The Olympic Stadium at last

Last Friday I returned from an eight day solitary retreat in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on the edge of the Müritz National Park. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, meditating, studying, walking, running, reflecting and just doing nothing. It wasn't wholly comfortable the whole time being alone with nothing but my own mind, but always interesting. I spent a lot of time reading Wisdom Beyond Words by Sangharakshita, commentaries on some of the potentially bewildering Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, based on some seminars he led several years ago.

After a couple of weeks neglect on account of being very busy I also returned to training again while on retreat, but I guess I was still not as fit as I needed to be in order to run the Berlin BIG 25 on Sunday as well as I might otherwise have done. Having not participated in the event in the previous two years because of illness, it was a relief at least to be able to start this year. By the halfway point however, my lack of training became apparent and from then on it was a real effort to keep going, my pace dropped dramatically, and I became conscious of continuously being overtaken by other runners. Still, the effort proved well worth it with my arrival in the amazing Olympic stadium, where Jessie Owens won three gold medals in 1936. The recently refurbished stadium is a really impressive work of architecture, a temple to sport.

Here are my race statistics:
Duration: 2:13:04
Pace: 5:20 / kilometer
Field Placement: 1445 / 4048
Age Group Placement: 182 / 498
Gender Placement: 1290 / 3077