My memories of “Ladies Run” in Bern go back to last year. I was there not as a participant, but as an observer of the work of local integrated rescue teams who were trying to find my friend’s six-year-old son. He got lost in the crowd of fans as we headed for the Museum of Communications. Our route from the station to the museum crossed the route of the race, which we didn´t know was taking place that day. Let me tell you, even now, the memories of the whole situation send chills down my spines. It had probably been the longest half hour in my life before the little Jonáš was found. Of course, he didn´t realize the seriousness of the whole situation. When two police officers brought him to us, he smiled broadly because he´d got an air balloon. And we ready for a shot. But back to this year’s race!
Before the “Frauenlauf”, I wasn´t as nervous as before the Grand Prix von Bern, which I took part in last month. I´ve already had an idea of how such a big even looks like, and that the Swiss have everything perfectly organized and everything runs literally as the Swiss watch.
But, yes, I must admit, I was a bit nervous because the run´s start was planned in the morning. So, to be accurate, at 9:30. For someone, it is maybe the pre-lunch time, but I’m not really used to running at this time of day. It seems to me that my body is not yet warmed up enough. Whenever I tried to run in the morning, I thought I would spit my lungs at the second kilometer. And the rest of the run was more of a misery for me.
Two days before the run, my body remembered that it had to work in certain cycles (when it’s the Frauenlauf, so all included, right ?!). That didn´t increased my mood at all. But as usual, this increased my tastes. So the day before the race, I ate half a box of chocolate ice cream for lunch (but it was really delicious!), for dessert I had freshly picked strawberries from the local farm (even better!) and two butter croissants for dinner. Well, someone organizes the “pasta party” the day before the run, I got the carbs in another form :).
On the race day, I got off the train at 8:10 at Bern Station. With my mouth stretched out from yawning (I missed my morning dose of caffeine, and moreover, our little one wakened me at regular intervals since 5 am with her whining), I went to the dressing room. Btw. have you ever seen the dressing room in an underground car park? After a brief warm-up and a short jog, I was pretty sweaty, because the sun was beginning to burn dangerously (the forecast promised to 30 degrees!). But during this warm-up, I found a place that I´ve surprisingly never been to.
After nine o’clock, I went into “my” block 2 and was looking out impatiently for my new acquaintance who I met at the recent Dominic´s athletic races. Besides being a Czech, we have discovered that we both like running and we both start in the same block. Life is full of nice coincidence 🙂
Together, we looked at the girl standing in front of us, who I would describe as: “a shining star” (read: a super-slim beauty that was wearing a branded sports bra matching with compression knee socks, giant hi-tech cordless headphones on her ears, perfect make-up and Ray-Ban sunglasses, just styled up from head to toe). Well, when it’s a women’s race, there must be a bit of typically woman’s gossiping, right? 😉
9:33 – Start. The “Star” started as if it were burning behind her heels and we were behind her. It was quite pleasant that the we were running at the broad boulevard at first, so the ones who wanted to overtake did not endanger other runners with their hard elbows. Although the pace was fast, I surprisingly managed to keep it up. Until I needed to drink. Why don´t the pacemakers count on this little thing and run further? I just can´t drink while running. I’d suffocate. However, although I slowly started to lose, I still kept a good pace and I believed that I´d finins the run under 50 minutes.
A few tens of meters before we reached the fifth kilometer, I saw “Star”. She was in the care of the medical staff member on the lawn next to the track and was not far from collapsing. I was sorry for her. But at the same time, I remembered a nice saying, “It’s not all that gold that glitters.”
After the fifth kilometer, we were running past the area of the local zoo. Now I thought I would collapse myself. Well, I will tell you, the heat, those animal stenches…who for God´s sake had thought this part of the trail up?! About the seventh kilometer, we were running past the swimming pool. I wondered in my head why I hadn´t thought of ending here after the run? So maybe next time…
When I had the last two kilometers to run, my running was incredibly easy at once, although it was absolutely clear that I couldn´t reach my dream time. I even forced my will to run, not walk, the slight uphill and began to overtake some fellow runners. As we headed into the city center, I started looking around for my little fan club in the cheering crowds. I didn´t even realize that I was running the last kilometer to the finish line. And a few meters behind the line, I saw them. But before I headed over to the prepared buckets with cold water to rinse at least a few liters of sweat that flowed out of me. Suddenly, I found it quite unreal that the run is over. At 52: 02.5, as I could see from the text that I´d received in a few moments.
Although this run didn´t have (so at least for me) so amazing and charging atmosphere, as the Grand Prix von Bern, its trail was really nice. And it was pleasant that as early as the race began, early also ended. So we were at home for lunch, and in the afternoon I could relax at the swimming pool, where I fell asleep for the fatigue and hadn´t it been for my husband, my children would´ve been drowned! :O
