I officially registered for the "Run of the Crazed" today (see one of my posts from a while ago for more info on that), but there's a small catch:  the sponsoring organization would very much like us to find sponsors.  All proceeds will (at least theoretically) go to the project PROCEEDI in Guatemala, which gives financial support to children of poor families so that they can attend school, have shoes, not starve, and all of these wonderful things that people everywhere tend to like.  And since I think it's safe to assume that none of you hate poor children (or do you...), I will have to ask that you consider sponsoring me.

What then, does this mean?  Anything you want.  If you want to give me $0.01 per kilometer that I run, that's fine.  If you want to further complicate matters by imposing conditions, like giving me $0.01 per kilometer if I can complete at least 50km, that's fine too.  You can even bribe with offers of a whole dollar (slow down, cowboys!) if and only if I complete the whole thing.  Really, any offer will be accepted, no matter how ridiculously low or the insanity of the attached conditions.  Remember, all of the money is going to a good cause and I will see none of it.  You don't hate children, do you?  Do you?

As further incentive, I'll keep this post updated with any and all sponsorship offers that I receive, including name, location, and amount (which can of course be anonymized should you so choose).  If that's not enough, then you'll have my thanks and the thanks of the children.  (Think of the children!). 

To make an offer, please send me an email at this address.  If that doesn't work, you can also use the Contact Page.  Thanks in advance for your support!

Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is one of the most common viral diseases on the planet.  There is a flu virus for almost every mammalian and avian species on the planets, and influenza kills approximately 36,000 people each year in the United States and hundreds of thousands worldwide.  In addition to the human cost, the flu is responsible for billions of dollars in economic damage due to lost time at work and health care costs.  Occasionally, flu will reach pandemic levels (a pandemic is an epidemic on a global or supra-regional scale) and can result in millions of deaths, as was the case with the 1918 Spanish Influenza (50-100 million deaths worldwide) and, more recently, the 1968 Hong Kong Influenza (~700,000 deaths worldwide). 

Given that the flu is such a nasty virus under "normal" conditions, i.e., without a species-jump event, (it is likely that a species jump from birds to humans caused the 1918 pandemic), when something like swine flu starts to show up, it is a cause for concern.  However, it is usually best to temper this concern with facts before it turns into a needless panic (SARS, anyone?).  So what then, is the flu? To answer this question we'll have to get a bit technical, but simple explanations never work for complex problems anyway, so stick with me here and we'll see what the flu is, how it works, and why you should be concerned.

Like all viruses, the flu is pretty simple.  At it's simplest level, it is a vehicle for sneaking its genetic information (the flu is an RNA virus) into host cells.  The flu only has 8 genes and each gene is carried on its own segment of RNA.  These segments are contained within a protein capsule comprised of the proteins hemaglutinnin and neraminidase (this is why flu strains are referred to as H1N1, H5N1, H3N2, etc.), with the hemagglutinin proteins sticking out like spikes (see figure below).

Photo Courtesy of: New York State Department of Health (here)

These spikes play a key role in infection.  Their main role is to bind to sialic acid sugars found on the host cell's outer membrane, which will then lead to the virus particle being taken up by the host cell.  This process is very complicated, but since different species have different sialic acid sugars, and since recognition is very specific between hemagglutinin proteins and sialic acid sugars, not every type of flu virus will be able to infect every mammilian/avian species.  For example, the hemagglutinin H5 (the type found in "bird flu") can currently only recognize avian sialic acid sugars, so unless it mutates and gains the ability to recognize human sialic acid sugars it will not pose a significant threat.  Swine flu, on the other hand, is an H1N1 type virus - the same type that cause the Spanish Flu pandemic, and now one of the more common flu strains - which means that it is able to infect humans fairly easily.  It's best to keep in mind, however, that this H1N1 type has been around for the past century, so our immune systems are fairly well adapted to it.

