And now in a castle in Bavaria, seem to be on a castle tour here in Europe... This one is owned by the Max Planck Institute and is used for conferences like this all the time. It's pretty cool.
Am going to get strong in hills here, I think! There are only two ways to go from the castle- up and down. Went up today, to the top where there is a telephone mast, did some plyometric ankle/ski drills whenever there was a flat spot (infrequent!), some *very* steep sections!
The swimming pool was great afterwards, since it was way hot, but it was just filled with mountain spring water yesterday, so a bit on the chilly side even, but bet a few more days of this sunshine will make it lovely!
And woke up at the hostel in the old city, was not even the first out of my 8 bed room out the door! Went for a run around the old city, then some hill intervals up to the Heidelberg Castle- I think it was 'recently' destroyed as in WWII or something, it has obviously not been in ruin too long, but it is for sure destroyed- there's an impressively large turet that cracked in two and half is sinking into the ground. Like you would expect in some disaster special effects film, except the ground stopped it half way and it's just sitting there...
Headed down from the castle on a little cobble-stoned road and when I turned around to do some 30second intervals up hill, was told to go 'schnell, schell' by some kids, which I understood, but on the way down one asked, 'why do you go so fast?' which I could just about make out in german, but there is no way I could come up with a reply...
Then across the old bridge and up on the cool little winding path that shortcuts to the Philosophenweq and then down on the Philosophenweg to Neuenheim.
Fantastically poor job of getting from plane in Frankfurt to Heidelberg. First, I missed my scheduled train because they closed this huge area of the airport (bomb threat? exercise? thief? I have no clue!) and no one could get out to the train station. Then I choose the slowest possible trains possible at each junction, basically I was on an S-bahn the entire way from Frankfurt to Heidelberg. Oh well. Got here!
Good morning run around Virginia Water with Christof and another astronomer Helen. It was right on the border of how long/fast Helen could take, but she didn't get cranky or give up or anything, which is pretty cool. Amazing to come back to hot cooked English breakfast! Bacon, eggs, toast, mushrooms, tomatoes. No beans for the toast though, slight disappointment.
One conference down, 4 more meetings/conferences to go!
6 PM
Field Sports (Frisbee) 20:00 [1]
Astro-frisbee! A good little crowd between 8-10 for ultimate in the Uni Parks. Good fun, and I didn't twist an ankle.
Ran past the Copper Horse (something about Rex George in latin), then all the way down the Long Walk up to the castle until you weren't allowed to go anymore. Did 4x4 min threshold intervals, moved legs quick, but not too hard. Tried to do hopscotch ankle drills a few times too. Did stop to take a few photos, I mean it's a castle! =)
Run towards Windsor Castle with Barbara and Christof (2 other astronomers). Not super quick, but nice to have company for sure. We made it to the second to last gate, but then had to turn around to get back in time for dinner. Mostly chatted about climbing there and back as they are both keen climbers- Barbara is working on her first 5.12a (sport), which is pretty impressive in my book!
Did two little hill intervals up to the Copper Horse on the way back.
Little post-flight run around Windsor Great Park (which contains the castle). Pretty sweet. Although legs were not too happy- I tried to do some ankle-plyometrics but my bum cramped. May not have hydrated enough on the plane!!!!
10 min abs + 1 min back, while listening to The Moth podcast- a story of an unlikely adventure to the all star game immediately after the baseball strike some number of decades ago...