(October 26th-29th) The calamity in Germany and what was to become my European marathon debacle. Not that I'm done talking about Oxford, but I'd like to put the events detailed below past me as soon as possible.
For those of you that had been keeping up with me prior to my journey overseas, you probably were well aware of how excited I was to be running in a European marathon, an event more than an order of magnitude larger than the next largest race I've ever participated in, and more than two orders of magnitude (that's 100 times!) larger in size than
my last marathon. It was, to put it succinctly, a completely different experience.
The week building up to the marathon was filled to the brim with bad omens, not the least of which was coming down with a high fever and persistent chest cold that I somehow managed to shed by the day before the marathon. My dear, sweet housemate Fred even tried to talk me out of going...but, being the stubborn Brake that I am, I reasoned that I've run while sicker and managed to not kill myself before, so this shouldn't be too bad.
Finally, the day arrived for me to fly to Germany. As I got off of the bus in Heathrow, I quickly discovered that I had overlooked one small detail: my passport was sitting in a drawer back in Oxford.
Well, %@#&$!
At that point, the only course of action that I saw was to get back on the bus to Oxford (another 1.5 hour bus ride), run into my flat and grab my passport, then back out to catch the same bus as it turned around for the trip back to Heathrow (another 1.5 hours). Good thing that I had gotten to the airport insanely early the first time, but nonetheless, that's a bit of stress and 4.5 hours of riding the bus. Ugh.
All was not yet well though. It turns out that during those three hours of going to Oxford and back, my flight was postponed (good since I was now running late), then canceled (not so good). The skies outside were clear, and it was a cold, but sunny and otherwise pleasant fall afternoon. Personally, I couldn't fathom why my flight, along with some 90% of the other flights, was canceled. One look at the customer service line, though, told me that I was in trouble as it was approximately three hours long. There'd be no way that I could wait through that line and get onto the next departing flight, which still had seats. So, I did what I had to do to talk to an agent and get on the flight. Let's leave it at that.
All was still not yet well though. After grabbing a quick bite to eat and heading over to my gate, I discovered that when it came time to board, the flight was instead canceled. Rather inexplicably. I still, to this day, have no idea why. Because we had already gone through security into the international terminal, they required us to exit through customs. Well, that was a fun line to wait through, only to encounter the customs agent that didn't understand that I hadn't left the United Kingdoms yet, so I had no incoming flight or previous port of origin to declare...it took a bit, but eventually her superiors were able to confirm that I was telling the truth about my flight being canceled and being sent down here. After clearing customs, my next stop was customer service. Remember that line that I was telling you about before? It was now a few thousand people long (after all, an entire day's worth of flights had been canceled for no obvious reason), and would take approximately 10 hours to get through if the staff decided to work overtime and stay late helping out the night shift. To top matters off, when I finally caught someone's attention after standing in line for half an hour, I was told that the soonest they could get me on a plane to Frankfurt was Wednesday.
Well, %@#&$!
However, if I were to get there by some other means, then they would reimburse me (still waiting on that...). So, after 4.5 hours of bus rides, three hours of standing in lines, and another couple hours of just waiting, I decided to head home to Oxford (bringing the total time on the bus to six hours for the day) and regroup.
Take two, Saturday. If you can't fly, why not take the train? I'll give you two reasons why: a. it's more expensive than flying, and b. it takes the entire day to do what you could do in an hour on a plane. Other than that, I don't have too many complaints. On a whim I decided to catch a slightly earlier bus than I needed for the train that I had picked out. That should give me some time to lounge about in the train station. When I got there, though, I was told that the train schedule was slightly different than what I looked up online, and there was a chance that I could make a train departing in a few minutes. Great! I thought...so, bought my tickets (well, ticket, I had to buy the next one in Brussels where I changed trains as the Germans are, apparently, rather strict about their ticket sales), sprinted to customs/security, was found by someone that was taking the last call for my train, then escorted to the front of the line, then up a service elevator and directly on to my train as it was leaving. I've never literally had to run to catch a train before, but this was almost Hollywood-esque timing.
The train itself was uneventful enough, except for the fact that as soon as we cleared the Chunnel, everything was covered in snow. (Didn't I mention that this was overfilled with bad omens?) Brussels was my first stop on the train, where I learned that the schedule was actually what I had looked up, and I now had a four hour layover until my train left for Frankfurt.
So, I did what comes naturally, I spent two hours hiking around the city. Lot's of pretty sites to see there, but I kinda feel like I saw everything that I need to see in Brussels now (which I know isn't true, but just no desire to have to go back due to the sentiments related to this weekend).
