SOLA-Stafette

On Saturday I ran the SOLA-Stafette with 1st team Vinzenz from the student house where we used to live. The day started out with rain, but in the afternoon it stopped before it was my turn to run. I had the 11th stage and it was hard to know when our runner was going to come. I was standing a bit away from the exchange area chatting with Jennifer when I suddenly heard our teams number shouted out. I tried to start out in a moderate tempo as I knew it was going to be a long uphill the first 5km (of 13). After  2 km going uphill I was going slower then I had expected to, but I was still not sure it was slow enough with half the uphill left to do. I kept on running almost all the way to the top though, only walking the last 100m. But coming to the top I was reliefed to know I had made it through the hardest part of the race.

Soon it started to go down and that is not so easy either as it means high speed and high impact on your leg muscles. I think the picture from the last part of the race shows a bit of how it felt to be running (if you can see my face expression). At the exchange, I realized the race went faster then I had expected even though it started out slow. My time 47:22 over 13km was the fastest on the stage and as a memorial trophy I got a real handmade SOLA-horse from Nusnäs (Sweden). The connection of Sweden is that the SOLA-stafette is inspired by Solastafetten, previous a student-relay in Sweden from Gothenburg to Karlstad.

Ein kleine SOLA-Rössli