Istanbul 5 Day, day four for Pete, who had recovered somewhat from Mustapha’s revenge, and went out to compete in the sprint event at the Technical University Campus.

Recoverd somewhat

Another interesting drive out on the coach.  Now these are not you small tourist buses but your big long haul rigs. Mercedes 6 wheelers, 48 seaters, how they get them down some of these streets is a miracle.

Its a matter of inches

Yesterday whilst sitting in a café a few doors from our apartment, a big Renault delivery truck arrived and could not make the right hand turn, his first attempt took out the side mirrors on a parked BMW.  The answer was classically Turkish, drive on a few metres  and then reverse round the corner, this gives you a wider turning arc.  You then block the entire road whilst you unload and the traffic toots away until it gets fed up and then everybody has a laugh and gets out and helps the driver unload, it is after all a classic Turkish solution.

Every day this week the drive to the event has not gone smoothly.

Day one, the driver found a freeway exit blocked for road works had to drive on and got lost. Enter 48 Orienteers with maps and smart phones and 48 different languages, none of them Turkish.

Day two you have already read about the driver who wanted to abandon us 5kms from home.

Day 3 the driver had to enter into state park through a toll booth, which only allowed a few seconds  before  the boom gate came down.

Day four involved interesting delivery drivers.

Day 5 was no different, on arrival at the campus, the exit off the freeway was blocked for road works, our drivers interesting solution was to dive on to the next entry and reverse back up it about 600mtrs and then reverse around the roundabout to arrive backwards at the gate where a bored looking policeman waved us in.

The event went well for all of us, I ran well for the first 3.8kms and then the jelly legs hit as a result of yesterdays affliction and I faded from about 10^th to 16^th or so, it was classic campus sprint stuff, bread and butter for Street O Legends. Control descriptions involved the usual things, building corners, head of stairs, fighter aircraft, that sort of stuff.

Contro 16. Man made object

Back on the bus and the final interesting drive back, slight detour via a side street, blocked with cars.  I think it’s in their award. Dropped us off in the narrowest side street in the old town and then laid down for a well earned rest.

Bus driver having a rest.

Now my mate Rick is a professional driver, ex-army, now driving for the Victorian Police and as tough as they come but even he would do it tough in Istanbul.

Off to Venice.

Peter.