Touch base

It was a fairly hectic day yesterday, but first back to the long walk.

I thought I was one of the last to leave the office, running out at 5:45 which is when we were meant to be registering at the tent. The park was just down the road, but it was absolutely immense and it took me a while to find any tents, let alone the Nintendo one. When I finally found it, and the other UK translators doing the run, I was still in plenty of time - someone had obviously added a cat-herding margin to the arrival times.

A pleasant surprise was that the company t-shirts were actually quite nice - normally they're things you'd be embarrassed to wear after the event unless decorating, but I'll definitely wear mine in public. We also had inflatable batons to make noise with, and there was a lot of it as we headed off en masse after a group photo (there's no way they got everyone in without a panoramic lens). We filed out of the park, joking about how we were all wearing 'Wii Fit' t-shirts but were being passed out by pretty much everyone else, including some very fit-looking people from Panasonic.

It was a fair walk before we even got to the start area, and it was jam packed. There was some idea of organising yourself by your projected race time, but no-one seemed to be paying it any attention (which came back to bite us later). We stood around commenting on other people's t-shirts (one had 'we love this meeting!') and groaning at the choice of music (themes from Rocky and Chariots of Fire). After several '5-4-3-2-1!' announcements, we finally started to move forward, although it was another few minutes before we got to the start gate. But the crowd was very good-natured, and kept doing Mexican waves while standing around.

G and I walked the whole thing, but didn't do too badly at 50 minutes for 3.5 miles. The worst part was being pushed past by people running, as no-one had lined up by race time (it was simply too crowded to do anything like that) and although they were letting people out in batches the road (2-3 lanes) was still too narrow to allow everyone to be where they wanted. We ended up hugging the side of the barriers, but people still tried to undertake us. After a while the runners from both start gates joined up as we got to use both sides of a 4-lane dual carriageway, which made things much easier.

There were loads of cheering fans standing outside offices, and samba dancers for some reason. Other Nintendo people stopped to talk to us as they passed (which they generally did) and before too long we were passing the 5km markers and trying to figure out what 3.5 miles was in km. The end gate was a fairly subdued affair, with people raising their arms to run through in front of some cameras. From there we carried on walking until we were back in the park - we never did find the places to pick up our post-race JP Morgan t-shirts but we weren't that bothered. Cold drinks were foremost in our minds, and with those supplied we headed back to the company tent. The sight of the queue for the BBQ - and the amount of fat some of the stuff was frying in - put myself and G off and we had some biscuits instead.

I ended up sitting next to the producer from my previous project, a gregarious Frenchman with a love of any chocolate over 60% cocoa (and a corresponding hatred and scorn of anything less). Various areas had begun to hurt, mainly my calves and front of my thighs, followed by the backs of my hips (I did the whole thing in my MBTs, as they're simply the most comfortable walking shoes ever, so long as it's on a flat surface). My neck started hurting as well and I tried stretching it out, which he noticed and pushed his thumbs into the top of my shoulders, and agreed that I was indeed very stiff.

Then he took my hand and started pressing his thumb into various parts of it, which was fine until he reached the area above my thumb on the side of the hand - then it hurt like hell. "Are you sleeping well? You're not sleeping well, and you're depleted." I was frankly amazed - I haven't been sleeping well in Frankfurt, and gave up eating properly in the heat as I had no appetite. Turns out he has been informally studying shiatsu for years, and loved to use it to ease his wife's aches and pains when she was pregnant.

If any guys are reading this, this is a skill that will help you pull. He gives the best backrub, if G and P's reactions were anything to go by (actually, if we'd video-taped P and you didn't know what was happening...). I, unfortunately, was judged too tense for him to be able to do anything there and then, but I was still most impressed. Quite interested in it now.

Thursday was spent crunching through possible localisation issues in files at work - it's always fascinating to talk about it with someone else and see how differently people can think. Now we just need to close down as many as we can and leave as few changes to implement as possible. After that I concentrated on checking my translation, which I also spent most of the night doing. It started raining about 4pm, and I was only in a t-shirt as it's been way too hot for weeks. Bought a brolly in the supermarket.

I've bought some music online in anticipation of getting my shiny new player from David tonight, and am having a lot of enjoyment listening to Sunglasses at Night (Sean Finn and Gino Montesano, Moog Radio Mix) and Dangerous Power (Gabriel Dresden feat. Sean Burton, Gabriel Dresden Extended Mix).

But now it's time to pack the laptop, get a fleece and get to work! Paris and Fontainebleau await!