Once the flu gets inside your cells, it starts to replicate.  To do this, it hijacks your cellular machinery, using your proteins to replicate its genome.  Once enough new virus particles have been made (about 100 million per cell), the cell will burst and these new virus particles will find new cells to infect.  Normally, your immune system will recognize foreign proteins fairly quickly and produce antibodies which can destroy them.  Since the hemagglutinin protein is necessary for cellular uptake, this protein is often targeted by the immune system, so it would seem that stopping the infection would be fairly trivial - just send out antibodies to destroy the hemagglutinin.  However, influenza has two main factors to combat this immue reponse - a high mutation rate and scale.  Like all other RNA viruses (HIV is another), influenza mutates rapidly.  When this mutation rate is combined with 100 million new particles per replication cycle, every possible genome is reached quickly, which leads to some virus particles having hemagglutinin proteins that are just different enough to escape antibody detection but still specific enough to invade cells. 

It's precisely these two factors that make swine flu so problematic - our immune systems have never seen this specific variant before, so it will be much harder for our immune systems to mount an effective response, which could lead to a cytokine storm (discussed in much greater detail at the link).  The worst possible scenario would then be a return to the death curve seen in the Spanish Flu pandemic (see figure below), where young, healthy patients are also severely affected (the "W" shape in the solid line).  As the figure shows, influenza is normally (dashed line) only fatal to the very young and very old because these groups tend to have a weaker immune system and are unable to fight off the infection.  An alternate explanation for the W-shaped curve is that young, healthy people have not experienced the specific virus type before, so their immune system has no memory of it - making them susceptible to infection as well.

Graph courtesy of US Government files.

Now that we've seen why the flu does what it does and why swine flu could  be a very nasty bug indeed, it's time to discuss what other factors we need to know before we let the panic set in.  The first and most important factor is the mortality rate.  Currently, it is estimated that 149 people in Mexico have died from swine flu, but it is not known how many were infected.  If 150,000 were infected, then only 0.1% of cases are fatal (not a big deal), but if 1,500 were infected, then a staggering 10% of cases are fatal (a very big deal - mortality from the Spanish Flu pandemic is estimated to be between 2.5% - 5.0%).  The lower the mortality rate, the better.  Just looking at the mortality is also not enough - in order to be truly dangerous, the disease must be easily transmitted by person to person contact.  If people can't spread the disease amongst themselves, then only those in close contact with infected pigs are at risk, but if sneezing can spread the disease, then you can catch it from the sick person on the bus.  Sadly, the WHO has recently determined that swine flu is indeed highly transmissible - so it is smart to take precautions (see below).  

Transmission rates and mortality are also not enough to accurately assess the danger - the conditions surrounding fatalities must also be taken into account.  Did those that succumbed have access to hospital care?  Did they even go to a hospital?  Where they already immunocompromised due to AIDS or other pre-existing conditions? At this juncture there is simply not enough information to make accurate statements, so caution (but not panic) should be urged.  Check the updates posted by the CDC (see the swine flu tracker at the top of this sidebar too) and the WHO as more information comes in - these organizations will be your absolute best source for reliable and up-to-date information.

The final concern is distribution.  If swine flu remains localized to North America (which is looking less and less likely every day, as cases have been reported in Spain and New Zealand) then a global pandemic is less likely.  However, since it has already been confirmed in Europe and Oceania it is now highly possible that it will become a global pandemic.  This development is obviously a Bad Thing, as swine flu would then hit various population centers, mutate, and then make another trip around the world, a pattern seen in both the 1918 and 1968 pandemics.  CNN has posted a mildly alarmist article about this, so I'll summarize briefly.  Worst case scenario: 18-24 month duration, 2 billion infected, up to 7 million people dead.  Being a good scientist, I'm going to have to wait a bit to make any realistic predictions, but I certainly hope that we will not see the worst case scenario.  This possible crisis promises to bring a few very interesting weeks, and given the possible outcomes it would be very wise indeed to keep yourself informed.  See below for things you can do and links to keep updated/learn more.

If you'd like to learn more about the flu in general, and the 1918 pandemic in particular, I highly recommend going to iTunes and checking out the two featured lectures they have under the iTunesU tab - both are free, informative, and well-made.

What Can You Do?

