This time next year - November 7

This week Winnipeg set a new record for the warmest temperature reached on November 3rd, breaking the old record set in 1905. On Monday the temperature went up to 19° Celsius; when I got up this morning the view from my back door looked like this:


So since winter has arrived as decisively as Barack Obama, I think today is a good day to introduce a little (hopefully) recurring feature I've been thinking about called "This time next year..." (posts like this will be labeled TTNY in the tag cloud). It's something I've been using to keep myself a bit more motivated. I've got a widget on my iGoogle homepage that shows me the weather in Winnipeg and whatever other location(s) I choose, so I've been viewing the place where I think I'll be in one year's time. Of course the schedule is all just theory at this point, but I still think this is pretty good motivation:


Today's "This time next year" location is Athens, Greece. Exciting! I imagine Greece will feature boatloads of history, crystal blue Aegean seas, and enough olives, feta cheese, lamb and ouzo to sink the Argo. (How appropriate that I'm currently working on a production of "Medea".) Greece would also be an excellent place for friends to meet up with me for a little R&R on the beaches of a Greek Island. I'm serious - think about it! I plan to be in Greece around November 3 - 17, 2009.

Even more exciting is that this time next year I hope to be running the Athens Marathon (I think it will be on Sunday, November 8th, 2009). This is THE marathon... the one that actually starts in the city of Marathon and runs to Athens, theoretically following the route that Pheidippides took to announce the Greek victory over Persia in the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. (The fact that the legend says he dropped dead after making his announcement is something marathoners like to gloss over).

The modern Athens Marathon actually finishes in the Panathinaiko Stadium, which was built in 566 BC and has been renovated many times since then, most recently for the 2004 Olympic Games when it hosted the finish of the Olympic Marathon. How cool is that? Participants in the Athens Marathon run the last 170 metres of the course in a stadium built out of white marble that's 2,574 years old.


And that thought, my friends, is enough to get me through a snowy Friday afternoon in November, in Winnipeg.