A weekend of running

Thursday late afternoon, after Markus returned from work, we packed our car and drove off to Vorarlberg for a long weekend and the Sparkasse Marathon in the Dreilaendereck on Sunday in which Markus participated over the half-marathon distance. The journey on Friday went by swiftly as Jakob was sleeping all the way and no pit stop was necessary and so we reached our destination in just over 5 hours. During the night we realised though that our little one has difficulties breathing through the nose as obviously he has cought a slight cold. On Friday Markus was chained to the computer until mid afternoon as the business activity was haunting him on his birthday which he actually wanted to spend with his family. So much about his plans. Kerstin in the meantime was searching for suitable medication for Jakob’s cold as his nose was running constantly and that gave him lots of difficulties to breathe. The medication luckily did work and so our son was able to sleep well and long during the nights again once the nose stopped running.

Happy faces after having reached the finish!

Sunday morning Sandra and Markus boarded the ferryboat from Bregenz to Lindau where for more than 5000 runners the start for the marathon took place at 11:11. Flo, who was also supposed to participate had to give in to illness during the training programme and so he decided to have one of his friends running instead of him and gaining a strong time in the name of Flo. The weather was absolutely gorgeous with blue sky and sunshine, whereas the temperatures were almost too high for a long distance run with the setting by Lake Constance and the course which even led through the festival arena and the stage of the Bregenzer Festspiele. The high temperatures and the fact that Markus was hardly following his training programme throughout summer as he preferred to spend time with our son took their toll and so his personal best was far out of reach and he ended his race with a time of 1:48:13 while Sandra managed to improve her personal best over the 21.097 km to 2:05:47. Sunday evening finally allows for a birthday celebration before we are heading back to Vienna on Monday morning.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus