Five Things Running: Issue #76

Summer came back and I went running my first Ultra!

Aug 26, 2024

Hello and welcome back to Five Things Running!

I did it! At the tender age of 52 I finally ran my first Ultra. I rather spontaneously signed up when more and more people asked me what I was training for and I realized that I actually didn’t train for anything, but was in good shape. Anyhow, the Rosengarten Ultra Heide Marathon (RUHM) (for those who are not that fluent in German, “Ruhm” means “fame”) sold out last year before I got around to signing up, so when I checked the website a few weeks ago and found out that there were still some spots open, I signed up. The race takes place just a few kilometers south of Hamburg, which is called Schwarze Berge (Black Mountains), which is part of a bunch of tiny hills in the forest commonly called Harburger Berge (Harburg Mountains, which is both the southernmost borough of Hamburg and the name of the county right next to it, which belongs to Lower Saxony. To make matters even more confusing: those mountains are actually hills, no higher than 140 meters, as you can see in the race profile. Also, we ran through lots of heath land, which is absolutely gorgeous this time of the year.

My first ultra went pretty smoothly, I ran the whole 50 km with the exception of two hills near the end. I almost fell twice, once because of too much mud and once because of a root. Other than that, it was a fun run, with almost 1000m of vert, some mud, some sun, a little wind, plenty of wonderful aid-stations (they even had my favorite gel, Aerobee, which is honey as a base and also available in different flavors like honey and lime. So good!). The first 40 km were nice, then the next 5 km dragged on and on, and then finally the last 5km went by rather quickly. I’m kind of bummed that they needed to adjust the course a bit and now I didn’t get to race the full 50 km. I guess I have to run another one!