This whole trip to Hungary has felt like one big Moebius Strip. I even embraced that notion by returning to that restaurant I first ate dinner in this town. I’m sure I could’ve eventually found another decent if not spectacular place but at in each successive night here I struck out. Sadly tonight I tried the goulash at that place and it was as all other Hungarian cuisine has been – a bit bland and middling.
But this isn’t a piece on food. It’s a write-up of the 32nd Annual Budapest Marathon, the largest running event in Hungary!
So though I started this entry at the end of the day, we’ll flash back to the morning when I arrived typically crazy early… albeit I wasn’t alone. In addition to the steady stream of runners arriving and prepping for the race, there were our Nestle friends wandering about.
Now this is a serious furry faux pas, having two of the same character “on stage” at the same time. Although I suppose maybe the heroin Quik Bunny has a brother… or maybe he’s traveled through time to warn himself about the dangers of drugs. Quik Bunny and Quik Prime? Whatever the case, a pair of bunnies is a paradox.
The starting corrals were just next to the Heroes’ Gate. If you look closely in my reflective sunglasses you can see the Gate just past the start line banner. You may have to CSI “enhance, enhance, enhance” to do it, but it’s there!
The Budapest course is a wild mouse. We whipped around towns Pest and Buda, back and forth, over and under bridges. It was a running sightseeing tour of Budapest and thanks to my rambling ambles I could actually pick out sights as I went.
Deja vu all over again… or a zoetrope running round and round.
As for my race… well, it was a tough day. I basically cramped up in the second half, a stitch in my side failing to save a BQ but prompting a series of nines… nine minute miles or longer that is. In the closing five miles I walked quite a bit and not even random strangers wishing me well could inspire “Kevin” to “go, go, go!”
I finished when the cows came home… no, seriously. A bunch of folks dressed as furry cows. And there were weird milking stations that I think were where you were supposed to get your chocolate milk after the race. The “cow” had a gas tank. There were seats and pails around the udders. Maybe it’s like the Ballade at Medoc where you just kept refilling your table’s wine bottle from the giant cask in the center of the room. Very, very strange end for me but I was a bit delirious.
Maybe I’ll write more when I’m stuck with various layovers at multiple airports tomorrow… though probably not. As I quickly scroll through and do a rudimentary, half-assed proof read of this blog post, there’s too many photos as it is and who really cares? In the meantime, I’m sore, I’m in pain, and although the food wasn’t worthy of a food coma, I’m going to curl up and… I don’t know. Maybe sleep. Who can say anymore? There’s another race six days away.
