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.
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