I’m in. 56km in 10:37:19.

Beauty and beast. What a day. Today had everything life had to offer, maybe in a slightly different distribution than what one would expect.

There was joy, pain, emotion, struggle, more struggle, much more pain and this feeling of deep satisfaction, that hits you when you realize you are doing it. Living your life.

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The morning started at 730 hours for me. Peter and I are a team at this point. It took only seconds to agree that we would run this one together again.

We enjoyed a marvelous sunrise on the famous Camino de Santiago. We probably confused hundreds of pilgrims, as we were running away from what all of them are aiming for. We shared all the good energy and lots of hellos.

I knew this day would be brutal but I did not quite image it would turn the way it did. The roadbook was clear, there’s was a huge uphill ahead past checkpoint 2 at 37 km. So, I thought that would be the tough part and mentally prepared for it. What did I know. Peter and I crushed that 11 km steep uphill almost with ease but only to realize that there was three more of these to come. Each slightly steeper up and super hard to run down. We kept the spirit up by coming up with dishes to cook, tech to buy and pictures to make – planking on the highest peak was the obvious choice.

We paced really well and started to pick up some of the runners that had been started 30 minutes earlier and some that we had lost when we enjoyed a tortilla and a coke at the final Checkpoint. I decided to only run on real food from now on. All these artificial bars are just jucky. I start to get the concept of tapas.

After an almost 14 km downhill, which was unbelievably hard on the ankles and muscles, we finally reached the city at around 53 km.

Naturally we thought we were already there, but Manu apparently always has a slight twisty available.

Nobody did see the final 3 km coming. Maybe runable for goats or mountain born creatures but even with my walking sticks I barely made ground.

It felt as if it would never end. The surrounding forest got deeper and deeper, no houses, the city far away at this time.

Little did we know that Manu wanted us to meet him at a former ski resort. Yep, those usually sit in the mountains.

What a sweet victory when we finally arrived. As usual many of the volunteers were waiting for us with food, drinks and best of all plenty of hugs.

Did I enjoy it? Yes, I did. For some strange reason I still feel very strong. Only my legs are completely worn out. Hoping for the massage to do the trick again.

Tomorrow is only a little more than a marathon and supposedly not very hilly. Well, I believe this when I run it.

Two more to go.

Relive ‘4 the stage’