Did I miss something Mr Boston?

Today was a very good day for running, at 6:30am and after 2 cups of coffee I started my warmup which I timed to make sure I am actually stretching and taking a full 10 minutes to do so. 10:25:15. Then I started my run off with a pump up song (the new Lady GaGa and Beyonce Telephone song...get it.) I did my usual route because I love running by the sea, it has wide paved side walks (mostly, sometimes it changes to cobblestone and then I move to the road.) It also means less chance of being hit by a car or motorbike. I went a whole 11.4 miles today 9.8km there and back took me 1:51:24 so just add about 20 more minutes to that and its my estimated half marathon time.

With todays run I decided to play a new game, thanks to the technology of my blackberry I can take photos while running and they come out clear rather then blurry. So I pulled it out every so often and took pictures of what I was seeing. Now usually I am the only person running but for some reason there were like a dozen other people including Mr Boston... Which is the guy in the photo above... if you can see him. I call him Mr Boston cause he was wearing a Boston University sweater... and he lapped me! He was running really fast so my first game was to see how long I could follow him (about 8 minutes) then it was bye bye Mr. Boston. He actually just disappeared so I like to think he fell in a manhole and therefore I got a head of him and won the race. When in reality he probably turned down a different street. But there were seriously a dozen other runners all spaced out, some club must have had a practice or something for the upcoming Istanbul Marathon (April 25th). My next picture was right about the time I lost Mr. Boston.... Its a Mosque and one of the older ones. I didnt get the name but if you look in the background you see the begining to my next picture. The Rumelihisari castle build in 1453 ish. I have ran by this castle before but have yet to grab a picture of it. Its important cause it marks the fall of the byzantine empire. Here are the rest of the pictures in the order they appeared to me in my run.

This next one is the Bosphorus Bridge right before I round the bend to the main road.

Next is a beautiful picture of the Asian side as the Sun comes through the clouds.

Then this one is actually from a few days ago... a stray dog followed me for, I am not kidding like 5km until I noticed he didn't have a tag on his ear indicating he was neutered and had his shots so I shooed him away.

Ok back to today's run, this one is of some flowers along the seaside followed by the final one which is so funny cause I had to take a second glance and actually backtracked to take the photo.

Ok you decide.. typo or this person lived a really really long time....

So there you have it, my fun 11 something miles and the game I played to get me through it.