September 7 (1)

I felt like a seasoned traveler when I didn't even attempt to take a photo of that lighthouse (lightpost? because technically it's far away at sea and no one lives there) that's in the middle of the sea nor did I get overly excited when I first saw the shore. In other news but still related to lighthouses, right before leaving for Tallinn, I read through the last pages of The Prince of Mist and it's actually a story that's way less complicated than I thought it would be but still kind of really creepy. It had been a while since I last read a good, simple retelling of a classic story, there was nothing unnecessary written, clean and simple and still poetic. So there, now I have a new author whose books I'll have to read through... I might actually already have compiled a list of which to borrow first from the library, oops. In other other news but still somewhat related to safety and warnings, if you don't usually listen to the TechStuff podcast, go listen to their episode on fire alarms because it's more about the history of fire alarm systems than anything else and it's an amazingly fascinating story (head to their rss feed and just search for "Fire in Bean Town", there is a link the mp3 there… or you know, subscribe to the feed and listen to all their stuff!)

September 7 (2)

Ah, that marathon that wasn't. But the half-marathon that was. And the personal growth that happened. I think that nicely sums up everything. The morning of the race I felt rather good, optimistic even, everything felt very decent, perhaps even really good. I had a really good pace on the first 10K, didn't really force anything and I managed somewhere around 5:45min/km. Then it all went to shit, my head wasn't into it and my stomach wasn't into it either, stuff like that happens. I think at around km 15 I really wanted to just stop because it stopped being fun, I talked myself into finishing at least half the distance and if things didn't get better I would stop. And that's what I did. I finished the half in about 2 hours 9 minutes, kilometres 10 through 21 with horribly varying paces all depending on how that old body was functioning. I could have continued, I could have gone on alternating walking and running but there is only so much dry heaving without being able to force down anything and not being mentally into it that I can take. I may not have another finisher's medal but I respected my "I'll stop when it stops being fun" idea and I didn't have to be scooped up with a spoon!