Feb 22, 2009

1500 ft. below

Event Stats:
Name Merkerser Kristallmarathon
Date 02/22/2009
Location Merkers, Germany
Event Marathon
Finish Time 04:48:07

The Merkerser Kristallmarathon is special in a very particular way: It is run in a salt mine, about 500m (1500 ft) below ground. This come with a couple of consequences:

  • It is rather dark, so you have to run with a flashlight
  • It is rather warm, about 22C, which means you can run a marathon although it is snowing outside
  • It is rather dry. Humidty in the saltmine was about zero and you could litteraly feel the moisture being sucked right out of you
  • It is rather hilly. The tunnels in the mine follow the natural structure of the stone. The race had about 800m of incline.
  • The race is run in 13 loops of about 2 miles, which makes waterstops easy to organize and working. Also, even with minimal effort you get some sort of cheer.

The course was a little short, it was much more taxing than I thought, but although I still had to make extensive walk-breaks, I already feel much better than in Curitiba in November.

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