The half marathon... the easy part.

So, let me tell you about the actual half-marathon that Jonathan, Erika and I ran on Saturday. It was a different experience than the races I had back in the U.S 3-4 years ago. First, one should notice the redundancy in the trail. I am copying the the map below:The run consisted in going 6 loops along Krasni Prospekt, the main street of Novosibirsk. That's 12 times going along the street and passing Lenin's statue on Lenin square. As a fan of Lenin, I say "Spassibo, Novosibirsk. Thank you". But as a runner, I say: Novosibirsk, what are you doing? You have at least 2 other streets without giant potholes... Use them and make a loop! Look at what France did years ago: it expanded the "Tour de France" race beyond its main avenue, the Champs Elysee... It really helped attracting more participants.

Another peculiarity of this race is that they had the girls starting before the guys. Girls started at 10:00 am and guys at 10:07am. So at 9:57am, one of the organizers called the girls at the starting line. It first looked like this:
Erika (the one with the white shirt) felt a bit confused, but then she realized she had a chance to cross the finish line in the top 3. That's when they called the other girls (maybe 50 to 60?), and Erika saw her chances of winning the race dropping. The girls finally started. It looked like this:Erika got a good start, not far behind the front girls. But later she let them take their distance and eventually she did not win the race...

Finally the guys started. Jonathan (172) and I (149) were ready and motivated to finish this race quick (maybe in 3 loops?). Apologies to Mr 260, whom I did not intent to embarrass by posting pictures of him while relaxing, but I really don't have time to crop this picture tonight.

So we waited quite some time before they allowed us to run and catch up with the girls. I started to feel tired again and this picture got me yawning without covering my mouth with my hand. What a lack of etiquette (isn't it, Mr 269?)
I got a few more pictures of the guys before the start, but I'm sure you'll understand why I won't post more. So let's get to the actual race.
Well, doing 6 loops has the advantage of taking away any feeling of surprise after the second loop, and lets you refine the strategy loop after loop. But there are only so many strategies for a poorly trained runner, so mine was to actually run as fast as I could all the time without getting too tired. It worked all right. But the one who got all the attention was Erika. Here is a small movie of her impressive finish:

The MC went to congratulate her for her finish. and was surprised to find out she was Italian. "You're not Russian? Italian! She is Italian! Not Russian..." and blah blah blah. Obviously he was not a professional journalist. Any decent reporter would have asked better questions, such as: "With such a strong finish, one can wonder whether you really gave as much as you could in the rest of the race. Any advice for the young participants on how to better manage efforts during the run?"


I did not receive such a warm welcome when I crossed the finish-line. They treated me like the guy who borrowed the electronic chip a 1h39min too long and must return it straight away rather than a runner.
As for Jonathan, he finished the race limping. All the attention he got was some condescending remarks from some other participants.
Well, overall, it was an interesting experience. I can't tell whether I'll sign up next year. More photos of the actual race are below... Enjoy.
A special thanks to our supporting team, Natasha, Nadine and Nicolas! And visit Erika's Novosibirsk International Cultural Exchange site for her account of the race.