I am not a physician, so please, remember to be smart and not let advice on the internet supersede or worse, replace, advice from a qualified medical professional.

1. Wash your hands frequently.
2. If you're sick, stay home.
3. If you are very sick and have flu-like symptoms, see your doctor.  Otherwise, stay home.
4. Avoid contact with other sick people.
5. Avoid touching your mouth, nose, and eyes after being in public.
6. If you do go to the Emergency Department, please wear a mask - if you get all of the other people there sick you will spread the virus much further and possible contaminate the whole hospital!  This is not a joke; hospital-acquired infections are a leading cause of death.   While wearing a surgical mask won't protect you from infection, it can prevent you from spreading the disease.
7. Don't panic - this outbreak is still in the early stages and it still too early to make any accurate predictions.  Panic can only make the situation worse.  If there is a significant risk, governments are likely to close schools and other public places - the best measure that they can take.

Helpful Links

What to do if you're sick with the flu
Swine Flu Updates
CDC
WHO
Flu Redux
Practical Tips for Combating Swine Flu in Your Home

One of my goals when I received my Fulbright was to use the year abroad to learn another language.  At first I went for the more exotic languages that Marburg had excellent faculty in, such as Chinese, Arabic, and Russian (very hard to find in the US), but after realizing that a year spent learning these languages would not allow me to come close to even a basic conversational level, I started to look at slightly easier, albeit more practical languages, such as Spanish, French, or Italian.  I was foiled again at this juncture, as none of these courses fit into my work schedule well (why is Monday evening the preferred time to teach a language here?).  Keeping my goal in mind, I scanned through the course catalog and found that my options were Modern Irish - Advanced Intermediate (nope!), Middle High German (dead language), and Dutch. 

I had liked my trip to the Netherlands for a conference earlier this year quite a bit, and while there I realized that I could read Dutch fairly well (embarassingly, at first I thought that it was just very poorly spelled German), but as soon as I heard someone speak it I realized that Dutchman can make what I will describe as unnatural sounds.  I am not alone in this viewpoint - a Dutch radio commentator is semi-famous there for saying that "Dutch is not a language, it's a disease of the throat."

Today marks the end of my first week learning Dutch, and my first impressions are that it is a very weird mixture between English and German - since it is a Low Germanic language (not inferior, just that their country is closer to sea level than "High German", which came from Austria/the Alps).  Pronunciation is at times very close to English and/or German, other times the opposite of how it is spelled.  Thankfully, the spelling, grammar, and word order of all three languages are at least similar, as the following example shows.  Equivalent words (or word groups, if English uses a helping verb) are shown in the same color. 

          What is your name?      English
          Wat is je naam?            Dutch
          Was ist deine Name?     German

However, Dutch is still much more a Germanic language than English, so sentence construction and word order is often closer to German than English, as the following example shows.

          How are you called?     English
          Hoe heet je?                Dutch
          Wie heißt du?               German

While it might be too early to make any bold sweeping claims, I feel confident that I'll be able to learn a fair amount of Dutch in one semester (all of Dutch grammar fits into a nice 80 page book that I found) and I'm enjoying the class a lot so far - the professor is very good and clearly loves her subject.  The weirdest thing is learning a foreign language in a foreign language, but even that seems to be going well so far.  And to counteract the obvious "But when will you ever use this?" charge, there is a chance (however remote) that I will do research next summer in Namibia, where Afrikaans (mutually intelligible with Dutch) is widely spoken.  So there.

Last weekend I realized that my time in Germany is quickly coming to a close (I only have 98 days left here! Eek!) - and I still have so much left that I'd like to see and do.  At the same time, we've been spending a lot of time traveling around other areas of Germany and Europe at the expense of our host cities, so Erica and I decided to spend the weekend wandering around Marburg and Mainz.

