So I decided on Saturday that I would run the Winter Cup race in Pohorje for the second week in a row. I was still a little sore from the last one, but figured that it was just going out in a multiday race. Anyway I stayed at my friend's, who just happens to be the race organizer, on Saturday night. As we left for the race there was a light snow falling, he showed me on his computer that there was snow on the race course. The temperature was also below freezing. There was a big starting field of 173 runners and walkers. Once I got going I did not feel so bad and quickly warmed up. I had changed my shoes from last week to ones with better grip, but once I got onto the steep snow covered slopes I began slipping a lot. In general I felt better when I finished, with a slower time than last week and I have to say that my recovery has been much better.

So at this weeks 2 mile race we had 7 participants. It was once again 2 C though not misty this week, just a little overcast. The Sun did make a brief appearance near the end. I will be out of town for the next 4 weeks and will try to have someone else organize the race while I am away. I am hoping that the field will grow.
Last Sunday I was in Maribor for the second race in this years Winter Cup on Pohorje, it is a 3.8km race up the Pohorje mountain. This is the 3rd year and the field has been steadily growing. There were 155 runners and walkers. The course is a little different each week combining trails and ski slopes. I was a little faster than when I raced in January, but then you cannot compare. I was really tired and quite sore afterwards.

A friend of mine knows the Slovenian composer Alojz Ajdic and got me a free ticket to go see a performance of his work by the Slovenian Philharmonic. It was last night and although it was raining pretty hard I walked the 35 minutes to the concert hall in the city. It has been a long time since I went to a classical concert and it was truly wonderful. 2 pieces were played, a concerto for Piano and Orchestra and his 2nd Symphony. The composer, who is 70 was there and was able to take several bows from a moderately sized audience. I very much enjoyed the evening.

It's been 100 days since I last missed a day of running and since I ran this morning it is now 101. Over the years I have had a few running streaks, the longest being just over 4 1/2 years. I never plan them they just happen and on they go.

As I walked around the city yesterday I noticed a few things; the trees are almost completely bare of leaves. I can remember that at Thanksgiving in New York the last few years there have still been many leaves on trees. I also observe that there seem to be more and more people sitting at the outside cafe's, I don't know but this seems to say to me that people are a bit more comfortable with their finances these days. Maybe it's just me.

Today is November 24 and it would have been my Mother's 81st Birthday. I was thinking of her and wanted to mention it.

Well it ended up being a tiring weekend, I went up to Maribor and on Saturday night went with some friends to Graz. It was almost 2 am when we got home. The next day we went to a place called Cankova which is near the Austrian border and not far from Hungary. There is a small bridge about 5km away that crosses a small stream and it was named a peace bridge a few years ago. There was a nice local ceremony to celebrate the anniversary. I ran with some WHR team members and some local runners to the bridge where we met with another group of WHR runners from Austria and we had a nice ceremony with 2 neighbouring mayors.

When the European Union passed a law banning smoking in Restaurants and such it really hit the coffee shops in Slovenia. The solution was to set up some tables and chairs outside for those who wanted to smoke. Of course this posed a problem when the weather turns cold. So now the coffee shops have propane gas heaters and also provide blankets for the patrons who want to smoke. It seems to work and of course it spawned a whole new business with companies providing the street lamp like heaters.