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

Geneva Auto Show

Today I treked over to Geneva to see the Auto Show there. It was much much bigger than the portland autoshow, and tons of car companies I had never heard of before. Additionally they put almost all the non-car companies (oil, rims, tires, brakes, and other generally boring components) in one room so it could be avoided if one so wished.
One of the more surprising aspects was that many of the car companies hired students from the Geneva area to work the booths, which while good for the students wasn't so good for the car show goer as they didnt know much about the brand, the specs, or anything that couldn't be learned by reading a little pamphlet.
The most interesting exhibit I saw was the Tesla Motors display which fortunately was manned by actual employees who were quite knowledgable and clearly loved what they were doing and throughly believed they were going to change the world.
Seeing this company and speaking with them was really helpful in identifying one the elements that I think has caused so many american companies to be successful. The belief or in many cases the delusion that if one works hard enough they can change to world. I mean specifically with tech companies. The dream of Gates was to have a pc on every desk in the country which at the time was recklessly optimistic if not completely crazy. I am not sure, but I guess it seems that here people are much likely to opt for the well-thought out, predictable, safe business plan. In many cases I guess that is probably better, but not nearly as fun and very little chance of flipping the world on its head