For once, the weather in Germany cooperated, and both days were sunny with a high in the low 70's and a constant breeze.  We started off the weekend on Friday in Marburg with a nice Auflauf - an amazing Hessian creation of melted cheese, cream sauce, noodles, ham, spinach, and whatever else you care to throw in coated with a nice crispy layer of baked cheese.  After the Auflauf it was off to a film festival where we saw Manda Bala, which I thought was well-made, if a little bit over the top and predictable in its message (Documentary filmmakers: we understand that you do not like capitalism, rich people, or politicians.  Find a new topic).  The documentary dealt with the kidnapping of businessmen in Sao Paolo and the underlying social conditions causing it, and this was presented well - but after the film ended the "moderator" wanted to have a discussion about globalization following the film, and since we in the minority who also lacked dreadlocks we made a sprint for the door and escaped, albeit just in time.

After a nice breakfast on Saturday we wandered into Marburg and noticed that the paddle boats were once again available to rent following the long winter, so we decided to take one up the Lahn for a bit.  It was very relaxing - just a nice, shady ride up a slowly moving river with lots of ducks  - but the views of the city were not as great as we had hoped.  Since we were feeling a bit lazy we caught the bus up to the castle instead of walking, where we poked around the castle park - formerly the fortifications, but after Marburg ceased to be important (and the invention of heavy artillery) they slowly fell apart and were eventually converted to a nice park, although you can still take tours of the former cannon bunkers.  To round off the relaxation we stopped by the bakery for a massive piece or freshly made rhubarb cake and headed back to my dorm for some Kaffee und Kuchen - which is like tea time, but with coffee and 348% better.

Since even the best laid plans tend to go awry, our plan to just relax was interrupted by an offer to attend Puccini's La Boheme in Frankfurt.  Now, I'm not normally (read: not even a little bit) of an opera aficionado, but the price was right (11 Euro instead of 55) and I figured that it would be nice to see a bit more of Hessen (getting some culture didn't hurt either).  Our seats were great - we had very nice views of the stage and we could hear the orchestra and performers well.  The only downside was that from our seats we could not see the German subtitles, so Erica and I were reduced to making up our own story (which was far less impressive than the musical performances).  As the evening was so nice, we decided to conclude with drinks in a nearby open-air bar, which were close to the cost of our tickets (note to self: when it comes to bars, classy just means expensive). 

The upside to heading down to Frankfurt for the evening is that Mainz is only a short train ride away, so headed that way and promptly crashed.  After waking up, we took a walk along the Rhine, where we came across an advertisement for "The North Sea."  Confused, we headed in to the expo tent and realized that it was set up to promote tourism on the North Sea.  I managed to find a roll with German Sushi inside - small lightly peppered shrimps served raw with some oil and lettuce.  In terms of value (ignoring overall quality), it certainly has the Japanese equivalent beat.  We stopped hear and listened to German sea-shanties in Plattdeutsch - one of the many regional dialects that after 8 years of study I'm still not able to understand.  From here it was on to the downtown, where we had the pleasure of experiencing one of the few Sundays on which stores are allowed to open (which makes every other Sunday an excercise in frustration, as its the only free time I usually have to go browse for new books) - which brought out most of the population of Mainz and resulted in a sort of mini-festival, complete with bratwurst stands and crepes.  After strolling around for a bit, it was time to head to Marburg, so now I'm off to recover from the weekend before starting another (very) busy week. 

I found myself in the middle of Marburg's Altstadt during the planned "flashmob" - I would call it more of a gathering, but to each there own.  Expecting heavy crowds, I hesitantly moved forward - and saw the scene to your left, which shows the entire flashmob before/during/after the "protest".  As I did some research online beforehand, I knew that they would be shooting the final scene for this video.  I only wish that I had come up with that idea - it's pure comedy gold with it's one-dimensional rant against corporations and juvenile symbolism.  Since I knew what to look for, I kept an eye out for the "businessmen" and the camera.  Expecting some thrift-store threads and a handheld cam, my jaw dropped.  The "anti-capitalist activists" were all wearing tailored designer suits and the camera they used had a $300 dollar tripod.  I stood around for about 15 minutes waiting for something to happen, but they just did more takes (and yelled at people for not doing it "right").  After they got the shot they wanted, they simply disbanded.  It was lame enough that the police didn't even bother to show up, even though they knew that it was planned.  Way to stick it to the man!

