Total insanity. On Saturday 2800 people started at the 53m/86km race. This probably makes this marathon the race with the most participants on a single distance in all of Germany. And since it's a small world, I ran into someone at the hotel on Friday, who greeted me kindly and of course I had no idea what was going on.

I didn't realize until Saturday that we had met in Plettenberg two years ago, where he had spent the night with the DIMB in the same gym as we had. Since Plettenberg is unfortunately cancelled this year, the DIMB is carrying out their team championship here in Albstadt this year.
Depsite having just overcome a cold, the colleague was 75.

Unfotunately, it was already really hot on Saturday, when we started at 1pm, so that we had to continuously ingest vast amounts of liquids. At the starting line there were about 2000 people in front of me and 800 behind me. Later on I became very affected by the heat and suffered from a really bad headache during the last third of the race. I began to think that this is what it must feel like when you're about to suffer heat stroke. However, not just humans were affected by the heat.

Fortunately, we found nice people with garden hoses, when we rode through the villages. I just stood underneath one for a while and cooled off. Unfortunately, I also had a sole-problem, even though they weren't even new shoes. After a little while, my right sole was completely worn down, who knows how or why. The temporary kleenex inlays didn't really give me any relief. It was not pleasant.

The spectators were amazing though. They had a huge party. Not just at the cruxes, where they sometimes even set up musical accompaniment, but even in the middle of the woods. Groups kept showing up making a lot of noise and cheering every biker on with a wave, etc.. At one section it was almost like a plateau arrival at the Tour de France. There were so many people lined up left and right that two bikers could barely ride next to each other.

At the end of the day, only about 2000 of the 2800 starters finished, which was mostly due to the weather. I ended in disappointing 1328th place. If I had finished in the time that I had set for myself, which wasn't overly ambitious, I would have finished in around 780th place. Oh well, at least I was there.
By the way, there was also a connection to the 24 hour race in Munich. Joey Kelly started in Albstadt too and then had someone drive him down to Munich, where he rode in a team of 4.

Bye, Elvis