Fisherman’s Friend Strongman Run, Nürburgring 2019

The year started some weeks ago with hot and sunny weather. But not at this weekend: It was freeze cold by around 2 degrees. All obstacles were wet, frozen and white of snow! But we aren’t really OCR-Runners if we will not go to the start because of the weather!  Gopal and I met at 7 o’clock in the morning. We took some extra pullovers and blanket because we knew we had to wait and stay outside for minimum an hour at the start line. At this event all 10.000 runners starts at the same time and, if you want to start at the front, you have to be there early enough. But we were entertained well with live music and a warm-up. This year they had planned a special for us: We all tried a world record in breath meditation. We did the biggest breath meditation course in the world and got the world record and an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. 

But the mass start isn’t a good choice - for me. It has many, many disadvantages: One point is - I wrote about it above - that you have to wait a long time. For the timekeeping it is necessary to nearly separate all runners. So the start line is very small and the crowd is quite big. Far behind the line it took more than an hour till you cross the start. 

That was sadly not the only thing we were disappointed about. We also were disappointed about the obstacles. There weren’t obstacles. Not in the number and quality we were used to. Okay, one or two were closed because the freeze cold temperatures. But it was more a 24km cross run than on OCR. For me there were only 3 or 4 obstacles per round (we did two rounds)   

At the end there is one medal more on my finisher board and one race more at which I participated. We did the 24km in around 2:20 hours, but we have to think about our participation for next year. Maybe we will find some more interesting stuff; maybe in the near abroad…..