A City I’d Never Have Visited, A Race I’ll Never Forget

The trip began with two very difficult decisions. The first being choosing to ride the FLY Dundee airport bus. As the Ember bus’s number one fan, I felt quite the hypocrite. The second was choosing coffee over a pint in the airport Spoons, I was an elite athlete for the weekend after all! Would the Kenyan runners I was lining up against in just two days be downing Tennents in Spoons at 11am? Unlikely.

I have always found that water is strangely hard to come by in airports, particularly if you are unwilling to part with £4 in WH Smith, so a highlight of the journey was the free bottle of water I was given on the plane.

This royal treatment set the tone for the trip, upon arrival in Wurzburg, we went straight to the opening meal for the 10k - mingling with organisers, sponsors, and some of the top German runners scheduled to compete on the Sunday.

Our hosts had prepared a packed itinerary for us, but we just had time to squeeze in a shakeout parkrun on the Saturday morning. With only 37 runners, it was quiet compared to what we are used to. Quiet until a very loud alarm started sounding from the trolley that was being transported from the start to the finish! Of course, this turned out to be a ‘find my phone’ alert that I had accidently set off, I got some extra mileage in by chasing after it. Not all of us were such embarrassments, as Laura took home first woman!

We were introduced to the mayor in the afternoon at the City Chambers, Harry seamlessly delivered a bilingual thank-you speech. We then went on to some wine-tasting, before carb loading in an Italian restaurant in the evening.

Race day! Our races were in the afternoon. As someone who is a bag of nerves before these things, I’d usually have preferred to get it over with in the morning. However, it meant I got to watch Sawe and Kejelcha go under 2 hours at London marathon live, and what better pre-race motivation could you get than that.

It was soon time to head over to the residence palace, where the race was due to begin. There was already a great atmosphere, as kids and families had completed various fun runs. I watched the rest of the DRRs set-off in the mass participation race and was blown away by the amount of people taking part. 

The mass race started at 14:15, and my race wasn’t getting started until 15:45, so I took this opportunity to try and #LockIn. By lock in, I mean listen to Addison Rae – Diet Pepsi, Sabrina Carpenter – House Tour, and MARINA – Obsessions. I felt ready to go now. 

I found a nearby park to warm-up in and have never felt such imposter syndrome. It was about 17 degrees and sunny, pretty warm (for me). I had already stripped down to my DRR vest and shorts, whereas everyone else in the park was in full sponsored Adidas, Asics, and PUMA tracksuits. 

I tried not to let this get to me as I made my way to the start-line. Honestly, the 4-lap course didn’t suit me at all. It was constant rolling hills, as someone who is very much a rhythm runner, I could never really settle into the race. I overcooked the uphill’s on the first lap and was in the red from early on. I had to use the downhill’s in the middle section to catch my breath rather than push. A guy I ran most of the race with had a mate who would run with us for a few hundred metres every time we came round to him and scream encouragement at his friend the whole time. I found this very annoying and really wished he would stop. 

I thought I was completely cooked, but amazingly did catch my breath somewhat and had a good final lap. 34:04 was my finishing time, 20^th place in the male field. Looking back on my splits, I didn’t die in the middle section as much as I felt like I did. When discussing the race at club on Tuesday before I left, I said to my friends that I had expected to run 34 low given the course elevation, so it was weird to feel a bit disappointed. I think it was just because I had taken a swing at something faster and couldn’t quite pull it off. 

Oh well, nothing a few beers wouldn’t fix! It was nice to finally feel like I was in holiday mode. The rest of the DRRs all had great runs in the mass race, and we celebrated in the residence square for a bit, before heading to an evening meal with our hosts from Wurzburg LG, and the fellow twin city run club from Trutnov, Czech Republic. We exchanged gifts and a trophy was given to the fastest team, which we missed by 1.8 seconds! Must try harder next time.

Laura and I’s recovery run on the Monday morning consisted of 226 metres of elevation, climbing to a castle and cathedral that overlooked the city. I’m not sure our legs thanked us, but the views were great! We were then driven to nearby town Rothenburg in a mini bus. The main tourist attraction was a giant Christmas shop. It was quite a fun novelty to visit in April but I couldn’t help but think about how the poor staff must hate Christmas by the time it comes around each year. 

I really can’t say enough about how well looked after we were on this trip. Having spent 4 days having a hotel breakfast, going for a run, then having a second hotel breakfast (which I must stress had a Nutella spreading machine), coming back to reality has been harder than usual post-holiday. 

Joking aside, I feel very lucky that I was able to experience a city I probably never would’ve visited otherwise, compete in an elite race, and spend time with a great bunch of DRR’s.