Two weeks ago I had the crazy idea that running a marathon would be an exciting way to start the new year, and so I signed us up for the Zurich Neujahrsmarathon. With a 00h00 start time, it's the first official marathon of 2014. The course makes four loops along an unlit river trail. Sounds fun, right? About 250 runners gathered for the start of the marathon, along with a similar number of half, and 10k runners each starting a little bit after. We began the countdown to 2014 and the race start, and as the new year began, we ran through sparklers and fireworks all around us. For the first twenty minutes of the run, we could hear the city firework displays booming, but couldn't see anything because of thick fog that had settled along the river. The first section of the loop was crushed gravel, but after the bridge crossing, the opposite bank was rougher trail, rocky and rooted (not a complaint, I <3 trails). We finished lap 1 in under an hour, slow and steady. We wanted to take a gentle pace that would be easy to maintain throughout the full distance. So far so good, until an all-too-familiar rumbling in my stomach.
I thought just staying awake late enough to get to the starting line would be the biggest challenge for me, but my body wasn't all that happy with my plans for ringing in the New Year. The gingerbread man (aka runner's trots) chased me all of laps 2 and 3, causing four (yup-four) emergency pit-stops. Sorry, TMI, but I've got no other way to account for the near-hour of extra running (trudging). I've never been so thankful for the cover of fog and darkness to hide my detours off into the woods. The next few hours I was in pretty rough shape, dehydrated and demoralized, but still going. Sparing the painful details, I'll leave it at that. When we started the final lap, I was feeling pretty well beaten, but since this was my idea of a fun night, I tried to keep smiling and moving. At least I had my fantastic partner, together for every step, even as those steps got slower. The fog lifted, but add some freezing rain, just for fun, for the final leg of the race, slowing our pace even more as we shuffled to the finish line trying not to slip on the ice. So we did cross the finish line, holding hands. It wasn't the race I'd imagined, but we didn't quit, and we were together.
I got a nice forehead bruise from my headlamp, and pretty much every part of my body stopped functioning normally, but we already ran a marathon in 2014, before sunrise. Now the tough part, a little bit of complaining...a mile walk to the nearest train station, uphill in the freezing rain to head back to the hotel. After making our way through the up-all-night party-ers, we collapsed into the cozy warm beds around 6:30 am. Felt. So. Good.
A few short hours later, we checked out and headed back into the city center for a vegetarian (mostly vegan) all-you-can-eat-&-drink brunch buffet at the fabulous Hiltl restaurant. I don't think there could be anything better after a marathon, besides being able to eat way more than I actually did (insert sad face) since my body wasn't up for feasting. The food was fantastic, the small amounts that I could manage, but I'm going to need another chance to taste everything Hiltl has to offer. We, slowly, toured the quiet streets until our evening train home.
Happy 2014!
