6-hour-race in Troisdorf, Germany

It was Friday evening when I arrived at Gabriele and Volker Grohmann. They had invited me to stay the night before the race at their house. Because the start of the race was not before 10am we had plenty of time to talk and change out news. With me there was another runner from Swiss sleeping at the Gromanns house.

Saturday morning we had a good breakfast. After the breakfast Volker brought us to the start. First we picked up our start number. Because it was the 10th edition we got a nice coffee cup as an extra gift. It was also the reason for inviting all winners of the recent years, as well as me. So there was a very good and hug field of runners. The course had changed lightly. To get arid of the turn around point, the runners had to run a whole round at the stadium. So the course was getting a little bit longer than the 2,5km (before). The 50km mark still should be at the stadium. To archive it the start was placed outside the stadium. When I got up Saturday morning Gabriele told me it already had 16°C. So it looked like we got a warm day. But the broadcast was different. After about an hour it started to rain. Actually it rained like hell. While too while there was less rain or it stopped. But at that time everybody was wet all over. With the wet the cold was coming. So it was no wonder that many runners stopped. At the beginning the volunteers tried to sweep away the water at the puddles on the dam. But it was like work of Sisyphos and they stopped soon. The rain was too strong. It seemed the top runners are resistant against the rain. Up till the end it was a very thrilling race. Again and again the top changed. Without the thrilling of the men and women race the spectaculars did not have much fun. As well as the runners they got wet. Even than we were cheered all the time. Every loop we met the friendly women at the aid station. After we passed them we saw the announcer at the entry of the stadium. He talked about the runners, their carrier and the progress of the race all the time.

After the race we enjoyed the warm showers. I had to go towards train station, while the rest of the runners went towards the award ceremony. Sadly I had another appointment in Würzburg and could not stay till the end of the event. Even the weather was bad, it was nice to run there again and enjoy the friendliness off the people of Troisdorf.