JUNE 2020:
We are slowly moving out of the woods, approaching the vineyards. The darkness of the night has lifted, and the sky has turned grey. It is 5 a.m. and a new day is coming. Tilman and Uli are running ahead. I can no longer run. My knee hurts and feels blocked. I am totally drained of energy and every step takes a massive effort. I can no longer run, just walk. Carmen stays with me, and I just want to sit down and cry. 18 hours and 30 minutes into our first attempt at running 24 hours around the Schwanberg hill, I quit. The hill has won its cruel game.
OCTOBER 2020:
Four months later, we were back at it again. I blame Tilman, I’m pretty sure it was his idea to do it again in autumn.
Running for 24 hours on my favourite running route, a 12km loop with 250m of elevation, through the forest and vineyards, has been a dream of mine for a few years now. Thanks to the coronavirus and all major races being cancelled this year, it was finally time to make this dream reality.
The first attempt at doing this run had taken place in June. It had been a very hot day that made us sweat mercilessly during the day and brought thunderstorms at night. The hot weather had taken its toll on us, and in the end, only Tilman had run through the night and finished with around 135 km. I had made it to 117 km and stopped at 5 in the morning. I was hoping to beat this result this time.
The weather looked a bit daunting at first, constant rain was forecasted in the days leading up to the event, but on the day before, the weather forecast finally looked better: around 10°C and no rain. Better than 30°C and thunderstorms.
I felt very relaxed before the event (I refuse to call it “race”, there was no competition, just a lovely run with friends). After all, I had run this loop many times, I knew every single meter of it, I knew when to stop and walk and when to push the pace. I had run the loop in all sorts of weather. Of course, in a long run like this, unpredictable obstacles can never be excluded – an old injury flaring up, stomach issues, not enough food / drinks, not enough clothes, wild boar attack 😉 – but this is what makes ultra running interesting.
After 9 hours of sleep, I felt very well rested and ready to go. My car was loaded with two sixpacks of coke, 4 cans of fanta, 2 bottles of non-alcoholic beer, gingerbread, cookies, Katjes gums, crisps, and pretzls as I was driving the 10 km to the hill. I hoped that I had packed enough to get me through 24 hours. It is always hard to tell in advance what I might be craving during the run, but my sister had offered me to come and bring me anything I needed later on.
I had also packed a spare set of clothes, a softshell jacket, a rain jacket, a warm jacket, 4 pairs of shoes, 2 head torches, a power bank, poles, and pepper spray.
Marco, Natascha, Christina and Tilman were already waiting when I arrived in the parking space on the hill, which served as start and end point for each loop, allowing us to use our cars as aid station. Additionally, there was a public toilet close by, which even had a heating and was open all night. .
After a while, another runner, Yannick arrived and the start group was complete. At 10 a.m., the six of us started the race.
I was wearing a skort and my legs were a bit cold from standing around initially but loosened up soon. It was a nice group of people and the pace was easy. I was anxious not to make the same mistake as last time, when I started too fast and suffered later.
The infamous 12k loop (titled “Schwani Classic” on Strava) starts at the parking space and leads you past the café, church and castle on the hill, past a lovely park, and then into the woods. After about 2.5 kilometres, a 1.5km long, relatively mild downhill section allows you to rest your legs a little, before you make a sharp turn to the right and join the “Wehrbachschluchtweg”, a lovely, windy and hilly gravel path section of approx. 6 km. At the end of this section, you pass a gate and run out of the forest again. The last part of the loop is a tarmac section through the vineyards, which offers a beautiful panorama view of the surrounding villages and hills, before the final steep hill takes you back up to the plateau, where the parking space is located. This last hill is particularly mean because it is the steepest of the loop and seems to be never-ending. Locals call it “Höttehött”, after a headless shepherd that supposedly haunts this hill, searching and calling his sheep. A lovely legend, that is particularly nice to think of when you climb the hill at 3 in the morning...
