Лучше поздно, чем очень поздно. Выкладываю ссылку на мой отчет в блоге:
http://www.diary.ru/~webcon/p163486083.htmПередаю всем привет от нашей интернациональной команды и выкладываю воспоминания талисмана нашей команды, которая выдавала нужное количество пинков, иначе мы бы забили на гораздо бОльшее кол-во КП, Саше из Румынии.
When I think of my trip to Sergiyev Posad, I still can’t explain how I convinced myself to go. After I received and read Katya’s message, I remembered that I smiled and said that I have to do this! I believe I wasn’t thinking straight, as I’ve never done this before and 40 kilometers of walking/running are not recommended for an amateur walker, whose daily wandering through the city might be of maximum 5-6 kilometers long.
I wasn’t scared of the distance even for one minute. I read 40 like I would read 4 and it seemed an effortless number. Well, it turned out to be one of the most challenging things I’ve done, from a physical point of view. I can’t describe how much my back and my legs hurt afterwards, but neither can I describe the wonderful feeling that I had next morning. I was proud that I managed not to quit and happy that Katya had thought of me, not of someone else.
In the morning of the contest, we met at Komsomolskaya a few minutes later than initially planned and then bought train tickets from one of the near-by train stations. It was my first time outside Moscow and I had this butterfly-ish feeling in my stomach, like I was about to embark on a great adventure. I met and then talked a little with Roma, one of Katya’s friends, but mostly I discussed with Katya herself about things ranging from family to the sellers who just came one after the other selling everything-that-you-can-and-cannot-think-of.
After we got in the city, it seemed to me like a different world. So close to Moscow, yet so contrasting. I felt like in my hometown, though I admit the Russian version is bigger (actually everything in Russia is bigger than the counterparts from Romania). We went directly at the starting point and received a paper on which we had the checkpoints and a second smaller one for writing down the response to each task. I felt there weren’t enough checkpoints and Katya later confirmed that actually this was only a third of the whole requirement and that we were supposed to complete these tasks and then we could go to a checkpoint to get the new set.
After some minutes of preparing the route, we set of. I felt strange because I believe we were the only English-speaking team around there, so people would sometimes turn their heads when we were walking by. I can’t speak in Russian and my understanding of the language is schematically at best. I was glad that Katya knows English and though he was mostly silent, I believe Roma also has some knowledge. We started walking slowly towards the first checkpoint and I had so much energy that I could literally run, but I’m glad that we didn’t because at the end of the day I would have been even more tired.
I enjoyed getting to know the city first hand and it was also a great workout, since we mostly walked in areas away from the main road and we had to go up and down and around and about some places. Though at the beginning I kept track of the checkpoints I eventually lost focus, so I had to ask Katya before each one which was the task and how many we still had and such things. She was always helpful and didn’t tell me to stop, though clearly even if I knew that information I couldn’t have helped them much.
At some point it began raining heavily and we just kept going. I haven’t walked in such rain for some time – it was great to remember that feeling! Plus I could see the other teams that didn’t seem to mind the rain either. We probably must have looked strange for the few people that we met and have seen us just walking and running through the rain like crazy. I have to do that again sometime! As the day was approaching the end, we girls started to get tired. We were lucky with Roma, because he sometimes volunteered to go ahead check out an area, so we knew for sure if we should go there or not. Though he never got too far from us, even those 50 meters helped.
When I returned to my room, I still felt that strange adrenaline rush. I don’t know how I was able to sleep that night or wake up in the morning to go to a similar event in Moscow! All in all, it was a beautiful experience that I would gladly repeat if I had the chance. And though all my friends said I was crazy to do it, I can only reply that I liked being so crazy
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