Not since “The Golden Girls” has there been this much talk about cheesecake

The stakes are up. I ran, and completed, my first 14k, and I did it in a time that was respectable to me. Plus, I finished on a good note – easily, I could have kept going. That’s fortunate, because in a couple of weeks I am on the hook for a 15k.

The race this time around was in the south of Turkey in a little city called Dalyan. It’s where baby turtles hatch and head to the Mediterranean Sea, so the race is called “The Turtle Race,” but in Turkish – Carretta.

It’s not carretta season, so we didn’t see any of them, but I did see the in-the-mountain tombs, which date back to the second century B.C. I swear, I will never get over that kind of thing. I’m utterly amazed at Turkey’s history and am so blessed to have the opportunity to drift by it on a boat, a stroll or a run. It’s everywhere here.

The city itself wasn’t much; basically it was the equivalent of a beach town or a little ski village – lots of cafes, restaurants and souvenir places. Perfect for strolling around, and we did a lot of that.

The run, the turtles, the beach, the in-the-mountain tombs, all that history, though, was second to the most important discovery of the trip: the cheesecake.

Backing up, I went with a colleague from work, M, and three of her longtime friends and travel buddies. M had d been traveling with her oldest friend in the group for about 20 years, and they’d met on a ski trip or something. The second came in a bit later, a friend from M’s church, and first ran with M and then they expanded that to traveling. The third came along a little later but basically they’d all been together for a long time and had a lot of fun together. They go on several annual trips, like some ski thing in February.

While I have zero plans to hone in on that, I had so much fun. I roomed with M and the oldest friend, F and the other two, who were a little younger, had another room. One of those two – T – oh my God, she was funny. While they all spoke at least some English, the longtime friends conversed more easily in Turkish, of course, so a lot of the time I was trying to follow conversations when I only caught a word now and then.

The one word I picked up on? Cheesecake.

T, especially, would talk really, really fast, and the tone was always upbeat. Without knowing the whole topic, I could tell that she was amazingly funny, but it was really hysterical to hear what sounded to me like, “Blah blah blah blah blah cheesecake blah blah cheesecake blah blah blah blah blah cheesecake.”

Wherever we were, the topic came back to cheesecake. And so did we – three or four times (depending on if you count the visits to the café or the pieces of cheesecake itself.)

One of the cafes, a little coffee and dessert place, served homemade cheesecake. My traveling quartet had made the same trip last year and discovered this place, but when they visited there were only two pieces remaining and they had to split them.

This trip, T called ahead and made sure they had five pieces for us, and, no kidding, we opted for that over dinner. The next day, after breakfast at the hotel, it was the first stop. I have to say, it was also darn good cheesecake, made by the owner himself.

While we were eating the cheesecake and drinking cappuccino (or, in my case, hot chocolate), I asked if they’d ever heard of “The Golden Girls.” Both M and F are about my age, so I knew they were in the target demographic when the show came out, but I had no idea if its popularity made it to Turkey.

It had. Not only had the two older ones heard of it, but the younger ones also knew of Dorothy, Ma, Rose and Blanche and remembered them sitting around the dining room table (the one that sat four, but for whatever reason [of course the camera] they never had a chair at one side of it and the fourth person always sat at a stool or the island or something.

The Golden Girls’ go-to food was cheesecake, and so was ours. We had a good laugh over it.

Honestly, with all we ate, both there and everywhere else, I’m surprised I was able to run. Plus, the race was on a Saturday afternoon, which seemed really weird since all the 10ks I’ve done so far have been in the morning. We did not eat cheesecake the morning of the race (I had fusilli broccoli) but as soon as we showered after, we made a beeline for the place.

Not a bad post-game routine, I have to say. It really was a fabulous.

Running Away

Yeah, it’s been awhile. It’s either feast or famine on the weekends.

Today, I took a group to the Hakart copper and brass place. This falls to me because the sort of “social coordinator” position is frozen right now and I’m on the board of the closest thing there is to a substitute and because, well, everything falls to me.

The trip is easy enough, and I hadn’t been before, so I didn’t mind. We took a van and a small group and everyone came away with stuff. I bought a little bell and a two-egg frying pan, plus a fat candle in a little copper tub.

We finished a bit ahead of schedule so we asked our driver to find a place to eat. He kept asking what kind of food we wanted and it was like, whatever is fine. I mean, we’re in Turkey. It’s going to be fantastic! So we went into a kebab place and oh, the chicken kebab I had was wonderful, but all the other stuff they brought out before was fantastic, too.

We’d all had about the same thing, and we decided to split the bill evenly and cover our driver’s cut. The waitstaff handed it to me and I DREAD doing math on the spot, but it was the absolutely easiest group bill ever. (Which is the only reason it’s notable enough to mention some eight hours later. Bear with me.)

