Attack of the forest monsters!
July 13, 2008
Normally, I only write about runs, not walks, so this is exceptional. Then again, so was my experience in the woods yesterday.
Instead of a jog, I chose to go for a walk. That’s not so strange, I often walk down to the stream in evenings to get some fresh air and to clear my head.
Yesterday, however, I just put on my shoes and started walking. Regular readers will recognise that I started off on one of my well worn paths. After crossing the stream at Nymølle, however, I went off road. Actually, it was off path, and on road – on what used to be one of the main north-south roads in this area. These days it’s not much more than a deep, washed out gully, and it seemed like the most traffic it gets was the millions of ants that were swarming all over it. I’d never seen so many.
Once the path got to the top of the hill, I vaguely recognised where I was by the two burial mounds. I crossed over the main path and headed back into the woods in order to get myself lost again. It worked, and before I knew it, I was someplace I had never been before. (Thanks to the preschoolers for letting me sit on their outdoor sofa while I contemplated which way to go next.)
I must have been lost in thought, because I nearly jumped out of my skin when some kid on a bike passed me. It always surprises me how alone you can be when you are walking alone in a suburban wood. At one point a heard a noise that sounded vaguely like a muffled cry for help, but decided that it wasn’t anything but the sighing of a tree bough.
After wandering around in what I knew was more or less the direction I wanted to go, I came to a fenced off pasture. It had an electric fence, but no gate, only a grate in the ground to prevent hoofed animals from walking over it. There is a similar pasture in the area where I know there are cows – and a bull, so I tried to make my way around this one.
I walked in both directions but came to the conclusion that 1) there was no way around, and 2) if it was really dangerous, there’d be a sign.
So, with Song of the South on my mind, I crossed over the grate.
In addition to turning around every few steps to see if there was a charging bull, I kept looking down to see whether I could determine from the droppings what kind of animals lived here. Here and there were clusters of small round poops. Deer droppings, no doubt, I thought and continued along the path, which had now left the open pasture and was taking me down a narrow forest lane.
That was when I could hear them. It wasn’t anything more than shuffling from the underbrush to start with, but then it was on both sides, and I could sense that something was moving up ahead as well. Just as I was about to turn behind me I could feel something brush up against my leg. Jolted by what at the time felt like a slimy tentacle, I stopped my turn half-way and lurched forward.
As I scrambled, I caught sight of flashes of white just behind the trees lining the path. From behind me, the one that had tried to grab hold of me let out a warning call, that caused the others to stop their munching echo the call. Finally realising what these beasts were, I knew there was nothing I could do to save myself but laugh.
“Baaa,” they said. “Ha,” I said, red faced.
Sheep may be the most docile animal in all of creation, but they are certainly sneaky little bastards. I’ll remember this the next time I sit down to a leg of lamb.
Today i spent most of the day sanding window frames. By the time I was done, all I just enough left over for a short run with a boring name.
Christianshavnermilen
July 8, 2008
The nice thing about running in the same race every year – or in the case of the Christianshavnermilen several times each year – is that it is easy to gauge your performance. You face the same hills, the same twists, turns and more or less the same crowd of people.
I’ve been running the Christianshavnermilen since … 2003, I think. It’s hard to remember when my first time was, but I can say for sure that I have been doing it for so long that I almost have the course memorised. The only part that still catches me off guard is the last two-kilometre stretch, where you pass by a series of identical buildings. I always think ‘this is the last one’, only to be disappointed when the finish line doesn’t appear shortly after.
The race distance is one of my favourites. A Danish mile, or just over 7.5km. You get to run as fast a 5k, while at the same time testing your endourance, like in a 10k.
The course is also one of my favourites. It runs around and through the Christiania squatter colony. The back strecth runs close past a number of hippie cabins, and quite often there are people there to cheer you on. It used to be the only real drawback was the smoke, both from their fires and from their weed, but it seems like there is a lot more trash out there these days.
I guess if there is one other not so nice thing about running the same race year after year is that you have to watch your times get slower and slower. I gave yesterday’s race everything I had and felt appropriately spent afterwards. My 36:00 minutes seemed good enough at the time, but when I looked back at last September’s run – the last Christianshavnermil I ran in, I came in at 33:00 minutes.
The clock is ticking.
Just follow the guy ahead of you.
Quiet please
July 5, 2008
Silence is golden
How five became ten
July 3, 2008
I was only supposed to run five kilometres today. But thanks to a breakdown in the city’s subway system, I got to run ten.
The Amager Strandløb offers a 5K and 10K run along the beach at Amager Strandpark. The route, a five-kilometre loop around the city’s new enormous manmade beach, sounds like a refreshing run. Unfortunately, what the organisers didn’t really consider was 1) there is absolutely no shade along a beach 2) lots of people like to cook out on the beach on a summer evening.
Despite the blazing sun and the suffocating smoke … no, no despite, because. The blazing sun and the suffocating smoke added to the agony of what was probably the worst race I’ve ever suffered through.
Part of it was mental. I was planning to just run the 5K, but the subway broke down and I missed the start, and had to wait for the 10K. I am capable of running ten kilometres and have done it many times before, but since I haven’t run anywhere near that distance in many months, I had settled on the shorter race. I just wasn’t mentally ready to go twice as far.
The other part was definitely physical. The first 5K actually went well: 22 minutes. But part way through the second half – around 6 km – I had a breakdown of my own. By 8km I had completely withered. My final time was 48 minutes, only six minutes difference, so maybe it just felt a lot worse than it was.
I’m still a little dazed, so it’s hard to think or write coherently.
I can’t really recall much of this route, but from what I remember it was relatively simple – start, run with the pack for the first lap, get passed by about a thousand people on the second lap, finish.
