7. Aachener Nachtlauf, 2017

 Also in July 2017 met again a few runners from my club  to participate in the 7th Aachen Night Run: Sascha, Jörg and me. Additionally, some other friends of mine take part at this race.

I had decided at very short notice to participate in the night race this year. Although this run had already reached my attention, however, for 10km a starting fee of over 30€ did not seem appropriate. Shortly before the race I was (let’s say) subsidized by a runner colleague, which gave me the opportunity to get a starting place for a much smaller amount.

In addition to the (for me) overpriced entry fee you can say about the organization not a lot of negative: Registration, start number issue, supporting program, food … all very good.

And so we were in a good mood: Highly motivated and - as always - well-prepared, we started at 9:15 pm. Mussa (a local “highspeed-runner”) wished us a lot of fun and - of course - he was gone …

The track: If you take a look at the plan and run the track in mind (you can do this as a “Öcher Jong”), you would have expected a curvy and not too easy track. Furthermore, I never find such lap runs so great. Already in the second round I usually think “Here you are already! Here you know yourself! So why again?” But there are also advantages: In the first lap, you can get to know the track, to then, in the remaining laps, give the optimal performance with the knowledge that the energy reaches to the finish.

It was not as bad as I had imagined it during my day. I would not like to say that the route is undemanding - quite the contrary: the route has only two directions: uphill and downhill. There is no relaxed part of the way. Then there are two or three sharp turns and the cobblestones does the rest. All in all a worthwhile route, which is decorated in many places with plenty, mostly fries, burgers or Schnitzel eating audience (at this point a nice greeting to our chairman). I was enthusiastic about the fact that Mussa and I ran together through the finish. Okay, okay, I started my last lap, and he ended his last lap and got in the target area. But we ran together through the finish!

Even though we were struggling with the rather sultry temperatures, we were all happy and satisfied.
I would be happy to run it next year again!

If it doesn’t challenge you, it does not change you!