Otherwise, Budapest has been really great! Every day I see family and friends, get to drive around the city, go to run to the most beautiful spot I have known for running. I have gone twice now to Margaret Island, which is in the middle of the Danube right in the heart of the city. There is a rubber track around the island, which is a total of 5.3 km's. Today I convinced my Mom to come with me - she has been jogging a little bit recently, and I am so proud of her today for having completed a loop around the island!
I have been getting some training advice lately. The acupuncturist I was seeing up till the marathon had offered to help with my running - he said it was his hobby to coach runners and that he could get anyone under a 4 hour marathon in a few months, well, anyone who's not 400 pounds, he added later. So I took him up on his offer and we've been exchanging emails, me describing my workouts and him telling me what to do in the next week or so. Right now I have a 10K in mind in early April. I don't have any huge goals in terms of the time, I just want to have a good run and feel like I am getting back into a regular training mode and racing schedule. I am supposed to start running 4 times a week now and then get up to 5 times within the next couple of weeks. Next week it's going to be almost impossible, considering I am going to Barcelona with my parents, but I am now trying to prioritize these weekly 4 or 5 runs.
In other athletic related news, I had a fencing-filled few days. Over the weekend, there was a women's foil world cup in Budapest and I went to say hi and to cheer people on. Among many others, I got to see and talk to my old coach. Sadly, he has aged a lot in the past few years since I have seen him. He was very excited to see me, and for someone who isn't a typically warm person, he showed more emotion than I ever expected. A lot of the people I used to train with 10 or more years ago are also returning to fence for fun: one of them started competing very seriously again and even made the top 32 at this WC, which is very good at this level of fencing. 
My coach even managed to convince me to come by the club one day this week and fence. I talked to a few friends and we all decided to go last night. Absolutely nothing has changed about the club in the past 8 or so years: it's just as dirty and old and smelly. There are a lot of new faces and all the kids have grown up and I don't remember their names and they didn't remember me, but in the end, I got to fence my really close friend, with whom I fenced together for 10 years and were always pretty big rivals. She just recently started again, just like me, fencing once a week, and we had so much fun: I got a better ab workout from the laughing than the actual fencing :)
Time for another painkiller I am afraid. I have so many more stories and pictures, I hope I will have time to write some more again later. Until then, Viszlát!
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