Going round in circles

Another Sunday, another race; today it was the 25th Rund um das Bayer-Kreuz. Official results have not been published yet, but my own watch said 53:14, which is another personal best. The two days of rest that I had, because my body was sending me unambigous signals (especially my right knee), did me good.

(Update: Official time published 53:11; 29th of 49 women in my age group)

The name of the race is misleading: "around the Bayer-Kreuz" suggests you do actually run around this landmark of the city of Leverkusen, the huge company logo of Bayer, famous inventors of Aspirin.

(I have taken this picture from www.leverkusen.com; it didn't say anything about copyrights on that page anywhere, but I hope if I tell you where it's from, it's ok.)

You don't, because that would mean running around the factory premises. Instead the track runs around the Carl-Duisberg park, home of the beautiful Japanese Garden (fond childhood memories of walking around it with parents and grand-parents) .

To complete the 10 km, you have to run around four times. I prefer races where there is one large round or - as a maximum - you have to run around a track twice. It's not good for my morale to know that I will come around a certain spot again and again and again.

The worst bit in this race is down where the "W1" is on the map above. "W1" is a high building, the Bayerhochhaus. When you run around the corner there, you feel like you have come to a grinding halt; it's like running into a wall. The strong winds take your breath away. Today it was extremely bad. So bad, that the metal barriers used to mark the track fell over.

I did not take my camera, because there was no safe place to put it during the race. But official photographers were on duty and I will post pictures (or link to them) once they have been published.