Soon, Yannick and Natascha were running ahead. Christina, Tilman, Marco and I were a few hundred metres behind, chatting along. It felt nice and easy and the kilometres were flying by. Christina and Yannick left after three loops (Christina with the promise to come back in the early hours of the morning to see the sunrise), but at around 3 pm, Norbert, Marion and Anja showed up to run with us for a round. After 5 hours, it was already a nice distraction to have some “fresh” runners accompanying us. We were chatting the entire time, and things still felt nice and easy. At some point, Uli and Carmen joined us too. We were now quite a big group of people and running was good.
I was keen on keeping up with my nutrition and hydration this time. After three or four loops, I changed into long tights and a new shirt because I could feel the cold in my legs a bit now. The light compression of the tights warmed up my muscles again and worked wonders. Marco and Natascha had fallen behind a bit at that point, and it was only Carmen, who accompanied Tilmann and me on the last round in daylight. It still felt good but we were noticeably getting quieter. I was a bit scared of the long nigh that we were facing. Back in June, we only had a few hours of darkness. Now, it was approximately 12 hours. We just finished this loop and made it back to the car in time before the last light of the day was gone entirely. Carmen said goodbye and Tilman and I took out our headtorches. Things were getting serious now.
The darkness took a bit of a toll on me, and for about half an hour, I felt quite sorry for myself and wished I was at home, in bed. I guess that is a normal reaction of my body telling me to stop this nonsense now. A hand full of sweets and some coke made me feel better again.
I hoped that Christina would indeed show up again before sunrise. And then Dany had promised to be there around 8 am in the morning too, for coffee and the final loop. We just had to make it through the night. It seemed like a long time to go.
I was starting to see animals on the side of the path, which turned out to be tree trunks and bushes. I suddenly remembered what Marco and I had been talking about earlier, the Hinterkaifeck murders. It had been alright talking about unresolved mass murder events during daylight but thinking about it at night in the forest freaked me out a bit, and for a while I saw a potential murderer behind every tree.
Tilman and I were trotting through the dark forest without talking much anymore at this point. Suddenly, we saw a light in the distance coming towards us quite quickly. So quickly that I first thought it was a mountain biker, but it turned out to be Sven, another runner who had already run with us through the night on the first 24-hour run in June. It was a very nice distraction having him there and my spirits lifted again. He told us that Marco and Natascha were not far ahead of us, which meant that we were close to over-looping them.
Running with Sven made the time go by quickly and eventually we did pass Marco and Natascha, who were walking at this point. It was nice seeing them again after so many hours. Alas, they told us that it was going to be their final round – they wanted to call it quits after 100km. A great achievement for the two of them, who hadn’t really trained for this distance. We said our goodbyes and continued through the night.
Half an hour past midnight, we said goodbye to Sven too, who had to go back home to his little baby boy, and it was only Tilman and me left but things were good now - running and chatting with Sven had given me a second wind. I looked at my watch and started calculating in my head.
An idea had crept up on me which I didn’t dare to speak out first. But then I did it: “If we keep going at this pace and if nothing unforeseen happens, we can get to 100 miles.” Tilman didn’t seem very enthusiastic about it and warned me that this was still a long way to go. He was right. We were still 10 hours away from finishing, and a lot could happen until then. But we were moving well, still running most of the course, and my legs felt good. We could do it!
The dream of 100 miles in a day kept me going through the night, as we ticked off kilometre after kilometre, hill after hill. We had gotten into a nice routine after every loop, stopping only to get something to eat and drink (for me, it was mostly coke). I also made use of the luxury of having a proper toilet there, even if it was only to sit in a warm place for a minute. It had gotten quite cold at night, especially when we reached the parking space and stopped for food and drinks. The wind was quite merciless, but as soon as we started running again and were back in the forest, it was fine.
