Jeder kennt das – man kommt mit dem Zug irgendwo an und ist sich nicht sicher warum genau man aufgebrochen ist und, noch viel schlimmer, wie man wieder zurück kommen soll. Da bleibt dann nur noch eins: einfach loslaufen. Gesagt, getan. Am Freitag den 26.02.2021 um kurz vor 22 Uhr sind wir am HBF in Bonn aufgebrochen um nach Haus zu laufen und ins Wochenende starten zu können. Ein entspannendes und ruhiges Wochenende ist immer eine gute Sache.
Es zeigte sich: dieser quasi „Feierabendweg“ ist durchaus schon seit längerem bekannt und in Benutzung. Naja – zumindest ist er in Anlehnung an einen historischen Vorgang benannt: der Krönungsweg. Hauptwanderweg 10 aka. der nördlichste Ost-West-Weg des Eifelvereins.
Über den gesamten Verlauf stets gut beschildert wäre dieser Weg im ersten Drittel vielleicht noch für historische Kutschen geeignet gewesen (eher flach, breitere teils asphaltierte Wege und eher urban), zeigt jedoch ab dem zweiten Drittel langsam aber sicher das wunderschöne aber doch fordernde Gesicht der Nordeifel. Insgesamt eine abwechslungsreiche Tour die meist gut zu laufen ist und nur einen kleinen Trail-Anteil enthält.
Nach einer sehr müden und als sehr kalt empfundenen Nacht hatten wir das Glück ab dem Morgen und ca. der Hälfte der insgesamt 140 km Stefan Vilvo mit seinem zum VP umgebauten Auto begrüßen zu dürfen. Mit diesem Support auf der gesamten zweiten Laufhälfte konnte dann nichts mehr schief gehen. Wir mussten uns nur noch auf eine Sache konzentrieren: in Bewegung bleiben. Tausend Dank Stefan!
Zu zweit und doch nicht allein. Stefan Vilvo kam mit dem VP-Auto und der Kamera. Danke dafür! Fotos von Stefan.
Wo Stefan ist – ist seine Kamera nicht weit. Besten Dank für eine tolle Ausgabe Eifelimpressionen. Wenn da nur nicht ständig diese zwei Typen durch die Landschaft schleichen würden…
Simple Rules: start an activity (run/walk) at each of the 24 daily hours in February 2021. Go outside. Cover each of the 7 days as well. Each of the activities needs a minimum of 45 min duration and a minimum of 5 km distance. Most horrible rule of all: there need to be a mandatory 90 min break between two activities where you need to wait (a long run with switching your watch on and off does not count for multiple hours). It is meant to break the routine and yes: it should feel a bit nasty – at least sometimes.
All started 2019 with a stupid idea and it was continued with success in 2020. Alex asked to take-over and push this „beautiful idea“ to the next level:
„And for some people, just to get back to camp alive is all they want in the world.“ Laz
Long story short – no finishers at KATE180 2020 „Corona-Edition“. We tried it and we failed. To not be able to finish a run you invented yourself is horrible and yet a bit satisfying.
In the last years we strived quite a lot through the KATE180 area. To finally combine it electronically was an extreme pleasure, to find out how it feels in real life was an eye-opener. The track offers a wide variety of different sceneries and undergrounds and a nice mixture of runnable parts and „are you kidding me?“ parts. Comforted by the DNF experience the track should be run in the direction we tried it. With Hautes Fagnes around 130k in. It is so beautiful up there and it looks like I used an almost non-existing trail up there to be part of the track. Water everywhere, mere traces of a trail, completely overgrown. The later in the run the better these parts feel.
Our reasons of failure have been diverse and do not matter. Either you are able to do it or you are not. Sometimes KATE180 has to win too.
Finally running together re-started. Took the car to Belgium to enter a self-supported 150k track last weekend. The secret is to not stop before the track ends. No matter what.
Had some amazing hours the morning after. Enjoying the afterglow of the walk with the 5 finishers and RD family with delicious food in a late-summer morning breeze. Sitting there, joking, eating and discussing is the essence of our understanding of running. Priceless. Thanks to all for that great weekend.