The grounds by the Porte de Hal (Hallepoort), one of several towers that stood at the edge of the ancient city of Brussels.
A closer view of the Porte de Hal.
Stop number two: Justitiepaleis, the Brussels Palace of Justice, behind which there was this war monument, Monument A la Gloire de l'Infanterie Belge. The climb up to this monument and the palace gave an astounding view of the city, worth the treck. For those of you that don't like walking, there's an elevator conveniently located to be an eyesore on any photos that I might've taken.
Step three was a small little grocer where I picked up fruit to eat in the morning before the race, after which I set out to see the Church of Notre-Dame de la Chapelle.
Even more so than in Oxford, I found Brussels to be filled with strange juxtapositions. Take the Brigittinenkapel above. The old chapel had a building straight out of a modern art gallery appended to its side like a cancerous growth.
At that point, it was time to head back to the train station, but not before taking in a few art installations. Above, a giant megaphone that you could climb a set of stairs to yell into. My favorite, though, is next:
Yes, that's Hulk Hogan in his latest role as 'Super Toilet Paper Man!' Never again shall a toilet stall goer be left stranded without any sanitary paper for the Hulkster will come to your rescue.
Much like you, I never expected to be writing this extensively about Brussels. But, fortunately, my train to Frankfurt was not canceled. I managed to enjoy a few sights through the train windows before the vale of darkness descended upon us, most notably the cathedral of Cologne:
Late that evening, I finally made it into Frankfurt, where I proceeded to pass out in my bed out of exhaustion. I think I got some food in transit, but I've no documentation of it one way or another. The next morning came all too quickly, and with it the marathon.
I don't make a practice of trying to do races in 30 degree weather with strong winds while wearing only a t-shirt and shorts, but I fear that I had no real choice this day. After a few miles, I did warm up, and was more or less comfortable for the duration of the race, except for the fact that my body decided to revolt against the idea of running in general.
The race started off well enough, I hit my goals for the first 30 km...I had conservatively decided to only aim for every 5 km to be raced in about 20 minutes...well slower than my training indicated, but I felt like that should be a reasonable precaution given the week that I had. Around the halfway mark, though, I could feel signs of things falling apart. Up until then, it had been glorious. My legs were moving smoothly, running was effortless, and I was enjoying the sun. But, come the marker for kilometer 25, things took a bit of a dive. My legs started feeling sluggish, and soon it was all I could do to will them to keep moving. The thought of stopping and stretching crossed my mind even, almost unheard of for me in a race, but I managed to will it away knowing that once I stopped, moving again would be inordinately difficult.
Come kilometer 35, I hit the wall. Between the illness, the travel stress, and everything else, I didn't just hit the wall, but was quite blindsided by the wall being toppled onto me. The last 12 kilometers of that race, something I should've ran in about 48-49 minutes in a tired state, took nearly an hour. To see a chance to have a big personal best (by about 6 minutes) evaporate and result in me missing that PR by about 3 minutes was frustrating. Knowing that there was nothing that I could do to will my body back on track was heart breaking.
In retrospect, I should be happy. After all, it's not every day that Herr Doktor Professor Brake (the Germans are quite proud of titles apparently) runs a sub-three hour marathon, but to know that through mile 18 I was on pace for a 2:40 marathon and that all of the long weeks of intense training, early morning track workouts, and diligence when I could have been staying warm in bed instead left me due to one unfortunately timed bad week was a wrenching, bitter experience. One that still lingers on. I'm optimistic that this will serve as a good experience and motivator for my next marathon, but until I run the race that I knew I was capable of running in Frankfurt, I'll have a difficult time leaving this experience behind me.
Not the best I've looked in a race, I'll admit. While some people were happy to finish in under three hours, I was just glad to be done running. The walk through the freezing cold back to my hotel, though, was an unexpected difficulty.
At the very least, I can say that I saw all of Frankfurt that I needed to see. Not many pictures since I saw most of it while running, but I'll leave you with two from my last night in Frankfurt, which I spent haphazardly wandering through the virtually deserted touristy districts:
Upon close inspection, you can see that the Occupy Frankfurt movement is still alive...maybe not well, but alive. At least with where they're situated, they can listen to the opera music that streams out of the opera house across the street...
Above: the old opera house, different than the opera house by the Occupy Frankfurt entrenchment, but much more impressive in a classical architecture sense.
Next up: Halloween in Oxford.
