Food wise I just keep picking the wrong things to have. Heavy stuff, some Danish pastries on top, and just general stomach churns like I were on a roller coaster that never pulls into a station.\u00a0 And after a lost appetite the prior week due to the damn cold I STILL haven’t shaken, I was just starting to lose some pounds.\u00a0 The scales dial is running the wrong way now.<\/p>\n I did decide to try and go for a short run this morning to try and stave off a descent into melancholy. Unfortunately, I took a bad footfall and the top of my foot hurts. What\u2019s the top of the foot called? Is there a technical term for that? It\u2019s the tarpal bones I know because when I was learning bone structures in elementary school my mom told me to remember we drive a car with our hands so that\u2019s where the carpals are, but are feet get stuck in tar, so those are the tarpals. I wonder if that contributed to me being a Tar Heel years later.<\/p>\n In any case, it\u2019s colder here in Odense than previous runs and my leg is acting up. I\u2019m an old man, made all the more apparent ad last night at the visual arts museum I was astonished to see a 20-something woman fascinated by the VCR hands on demonstration in the techno-archeology wing. She had to read the instructions to see how to put a tape in and setting the recording using code numbers blew her mind. The sample recorded was LIFE OF BRIAN, which she said she had recently watched on her iPhone. I felt time\u2019s arrow piercing my heart.<\/p>\n As for tourist options, everyone says I should go see Egeskov Castle.\u00a0 But I looked on the map and it\u2019s about 16 miles away. The best public transport option would take me 85 minutes to get there. I immediately had PTSD Flashbacks to my \u201cbrilliant\u201d plan for my mom and I to ride \u201cthe bus\u201d to the Dole Pineapple Plantation in Hawaii. Yes, yes. It cost us $3 total for the trip, but I didn\u2019t realize it would take 2.5 hours each way, with 56 stops coming and 56 stops going. And I didn\u2019t realize riders looking to get off would press the call button and a disembodied robotic woman\u2019s voice would sing and say \u201cstop requested.\u201d Hearing that voice so many times… my god. I can still hear it in my nightmares.<\/p>\n So the fairy tale castle is out. I thought I\u2019d check out the Danish Railway Museum because I thought it was completely run by children. When I got there I realized I had confused it with Budapest’s Children’s Railway<\/a>, which I had missed when I was there last year. I decided not to pay 80 kroner for an adult run train museum. Expectations were, as Charles Dickens once said, great (* see note below)<\/em>. And once those great expectations were dashed, well, gosh…<\/p>\n I did wander about to Pok\u00e9mon Go style collect some photos of the various Hans Christian Andersen storybook statues around town. That at least I came sorta close to achieving… albeit I most definitely didn\u2019t catch them all.<\/p>\n Which leads us to my quixotic quest to pick up my bib. Or if you\u2019re not into a Cervantes reference, I was like the White Rabbit trying to get a bowl of Trix.<\/p>\n The English instructions I had for the race said I needed to head over to the Odense Sports Center.<\/p>\n When I google mapped it I had directions to the Odense Sports Centrum. I arrived to find a desolate place… like an adrift spaceship that had its crew abandon her long, long ago.<\/p>\n I wandered all through the empty place, occasionally hearing voices echoing through the vast emptiness but never able to locate them. I finally emailed the race director and here\u2019s what I ultimately found out:<\/p>\n Ohhhh-Kay. At least the 40 minute walk to the right location was via a sylvan bike path. I only got nearly run over by a raging bicyclist twice!<\/p>\n Having finally arrived where I was supposed to be, ie the Odense Sports Center and not the Odense Sports Centrum…<\/p>\n … I wandered into the expo and was struck at how they all tend to blend together after awhile. Shoes, gu, and gear. The random race touting for business.<\/p>\n I skipped it all and got my bib from this guy.<\/p>\n He\u2019s run every HCA Marathon… and always as a different fairy tale character. I asked what he was favorite one was. He said after the tea cup he was glad to do the emperor\u2019s new clothes. He said it was much freedom and easier to run in. I bet. And I can only hope it was a flesh colored bodysuit.<\/p>\n And so as I stumble back to my AirBNB with visions of wine pouring through my brain, I\u2019m trying to find landmarks so I\u2019ll remember the way back for the race on Sunday.<\/p>\n And while I originally had planned on trying to go see a medley of sci-fi themes performed by the Odense Symphonic Orchestra tonight, the ticket prices all proved bafflingly obtuse… even with a translation.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Operation-Petticoat-Sub.jpg\")
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