This Sunday is the first Advent Sunday, which in Germany is the start into the "besinnliche Zeit" - the thoughtful time, as the hectic 4 weeks before christmas is commonly known, where all the work of a month gets stuffed into 3 weeks, where lots of gatherings at school and work take place, where we stroll through the rain to get christmas presents, where we spend too much money for crappy mulled wine at overcrowded christmas markets where vendors sell overpriced christmas kitsch and where everybody says "I'm so looking forward to the days after christmas to finally slow down a bit." - thoughtful times indeed. I'm starting this Sunday with a different tradition - I run the Adventslauf in Ratzeburg, the town where I went to highschool. The race around Lake Ratzeburg was started after the reunification of Germany and I still recall how weird and amazingly great it felt to be able to run along the eastern lakeside. I think I was still in highschool when I ran the race and for a long time I wanted to run the 26 km again, but somehow this did't work out. So actually I'm restarting this tradition for myself. I'm looking forward to 26km at 5 degrees Celsius and probably some drizzling rain to start the thoughtful time...Anyhow, read on, my dear.