Running: Hallwilerseelauf

On Saturday I participated in my third run in Switzerland. It didn´t take place here in the nearby, like the previous two, but 80km away in Beinwill am See. And it was in the number of participants the biggest race I have ever participated. But judge for yourself …

Pre-run stress

In the middle of the week I got an email that contained – besides the instructions to the run – also my start number. When looking at the number 10,573 I nearly fell off my chair. What a difference comparing to the numbers 129 and 230 which I had in my previous runs. I immediately looked at the website of the run if there are really so many registered participants, or the number 10 at the beginning means a reference to the number of kilometers that I will run. When I came to the number 4826, I stumbled a little bit, but it was still better than 10,000!

My new winter running gear

Arrival

Travel by car and train to Beinwill lasted a little over an hour, and just as long took the pre-race preparation (picking up starting numbers and gift packages, changing clothes, going to the toilet, walking into the starting zones …). What must be kept for the Swiss is their sense of organization. Everything was well marked, the timing is perfect.

Pre-run mood

After taking the pre-run selfie with my friend Sylwia we wished each other good luck and headed into our own sectors (She was in B, I in C, simply because I am still slower than she is :))
What surprised me was that we didn´t start directly from the sector, but we were led for about three hundred meters farther to the official launch.

Those three hundred meters I felt like we were animals walking to slaughter. I tried not to think about that and instead I was warming up. Then came the entertainment in the form of a guy in a red costume of Samichlaus, who stood himself next to me (who is Samichlaus you can read in my posts here and here). I do not know what kind of liquid had Luigi (that was his name on the starting number) in his bottle of Coca-Cola, he held tightly in his hands and drank mightily from it, but he looked quite cheerful. I wanted to take a picture of him, but when I was reaching for my handy, the starting gun had suddenly shot and I had to run.

Run!

Samichlaus was running beside me and I thought it would be pretty embarrassing if someone took a picture of us. Fortunately, I shrugged Luigi off during the first kilometer and during the second (mainly because it was downhill), I was increasing my lead. I run the third kilometer quite easily, but on the fourth started my first crisis, when I thought that I was seriously fed up with running on the tarmac.

Fortunately, after a few tens of meters came refreshment station and then our trail turned into fields. So the whole fifth kilometer I had to smell freshly manured fields. Really awesome! 🙂 The footpath we ran toward the lake (and then even farther along it) was quite narrow and was an art to overtake someone. I always thought that while running – as well as driving – you should stick to the right. It was unbelievable how some runners were able to “zigzag” so that no one else could overtake. By this note, I greet the lady in pink T-shirt – from the gestures of other runners I can guess that not only I was quite mad about her. And if you’ve met me somewhere along the trail and have not been happy with my running, please let me know here.

So until the seventh kilometer, I felt quite well, but then I began looking out for another refreshment, as it was by the Emmenlauf. At eight and a half kilometers, I realized that there is no water and I just have to keep running. On the ninth kilometer, I glanced at my watch, and when I found out that my current time is 45misn and there is only one kilometer left, I thought it would be nice to hype up and finish under 50 minutes. Which I did not entirely manage, but the time of 50:30.4 (pace 5: 03min / km) is not so bad, what do you think? 142nd overall doesn´t look as nice, but considering that it was out of 806 in my category, it wasn´t such a failure!