Jake Visits

This weekend Jake (a friend from BU) visited me on part of his whirlwind euro-tour. We luckily had great weather to we made it to Uetliberg

Luckily my shirt hid sweat better than his. On sunday we got a railpass and hopped a train to where the mountains looked good, on the way we were advised by some swiss to go to Fafleralp since there was a glacier there we could hike to, and lots of different places to explore and come down. So we took their advice and the site actually turned out to be a UNESCO site.
Fafleralp Hike at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail: Travel Community
And on monday we made it to the Zurich Film Fesival and saw an entertaining but perhaps not soo well thought out french-canadian movie about a kid whose life was ruined by pluto's deplanetification. A pretty decent weekend.

Sola DUO

I had heard about Sola DUO from a friend in my running group and he basically kept reiterating how amazing it was, and how really only the craziest of the crazies even attempt it. Naturally I was a little intrigued (It is no real ultramarathon, but a solid leap away from marathon on the crazy scale)
So it is a little tricky to explain. It is a team event with two people and one bike. The team must stay together at all times, and they trade off who rides the bike. I had wanted to do it, but my partner backed out, and I ended up finding someone else in the same pool and we happened to be almost exactly the same strength runner.

The run was basically invented because after running Sola (a hood to coast like relay race around the zurich area) a bunch of guys were like this is way to complicated with the logistics of getting everyone to the right start spot and making sure everyone is one time, and knows who they are handing-off to and picking up from. So they simply decided the event could be done with just 2 people and a bike. Where one person rides and recovers (navigates as well) while the other runs, and they just trade off.

It is a brilliant idea, and it was really a blast. You feel really well connected to the outcome and involved in every detail of the strategy. Plus you see the same people the whole time (basically), and everything gets a bit shaken up at every hill climb. Plus having someone ride next to you the whole time really keeps you motivated, and we ran faster than either of us alone could do a single marathon.

Plus it is fun to run in the middle of nowhere and ungodly hours, the world is so calm and silent, and having people leaving the bars look at you with utter astonishment, and again when the newspaper delivery men see everyone and just stare and cheer you on.

SOLA Duo . 50 miles St. Gallen to Zurich at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail: GPS Community

Circling Lake Constance

I had heard about the ride (Bodensee Radmarathon = Lake Constance Bike Marathon) from a friend of mine and it sounded too cool to skip (3 countries, along the shore, 3rd biggest lake in central europe, sweet tshirts), but I waited until I knew how the weather was going to be before I committed to riding 220km. Plus you got a gold medal is you survived the whole thing and finished in under 12 hours.

The ride itself was great, the support every 30-40km was great with plenty of free snacks and drinks and little places to eat lunch. They even had banana flavored energy drink.
The route was relatively flat and avoided traffic areas pretty well, which was nice because around kilometer 200, I was semi-delirious and probably would not have been too safe in a high traffic area.

I also learned that the term radmarathon (biking marathon) cannot be thrown around willy-nilly. It is officially a ride over 200km so my earlier stunt in Emmental at 110km doesnt count (and after doing this, I am thinking that it definitely shouldnt)

Bodensee (Lake Constance) Radmarathon at EveryTrail

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