Budapest

This week I had another conference, this time in Budapest. I do actually do some work sometimes you know - in fact, this time I was speaking and chairing so I had to pay fairly close attention to all the talks and there was no skipping out to do some surreptitious shopping. I love Budapest: its a beautiful and impressive city (albeit in a slightly pre-Berlin wall kind of way). The people are very friendly and there is no shortage of smart places to go for food or shopping and it also has a fair amount of striking urban contrasts for the more "socially aware" traveler... I'd been looking forward to going as I remember very well a long run I did along the banks of the Danube a few years ago (yep, at another conference). This time it was about 5 degrees below zero and dark when I finally managed to extricate myself from the conference, so it wasn't quite as pleasant.

The view from my hotel window

I ran in my usual running shorts - when does it ever get cold enough for your legs to feel it while running? Some tourists from Hong Kong found it amusing and asked me for a "photo photo", probably under the impression that their photo would capture typical Hungarian behaviour to show to the folks back home. It turned out that they were quite wrong because even the Hungarians shouted out to me "Eh, Junge!" as I ran past.

The two 45 min runs I did

I find that its really good practice to run on ice. As long as you don't make any sudden changes of speed or direction, you can run perfectly well on even the most slippery surface. You are forced to run according to the Pose Method which discourages you from pushing of with your foot and instead focuses on forward movement by leaning from the ankles. Here you can see the man Dr Romanov himself, demonstrating the principle:

Hopefully I won't have to travel any more before the Ironman. It is very hard to eat properly. Its not that the food was bad, rather that a lot of what I could not resist eating wasn't good for me. I just cannot say no to crispy bacon when it is in one of those huge eat as much as you like breakfast spreads you get in some hotels. And the conference organizer, bless her, would bring me plates of sugary snacks to make up for the fact that I couldn't pop out and get them whenever I wanted. Just thinking about that smörgåsbord of French cheeses that the waiter wafted under my nose is making me hungry. Then, of course, there's all that plane food - why can't it just be plain food instead of this imitation fancy food in miniature they insist on warming up?