Impressions from the Jungfrau

Here is the picture from just after the finish line. What you can’t see is the beer in my hand, a nice Swiss beer sponsor made sure we are getting the priority rights after all the pain. And painful it was, in fact so much that I cannot remember the beer’s label. (Sorry guys, your marketing efforts were wasted on me, but still much appreciated.) Kilometre 37-40 were the hardest and most beautiful at the same time. What we (the non-elite runners) did here is probably best described as mountain-up-falling. This was when my calves decided to prefer to cramp rather than doing their job, a bitter reminder that London does not have mountains and my calves felt like they were not prepared enough. Unlike the ones of a fellow runner, who was lucky enough to live in Switzerland and could prepare for this craziness. As a result he finished three minutes before me, which is very bad for my ego because this was his first marathon and he is two year older than me. But it is really hard to fall-up mountains and run down the last mile with cramping calves. SoI am very pleased with my time of 5:07 and the overall experience. I still can hear the charming “hopp, hopp”, words the Swiss cheerers used to cheer us on.