A German Marathon

Week 14

Enmodes was over, but we still had a full weekend ahead of us. Saturday was the International Big Event. We met at old AIB fairly early in the morning, and were divided into teams. My team was assigned to a warehouse that took in donated items and sorted them. We had a lot of fun listening to music and sorting. We finished fairly early, so we got gelato and walked through Aldstat, where the cherry blossoms were finally blooming. It was absolutely beautiful. The next day was another one of the best days of the trip. Lauren and I had signed up for a half marathon earlier in the semester, and then sort of forgot about it. So when Sunday come around and it was time to run 13.1 miles, we sort of just winged it. And it actually worked out so well. We got separated early on, so I decided to just run and actually try to finish this thing. I loved the first 10 miles. It was fantastic. All the runners were so encouraging, and all the streets were lined with people. Every now and then kids would run out and high five the runners. Astrid and Naja also came out with Jamie. By the 11^thmile I ended up walking to grab water, which was a huge mistake because it was impossible to start running again. I sort of walk/ran the last few miles, up until the ending. I knew the finish line was somewhere in the city, so once I reached the city I started really running… and running and running and running. Turns out the finish line was kind of deep into the city, so it took a while. But I finally crossed it, and it was one of the best feelings ever. I didn’t think I would ever be able to run a half marathon, with little to no training, but there I was, with a medal around my neck and a beer in my hand at the end. 

 The rest of the day was spent in true German fashion—eating sausage and drinking (alcohol free) beer. I slept perfect that night. 

The following week was pretty boring… I had officially changed my major, so I was able to drop two classes, which opened up a ton of free time. Lauren and I were hardly at school, which was pretty weird because we used to spend almost 24/7 there. We went running a few times, and used a lot of the free time to plan our lives a little bit since the end of the program was nearing. We studied a bit for finals, and hung out with Naja quite a bit. I was looking forward to going home, but at the same time I was already missing some things about Germany.