The Exploits of a TurboGeek!

Hey!

Its me!  I’m alive!  The Polar Night Half Marathon, which I ran half of (10km) was awesome!  Norway is incredibly beautiful, and for the first time ever, I was within the Arctic Circle.  The sun did not rise while I was there, and there were only about 4 hours of daylight at all. 2 Hours of almost sunrise, and 2 hours of sunset, it was beautiful.  The race was an absolute blast.  I hope that I shall never forget the feeling of running along the coast of the North Sea, listening to the crash of waves beside me, while Aurora Borealis plays a green ribbon across the sky in front of me.  It was nothing short of mystical.

This first picture is from the night before the race, around 10 or 11 PM.  Steve, my good friend who had told me about the race, and I had hiked for about an hour trying to find some place dark enough to make out the Northern Lights.  Every street in this town was lined with lights, as was the fire-road we eventually found.  Finally, we found a copse of trees and a hillside tho shield us from the streetlights, after chasing the green glow ever north.

During the race, I was treated to an even brighter display than what you are seeing in the above photo.  It was phenomenal, literally.  After the race, and dinner, Steve and I went out to celebrate his birthday, and our successful run.  Steve ran the 20km in 2 hours, and I did my first 10km race in 70 minutes.  I was impressed.  Wandering back to the hotel, I looked up and saw this…

Note: That is my ghostly head in the bottom of the frame, both of these pictures were taken with a three second exposure.  The building at the base of the photo is of course lit by streetlights.  This was so profound in that it was considerably brighter than the lights we had to hike miles out of town to find sufficient darkness to see in.  I love the squiggle wave in the middle of it!

I can’t wait to go back next year!