Bahar gelsin; şehir büyük, geniş park olsun

Geçen hafta sonu kar fırtınası, bu hafta ilk bahar. Ve herkes dışarı çıkıp dolaştı. Hatta bazı insanlar açık hava gelince gene spora başlıyorlar. Koşucular sayısı hala az İstanbul’da, ama artıyor, ve bu hafta sonu Belgrad Ormanı’nda ve dönüşümüne devam eden Haliç’te halk harekete geçti.

Belgrad Ormanı’nda hem adımla hem bisikletle gittiler

Haliç ise herhangi bir tarz ile hareket ettiler. Yürüyenler ve koşanlar vardılar . . .

Bisiklet sürenler de vardılar

Belediyenin başarılı açık hava spor bahçelerinde yarar çekenler vardılar

Bile de kürek çekenler vardılar

Haliç’te önemli bir dönüşüm oluyor, ve belki Santralistanbul’dan Alibeyköy Barajı’nın yönüne devam edecek.

Pazar sabahı Beyoğlu'nda

Cihangir Kosu Grubu'nun Pazar koşu ise, saat 8.00de hiç kimse kalkıp gelecek kadar çılgın olmadığı için mahallede tek başıma dolaşıp fotoğraf çektim.

Sıraselviler’de taksiciler kayakçılara dönüşmüştüler.

Başka sokaklar sakindi.

Kasımpaşa Stadyumu’nda hiç kimse yürümekte değildi.

Galata yine de çok sakindi.

Kumbaracı Yokuşu’nda dünden kalmış iki delikanlı hala gecenin aşklarını belki arıyordular.

Adım Adım karlı ormanda yürüyüp koştuk

Cumartesi sabahı iki Cihangirliyiz, Adım Adım üyeleriyle (www.adimadim.org) buluştuk ve koşmadan önce çay içtik.

Belgrad Ormanı’na gelince toprağın karla beyazlaşmış olduğunu fark edip ormanın girişinin önünde park ettik ve oradan yavaş yavaş kar yağışı altında koşmaya başladık.

Rüzgarın çok sert olduğuna rağmen Adım Adımlıların çoğu Alp’le iki tur koştular. Başkalarımız tek tur yaptıktan sonra kahvede ısınmaya çalıştık.

Kasımpaşa Sabah Koşuları

Kasımpaşa Stadyumu’ndaki koşu bandı hafta içi sabahları 07.30 ile 9.00 arasında herkese açık.

İngiliz Konsolosluğu’nun karşısından stadyuma inerseniz, Kasımpaşa Otoparkı’nın açık hava sanat sergisini gezebilirsiniz.

Biraz sonra ilginç bir uyarıyla karşılaşırsınız.

Diyorki, “AKILLI OL!!! HAYALERİN BİTİĞİ YER BURASI!!! VE BİZ BURDAYIZ” ve “WELLCOME TO HELL!!! KASIMPAŞALILAR”

. . . Düşüne düşüne ileri gidersiniz ve stadyuma içeri girersiniz. . . . Kasımpaşa’daki yürüyenlerin çoğu kadınlardır. Maalesef tartan (bandın yüzü) iyi bir durumda değildir. Kasımpaşalı koşucular, dikkat edin!

Sehir ne kadar kalabalık olursa olsun, bu köşede yer var yürümek ve koşmak için. İyi günler, iyi haftalar. Kasımpaşa’da görüşmek üzere.

Expert Advice: Listen to Your Body

Following a recent Saturday morning run in the Belgrade Forest, members of Adim Adim met with trainer Ahmet Ozmine, who offered tips on how to train efficiently and avoid injury.

Soft Strength. It’s all about warming up, stretching, and maintaining strength and flexibility for joints, ligaments and tendons. Don’t let yourself get stiff – keep your muscles strong and supple. This lowers your risk of injury. Ahmet Hoca also spoke about the stride – it should be smooth, not hard, rolling, not sliding – minimize the sound that your feet make, as sound increases with a harder impact of the foot on the ground.

Watch your back. The back begins to shrink after age 35 (as the ligaments between vertebrae start deteriorating). As they age, runners can start to feel pain/soreness in their backs – especially after longer distances. Ahmet Hoca recommended that runners stretch – especially while lying on the back – to counter this natural process of deterioration.

