Manuel 2.0

Of course we will take our Garmin Vista Cx GPS on our trip to Nepal. Garmin itself does not provide maps.

But there is hope: the OpenStreetMap project provides user-generated maps for the whole world (even Africa and the far East).

After searching around a little I even found a website where you can select arbitrary regions and get an email with a download link to a Windows installer with the Garmin maps: http://garmin.na1400.info/routable.php

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Here are some impressions from the Homburger Schlossberghöhlen which were en route our hiking trip today.

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After spending most of this Saturday with finishing a long list of items from our todo lists – and leaving even more of them where they were – Birte and I went for a running race: The 17th LimLauf in Limbach (Saar).

The organizers did a great job and everything went smothly and plesant for the participants. All participants? Well, not exactly. I did not see my running shoes for the last two weeks and on the 10km race I realized that this was not the best preparation.

Birte did not pause for a single day during the last week and scored third in her age group. That got us a bottle of Prosecco and two glasses. That pays back the race fees. Great!

Compared to that I made a rather lousy sixth place in my age group being about 1 minute slower than my personal record.

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This time it hit me totally out of the blue: I was on my after-work trip from Kaiserslautern back to Saarbrücken when my front derailleur made some strange noises when changing the gears.

And this is what had happened:

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The mount of the derailleur was fixed to the frame via a small piece of aluminium. The connection between the aluminium and the carbon fiber frame consisted of four rivets. All four of them must have been ripped off in at once.

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The funny thing is that I have bought the bike almost two years ago, on August 22nd 2007.

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I am curious what the people at Canyon, the manufacturer of the frame, answer when I tell them that their frame broke three days before the end of the official warranty.

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Today was the Wall Street Heart Walk and Run 2009. And at last, I had a sports event in New York with nice weather.

Start and finish was in World Financial Center and the race went along those narrow winding streets of downtown Manhattan.

Siemens was one of the major sponsors of this event and had organized everything for participating Siemens staff: t-shirts, caps, food, drinks and even a bus transfer from/to Iselin, NJ. The bus left Iselin quite early. Instead I drove to Jersey City myself which was less fun but saved me some time in the afternoon.

This photo was taken shortly before the start. In the background you can see the gap that 9/11 put into the skyline of lower Manhattan.

The event itself was mostly organized by New York Road Runners. These guys are 100% professional in the way they secure the trackand handle thousands of runners rushing for a bottle of water after the finish line.

This time I really stepped back a little to have a look on the streets and not just the shoes of the next person which I try to overtake.

Update:

The results are out now. My official time is 18:41. Overall rank is 88. With 4648 participants I am among the best 1.8%. The time is even worse than this year’s personal record of 18:06 in Princeton. But I beat all other Siemens staff.

On the way back to my car I took a last look on the Manhattan skyline – probably the last time for this year’s internship.

And from Exchange Place, also Jersey Cities skyline is worth a picture.

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Yesterday I had my first running race in Princeton. With high ambitions and a high-fat diet I signed up for what would be the first 5k race in 2009.

Although there were only around 140 people at the start times were measured electronically by transponders. In Germany, you have that only at bigger races and even there not always. Start and finish were on the campus of Princeton University.

The name Run for the Worriors already hints at one of it’s purposes: raising money for wounded soldiers. Thus, both the US Army as well as the state troopers were supporting the event with dozends of people in uniforms securing the track, handing out water etc.

In the end I missed the 3rd place on my age group by only 19 seconds. 18:06 minutes for 5k is not really great compared to my personal record from last summer but for the first race of the year not too bad. My resolution: From now on less burgers and more running!

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On April 11 was my first run in New York City: the Homecoming Scotland Run in Central Park. The location was great, the race was sold out weeks in advance.

So is there anything more to make a runner happy: Yes! Good weather, and there things went severly wrong. Not only the name was imported from Scotland but also the rain. It started to rain hours before the start kept so and for the rest of the day. Everybody got soaked to the bones before running a single meter. After 20+ races this was certainly the one with the worst weather I have ever attended.

The folks from New York Road Runners seem to have anticipated this. Each starter pack contained a fancy plastic cape that was meant to keep at least parts of you dry.

Agains all odds, Stolze and I made it to the finish line. I have 40:31min on the official result list which is okay considering the congestion on the first mile after the start with the usual hassle of runners lining up way too far among faster people.

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Today was a day with only little snow and bright sunshine in the afternoon. First we planned to hike around Sulzbach (Saar) and see some of the remainings of the coal mining. But then we change our route and chose to walk all the way back to Saarbrücken.

click on the image to open the album

Here is a link to gpsies.com with our track.

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Last Sunday, we went out hiking this time on a tour around Beckingen and Dillingen north from Saarbrücken. What makes this experience 2.0ish is my discovery of gpsies.com where you can publish GPS tracks.

Click on the screenshot to review the track online.

There are also some photos online:

click on the image to open the album

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