Marathon #1 (Barcelona)

So my first marathon has been successfully completed!

Today I ran the Barcelona Marathon in 5 hours 5 minutes. My knees and quads are in absolute agony right now, but the sense of achievement is astonishing. To be honest, considering how poor and interrupted my preparation was I am happy that I just managed to finish it. Next time I will aim to substantially improve my time and hopefully completely avoid having to walk.

I ran it with my friend Erik from eriksmarathon and 2 of his friends. The first half marathon 3 of us basically stuck together, which was nice as we got to see the Nou Camp and the Sagrada Família together, but the pace we were running wasn't exactly ideal for my race strategy and I ended up dropping back just before the half was completed and couldn't catch up either.

The last 10k was very tough, as my knees were burning, so I had to walk at least half of the time of that distance.Given that the most I had trained was 19 miles (31k) and that was intervals with walking and running I am pretty pleased with that I could complete it, and hope that the next one goes a lot smoother on the knees!

The pic at the top is the 4 of us at the finish line showing off our medals and our pecs, below is a closeup of the medal.

It was a good day so far, but now I need to leave and have a celebratory beer and stuff! :)

A full blog about Barcelona will appear soon.

Viel Spaß homies!

Marathon Mini Series: A Mini Update

Hi All!

I am pleased to announce that I am quitting being a quitter; I'm going to run (or at least attempt) the Barcelona Marathon as originally planned!

I got my flight tickets yesterday, and will travel very early on Saturday morning and spend an afternoon in Barcelona and the next day explore the city in my favorite way, running!

I hope I can do it, but as my training was cut short due to the harsh winter conditions for running I'm not in as good a shape as I should be to tackle my first marathon. I hope to do it even if there is a bit of walking involved. I'm looking forward to sharing a beer with Erik, Dave and Jamie with our medals after the run!

Viel Spaß homies!

Today's office; (Vienna, AT)

A week after my trip to Bern came another work trip, and once again to a city that I hadn't been to before, Vienna!

I had one night there and the next day I had to work, so there was some time for exploring the city and having a Wienerschnitzel :D

I travelled to Vienna from Munich by train, which accomplished 2 things; I could get some work done on the train, and also see the amazing views of the Alpine mountains and lakes. Next time I go I'll take the train again, so I don't miss out on seeing these views!

A view of the Chimsee from the train

I love travelling over land :)

My friend Birgit recommended a restaurant to have a Wienerschnitzel, so I went there as soon as I checked in. It was the Figlmüller in the centre of town, and you don't just get one schnitzel, you get two!

A pair of schnitzels, a nice salad and my fifth or sixth beer of the day

Then I just went to the hotel and got an early night, so I could be up early and finish the work faster. I was to meet an engineer at the T-Mobile office and work together. While we were working this engineer told me a few interesting facts about Vienna, for instance I asked him how why the water tasted so nice, and he informed me that Vienna's water is actually taken from the alpine streams, funnelled over 200 miles to the city. Seriously the tap water there is better than Evian bottled water!

After the work was done I had a couple of hours to kill before my train, so I had a walk around the city. It is such a nice place, and just one day doesn't do it justice, so I am going to go back at the earliest opportunity! I created a Google album of the pictures I took using my Sony Xperia S phone, the picture quality is awesome for a phone. I wonder if my company will sponsor this post? Anyway, here is the album if you want to check it out.

I'll go back at some point this year for a long weekend, or maybe do another cycle tour, like the Passau to Vienna along the fabulous Donau river. I'm excited already thinking about it!

Viel Spaß homies

Today's Office (Bern, CH)

It has been a while since I shared with you guys some of the cool places I go to work, largely because I have been stuck in the office for months! Well, my first Field Test trip abroad in a while happened to be to a city I had never been before, Bern!

Bern is the capital city of Switzerland, although only the fourth most populist city. It was here that I learned why the international country code of Switzerland is "CH". It stands for Confoederatio Helvetica, which is Latin for Swiss Confederation. There you go!

My visit to Bern was to go and work with the engineers at Swisscom on on of our Sony products, which turned out to be more problematic than I anticipated and even had to stay an extra night to ensure the work could be completed. O woe is me!

Actually I only had time to see the city centre once because the working was pretty intense, so I visited the Bern old town and had a walk around in the dark and went to a specialty Rösti restaurant. Rösti is, I guess, where we got our inspiration for hash browns... Grated and deep fried potato. But I have to say they do it better. The best hash brown I've ever had is not even in the same league as what I had at this restaurant:

The boiled pear was an interesting touch however, but it meant I did not have to order a desert.

Something I really wanted to see was the "Bear Pit", but I don't think that would be worth it unless there is someone with me that would understand the inevitable Anchorman quotes :-). The main reason I didn't go was that I was informed that the Bears would most likely be hiding inside the cave,so I thought I would save that for my next trip :)

Viel Spaß homies!