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An itty bitty little post-race cooldown

September 30, 2018 (Afternoon)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
Disclaimer: Okay, now that you've given into what Ilana has so aptly named "running log clickbait" (maybe someone else coined that but hers was the first log I saw it on), you should know that this was not, in fact, a 26.2-mile post-race cooldown. Instead, it was a 2-mile warm-up, 1.5ish mile race (exact distance uncertain), followed by, a mere 22.7 miles "cooldown." An accidental marathon, following in the footsteps of the notorious Ellen Fedors.

Let me explain. I had heard that there was a Race of the Cure 5k happening in downtown Sarajevo this morning. Actually, I just kinda assumed it would be downtown and just kinda assume it would be a 5k. I found it easily enough but seeing as Bosnia is a rather new country when it comes to recreational running, they're not so big on measuring stuff accurately, or in this case, at all. The race started, rather than ended, with a big red finish line tape which got caught around our ankles as soon as the gun...or rather, then audience countdown...went off. The finish, I was told, would be an archway of pink balloons, but was, in fact, two columns of pink balloons, one of which was blocked by spectators, with no actual line on the pavement. I asked a woman next to me at the start line how long it would be and she said "almost 3 kilometers," so I mentally prepared myself to run anything from a mile up to a 5k. According to my mapping online afterward, it was about right about 1.52. Fortunately, I hadn't been making a big deal of this race beforehand and only bothered to sign up 20 minutes before it started, so I wasn't too disappointed with the lack of precision.

My race, such as it was, was fine. I started out in the top 6, soon settled into 4th, moved up to third at the halfway point. Then the 4th place guy I'd passed proceeded to pass me back and I should have gone with him but didn't. I really could have used a coach or someone cheering for me to pull me out of my own head at that point. Instead of fighting back I resigned myself to being the 4th place runner, even as he managed to shoot up all the way into second and almost win, a ticket to ride that could have earned me a gold medal...or more likely, a high five, given the formality of the event. I did muster a decent sprint at the end, but I still could have given more had I been saying to myself, "I can beat him! I can WIN this!" rather than "look how hard this is! Look how much I'm hurting. Gee, I must be working really hard." It's not as bad a self-pity, but it's not the sort of attitude that will win a race. At the finish "line" the guy in front of me (by 1 or 2 seconds) was stopped by an organizer and asked for his name and I waited idiotically behind him until it was apparent that no one gave a damn of finished 4th, so I wandered off into the crowd like everyone else. Still, it was my first race in 6 months, so not a bad start. I'm just out of practice with that racing mentality.

Since I was already downtown, I resolved to go explore the valley leading north out of the city. I had some vague plan to go find the stadium from the 1984 Olympics where the Sarajevo soccer team now plays, but as I made my way up the valley, I suddenly had the idea to see if I could run all the way to Vogosca (VO-gosh-cha), a suburb several miles outside the city and around back of a mountain that I'd heard a mentioned a number of times in the interviews about the war. It looked like it would only be about 5 1/2 miles, so I figured, hey, I could even come back around the far side of the mountain and it would like a 12 mile day or so. Wouldn't that be neat! A loop around the mountain, including all the districts of Sarajevo Canton! Nevermind that I'd already run several miles and that I would several more miles from where I started back to my house.

My route on google map led me to a large cemetery. Normally I'm fine cutting through cemeteries, but this one had people there visiting with flowers and I didn't want to appear disrespectful to them, so I detoured around it. When I reached the main entrance, I realized that was a rather unique burial place - a huge map showed that different sections were designated for Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox Serbs, Jews, and Athiests, and in the middle were a series of identical chapels dedicated to each religion. Somehow, I found myself exploring the small Jewish section for the next half hour, curious what sorts of names Jews here have, whether any of them died in the last war or in the Holocaust, and what sorts of things in Hebrew or Bosnian they wrote on their gravestones ( the Hebrew I mostly remembered, the Bosnian I still had to google translate). I also looked at how the tombstones of different religious differed from one another (Muslims tombs tend to have a headstone at each end, both pretty thin), and what seemed to be common to Bosnian burials of all religions that you'd rarely see in the US (photo-realistic portraits etched into the stone, an inscription saying which relatives commissioned the monument). I then continued on my way.

At the top of this hill leaving Sarajevo, something on the map caught my eye. "Bagel shop". No way, I thought, in Bosnia? But sure enough, next to a mosque I found a bakery that did indeed sell as round Balkan torus-shaped pastry that tasted pretty close to a bagel. On down the hill, I continued, as the houses faded into farms, alternating with outlet stores and tire dealerships. A couple pulled over in their car to ask for directions (in Bosnian) and I helped them as best I could. I arrived in Vigosca, explored the town a bit, ate a meat pie which my body was so hungry for it has zero problems digesting instantly, and then continued on around the mountain. The road turned to dirt, then grass as it crossed the railroad tracks. Chickens abounded. The villagers looked like they hadn't seen a runner in a long time. I was starting to feel pretty tired but honestly had no idea how long I'd been running for and didn't bother trying to add it all up. As I entered the city again the houses briefly became fairly middle class, wealthy even, with a trampoline and swing sets for the kids, garages for the cars. Then it was back to cows.
For the most part, it was pretty and pleasant, except when I the road I was on dead-ended at the city's landfill and a guard told me I had to turn around, resulting in a rather depressing 3-mile detour. I was pretty demoralized at having to backtrack and irrated at Google Maps for saying the road went through when it was in fact closed off, but soon I arrived at the top of a painfully steep BK-like hill with a gorgeous mosque at the top and a cow grazing on its lawn.
The view was spectacular. As I came down off the mountain back into the heart of Sarajevo, I felt pretty fatigued but resolved that I'd no longer stop to look at the map or snap photos until I reached home.

I arrived back at my host family's abode, nearly 6 hours after I'd left, worn and weary, having no clue how far I'd run, but a bit concerned it would only be like 13-15 miles because of all the stops I'd made. Immediately, I was greeted by my super-enthusiastic 8-year-old host niece who came running out to me and exclaimed (in Bosnian): Matthew, let's go running! I could barely think, let alone speak, in Bosnian at that point, so I smiled and mumbled some discoherent but affirmative reply. She settled for our usual routine of jumping jacks, high knees, and butt kicks around the courtyard, and fortunately, her dad showed up before we got around to doing hill sprints, and took her with him to the store to buy pancakes and nutella...for dinner...to which he graciously invited me. Best post-marathon recover food EVER!

And that, my friends, is how I became an accidental marathoner.