Christina did show up again at 4:30 as promised, and it was very nice seeing her fresh as a daisy. She was just getting into the car park when Tilman and I finished another loop and quickly set off again with us. We were still on course for 100 miles and I started to get excited about it. Even Tilman believed that it was possible now. We were still moving well and had almost made it through the night. What could go wrong now?
Well, something did go wrong. When we were just running down at the back of the hill again in the beginning of the loop, when Tilman suddenly disappeared. He was running about 1 m behind Christina and me at this point and I noticed that he stopped. I thought it was a call of nature, so Christina and I ran ahead for a few metres and then stopped to wait for him. Only, he didn’t come. I don’t know how long we waited, and I’m sure that I had seen his head torch back on the path a minute earlier, but he just didn’t appear on the path again. After a few minutes, we walked back to where we had last seen him. There was no trace of him. We called his name... no answer. I was starting to get a bit hysterical. What if he had passed out somewhere in the bushes? I was running further up the path again, while Christina checked the bushes. There was still no sign of him. I tried to call his phone, no answer. Uli messaged me at this point, saying that he was awake and ready to come and run with us, so I called him and told him what had happened, just as Christina was ready to call the emergency services. Luckily, Tilman then called me back. He had gotten lost somehow and ended up on another path. To this day, it is still a mystery to me how he managed to get there, but we were very relieved to hear that he was alright – and that we didn’t have to give an awkward explanation to the rescue services 😉
Tilman told us to go ahead and that he would catch up with us later. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to just leave him behind, but we didn’t know where he was exactly and it was getting cold... so we did run ahead.
I knew that after we finished this round, we only had to do one more round and a little extra to make it to 100 miles. It was nerve-wrecking. We had lost about 15 minutes searching for TIlman but there was still plenty of time in theory. However, my brain was getting a bit tired at this point and I was convinced that it would be really, really tight.
When Christina and I got back to the parking space, it was getting light again. It was very good to see the sun again. Anja and Uli were there too now, and we decided to do two small 2km loops until Tilman arrived. Luckily, he did indeed show up again. It was a big relieve.
Since he didn’t want to stop and wait for Dany and the coffee, he set off with Uli ahead of us. Dany arrived a few minutes later, driving like a mad woman after I told her to be there half an hour earlier than planned, brought strong and black coffee, and then we were also ready to tackle the last loop.
We had more than 2 hours to finish it, to make it to 100 miles, but I was still worried that two hours wasn’t enough. I definitely couldn’t hike it, I had to run as much as I could. I don’t know how often I asked Dany and Christina on these last kilometres how much time we had left. They were very patient with me and always said that there was plenty of time. I still didn’t believe it. I wanted the 100 miles in under 24 hours SO BADLY.
My legs were now quite tight going downhill but I kept moving. Nearly there...
Then we were out of the forest for the last time, ran through the vineyards for the last time. When we reached the last big climb, I still had 45 minutes left. For about 1 km. I still didn’t believe it.
I had a little cry climbing up Höttehött for the 13th and last time, but that was just me being sentimental. Then, finally, we reached the top. One last sprint back to the parking space – DONE!! 100 miles, 3000 metres of elevation gain in 23.5 hours. We made it!!
I was very relieved that it was over but also very happy – TIlman must have felt the same. It was a new 100 mile record for both of us and we had never thought that this would be possible.
October 2020: I arrive in the parking space after 23.5 hours and I feel like I have won a battle. TIlman is already there, smiling, and the others are cheering us on. We have made it! The hill is still a cruel mistress, but this time, we have won ;)
The second version of our self-organised 24 hour race was even better than the first one. It was a perfect run, where everything came together nicely and everything worked out well. You hardly ever get that in ultra running, I think it was just the second time that this ever happened to me.
Thank you very much to everyone who came out to run with us for a loop or two or who sent their encouragement. Your support means a lot! Even if we were not very talkative at times, it was still very much appreciated 😊
Hopefully, Schwani 24 will go into another round in 2021 and be more than just a gap filler during Corona times, but we will see...