German chapmionship 6h-running in Weissenstadt, Germany

We, runners from Wuerzburg, only had 160km to drive to Weißenstadt. It is not even two hours on the highway. Also the start at 10am was late. Therefore we could sleep long and drive up on the day of the race.

When my wife and I arrived, just after 8am, the organisation was finishing the race preparations. I picked up my start bid and we went for breakfast. This was offered by the restaurant at the camping site about 500m away from the start area. Unfortunately there were not many people going to have breakfast. Besides my wife and me there was only one more runner at the restaurant. Just past 9am, when we returned from the breakfast, the other runners of the LG Wuerzburg arrived. Lutz Fürchow, Georg Braungart, Walter Zimmermann and Adam Zahoran drove together, while Matthias Schmidt came alone from Ansbach.

A small field of 74 runners started at 10am for the 12th 6h race of Weißenstadt and the second German championship in 6h running. Adam took the leading position and went away immediately. He had set himself a tough goal – 85km in 6h is not easy to do! Even he thought the weather and the boundary conditions were perfect. But for me it was much to cold. Luckily it stayed dry and without wind, because it was an open the loop having no protection against the weather influences. Besides that, the 3.8km loop around the lake was very idyllic. So the time was passing very fast and running loops did not get boring. On the other side of the lake was an additional aid station. It only differed, to the one in the starting area, by missing the private support area. Florian Böhme was next behind Adam. We followed both in a small group of four. After about 1.5 hours the group broke apart. From now on everyone fought for himself. It was not long before the first runners stopped the race. One of them was our colleague Lutz. So we did not have a second team or a senior team anymore. But also as it was the first team it was critical. Before the race Matthias had told us, that he had some problems during training. So he was not sure, if he could finish the race. Even the team always was made out of the first three runners, it is bad to lose a good runner. Actually every drop out is bad. Finally Matthias had a good run. In comparison I had to slow down after three hours. For some reasons it didn’t go well, even my physical condition was good. Unfortunately, I was not the only one! Also Adam had his hard times. When he passed me the first time, he already was quite pessimistic. Some loops later he wanted to stop the race. Matthias tried to cheer him up and get him back running, but without success. When I passed the aid station, finally I was able to bring Adam back on the course. We ran two loops together before he sped away. But his champion title as well as his goal to run above 85km was gone. By continuing running, we easily got the champion title for the team.

After we had finished our work, we went for shower. There were two showers at the camping site and one additional at the sport center. The award ceremony was also located at the sport center. Therefore I drove there and took my shower there. It came out as a wise decision. I had the whole shower room to myself. So, I had a lot of room and even more hot water!

Before the award ceremony started at 8pm, everyone could have something eat. There were the cakes left from the check points as well as a vegetable soup for free. After about an hour everything was done! While the rest of my club members from Wuerzburg drove home, we continued to an IVV event in Oberasbach, which was on Sunday.