While Obama entertained a crowd of about 200,000, I supported my own hero of the hour in a mini-crowd of 31,000. Alex participated in the Maxi-Firmenlauf held at the Olympiapark and I figured he could use a little fan club action.

I once upon a time used to be a road race junky but I lost the fever for it. Seeing all these people in their running gear brought back a lot of memories. But I never participated in anything this big.

The race began at 7:30pm on a balmy evening. This was to be Alex’s first road race and he did pretty well, running the 6.75 km in a time of 31.15. Next time, he said, he’d move closer to the front to avoid the nordic walkers.

Some people however didn’t take the race all too seriously and wore costumes. The Bosch group dawned blue wigs and pushed along some serious stereo equipment.

In Bavaria, Beer is our Gatorade. There was lots of flowing, free Erdinger non-alcoholic wheat beer. Not my favorite non-alcoholic beer, my preference is Paulaner if I’m forgoing a beer buzz.

I stood along the course to see if I could sneak a picture of Alex but he ended up skirting past me, obviously faster than the rest of crowd. So I climbed the stands and hoped our plan of reunification would work.

I got a little worried because there were 100s of people crossing the finish line every 1 minute. I began to fill with doubt that I’d see him among the masses. But then I saw him. It’s weird how you can identify the ones you love from a bazillion miles. Our plan though failed. Alex, without his glasses, couldn’t see squat. And his co-worker motioned that they’d be heading away from me (to get the free beer!)

Lucky us, we had a backup plan: meet at the storage house in front of the U-bahn stop. As I waited in the ever growing darkness, I saw Alex jog up to me with a beer in hand and two cups. He drank his already. This one was for me.

It was exciting catching up on the event and comparing our perspectives. He loved the run, but loved it better because I tagged along. It’s also nice to be on the spectator side of the track.