Walking from the train station back to my dorm room (since bus traffic stops after 8PM in Marburg) I noticed a banner hung over the student "bar" (and I use this term as loosely as possible) in the housing complex urging all fellow students to join in a Global (read: other European country/ies also have a banner flying over their student housing areas, with some in Canada joining in as well) Week of Action to "Emancipate Education for All". Exciting activities for the week include a "Global Flashmob" (is it really a flashmob if it's planned months in advance?) which will take place in part on Marburg's central square (I'll try my best to get pictures), as well as the standard lectures by activists and sympathetic professors.

So what is this week of activism for? From their website and manifesto I found a few main goals: lower the cost of education, decrease the presence of corporations (surprise!), fight budget cuts at the university level, and more accessible higher education.  With the exception of decreasing the presence of corporations (but missing a chance to rail against corporations would go against everything the German "protest movement" stands for), these seem like fairly reasonable goals - until you learn the facts.

Higher education in Germany is essentially free.  I pay 180 Euro per semester to enroll and take courses - that's it.  Note that this payment is for administrative fees, not tuition.  If that weren't enough, this 180 Euro also pays for a public transport pass valid for 6 months which allows me to travel anywhere in Hessen, using every train and bus except the ultra high-speed trains, which don't run through Marburg.  If I weren't enrolled at the University of Marburg, an equivalent pass would cost me approximately 220 Euro per month.  So far, a very good deal. 

Since the university system here is highly rated, a few Bundesländer increased the tuition from 0 Euro per semester to 500 Euro per semester in order to increase the amount of money going to the schools and allow for better facilities, as well as maintain competetive international standards.  Protest ensued, and within a year the government in Hessen which instituted the fees was out of power, and the center-left (for Germany, for the US closer to Nader) government which replaced them dropped the fees.  In doing so, deficits at the university level skyrocketed - the University of Marburg was something like 12 million Euro in debt this year, and as a result had to cut many positions and in some cases whole departments.  The financial crisis made it all the worse, and since the university system provides the talent that makes the German industry run so well, the corporations stepped in to help out.

So that's where we are now - and German students are pissed off about it.  They don't like that they've lost departments, but don't think that they should have to pay for it (education is a right to them, and they conveniently ignore that they pay for it anyway in the form of taxes).  I agree that education shouldn't be as expensive as it is in the US, but their approach ignores the facts - if they don't pay, someone has to, and if corporations are willing then the activists should either front the fees themselves or stop complaining if they want to keep everything running as before.

Math time:  there are 20,000 students at the University of Marburg.  We'll assume that half of them can't afford 500 Euro per semester (just to be on the safe side here).  Each year, the 10,000 that could pay would contribute an astounding additional 10,000,000 Euro to the university - almost enough to wipe out this year's deficit in and of itself.   

The press release for this "Week of Action" (from the 20th of April to the 29th, so it's actually 9 days - somewhere between a week and a fortnight but I guess that that did not sound as catchy) provides an endless source of unintentional hilarity.  My favorite sentence:  "Activists gather on web chats to share ideas of ways to protest and to send letters of solidarity to one another.", which translates into normal English as: "We talk online a lot and congratulate each other for thinking pretty much alike."  I will of course update should this "week of action" manage to accomplish much, as well as about events or demonstrations that I stumble across.

Erica's roommate and her boyfriend invited us to an international wine fair (link in German only) in Frankfurt over the weekend, and since it sounded rather interesting (altough my wine knowledge is limited to words like "tannins" and "dry", free wine did not sound so bad) we joined them.  The entrance fee was a bit steep at 12 Euros, but once we got in we could see why.  For me, the setting was easily the best part about the fair - it was held in a former depot for the trams that ran through Frankfurt from around 1900 to 1920 which had been very well restored with lots of big windows, old wood, and victorian-style metalwork.  Getting back to the main topic, we quickly realized the "international" meant that Spain had sent a large contingent and France, Portugal, and Italy were kind enough to send a booth each.  German wineries predominated - especially regional ones, which I thought was kind of cool.  In addition to the wine, there were a few cheese and sausage vendors (fresh wild boar sausage with garlic was made infinitely better by the fact that it was also free) to round out the fair.

