Kind of winning something

I'm in the midst of packing my room up and moving out of the Superdorm. Finally! Thought I'd share with you some Turkish pop, which is inspiring me while I organize. This song is played everywhere. The artist is Tarkan, and he is huge here. This is really the only song of his that I know, I am ashamed to say. And I'm sorry if it makes your ears bleed.

In other news, this past Sunday I ran a 14 km race called "Geyik Koşuları", which means "running deer" or something like that. It took place in the Belgrade Forest, which is about 20 km north of Istanbul. The Bogazici rowing coach decided that it would be a great thing to do instead of our normal Sunday morning practice. Seven of us went, and I was the only girl that showed up. The weather was wet, the air was cold, and the attitudes were skeptical (except for mine of course). When we registered, we were given fancy little electronic wrist bands to wear that would record our time at every check-point. It was legitimate.

So without doing much of a warmup, we all lined up to race 14 km, or about 8.7 miles, over the hills and through the mud patches of the forest. I hadn't run a race since high school, and as I sloshed my way through ankle deep mud and barreled down hills with minimal control over my legs, I reminisced about the glory days of SPS cross country. The competition was tight for the first 4 or 5 kilometers, at which point the pack started to spread out. I managed to cruise along at my own pace without having anyone breathing down my neck for most of the race, and I crossed the line in 1 hour and 21-ish minutes. This was better than I had expected to do, given the conditions, the terrain, and the amount of training I had done for this race (none)!

It turns out that I beat most of my teammates, I came in third overall for women, and I came in first for my age group (18-29 year olds). I guess this is where I have to admit that no one else registered in my age group. That meant that the other two women that beat me were thirty or above. Sweet. So here I am, getting my first place medal! They also gave me a 50 lira (approx $32) gift certificate to a sports store in Istanbul as a reward for my efforts.

I was lucky enough to get credit for my third place finish, too. Sadly the first place and second place winners did not show up to collect their prizes, so I stood on the third place stand. By myself. Super cool. On the bright side, I got another 50 lira gift certificate to the same sports store. So now I can buy 100 lira worth of merchandise next time I'm in Istanbul. Wooo!

I had massive blisters on both of my feet and about a pound of mud in my shoes, so walking was difficult after the race (not to mention the next day). However, with my medal and my two gift certificates, I think things turned out pretty well in the end!

Oh, you know, just hanging out in third place by myself.