A Day at the Races

It's been about 6 months since I've run a race, so I decided to try the 'Lesny Beh' (forest run) at Bankov, just outside Kosice. Bankov sits in the middle of a large hilly forest, and is a popular (so they tell me) place for the locals to train. I guess the rain kept most of the locals away, but 30 or 40 people showed up, mostly, it seemed, orienteers and skiers. The course was a 2.4km loop through the woods, sometimes on clay trails, sometimes just running on some overgrown roads with rocks, holes, sticks, etc.

The young bucks got to do 5 laps, but us old geezers did only 2. (And speaking of old, I was the oldest one in the race.) At registration, they gave me a couple of green tickets with the letter 'P' on them. About the time the gun went off, it started raining in earnest - good thing I bought my contacts. The legs felt pretty good at first, but about halfway through the second lap I could tell I was getting tired. The guy I was running with dropped me right before the finish, but he was a youngster in his 40s, so I didn't worry about it. Within seconds of finishing, a volunteer pressed a cup of hot herbal
tee into my hand, but then one of the race officials kept telling me to come get a cup of tea he was holding. I knew something was up, and that something was slivovitz (plum brandy). Sure warms you up after a wet run in the woods!
After I dried off, they had the awards ceremony, and much to my surprise, I won the 50+ division (but only by 12 seconds - good thing I didn't slow down any more).


We then adjourned inside the 'bistro' for the 'P and P' which is 'parky' and 'pivo' or sausages and beer. We spent a long time talking to some friendly folks from the Kosice Orienteering Klub - they've invited us to come to their training sessions on Tuesday evenings. Sounds like it might be fun.

After lunch in Kosice, we headed east to Herl'any to see the slightly famous geyser. I'd always heard that geysers occur only in Yellowstone, Iceland and New Zealand, but Slovakia has its own geyser. The difference is that this is a cold geyser, powered by carbon dioxide (rather than a proper hot-water geyser). It erupts for about 30 minutes every 34-36 hours, so we'd checked the website and arrived just as the eruption was starting. It's not Old Faithful, but it's one of those things that should be seen if you're spending four months in eastern Slovakia.