However, the wine fair itself was not quite what I had expected.  Our German invitees gave us the tip to "dress nicely" - the average age exceeding ours by about 20-30 years, dressing up (I was even in a sport jacket, albeit for a brief period) was the only to level the playing field.  Taking this tip to heart, we could now wander freely with our glass and sample what we liked.  Being a fair/market type event more than a simple tasting, the vendors were fairly generous with their portions, the assumption being that the more one drank, the more one would buy.  Offering discounts on orders of more than 18 bottles only seemed to improve their chances.  Some of our fellow attendees took full advantage of the liberal policy - the winner for best moment was a man in full-on biking regalia - helmet and sunglasses included - being led to the bathroom by his wife after a few too many.

In addition to the vendors, the organizing company (I'm lost as to who they might have been) put on "educational seminars" - it's a quote because those are actually the words that they used.  Exciting events that I missed included Red Wine and White Wine "duels" (Germany versus Spain), which I can only assume were just as thrilling as the FC Barcelona/Bayern München matchup earlier this year.  They went so far as to have different "teams" of wine (each country only got to bring along six players) and a "coach".  I will admit to attending one seminar about different grape varieties.  The words "tannin" "fruity" "mild" and "vanilla" were used at what seemed like random intervals, so I mostly smiled and nodded.  It should be noted that Germans do not really spit out the wine once they've tasted it, so a "seminar" like this with 6 vintages (I really have no clue if that's even the right word) can get dangerous (or hilarious, depending on how you look at it and the others around you) fairly quickly.  After the seminar we wisely decided that we had made the most of the afternoon and decided to stop while were still ahead (no-one wants to be the man in bike shorts after all) and headed back to Mainz in the surprisingly sunny weather.

So after 11 days in Scotland (with only 3 or 4 days of rain) I'm back safely in Marburg.  I planned the end of the trip slightly poorly, in that I came back during the first week of class, so I had to miss the first lecture for two of the courses (Dutch I and Chemical Transmission in the Nervous System) but I've spoken to the professors and it shouldn't be a big problem to catch up.  The trip itself was great - Edinburgh is an amazing city that was self-contained enough to explore pretty much on foot, and Inverness was one of the most comfortable cities I've been to.  The weather helped Inverness a lot, as did the river, loads of good eating options and pubs, and the small size.  The city is growing very quickly, so it has an almost frontier town feel to it - there's no other major city in the Highlands, and there are clearly one or two main streets where everything happens, surrounded by pleasant houses in the country.

My favorite part of the trip was the Isle of Mull, with it's beaches, cliffs, fishing villages, friendly people, and loads of sheep.  It was a nice change from Germany, where a walk through the woods means you'll run into about 30 other people.  Pictures from the whole trip can be found in the Scotland Gallery. 

Taking a break from Marburg was also nice, in that when I came back the trees were green again.  The weather has warmed up enough where I no longer need to constantly wear a coat (I thought the day would never come!) and it's light until about 9:30 at night now.  More good news:  waiting in my inbox was a note from a publisher saying that they "might be interested" in a translation I'm working on and that I should send in a formal proposal.  Good news, but I'll be busy on that for a while - so it looks like after a nice vacation I'll be hitting the ground at full speed - but I have a lot to look forward and lot of great opportunities ahead.

I'll be leaving for Scotland on Sunday and won't be back until Wednesday of the following week, so I thought that I'd offer a quick overview of my plans for the ten-day trip, as I don't plan to be blogging from Scotland (I'd rather spend my time seeing the country than a computer screen).  If I get the chance, I may do brief updates from Twitter (the sidebar just to the right) and post a picture or two.  When I get back, I'll have a lot to talk about (and lots of pictures, of course), hopefully making the wait for updates worthwhile.

