Marathon Victory

As you know, I celebrated New Years Eve in Hamburg at the Reeperbahn, together with Julia, Tim, Kai, his girlfriend, sister and friends. Our club had 3 different dance floors, Latin, Pop and Independent. We mostly stayed in the third. I tried my best to avoid too much of alcohol, which was a bit difficult, especially at the start of the evening, cause Kai's sister had prepared vodka jelly and punch in her flat.



The party lasted until the early morning and Julia and I went to bed around 5 or 6 am. At 9 I had to get up again, cause I had registered for the Ulrich Zwingli marathon some days ago. At first it was just a crazy idea, but it became fixed in my mind the more I thought about it.

So I left Kai's house around 9:30am and arrived at the Teichwiesen (a natural park within Hamburg). It was a nice lap course around some ponds and a big cow meadow. The track was quite muddy, as you can see on the photo. But I had brought my new waterproof shoes, which turned out very comfortable.



A crew of 2 and later 3 people handed us drinks and food every lap. I stayed at the lead right from the start. The first 3 laps in a team of four, then 8 laps with another guy, before I enforced the speed a bit for the last ones. I had dreamed of it beforehand, but now it really became reality. I had won my first marathon (follow the link for the official race report).



OK, my time of 3:39 h isn't world-class, and 15 runners made this marathon not one of the most distinguished. But I had been the best on this cloudy, warm New Years day morning. And it's a good feeling to have achieved something like this just 14 hours within the new year.