Bergmarathon - 1 Week To Go

That time's upon us... just one more week.

Like before Stockholm Marathon, I'm vacillating between feeling quite confident, and thinking it's quite too much I want to do there.

At least, I much prefer being nervous about this to being nervous about the decision on the Monbukagakusho application (which, as I forgot to mention yesterday, we will learn about already next week). After all, it's my own physical and psychological capabilities which are decisive here, not what a committee thinks of what I wrote and said and seemed like.

Still, when I remember that one or another of my posts announcing that I'll participate in that event comes among the first results when looking for info on the Bergmarathon... OMG... Well, as with so many things, I'll just have to see how it goes. And first of all, to hope that the weather will be all right.

Bad Vibe about Monbu Application

Yesterday, I had language test(s) for the Monbukagakusho scholarship application.

My English test results, as I learned today, were very good.
Not a surprise... it included texts like I always deal with, and tests like these I wrote myself. You get 60 minutes to take the test, I was finished after 30.
Japanese was a different matter. Or would have been, if it counted as part of the application (it's only for seeing how much the applicant already knows).

Funny thing happened after that: I walked past a group of Spanish, and one commented: "Que guapo." A little later, I went past some people sitting outdoors, and one said basically the same thing, in English: "Now, there's a good looking guy."
First off, I don't see myself as particularly good-looking. And secondly, why was it guys who said that? There, I prefer the Latvian girl who wolf-whistled after me ;-)

Today's talk with the commission deciding who'll actually get the scholarship feels like it didn't go too well.

I never thought I'd say that in any context involving Japanese, but I felt that it, and I, was all too cool and rational. I could have explained some things, like for how long I have wanted to get to Japan, a lot better, I fear.

Then again, things have to - and can only - be as good as they can be "now," at the moment they are happening. Afterwards, it's over. Draw a lesson, but more importantly, remember to go on.
Maybe my feeling is wrong and they'll still pick me. If so, I would be surprised, but pleasantly so. If not, I can't change it.

Honestly, I just don't feel like projecting youthful enthusiasm anymore. I do that naturally when I can give a talk about something that fascinates me, but in a situation like applications, it's become a survival skill to be able to remain cool and have a Plan B (and C, and D, preferably).
Maybe that's not the best thing, but it's not the best world, either.

It's nice in hell...

… and there was snow there, in the Höllengebirge ("Hell Mountains").
I let my dad drive me to the place where I wanted to start, went over the first (small) mountain, and then up onto the Feuerkogel. The Traunsee-Bergmarathon (mountain marathon) will take the same route down from the Feuerkogel and towards Grasberg and Gmundnerberg (where I had been running the day before).

Rather unexpectedly, it took me only a bit more than three hours to make my way up. Encountered some runners (many more than hikers) on the way, probably some I'll meet again at the Bergmarathon.
Nice, sometimes adventurous, paths up the mountain, through the forest, over rocks, oftentimes having to climb fallen trees or make the way through underbrush that's rather close together.
Doesn't look like a path to run, but that's not the plan for the Bergmarathon, anyways.

Having gotten up so quickly, I decided to go on and hiked to the Grosser Höllkogel ("Big Hell Mountain/Summit," sort of). Another three-and-a-half hours to and back, much of the way across left-over snow fields. Well, it's only mid-June, and this is a high alpine area already…


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Anyways, I'm happy to have made it up there, finally hiking in the mountains, with my trusty old backpack (which I've had for a long time, always use in my travels, and never yet used for real backpacking!).



Today is the third day after that little adventure, and my soreness is passing. Since yesterday, it's been extremely hot and humid here, back in the East of Austria. Seeking to advance with writing that's to be done lest I never publish anything, anymore.
The day after tomorrow, the tests and then the talks that are part of the Monbukagakusho application will be taking place.
I don't usually dream, but with some nervosity about both this application (and I should learn about the application as lecturer for China soon) and the Bergmarathon mounting, I've had some pretty weird dreams. The heat did its part. And last night, some beeping kept on waking me - took me until this morning to realize it was my mobile phone's "low battery"-warning...

Back in Austria, In the Alps

Last Thursday, went to Altmünster (in Upper Austria, quite close to Salzburg) to our apartment there, with my dad. A change of scenery to something more like what people would think of when thinking of Austria, and a chance to get in some mountain training…

With all that was and is to be done to get organized again and ready for the next escapade, having just come back from Latvia, and not knowing what will be next, there's lots of errands to run.
Just before leaving, I checked the plant pots in the greenhouse, for example, to see which of last year's chile peppers did, after all, survive over-wintering. (Actually, quite a few did, and quite a few for which I would not have expected it.)

