Sports in Germany

2 weeks ago I experienced a whole slew of athletic events that German’s participate in. The first was running a marathon. Ok, half of a marathon, but it felt like a full one to me. I may not have trained exactly like I had wanted too; instead of increasing my mileage in the last few weeks of training, I was running less and less. My one accomplishment in the last few weeks of training was buying a 3 euro pair of headphones so that I wouldn’t have to wear a pair of over ear headphones. That was probably the best move I could have made. Because even though every day up until the race, it was below freezing temperatures, the day of the race was around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. I don’t think my sweat glands remembered how to function after being so unused for 3 months. In short shorts and a light t-shirt, I ran these 21 kilometers and at every water stop I had to throw water over my head to cool off. But then again, this wasn’t just some leisurely run. First of all, I had a goal of being under two hours. Secondly, I had told all of my classmates about it, and they were all expecting me to win the race. I might have come off as a little bit cocky… oops. So, I was really pushing myself in this race. I did fine up until the 15^th kilometer.  It was when I told myself that I only had five more kilometers that my body said that that was too far. My pace dropped from a five minute kilometer to a seven minute kilometer. I finished around 1 hour and 51 minutes, well under my 2 hour goal. The worst part of the entire race was the last kilometer. At kilometer marker 20, I only had 1 left. But after you run half of that and turn the corner, you see three inflatable arches! “I made it! The pain is over! I can finally stop running!” But no, it’s just the three inflatable arches that tell you that you have another kilometer to go. So apparently the race is 21.5 kilometers long, guess I missed that part. Then over the next kilometer there are inflatable arches everywhere, each one making you think you are about to finish, only to find out that it says, “You are all heroes!” At this point, I don’t care if I am a hero; I just want to be done. Eventually, I finished the race, stuffed myself full of food, felt sick because I ate too much food, and then fell asleep on the floor of my school building.

The next day was the Bundesliga match (Germany professional soccer) that we were scheduled to attend as a giant group of Americans. Apparently, half of the people who signed up to go had either never played soccer as a child, never watched it on television, or never played the FIFA video game (which is how I got into the sport, so much fun). So while I was appreciating the game, others were bored and just talked to each other the whole time, silly Americans. The match was between Dusseldorf and Bremen. I choose to root for Bremen because as a Bonner (someone from Bonn, Germany), I love Cologne. And the Cologne people are rivals with the Dusseldorf people. So therefore, I am against Dusseldorf (I found out later that Bonner’s actually would have rooted for Dusseldorf in this match but I was fine because I liked Bremen’s colors better anyways). The game was a lot of fun, even though it ended in a 2-2 tie. Dusseldorf scored once at the beginning of each half, both on counter attacks; and Bremen scored once in the middle of the first half on a counter attack break away, and the second was a own goal by the Dusseldorf defender. I got a good laugh out of that one.

I also participated in another two Bonnsai Frisbee practices. Apparently, they signed up for their championship tournament while I was off in Berlin so I won’t be playing with them for that but I do get to help them train. They have enough players usually for two games to go on at once and I have been placed on what I like to call the practice squad for the tournament team. My goal is to make them better so that they can win the German championships.

So, even though I have stopped running, I have picked up playing ultimate Frisbee to relieve my stress from studying and to start preparing for tryouts back at Texas A&M for next Fall.