Winterhell 2019, Nürburgring

It was hard and it was cold! But it was good! Winterhell 2019: A good start for the OCR-Session 2019.
For the Russian runners, it maybe feels like summer vacations. We had around +4 degree (yes, positive!) but the wind was blowing and it was wet. Every rope, every steel rod, every obstacle, everything was wet. And so it was hard enough for most of the European runners.

We started early in the morning. The Nürburgring isn’t so far. But we had to be there at 10 o'clock, and we had to calculate with some delay because of the snow and the fog. Once there, we had to decide a very important and tricky question: What to wear? Don’t wear too many clothes. You will get warm during the run. But you should wear enough because you will have to wait at some obstacles. And you will have to go to and wait at the start line.
Even for the last point, I have learned and copied something from another runner: Take the oldest pullover and oldest gym suit and wear it over all other clothes. It only needs to be warm! Take it off a Minute before the start and throw it away.

Meanwhile, and it’s hard to believe, we are recognized by other members. We are the “crazy two”! Some others came to us and greeted us. It seems that we are meanwhile part of the (German) OCR-family. I like it! It’s very funny to meet you and talk about training and other events. So we get to know other events on which we maybe take part in the future.

There was a warm-up just right before the start, but we stayed indoor with the most of all other runners. There were around 2500 starters which are distributed over different distances. We did the 24km parkour (two rounds of the 12km parkour). Even if the organization described the 24km track as two different 12km rounds weren’t they really different. There was a small, maybe 1km long sidetrack with one or two small obstacles, but in fact they were nearly the same. This wasn’t bad. The round wasn’t boring and it was funny enough to run it a second time.

Most of the obstacles were climbing obstacles. Sure, you can’t use water for the obstacles. It was much too cold for it. But they found many obstacles and ways to test us. My favorite was a very simple one: A maybe 20m high bridge over a street. You run downhill the street till to the bridge. Under the bridge was a scaffolding which goes like a stair up to the top of the bridge. Every step was around 1,5m. After a track of maybe 1-2km we came back to the bridge. This time we had to climb down the scaffolding. Sounds easy? Already the first round wasn’t easy. We were able to go up, but we laugh. “The second time will not be so easy!” we said. And it wasn’t. At the second time we had around 22km behind us and had tired feet / knees. But - for sure - we did it a second time. Once up and once again down!

A highlight after the parkour (and it’s the only OCR-run which I know where you get this) were the warm showers. Top! After a long time outdoor on the wet and freeze cold Nürburgring is a hot shower just the right thing to relax.

All at all a very good start for the year 2019. It was a pleasure to take part of this event. It was a pleasure to run with Gopal and (even if we don’t run together) to have a nice Saturday with some good OCR-Friends!