Forest Marathon at Zeil am Main, Germany
The train stops at Zeil at Friday evening. Zeil am Main, s small village 60km north of Würzburg. Four heavy packed persons left the train. We shortly left the train, as we met another friend. He took the same train. When we came to the gymnasium of the event, the team of organisation was quiet busy. At 7.30pm it was possible to enter the gymnasium next to the bath. We took preparation to spend the night there. When we finished our preparations, we took a walk to the next pup. We had a good dinner and some nice hours. When we got back to the gymnasium at 11pm, there were arrived some more runners. Most of the runners slept already.
At the next morning we walked to the gymnasium of the event. There we got a long breakfast. There was a big buffet with a huge variation. Because the start was at 10am, there was plenty of time. We met some more friends and had nice conversations. At 9 am the group split more and more. There was some final preparations to do. Start was located 1,5km out in the woods. There was a shuttle transfer for all the runners. There were some pavilion, a tent of the red cross and some Dixi`s at the forest. At 10 pm the runners started to run the two 21km loops. The loop had three small circles. The ¼-Marathon runner just did the first circle. The Half- and Marathon runners did all three circles. Most of the course was at trails and a small part at street. Every loop included 400 meters altitude. But it was not too bad, because it was always slightly up and down. There were four aid stations at the loop and one more at the finishing area. Because of the rain during the night, it was wet, but not muddy or slightly. We were lucky, during the race there was no rain! It had 46F (8°C), so it was not to cold for November. I finished at second place, some minutes after the first.
| Men: | Women: | |||||||
| Place | Name | Surename | Time | Place | Name | Surename | Time | |
| 1 | Pfuhlmann | Ulli | 2:44:55 | 1 | Kellner | Heike | 3:26:19 | |
| 2 | Koch | Rainer | 2:54:28 | 2 | Schmidt | Susanne | 3:28:05 | |
| 3 | Gaschler | Peter | 2:57:01 | 3 | Wiedemann | Edith | 3:29:39 | |
Against the most races there was a bottle of local wine, instead of a finishing shirt. Back at the gymnasium the next way was the showers at the bath. Up till the finisher ceremony there was a picture show. Digital pictures, which were taken during the race, were shown. I could not wait till the time of the ceremony, because I`d like to go to Troisdorf. There I participated at the 6-Hour race at Sunday.