Bärenfels Ultratrail in Neubrücke/Nahe, Germany

On Saturday morning my parents and I arrived in Neubrücke. At that time there were already two surprises present. One of them was the new starting area. It was changed from the meadow to the storage building. It belongs to one of the sponsors, the block heat and power plant besides. The hall helped to protect again rain as well as sun. During the last years the second of them was much more known. But this year it was different, because the god of weather was not as amused about us. The days before the race were rainy and the broadcast for today was rain as well. But we were lucky, without some rain drops it was dry. The rainy days left their marks. On the course as well as at the numbers of starters. Especially at the short distance there was a huge degree of starters. People, which know the course, might thought it will be very muddy and ugly conditions. But back to the surprises! Because at this race you always get more than you suspect, this year you get some more miles to run. Instead of 21km the loop had 22.5km. That is in total 67.4km for the Ultra trail, instead of 63km.

All three courses started at 8am in front of the power station. From beginning on the Half-Marathon-runners were leading. Their leading group was followed by tree Ultra runners. With them, René and me. The marathon runners stayed patiently behind. To get a safe first place at the marathon and not have to speculate on a top place in the Ultra trail, the third runner in our group downgraded to the marathon. But he was not the only one, who was running less. Also a lot of other marathon- and ultra trail runners were running one or two loops less. The reason for that was, that they figured out the difficulty of the course. It had about 700m altitudes per loop. Besides two big hills it was a steadily up and down. The first hill was up to the Bärenfels. It was not too bad to run. The second uphill was a hill of mud. As long as the ground was dry it was possible to get up. A lot of people saw the bad weather of the last days and this hill as a reason for not starting. During the first loop René ran ahead. At the third loop I got the chance to catch up and we finished together.

The showers were located at the gym about five kilometres away, like the years before. Definitely a point to blame at this event – the bad conditions of the sanitary equipment. Up till now there was now toilettes or Dixie at the event area (?). Showered and refreshed we went back to the award ceremony. There all the finishers got a little price. No matter if it was the first or the last, everyone received honor for his effort.

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