Crunches! The abdomen is important for runners. It’s a tender, weak area. The pain in the side comes from a lack of oxygen getting to those organs. It happens commonly when runners don’t warm up properly.

Listen to your body. As for warming up, Ahmet emphasized light stretching and warming up at least 12 minutes of easy running, jogging in place, jumping jacks, whatever – to get the muscles relaxed, to raise the pulse, and to get the body accustomed to taking in more oxygen. (Some experts also recommend some light stretching after the 12-minute warm-up. Remember: never stretch when your muscles are cold; this can cause injury.)

Before running at the maximum level of exertion, let your body tell you when it’s ready. That is, when you feel the body relax, when you feel the running become easy, that’s when you’re ready for the most vigorous part of the work-out.

Run hard, walk hard. Ahmet also noted that it’s important to push yourself, to get the most out of your work-out. It should make you tired. This is true for a runner or walker at any level: make sure you push your fast walk enough to keep your heart-rate elevated (within the appropriate range for your age group) and to work the muscles.

Why Not Meet at Noon?!

On Sunday we had a very wet, pleasant run in the Belgrade Forest. We even saw one man running with an umbrella! But we were only five. Someone suggested if we changed our time from 8:00 to 12:00, more people would participate. What do you think?

On Saturday we ran with Adim Adim, which has 50 people running various events in Antalya on 2 March. Alp set a grueling pace for us, and we now wonder what surprises he has in store. After 12 km, we went to Yenikoy for breakfast.

Speaking of the Antalya Marathon, the online registration and reservation are very easy, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the event comes off. So far, it appears well organized.

We also met early for a couple of mid-week runs – one along the Bosphorus from Kuruçeşme to Rumeli Hisar and another from Taksim to the Veli Efendi Race Track in Zeytinburnu. Parts of this second run were quite pleasant, especially along the sea in front of Cerrahpaşa. An area ripe for redevelopment? The race track is hidden from view by a high concrete wall, and the final leg back to the Zeytinburnu Metro station was terribly ugly.

Might the city upgrade the sidewalks in this part of town? Spacious, tree-lined pedestrian paths would undoubtedly encourage people of all ages to get out of the house, elevate the heart rate and take a new look at their surroundings. It only takes a plan and some persistence, right?

Ok, here’s an idea: pedestrian and bike paths linking Gaziosmanpaşa and the Alibeyköy Reservoir with Kağıthane and Eyüp, and, eventually, linking Zeytinburnu with Şişli, Mecidiyeköy, Levent and Beşiktaş. If Paris can do it, why not Istanbul? Is the city already planning something like this?

Running Belgrade Forest this Sunday, 10 February

Please join us this Sunday, 8:00am, in front of the Dia on Siraselviler. Necdet has hired a bus to take us to the Belgrade Forest. See you then!

Last Saturday, a couple of us joined Adim Adim at the Belgrade Forest (http://www.adimadim.org). We ran for a while with Cem Uçan, who has published two collections of short stories: Bambaşka hayatlar and Boşluğun izinde (www.cemucan.com)

On Sunday, five of us returned to the Belgrade Forest. Seeing the forest for the first time, our newest member was surprised to see so many people running and walking. Can critical mass for Istanbul’s running community be far away?

At the end of Sunday’s run, we also saw Roger Bejjani and Pia Nehme. Pia is one of the top female long-distance runners in Lebanon, and Roger founded the Inter-Lebanon Road Runners Association.

We also saw Zeki and Selçuk of Adim Adim, who told us the group runs on Sunday as well as Saturday mornings. They invited us to hitch a ride from 4. Levent anytime.

At least three of us have committed to run either the 10-k or the half-marathon with Adim Adim on 2 March. There’s still time to train, but the deadline for online registration is this Friday, 8 February (http://www.oger-maraton.com).

Back in Cihangir we had breakfast with Nassim at Van Khavalti Evi. Her novel, Aria, was published recently – http://nassimassefi.com. Nassim helped organize Afghanistan’s first 10-k road race, held in 2004.