Winschoten, September 12, 2009, 100k

I don’t know what time it was on the picture. It is still light and i take a wild guess and think it was somewhere halfway through the race. At that point i already felt like you always do at some point in long endurance races. I was asking myself what the hell i was doing here, i was searching my body for some individual source of pain bad enough to be a reason to quit (and it offered plenty) and i tried to come up with some sort of motivation. To make the rest of the distance feel not too big.

I started feeling worse and worse around 55k into the race. I told myself that any minute now it is “only” another marathon. Not too much of a problem if those 58k before that wouldn’t have been wearing me down pretty damn good. After 75k i told myself: “It’s only 25k. That’s what you run at home every day.” Didn’t help too much. There had to be something else.

And it had started out so good. The race itself. The day itself maybe not completely. I woke up at four in the morning after three solid hours of slumber, drank my coffee and since i didn’t stick with ole Freddie Green (”Always pack your bag the night before and leave your uniform on top.”) i packed my gear and made the first mistake. After Jörg, Dominik (who would be taking pictures and videotape the whole ordeal and be an incredible help all the way through the day) and me got to Winschoten and i got dressed, i noticed i forgot my really cool black running shorts i had bought in New York at home and had to wear those old, pretty uncool long blue tights. Bad start. I’ll have Freddie’s words tattooed on my forearm next week.

Next was a really good thing. When i had registered, we went to meet someone from organization, because my two friends should get some information about where they could be when taking pictures and video footage. And here comes Liesbeth Jansen, talks to us and takes us over to the guys with the motorbikes to introduce my guys to them, so they can ride with them later on. Here’s a race director one hour before the main event, other races are already on or finished and she’s all relaxed and friendly. Unbelievable.

I jog up and down Stikkerlaan for a minute and it is only like two minutes before the start that i realize i don’t really know which way we are going. Up or down? I end up talking to a guy with a german postal service cap who doesn’t know jack either. Since he’s german as well (the cap gave him away), we start talking and as the gun goes off, we just follow the crowd and keep talking for the next 20 or so kilometers.

Felix Lill is in his early twenties, triathlete and runner, but this is his first attempt at 100k. We talk constantly and share water and sponges and all seems well. We even wait for each other during potty breaks. We keep a pace of just under six minutes per k, but sometimes i notice how my heart rates drops lower than i want it to be. At this point i am still looking at finishing under 10:30 to qualify for the Spartathlon next year. And i just know that if i get too close to six minutes, i will mess this all up later. So i just take off. I can’t really remember but i think it was when Felix was stopping to pee, which made me kinda feel bad, but i met him later on (i think on Mauritsstraat) and we talked for a second there and it was all good.

So i ran on and for thirty kilometers and all was looking well. I kinda hated Nassaustraat by then already, because the surface was bricks laid out in a fishbone pattern and it felt like crap to run on. Whenever i was on Oude Werfslaan i knew this was just around the corner and i dreaded it.

I kept losing seconds for the next 20k and just past the halfway point, i knew i was in trouble. I kept thinking about quitting too much. My back was killing me, somebody implanted something like a spear between my shoulders, i knew it wouldn’t be a pretty sight once i would finally take off my shoes and my knees started to feel like they would cave in any second now. I tried to keep thinking motivational stuff, cut up the rest of the distance into manageable pieces, about how disappointed everybody would be (including myself) and how much DNF sucks. It was mainly this thinking and not really coming to a conclusion that kept me going. And the fact that whenever i came to the start/finish area, my guys would be there.

I walked through the aid station at the fire department on Grintstraat and i actually sat there for a couple of seconds taking in the feeling when not having to move is a real gift. And knowing full well just to have kept running would have been so much easier and it would have saved me the agony of starting to run again.

Anyway somehow i got through lap six, seven, then (you guessed it) eight. And then finally the motivational thinking worked out. The second to last lap. I even started thinking about how the last lap could be actually fun again. By then i knew the course so well. The first kilometer through the sportpark and onto Ludensweg, which they decorated in orange and was called Orange Street that day. The 2k mark on Elandhof, which felt like a tunnel with wooden moose all around. The bridge where the 3k party was. The packed pub on the corner at k4 where you felt misplaced when it got dark and all these people were out for a drink. The 5k aid station where they (and not only them) kept asking how you were and how far you still had to go. Oude Werfslaan where you were so busy thanking all these people with the participants lists shouting your name (and pronouncing it wrong. Amiable, but wrong) that you so totally missed the 6k mark. The seventh mark on the corner of Mauritsstraat, marking the beginning of brick road torture for this lap. The corner of Mr. H.J. Engelkensweg where they had signs saying good bye in all languages.  And of course the ninth mark where you knew it was only the roundabout and then straight down to the finish.

I counted them maybe until Nassaustraat and then it didn’t matter anymore. It was dark by now, people left the streets mostly and you could hear music and parties from a lot of houses along the way. I was looking forward to my own little party under a hot shower. I was actually running faster again, proving to myself that it wasn’t all so bad because of my body, that i would have to work on my mindset as well. But none of that mattered anymore. In spite of everything that happened that day i crossed the finish line after 10 hours, 55 minutes and 9 seconds. I didn’t know it by then, but it made me # 289 out of 899 runners in the german ultramarathon asscociation’s 100k rankings for this year (and # 1473 of 3778 international). I made a friend who pulled in about an half hour behind me. And i knew that running 100k couldn’t scare me anymore.

I’d like to thank the organizers and the whole city of Winschoten for a long day, considerable pain, doubt and being just plain miserable. It was great. It felt like the right place to be on this September 12. The only place. See y’all next year.