Juergen wittstock's Blog – March 2010 Archive (6)

Today's race saw a considerable number of Namban participants, I was on the veterans A-team and was able to witness a valiant effort by the Open-A that lead them to the podium in third position. Our first runner placed 8th in an obviously highly competitive leg, a position that was improved by his team-mates. The second team on the open division placed top-twenty as well, even though…

I stood at the start-line of my first race in Mexico! And I was facing the mountain ahead, just having gotten over two weeks of altitude sickness and cold. Mexco City is about 2100m high, the start of the in Tepotztlan a bit lower, the mountain ahead maybe 3000m (unconfirmed). Even more worries came when I looked at the runners around me, most were smaller than me (and I'm 157cm) – that is the built of the Tarahumara, I…

Running in Tokyo, especially around the Imperial Palace on a week day, or in other big, polluted cities, is usually something I warn people not to do. However, being in Mexico City for an extended period of time forces me to make an exception, and I'm positively surprised, the city is not as bad as its reputation. The government seems to push the use of bicycles, and there is a pretty good subway.…

Today I ran an undulating 10k in Golden Gate Park. The first 5k were mostly uphill, pace fell to close to 5min./k according to my Garmin. Must have been very hard to push a baby-jogger up that hill. After the turnaround I picked up speed, ran the second half in under 18:30 to finish in 38:22, pretty happy with my performance. After the race Arturo took me for a run in another park nearby, with beautiful views of the sea…