StartWaiting for the night.Waiting for the night.
runalyze.com / 150.32 km Laufen: GR Hageland – TypeII Fun / 05.09.2020 1d 01:17:24 / 10:06/km / 1,061 m D+
Let me start with the Another One Bites the Dust poem by Teun Geurts. Teun was supporting this year and his words fit perfectly – thanks Teun:
They were thirteen and they were running They started running when the sun went down They ran into the dark and all through the night When the sun came up and warmed the dust And still the thirteen were running
They ran for no special reason, it’s just what they do They ran for no special reason, into the light
The sun ran its course all through the sky And still the thirteen were running They ran their course on the face of the earth The wind in their faces, biting the dust And still the thirteen were running
They ran for no special reason, it’s just what they do They ran for no special reason, chasing the light
The light started to fade from the sky And still the thirteen were running Rain on their faces, washing the dust Hundreds of swallows sweeping the sky And still the thirteen were running
They ran for no special reason, it’s just what they do They ran for no special reason, into the night
The Legends Slam 2019-2020 is done. Since the very first race of the series The Great Escape back in November 2019 the idea of just crossing one by one of it from the agenda somehow got me. What was a far away dream back then started to become more and more realistic. Even more so with the Legends Trail 250 finish this February. Only one to go. Corona hit all of us and races were cancelled one by one and Another One Bites the Dust was postponed and finally cancelled. But not for the 13 runners still in the race for The Legends Slam.
Corona Legends
Home
Random people waiting for the start
Being one of the lucky ones I was allowed to participate in a very special race. Huge thanks to the LT Team/Legendary Friends for putting the whole trail city up for the few of us. It was a very nice, calm and unique atmosphere. As I did not bring any crew, Fanny thankfully agreed to help me and did an amazing job. We grew into a good team and her support became more and more crucial the longer the race lasted and helped a lot to keep me up and running.
The race itself is hard to describe – you better do it yourself to understand how it is. Basically it is all about timing and thing which can happen to you is, that you find a rhythm that consumes you in a way that you stop thinking and act like a machine doing the same job over and over again – run the same 6.3 km loop:
AOBtD splits
For me it started to become difficult somewhat around loop 18. But well, on one point it should get difficult. I was not able to make up my mind to fully switch to race mode and I stayed with the mantra: just finish the 28 loops by whatever means. Then you are free again.
Loop 1
Saturday noon.
Saturday afternoon I
Untouched.
Saturday afternoon II
Saturday afternoon III
What impressed me most was the fact how those 12 runners around me faced the task. Running amongst these Legends made me proud. No mistakes, discipline and precision all over. It was like looking at a fine-tuned pice of art. Every step well chosen, each corner perfectly cut, each piece of runnable ground used – amazing performance.
And finally. Saturday night 23:55 it was finally over. 28 loops done – Legends Slam 2019-2020 finished. What a relieve it was…
The Finish.The DNF job needs to be done!The End.
I think it is time to rest now. And to say thank you to my family who accepts my running and to the inner circle of runners/friends which was formed throughout the last 2-3 exciting years and which is always a source of motivation and power. This success would not have been possible without all of you. What can possibly come after all of this? Who knows.
But with friends like I have I expect it to be spectacular.
Olav: „Hey Tim, that does not look elegant anymore“!
And he was right. Damn right. We were around 30 hours into our small ultra running restart session last weekend and I was feeling the usual side effects of being that long on my feet. But let’s start the story from the beginning.
Cow pic.
We (7 funny persons from the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany) started at 0758 on Saturday 4th of July in Sart-lez-Spa to conquer the Ultra Tour des Sources track. The UTDS is not only a 157k race but also a way-marked path to challenge interested people. As it covers some nice and for most of us well-known areas of the Ardennes we thought it may be fun to try this with a self-support social run. Maarten was so kind to carefully check and revise the official GPS-track. We discussed some parts of the track and somehow concluded on a few „improvements“ around the nice city Coo. Somehow the original track avoids a few interesting passages. For whatever reason. No one knows. Really. Believe us.
Rest for the wicked.
