly" running blog with pictures of flowers and other "girly" stuff. If you want that you can go back to the family blog, got it? I did take a picture of this castle sculpture thing for you though:

Brussels is a fairly compact and crowded city with alot of old and new architecture. From one of the highest points of the run (near the Crown Plaza Hotel) I took this shot that can give you an idea of what I'm talking about: All in all, it was nice slow meandering 1o Km run and I somehow finished it in about an hour despite numerous stops to take photos. I did have to get used to the gradual, but long inclines and declines here. Brussels feels very hilly compared to flat-as-a-pancake Bucharest. I hope you appreciate the mental toughness it takes to do a run like this, especially with these things located every 300-500 meters: Hope you enjoyed this run as I added another country to my list. Don't forget to click on all the hyperlinks if need more background info (meaning you're bored at work today).

Steve gets company for a day

Hey all,

We're in Brussels, Belgium right now, but I haven't run yet. We're heading to Antwerp for the day, but I may be able to get one in when we get back. Check the family blog for all the trip details that the Helpmeet throws up there this weekend.

Week Wrap-up

A quiet week of running in Bucharest this week. Temperatures are gradually warming up with the 60 degree mark getting more common. I have been taking it easy since the half marathon and just enjoying the weather and getting some slow miles in.

The most fun I had running this week was Wednesday. For this week's run with missionary John Lewis, he brought a couple of friends with him to Herastrau Park. They were two Germans named Dirk (far right) and Simon (far left) who were in town for the week. Both live near Munich. The older one, Dirk, has run several marathons and is a long distance specialist. The youngster, Simon, was a running rookie so we took it slow - and he did just fine. I know a lot of people who think Germans are serious non-funny people, but I had plenty of evidence Wednesday to show that this is not true. I'm just glad John didn't feed them mici before the run, or it could have been much, much worse (inside joke, that's all I'm gonna say).