Who am I?

That's not easy to describe...

Firstly, a short form of description: "A wild horse galloping over ancient meadows." That is what I am feeling, when running.

On 13th January 1999 at 17:00, I suddenly decided to quit smoking. This poisonous journey over long years creeping behind me came to an end. Still keep the last pack of empty cigarettes. In fact there were some 10 pieces of cigarettes left in it, but they served as emergency cigarettes for my still smoke addicted friends. The result of this tough decision was gaining 7 kg’s within one week, and boosted aggressiveness. The cure: exercise.

In Istanbul, we have a lovely running path of approx. 6 km’s with its uphills and downhills, within the Belgrade Forest in the outskirt of our huge city. My house at Bosporus being just 15 minutes away from there, I decided to visit it weekends before my breakfast. My first experience was not so horrible, as I can still remember, I finished my first lap in this running route in around 33-34 minutes. Now I calculate, at a pace of 05:30 min/km not bad for a beginner. Oh, but the pain at my unused shin muscles was terrible, the next day.

But the feeling of "feeling fit" made me visit this lovely forest, on both Saturday and Sunday even on rainy, stormy and snowy weathers. And after a while I decided to take 2 laps. The first attempts ended up with 01:15. Tough 12 km’s at a pace of 06:15. Not bad dude not bad.

And slowly the weather got warmer, even in the early hours of beautiful spring sunday mornings, the forest was full of picnickers. Running among this crowd made me nervous: too many people walking on the oath, small children chasing after balls… So I decided to find an alternative running route for me. Best candidate was the coast road along the Bosporus. My house lie at the hills of Istinye, and I ran the way down to the coast, and then to Arnavutköy, and up to Ortaköy with increasing mileage as time passed. The times I don’t remember exactly, but I enjoyed running early in the morning at sea side in summer breeze. The duration was up to 1.5 hours and almost 2 hour, as far as I remember. Those days I couldn’t only imagine and wish of course the idea of measuring distances, and I was sweating like the hell in cotton t-shirts. Oh my God. Thanks now existing dry fit clothes.

This was how I began running. Later I will continue with following years, and of my high school years my dreams of becoming a 100 meter sprinter and long jumper.