Training has been rather less consistent, with days passing in a rush and me not noticing some times when two days pass without any sports (except for re-arranging my book cases or the like, which actually does have some likeness to weight lifting…).

Still, there where some nice runs.

June 14, for example. To the north of Parndorf:


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Time: 03:13:25; 30.39 km; avg. speed 6.4 min/km; avg. HR 154 bpm; TE 4.2
Ascent/descent: 112 / 105 m

Or yesterday, at the Traunsee/Altmünster:


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Time: 02:09:20; 16.93 km (?; I think the leaf cover on forested passages disturbed the GPS-POD quite a bit at times); avg. speed 7.6 min/km; avg. HR 152 bpm; TE 4.5
Ascent/descent: 522 / 514 m. Yep, I'm in the mountains now.

Today, it's 14 days to the Bergmarathon.
And I'm going to hell… the Höllengebirge ("Hell Mountains").

I am so back home...

Temperatures have gone down, wind is up. I'm definitely back home.

Vienna felt absolutely grand. Not only is it - or certainly seems, not least
as my favorite haunts are spread out a bit - quite a bit bigger than Riga, I
also noticed how much more international it is. Stockholm already was a lot
more international, but Vienna, now more than ever, feels truly
cosmopolitan. I heard more different tongues, both of varieties of German
and of truly other languages here in a few hours, than ever in Latvia.

Being recognized and welcomed back by some many people in Parndorf (which is
40 km from Vienna, but the way many people from here work in Vienna, as I
studied and study in Vienna, to me it's like a suburb), I once again feel
more at home here than I did before.
Already, it had a great side-effect: The local branch of the Raiffeisen-Bank
will be getting my bank account, for they actually have something that is
customer service, whereas the Bank Austria where I had my account for all of
12 years now proved to be totally inflexible, as if I couldn't be trusted to
pay up. Well, fortunately I can still change without having too many set
payments. My luck, and the local bank's.

Currently, I'm watching a TV program (on German station 3Sat, which is quite
like the American PBS) about the Viennese Ringstrasse, the grand street
encircling the inner city, built on the area where the city walls used to
be. As always after being abroad for a while, I notice how many places I
have actually never been (inside the Opera, for example), and how much
history we have here.
Riga got me to realize how much I am used to places having Roman roots (Riga
was only founded after 1200). In the USA, I don't have problems with it
being different, I don't think that it's "all so new, without history" as
some always say - but to have that in Europe...

Well, I'd still love to go abroad again after this summer, finally make it
to East Asia.
Still, if I knew this would be the case, I think I should try to do some
Vienna tourism.
Then again, I also haven't yet managed to make it to Paris, for example...

Back in Austria

I came back last Friday. Since then, I've been busy trying to get organized. It's pretty strange not knowing whether I'll be in Austria after this summer, or gone yet again.

 

Crazy how some things can go:

On the flight back, I met one girl who I had not managed to say Goodbye to. Turned out the reason she had been to Vienna before was that she has a boyfriend here. The day before, she had decided to go to Vienna again, on the same flight I was on... Chatting, that was a two-hour flight that seemed more like 15 minutes.

 

Blogging may be less useful now, since I don't know if anybody's reading, but I do want to continue putting up some things.

It's a little more difficult right now, not just because I seem to be trying to catch up with all the sleep I didn't get in Latvia, but also because my notebook doesn't talk to the modem anymore. My mobile phone, however, decided to let me connect the PC to it, and go online this way... So, I'm back to feeding the blog by way of e-mails, hoping it works.

 

Austria, actually, is not as much further along (vegetation-wise) as I had expected.

Rather, Latvia's early summer seems more compressed: Lilac and chestnuts were still flowering, and berries already flowering. Here, lilac and chestnuts flowered a longish time ago, but berries are only starting to flower.

I guess it's the difference in length of daylight: Sunrise and sunset times are pretty different, making for quite a bit shorter days here and now. Also, I think I still haven't quite realized that it's only June.

 

As I had mentioned, I had gone for a last run in Riga on Thursday:

• 6/5/2008: 01:20:27.9, ~13km, 5.9 min/km, HR avg 151, TE 3.8

Saturday, I found the road running shoes I had left here and went on a usual course to the north of Parndorf (the village/small town where I usually live):

• 6/7/2008: 00:54:01,3, ~8 km, 6.1 min/km, HR avg 147, TE 3.3

Also went out in the evening, and although it was quite cloudy, rain and thunderstorm clouds moving around, the sun was stinging. It seems stronger, and to be hotter, than it was in Latvia.