The first 67k of our little adventure were quite enjoyable yet not too difficult. Unfortunately we lost our first colleague quite early in the game. The remaining six of us run/walked through Spa, visited the nice stream Le Ninglinspo and crossed the river L´ Amblève for the first time. In between we stopped from time to time to refill water and empty some bottles of sweet drinks and were then confronted with the fact that this group would not work until the end. Different reasons made 50% of us to use the track-back option on their watches to head straight back to the car. This still summed up to almost 100k for them.
Break@30k
Ultra running starts when the comfort zone is gone. And to lose half of our friends while running should be a clear sign for this. Maarten, Olav and me as the remaining three directly ran into our first problem. Water. It was a warm and sweaty Saturday and our supply was depleted. The next planned water pickup (cemetery) was still 13k away and we were already out of water. We got away by knocking on friendly peoples door to fill-up and made use of an outside water tap in the next village (we asked before). Refilled we entered the interesting part of the adventure. With the dark the slight rain came and the wind was suddenly present on the heights. Perfect. This is the setting you want to enter the self-improved most difficult part of the whole journey in the middle of the Ardennes. Finally the feeling of the Legends Trail adventure back in February was creeping back into our heads. I realized that I was accompanied by two LT500 finishers who survived a whole week in far worse conditions by watching Maarten and Olav speeding into this as if it was nothing. Impressive. We had a beautiful night. It was wet, cold and warm at the same time, we paused on a cold but dry planked backyard on a hill and we were surprised with a fixed rope route climb we didn’t knew before. Easy. Not.
All is well.
As it is with all good things – this night ended. So did the rain. We were still in and somehow moving. I have to apologize guys from preventing you to do some proper running. We decided to have our first proper stop in a bakery in Malmedy at km 121 Sunday morning. Interesting strategy of us to wait 24h with this. Coffee, Fanta, Ham and Eggs. Nice breakfast. Although strange to sit dirty and smelling within the midst of all the Sunday morning people.
Breakfast@121k
The setting of the last quarter of the track were the Hautes Fagnes. This meant an endless long climb up to Signal de Botrange. Always amazing to reach this highest point. We directly started with our second and last longer indoor break. Soup and Fanta.
Up!
Soup@143k
Soup+Fanta
Running downhill from that spot means always some beautiful but technical trails. Hard to manage with a stiff and painful body. But these are the moments of ultra running you have to be thankful for. Because beyond these moments the finish tastes even sweeter. We arrived after 33h38m and 162k with 4500 D+ m at the cars. Done. Thanks for this amazing weekend all of you.
At the end we may have not been the most elegant people out there but elegance may also not be the prime reason why we do kind of things.
runalyze.com162.17 km Laufen: UTDS special04.07.2020
Ach, das war doch mal nett. Für die Duivelse Uitdaging Challenge von Marek Vis fehlten unter anderem noch die 80 km und damit die längste Distanz. In Zeiten der Kontaktbeschränkungen und des Alleinelaufens kam spontan die Idee: warum nicht auf die Beverau-Runde zurückgreifen und den Lauffreunden Bescheid geben? Für alle gut erreichbar gelegen, angenehme Länge und meist breite Wege. Da fällt das Abstand halten leicht und wenn nicht alle gleichzeitig kommen würden? Lange genug würde ich ja unterwegs sein. Gesagt getan. Kurz durchgerechnet sollten entweder 30 oder 31 dieser ca. 2,65 km langen Runde für die 80 km reichen (je nach GPS-Verhalten). 9-10 Stunden sollten es tun.