We plan to start off in the capital city of Edinburgh, where we'll stay for three days.  While here we'll visit the Castle (after Marburg, no city is complete without a castle on a hill and Edinburgh is lucky enough to meet this requirement), the Royal Museum of Scotland, the Royal Mile, and otherwise just wander around the city.  We're not ruling out pub visits either...  Starting the trip off this way is going to spoil us a bit, as our next stop is the Isle of Mull.

The Isle of Mull is one of the larger islands in the Inner Hebrides, but doesn't mean it's a thriving urban center - the entire population is about 2,500.  I'm looking forward to this destination the most, as the island has ruined castles, pictish standing stones, whale watching, puffins, and the famed Iona Abbey.  We were also lucky enough to find a hotel in a nice old fishing village (by that I naturally mean former fishing village, current tourist center) and there are supposed to be lots of deserted beaches with white sand near the town.  Should I get to feeling daring I may try a (very) brief swim. 

After leaving the Isle of Mull we'll be keeping the rural vibe and heading to Drumnadrochit (no, I can't pronounce it either, and neither can the locals so they just call it "The Drum"), a farming village right on Loch Ness.  We've only got one day here, but that should be enough to at least capture the Loch Ness Monster, putting an end to the controversy once and for all.  From Drumnadrochit we'll head slightly north to Inverness, the largest city in the Highlands (not saying much, as it is about the size of Marburg).  Weirdly, it is Europe's fastest growing city.  Inverness should be a nice change from what we've seen so far, and the town is small enough that we might have a chance of seeing a fair chunk of it. 

Sadly, that's all that we'll have time for, but I think that the itinerary includes a nice mix of small-town, urban, and rural Scotland.  I'm looking forward to it very much (no big shocker there) and now I just have to find a way to make the weather cooperate...

Left foot hits the ground, and suddenly my guts twists - it feels like someone grabbed my esophagus with their right hand and my small intestine with their left and twisted them both in opposite directions.  My right foot hits the ground and I feel my brain telling my legs to start walking, but I manage to overcome this strange impulse and get the left foot down again.  I go through this cycle about 20 more times, even though it feels more like 200, reach the top of the "hill" (my new word for any ground that slopes even slightly upwards while I'm running) and the path levels off.  Suddenly, running is not so hard anymore, and I pull through the final two minutes and finish up for the day. 

Why am I doing this again?  Two reasons - a race, and for personal reasons.  Let's start with the more interesting reason: my girlfriend discovered a 100km (yes, that's 100, not ten) run/walk from Northern Bavaria through the German Spessart National Park to Frankfurt am Main.  The only catch is that the church sponsoring the run/walk gives you only 24 hours to complete it.  Being a competitive person, as soon as I heard about it I was determined to finish it - but after some quick math realized that I'd need to run at least a quarter of it to stand a realistic chance.  Not having run with anything approaching consistency since my sophomore year of high school, this requirement would take some doing - hence the new running schedule. 

The personal reason is much more prosaic.  I'm only 22 and noticed that I was starting to get a tad out of shape (slightly winded walking up multiple flights of stairs, walking up hills - and there are a lot of hills here in Marburg) and decided to nip this problem in the bud.  Lo and behold, it seemed to me that starting up a running program would kill these two birds with one stone, so it was off to the races (or in my case, walking trails through the woods). 

I started off fairly slowly - short warm-up, stretch, then run for five minutes, walk for five minutes, repeat four times, then finish up with a cool-down.  Over the past month I've managed to bring the walking intervals down to three minutes and increase 2 of the running segments to seven minutes - not breaking any records, but at least I'm improving.  Until I started this program, I never understood why people ran - it just seemed pointless to me - but now I get it.  While every run gets a little bit easier, I still hit a wall once a run, and getting past that wall takes some serious self-motivation.  It's this personal drive that running forces you to summon to make it 2 more minutes, up that hill, past your farthest distance, and once you've met your goals, you feel like you've actually accomplished something (until you collapse). 

While it doesn't look like I'll be able to run anything more than a small part of the 100k (at this point I'll be happy to just finish), I'm glad that I started running.  I feel better, it's good to accomplish something, and I'm getting in shape.  And that makes it all worthwhile, pain and all.