La Champenoise de la Marne 2014

Qn: What’s better than running a road race?

A: A road race through the Champagne region.

Qn: And what’s better than running a race through the Champagne region?

A #1: When you find a victim who’s willing to do it with you (it was to be Biscuit’s first race, and his longest run was only 12km, so he was very brave).

A #2: When there are prisoners and chickens…

Romans…

not one but 4 Elvis Presleys…

the Knights of the Round Table…

men in uniform…

Moses!

Monsieur Le President…

giant soccer balls…

and best of the lot: TETRIS running the race with you.

The race started off only after TWO HOURS of serious partying. You know it’s a good party when there is a conga line.

Dutch courage: the boys started drinking BEFORE the race.

We finally started the race, which of course, began UPHILL to sober up all the racers (the organisers have a cruel sense of humour). The rest of the race course was not much better, with a series of undulating steep hills and roads with sharp curves at the villages.

The toughest part of the run was NOT the pre-race champagne getting to one’s head. It was in fact, the unusually sunny and hot day after 2 weeks of rain and high winds, leaving all runners maladapted to race day conditions. Villagers were on standby with hoses and sprinklers to spray the runners as they passed by. Despite the generous amount of sunscreen we all used, we were burnt nonetheless. Yellow Jersey was banditing the race, with the excuse that he was giving moral support to Biscuit and the Ninja Turtle.

The Ninja Turtle was pleasantly surprised when the race turned out to be only 18K, not the semi-marathon she imagined it to be. It made no difference, there was no official time chips and people were cheating on rollerblades, bicycles and taking shortcuts, and it was definitely NOT a course on which to score a PR. The finish line champagne was very much welcomed by a thirsty Turtle.

After meeting up with GodzillaPin and Yellow Jersey, we went to the finish line to wait for Biscuit, who finished with a giant smile for the camera.

GodzillaPin, the Ninja Turtle, Biscuit and Yellow Jersey celebrating the finish of Race #2 of the season.

Qn: What’s better than finishing an untimed race through the hilly Champagne region in which the race course was 3km shorter than you originally imagined?

A: Winning a bottle of champagne in the lucky draw. Thank you, person-who-drew-the-ballot; the Ninja Turtle has never won anything by luck in her life, and a bottle of champagne is a GREAT way to start a winning streak. Henceforth, the Ninja Turtle’s official favourite bib number is 1067.

P.S (For all the curious number-fixated runners, RunKeeper recorded 1h 46m 25s for the Ninja Turtle’s effort. It was 30°C or 86°F according to GodzillaPin’s car when under the sun, and the total elevation was 348m or 1141.7 feet.)

An Insider’s Look at Pipe Organs

Ever wondered where the phrase “pulling out all the stops” came from?

These levers are called stops, so called because they stop the air from passing through to create sound. Welcome to the wonderfully complex world of pipe organs.

The Ninja Turtle and GodzillaPin had the pleasure this Sunday to spend some time with a few of GP’s cousins. One of his cousins happens to be a musician – an organist to be specific. After a Mexican-themed lunch featuring not enough guacamole and just a little too much tequila, Rock ‘n’ Roll Rabbit thought it would be a fantastic idea to pop down to the church and show us some tricks of the trade. On a good day, Ninja Turtle and GodzillaPin wouldn’t resist. On a tequila-fuelled day, they naturally insisted they get a turn to play the instrument too.

So, down to the church they went. It was the Notre Dame of Juvigny, situated in the Champagne region. The church was old; built some time in the 12th century, it has been continuously restored. What it harbored inside however, was even more remarkable.

Angels? Tick.

A tribute to Joan of Arc? Tick.

Pulpit? Tick.

here is something remarkable to be mentioned about this pulpit; it was originally constructed for another church in Châlons, that was destroyed during the French Revolution. It was salvaged, purchased and relocated to the Notre Dame of Juvigny.

As was this magnificent pipe organ, built in 1603.

It’s practically impossible to imagine how one goes about relocating an instrument of this scale back in the 18th century, let alone with their technology back then, all the way up there. So, the duo stopped asking these pointless questions, and instead, tried asking clever ones. Like…

Is it a percussion or a wind instrument? A pipe organ works something like this: the organist has got to tap a key on the keyboards, which admits wind into the pipes. Before this however, the organist has to decide which of those funky levers, called stops, are to be pulled out, permitting the wind to thus pass through and make the desired sound.

So, the next question is, where does this wind come from? Well, today we have this magical thing called electricity, but way back when they didn’t, someone had the most fantastic job of pumping up and down this device called the bellows, which forces air into the organ. The range of motion of the lever for the bellows is greater than the Ninja Turtle’s height, so a job like this has got to suck. Thank goodness for electricity.

These stops, what exactly do they do? Well, if you’re familiar with an electronic organ, a pipe organ’s like the original copy. These stops are like the buttons for different sounds; one can press the same key but with different stops, the sound (also called the speak) produced is different. With a combination of stops pulled, you can create something like a chord. When you pull out many stops together, you can literally create a rich, complex combination of sounds (and voices!) that lend atmosphere to all sorts of music, from Bach’s fugues to the orchestral soundtracks for movies.

How does it work, exactly? Well, each stop controls a rank of pipes. These ranks are organized according to the pitch and timbre of said pipes. How many pipes are there exactly in a pipe organ? Well… that depends on the number of keys and pedals, and the number of stops.

What are those weird labels on the stops? Those are names, and they can be confusing because there is no real standardization. The same stops on different organs can have varying names. Depending on which country it was built in, the stops names can vary too.

According to Rock ‘n’ Roll Rabbit, who’s played in various cathedrals around France, different organs play differently, which may seem like stating the bloody obvious, but then again, organs of the same make don’t sound the same in different churches. This means having to arrive in advance for a practice session, and acquainting himself to the organ and the “surround sound system” of each church space.

Here’s a video of Rock ‘n’ Roll Rabbit doing a little demonstration for the Ninja Turtle and GodzillaPin. And the next time you walk into a church and listen to the swelling chords filling the atmosphere, think about the person up there, working on a combination of keys and pedals, and literally pulling out all the stops to create this little bit of magic just for you.

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