Die Geschichte der Runde ist schnell erzählt. Sie startet offiziell an einem der Treffpunkte des LTB Aachen, welcher zugleich auch der Start des mAMa ist. Das Schöne an der Runde ist: es gibt nur eine Straßenquerung, sie ist nicht zu kurz, beleuchtet und daher ideal zum Rundendrehen. Die Geschichte, dass H und L auf dieser Runde schonmal Marathon gelaufen sind ist schon so alt, dass es mittlerweile einer Legende gleicht. Wie kann man auch so verrückt sein auf einer Stadtrunde immer im Kreis Marathon laufen. Also wirklich…
Gestartet bin ich um 0516. Merkwürdigerweise allein. Ab 7 Uhr wurde es dann aber deutlich lebhafter. Die ersten 3 Gäste trafen ein. In zwei Pärchen ging es dann in beiden Richtungen auf die Strecke. Nach jeder Runde wurde der Partner gewechselt. Speed-Dating. Oder so. Um halb 9 warteten schon die nächsten beiden Gäste und es ging in Dreierformation für 3 Runden auf die Strecke. Anschließend haben mich meine beiden Jungs für zwei Runden begleitet (gut, den einen musste ich schieben) – abgelöst von L auf dem Rad. Genau eine Runde nach der ersten Radbegleitung folgte direkt die Nächste! Perfekt. Das Wetter wollte wohl auch zur Abwechslung beitragen und stellte kurz auf Unwetter. Wir standen eine Weile frierend im Tunnel unter der Bahnstrecke aber H hatte mir extra Wassermelone mitgebracht – wunderbar. Die Sonne kehrte zurück und der Endspurt rückte näher. Der VPsucher kam mit J. kurz vorbei um „Hallo“ zu sagen und zum Zieleinlauf gab es dann nochmal Gäste! Ein sehr kurzweiliger Lauf, wenn auch ein wenig anstrengend. 30 Runden reichen für 80 km – für die 50 Meilen fehlten noch 400 m, also nochmal kurz hin und her an Start/Ziel. 9h49m – passt. Die 50 Meilen von Beverau sind abgehakt.
Vielen Dank für all die Gäste auf dieser kleinen Beverau-Corona-Party – schön euch alle wiedergesehen zu haben. Wo machen wir denn die noch fehlenden 70 km nächstes Wochenende? 😀
For me ultra running truly starts at the point where I have given up. To continue a run after this point seems mentally and physically impossible – the battle is finally lost at the end of a long fight. Beyond that point it is not getting any easier or less painful. Quite the contrary. But as I already lost against myself I am truly whole again. No longer divided between the urge to continue and the longing to quit. I don’t have to go through those deepest of all valleys again. There is suddenly a feeble light at the end of this tunnel.
CP1. Night 1/3 down.
It´s Sunday evening – somewhere out there. What a journey so far – 200k in 48h. Two nights and two days full of ups and downs: both physically and mentally.
Around 10k earlier I was in a good condition. The 4th and last CP finally in reach, the promised bad weather still calm and the head in a good mood full of hope again.
And now? Pouring, cold rain, really tough last kilometres (and that despite the fact that it was mostly going downhill on easy terrain) and again some thoughts on the greater meaning of all that. Plus: the track is gone. The GPX of that stage ended 200 m ago but where is that checkpoint now. It is cold and getting dark – the third night is about to start. There are some houses but the street is empty and abandoned. What am I doing here? What a cold and lonely place. I am exhausted and desperate for some rest or better: the end of all of this. It takes me 10 minutes to actually see the LT sign directing me to the back of a house and the door to the warm and comfortable CP. A sign of how desperate the situation seems to be. After the now routine actions at the CP and two plates of Pasta – decisions have to be made.
Or wait – there is nothing more to decide on: the path ahead finally crystal clear. Although it was comfortable to not run for some moments and just sit indoor, although the weather out there is awful and although the final stages is again 60k long and mostly dark. Although it will take more energy I have left…
It is time. Time to be superior of all that doubts and problems. Time to really earn that moment of relieve at the very end. The only option left with no matter what is waiting out there is: to go out again and finish.
Finish.Finish. Finish. Thanks Harry de Vries for all the pictures!
Das Home-Office hat den schönen Vorteil, dass einige Eindrücke aus dem Büro-Alltag festgehalten werden können; wie zum Beispiel, wenn wir uns darüber austauschen, wie wir mit den Challenges umgehen, die uns unsere Mitmenschen stellen. Hier ein kleiner Schnipsel zum Corona Skyrun des Schinders:
Des Schinders Skyrun
Danke an den Schinder für diese daheim ausführbare Challenge. Sie bietet 1364 kleine Perspektivwechsel am Tag und hat den schönen Vorteil, dass ich sie durchführen kann, ohne mir in den anderen Challenges da draußen zu viel Freude vorwegzunehmen.