Tab: 446TL. People dividing tab: 10. Appropriate tip: 10 percent-ish. People dividing tab: all bearing cash because the copper place didn’t take credit cards. I asked for 50 each and, within less than 48 seconds, had 10 crisp 50TL bills. Not one person gave me two 20s and a 10, and neither of the two couples handed me a 100. So easy it was comical.

Success! Tomorrow is a rug-shopping party (like I need one) and the remote possibility of a towel run. I finally bought some Turkish towels and have decided I want all the Turkish towels ever created, especially the ones from Jennifer’s Haman. They are awesome. I bought two small towels for the gym and to dry hair and then thought, geez, these things are too nice to take to the gym. Then, due to some bad laundry timing, I had to use one in the gym and now I’m never using anything else. The thing is fabulous. I want to get the same towels in slightly larger sizes now. And a robe. And whatever else they have. The stuff is just so awesome.

Last weekend, I took a road trip to Kars, which is close to the Armenian border, to see the ruins of the city of Ani. Here’s an Atlantic article on the city, with much better photos than I took: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/01/the-ancient-ghost-city-of-ani/100668/.

I took the cheap way to the ruins, which was the city bus. A guy sat down next to me, and we chatted a bit. He was traveling with two female friends. He worked with one (he had a Ph.D in ceramic and taught at a university, and she taught at a college, which, I think, means middle school in Turkey). The college teacher and the other woman were old friends. Anyway, once at the ruins, they invited me to wander with them, so the four of us took off in the other direction as the rest of the people on the bus (about 25 total), so we were alone in our excursions.

The place is utterly fabulous. Each time I walked into one of the structures, all I could think was how amazing it was. The frescoes were just phenomenal, and very creepy because in the defecation of them, people had scratched out the eyes of the saints and such and some of them were just so ghost-like.

Back in Kars, I went up to the fortress on the hill and also the museum. Since I’m currently not allowed to visit museums in Istanbul, it was really awesome to visit, and to use the museum card I bought last year. You pay a flat rate and get free admission to all museums for a year. I bought it on Thanksgiving, having no clue that in a couple of months they’d be off limits. So now, even if I don’t get to another by November, I at least made it worth my while. (And man, it was worth it.)

In all my running around lately, I haven’t had time to note my actual running around, which was the Puma Ignite 10k a couple of weeks ago. It was the Sunday after a rainy, rainy week, and the forecast was pretty bleak for the day. It wasn’t awful, but it did rain and was a bit cold at the end.

I went with a group of eight colleagues, most of whom were on one of the guard teams and were therefore really in shape. I knew going in I’d be the slowest one in our group but I was fine with that and so were they. The course was 10k, and it was one of those that was 5k one way and then just turn around and come back, and as I was in sight of the 3k mark, the first guy was on his way back. It was like, please enjoy some coffee and tea, because I will be awhile.

The race atmosphere itself was really amazing.  There were more people than I thought there’d be for a rainy, little-known race, and the sponsors were out strong. Fiat and Phillips were both there and had these freebie wrist sweat band things that were awesome, especially considering what I usually do is a fairly redneck method of triple-looping a bandana around my wrist. There were several flavored water drinks (fizzy and flat) and both coffee and tea places. Oh, and a running/health team place had stickers that said “Slow and Sexy” and “Fast as F*ck” (with an “*”).

I am not “fast as” anything whatsoever, and was not optimistic about my time. I have not exactly been crushing it in my daily runs on the treadmill; I just don’t get into it at all. Every day I hope that this is the day I start to love running, but so far, no dice. I stopped trying to go fast and am trying to just pace myself.

This time, I ran almost the first 3k, then did the run/walk thing. After about a three-minute span of feeling sick (this came after a pint of water), I realized that I was fairly comfortable, if bored. I swear, running, no matter what I listen to, is just boring. I tried to put together a decent playlist that would motivate me, but it’s just so boring. I kept chanting, “I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me” and fully hoped running counted as strengthening. I’m slow and always will be, but I was hoping for around 1:15 or so.  My best time, if you can call it that for how slow I am, was 1:09:something.

Finally, I saw the end and whatever song that was on, clearly not motivating enough, ended and I figured I’d get something really upbeat on and push me to the end. And it was … “Amazing Grace.” Alan Jackson. At first, I thought, no way, this is just too slow and then I figured why not? Just be thankful, run steady, and finish the race. And I did, not out of breath or anything.

There was no clock or anything that I saw, so I did the circle thing around the sponsor booths, collecting chocolate milk, water, the fizzy fruit thing and (of course) tea. Only then did I remember to check the time, and it was around 10:15. It had started at 9, so I thought I might have cracked the 1:15 time but didn’t think I had bested 1:10. The 1:09 thing came when I was “training” (I use these terms loosely) at a much faster pace. I’ve slacked off and just try to keep steady.

Anyway, when they posted the official times, I was 1:08:55! Yay, best ever! Amazing Grace, amazing finish.