Scarlet Runner by crooxi

Oh for heaven's sake!!! - just looked at the weather forecast for the next few days, confident that the temperature, having made a modest upturn today, is on its way towards something more humane, and what do I see?......... -19°! MINUS 19°!!!!!! Granted, that's for Sunday night, but still............. And Saturday's planned long-ish run is supposed to be accomplished in -11°. I'm getting a bit tired of being deep-frozen now!

Okay, where was I? I feel as though I've completely lost the thread since I last posted. (Consults Garmin.) Apparently I ran 10.15 km in 1:21:26 on 22nd January. Ah yes, the map tells me I went up the side of the woods, round the fig. of 8, down to the hut, then down the main track to Allmend; an unspecified (but smallish) number of rounds on the track, then back into the woods, up past the goats, along the Vita Parcours, apparently with a round or two of the Finnebahn thrown in, and home down the zigzags. (Thank goodness for technology, as my brain has retained very little of this. It somehow seems like half a lifetime ago now.) Even less recollection of the next, on 24th January. Bireggwald again: Waldrand, middle of the woods, Oberrüti, fig. of 8, down again, and down the zigzags. 6.52 km in 47:01. And without Garmin to remind me, I would have completely forgotten about the walk on 28th January, the day before the premiere (by which time I was so into overdrive on the work front, my grey cells were giving up on me.) It was our old standby, along the river Reuss from Gisikon to Sins: a route normally so easy, you could walk it in your sleep, but made trickier this time by incessant rain which had turned the path into very slippery mud. (Particularly tricky on sections with a sideways slope.) We managed it mishap-free, though - 8.64 km in 1:27:57 - and rewarded our efforts with a meal at Zollhaus, the military-cum-peasant themed restaurant with the menu of encyclopaedic proportions. I do love the place! J. got his yak hotpot this time; I stuck with Flammkuchen; shared a piece of Lebkuchen (kind of gingerbread cake) and cream for pudding. After the stress of the past few weeks, it seemed mightily well-deserved. And - I'd forgotten this too - I ran on the day of the premiere itself. The shortest way to the school track, 3 km on the track, and home along the lake. I 'meant' to keep it slow and easy, just a gentle leg-stretcher before the performance.............. but somehow, reckless with the relief of having got this far along, I accidentally turned in kms of 5:06 (oops! slow down, you fool!), 5:12, and 5:14. With there and back, 7.22 km altogether in 44:54. Thus ended January, the month from hell, with 145.36 of my 2012 km achieved, and 1866.64 to go.

And then came the trip to Hamburg, which coincided with the advent of this Siberian winter. Alarmed by predictions of -17° and the like, I took thermal underwear, several fleeces, and my thickest winter coat. I also (rather optimistically) took some running kit and my Garmin. It soon became clear, though, that free time was going to be a rare commodity........ and on the whole, I preferred to spend what little I had on seeing something of the city. So I ended up doing quite a lot of walking, but no running. The twice-daily commute between hotel and theatre alone accounted for some 14 km. ('Theatre': a converted factory still looking much like one. Brick walls, exposed metal ducts and girders, everything painted black.) Walking became my escape (from work, stress, bickering colleagues..........) The first afternoon, I set off into the unknown (map in one pocket, glasses in the other) heading at random in the general direction of the city centre. Crossing a frozen canal, with sparse, dry flakes of snow falling, I felt a sudden lifting of my spirits: one of those special 'moments', unaccountable but memorable. I found my way to the Aussen Alster, a big lake (actually a dammed-up river), walked along it, then over to the main station, where I got on a tour bus and 'did' Hamburg: the Aussen Alster with its millionaires' villas, the city centre, the infamous Reeperbahn, the enormous harbour............. and back on the U-Bahn for the evening rehearsal.The next afternoon was a short one, sandwiched between two dress rehearsals, but I made it back to the harbour for a boat tour round the docks. Huge container ships; an ambitious (but unfinished - run out of money) building project; the water thickly blanketed with ice, and the alarming creaking and crunching sounds as the boat pushed its way through it - the impressions crowded in on me. The next day I had arranged to meet up with a friend who works at the opera house in Hamburg. More sightseeing; a short walk along the frozen Elbe; a meal at his flat; backstage tour of the opera house; then it was time to navigate my way back for the evening's performance.

The next morning, Sunday, somehow felt like the first breathing space I'd had on this trip. The luxury of time: what shall I do with it? (Just an illusion, though - in its way, this day was just as tightly timetabled as the others (passport to be handed in, for someone to take to the airport to get our tickets; luggage to be packed; hotel check-out; another performance at 4, costume and make-up an hour before that..........) I spared myself the extra stress of any more touristic jaunts, and settled for a walk in the Stadtpark, a huge park very near the hotel. My running things (utterly redundant) were already packed, but I strapped on my Garmin, and off I went. One of my more peaceable colleagues accompanied me for a while. Blue sky, bright sunshine, but bitterly cold (-12°). Lots of runners about, even so, mostly muffled up in multiple layers (though I did see one madman in shorts!), some of them with scarves or buffs round their faces. 3 km took us as far as the Planetarium in the middle of the park, where we took the lift up to the 7th floor observation platform, admired the view for a very chilly half a minute, then hurried down again. Here we went our separate ways, and I headed back towards the hotel, detouring round a frozen lake where people were skating. By now, my face was so cold, it felt as though it might crack, and my right ear (the side towards the wind) was getting painfully cold despite the scarf wound round my head, so I was glad to thaw out in my hotel room for half an hour before I had to surrender it. So that, I'm afraid, was the extent of my recorded training in Hamburg: 6:12 km in 1:09:16.

From the 'theatre', straight onto a bus to the airport; flight to Zürich; train into Zürich; another train to Luzern - which we found no warmer than Hamburg, and a lot snowier; a cold, tired wait for a bus; home sweet home at half past midnight, dragging suitcase over piles of frozen snow by the kerb............. aaaaaah, so glad to be back!