At the weekend I took part in a couple of small runs from our base in Dresden. Nothing as heroic as Ed’s, Rose’s or David’s efforts! I felt it was an achievement just getting to the races while on holiday.
On Saturday I took a tram to parkrun and arrived way too early. With no one around at the deserted and very unlikely looking start (per Google) I spent 20 minutes running around the forest before returning to find it was indeed the start…..the longest warm up I’ve ever done for parkrun and then I had to run it all over again. It was a very small field of just 67 people, mainly German but with tourists from the UK, South Africa and New Zealand. A very pleasant course and I was first (and only) in my age group!
The following day I ventured further afield to take part in the Kleine Sachsenlauf in the countryside in Coswig. This involved catching a tram, a train and a bus, happily German efficiency meant that it all ran to time without any problems. The event included many races: a 500m kiddies’ run, a 3K, 5K, 8K guided walk, 11.8K, a 21.5K and some Nordic walking all on some lovely forest trails. I entered the 11.8K on the day (I’ve no idea why that distance was offered!) and was very impressed with the organisation. There were pc’s for input of details and the system printed out personalised bib numbers. We did struggle a bit to find my nationality from the drop down menu as, with one German O level between us (Mark’s) and none of the helpers speaking English we took an age to find « das Vereinigtes Königreich ».
I enjoyed the run but, with 3 days of trailing round museums and 1.5 parkruns in my legs together with the heat and the very undulating course, I was quite happy to take it easy and finish in 1:17:32, 48th of 51 women and second over 60.
Winner was Franzi Reibig, in a rather more respectable 53:29.
The event was rounded off with beer, soup, cake (a somewhat different selection to our Eridge ones!) and sausages.