 

Today, another run, mainly through the military training grounds to the Southwest of Parndorf (I got lucky and it was allowed to get onto it today - not that I always mind if it's not allowed, but I do mind when training with live munition is on ;-) :

• 6/9/2008: 02:02:17,2, ~20 km, 6 min/km, HR avg. 157, TE 4.7

I have never before seen the - forested - training grounds as wet, humid, and muddy, and even with a lot more erosion on the paths than ever before.

(It has been raining a lot. A while ago in Latvia, we said that you just had to wait for a little while if you didn't like the weather, it will change in a few minutes. For the last months, however, I have noticed that the weather in Austria, with many influences coming together and the Alps adding another element of disturbance, is highly changeable. Some of the rain I have already seen since I came back has been very strong - but fortunately almost only occurred during the night.)

Even many of the fields and paths in the open were still muddy. I was trying out the Cooper's Hill shoes again, and they worked well. This time, with the soil high in clay (rather than Latvia's sand) the mud did accumulate, but it also dropped off rather nicely. And those shoes, although not quite made for stability, felt great. (In contrast to the old road running shoes which, after coming back from the run two days ago, I had thrown away immediately because they proved to be awful.)

 

Tomorrow, trying to run a lot of errands in Vienna.

Will be fun to be around there again. Or so I hope, as there is a lot of trouble (traffic disturbances, tons of people) because of the Euro 2008.

Already, I have to say that - going running, moving around in it - I have come to like the local landscape a lot: Pretty flat, but not totally - at least some places; wide open... I'll put up a picture.

 

The two last notes that seem necessary:

• Around the time of my return, I received the invitation for the language test and talk which are a part of the application process for the Monbukagakusho scholarship I applied for. One more (and final, actually) step before there is a decision about that...
• And, the Bergmarathon 2008 is barely a month away.

Let's call it a stay

Last day.

In the morning, I went to Agenskalna gimnazija one last time, finishing off some duties, getting a nice book on Latvia as a parting present, and saying good-bye to some of the colleagues. Then, went for a little walk and took some last pictures.

In the evening, I almost had myself convinced that I should just go the airport already today and wait there. Then, I called the taxi for tomorrow morning, went for one last run in Riga, and got some pastries for dinner and maybe breakfast.

Now, for finishing off my packing. I'm pretty sure it's going to be in excess of the 20 kg allowance, even having taken out the books and trying to sneak those in as part of my carry-on.

The Finish

The high note on which I had hoped to finish my stay in Latvia did come through:

Last weekend, I went to Stockholm to participate in the 30th edition of the Stockholm Marathon - in my 30th year - and I did it.
Okay, it did take me very nearly five hours to finish, but I was able to run the whole time, without any cramps or any such problems, even though it was pretty hot. In fact, I still had the stamina to increase my pace on the last kilometers.

Beautiful. Finishing successfully, seeing the city while running, being able to get through it so nicely... the way things are looking, I'll be out for a slow, light run again today.

Next up: the Bergmarathon (mountain marathon) around the Traunsee. Quite something else, actually (a lot of climbing, a certain need for water and energy to be carried along, and definitely no other intent than to see how far I really get on that course).

Last Days

Yesterday, I came back from Stockholm, and my roommate was packing - he left this morning.

Today, I've just cleaned up, started to pack - checking what should come with me, what might not fit, and trying not to think too much about the excess weight it might entail. Also went and closed my local bank account.

Tomorrow, off to get the confirmation of my stay (necessary for the ERASMUS scholarship) and having Spanish (oral) test. (I wonder how I did on the written one - Russian was hardly glorious, but quite all right, especially considering how intensely I had been studying, not! Spanish should be better, but I don't really know.)

Thursday, a last visit to Agenskalna gimnazija for work feedback and confirmation, and early on Friday, I'm on the flight back home.

Now, I'm wondering if I should go to the beach once more; probably going to try and take some more pictures here and there, but otherwise, I'm trying just to relax. I'm almost at the point of wanting to get into a work routine for the summer, anyways. So much I wanted to get on with didn't really progress a lot...

The e-mail server on which my main mail accounts run is down, just now that a fellow ecology student had written and suggested meeting... (dr.gerald.schmidt[at]gmail.com would also work, if you happened to read this - though it's probably too late for a meeting by now) . Computers...