The SOLA

This past weekend Martin and I participated in a relay race all around the hills surrounding Zurich called the SOLA (not sure what that stands for but it'd be in German anyway). We ran on a team made up of members of Martin's lab group, there were 14 of us total and together we ran 116.57km and 2,635m of uphill in 9:39:02, finishing 178th out of 808 teams. We each ran a different section of the race, all different distances with different amounts of uphill/downhill. There were photographers taking pics of the runners on each section and so I have saved some of them off to show you us at our very sweatiest and most worn out (the photographers were always at the end of each section and got you right when you were about to die):

Here's Martin, he did leg 13 out of 14:



Doesn't he look good? Not a drop of sweat on him it seems. You'd never know he's been unable to walk ever since due to his achilles being swollen up to golf ball size. Then there's me, the sweatfest of the ladies' advanced leg:



I wasn't going to post the pic of myself because I look awful in it but then I looked at the pics of all the other women on my leg and they all look awful so this pic of me really isn't so bad in the grand scheme of things.

Here's the guy who ran before me, whom I couldn't find at my starting line and therefore wasted 1-2 minutes of my time. He just ran the Madrid marathon and on his leg in the SOLA he finished 98th out of 808:



He looks awesome too. And the background in that pic is gorgeous, we sure did run through some nice scenic areas around Zürich. And here's the guy who ran after me, Mattias. He was tired and sweaty just like me because we got to run at the hottest time of day on a hot sunny day. He took a fun pic where he was smiling but I like the "in the zone" pics better:



Here's Carine, one of the other women on our team (there were 3 of us):



Karin got to run a section where women and seniors get to take a shortcut. I wish I'd had that section, I love shortcuts.

Here's Julian (I think ... his arm is over the number but it really looks like him), he ran the longest section which was 14km (8 miles):



And here's Sebastien, who ran up Uetliberg, which is a short leg at only 6km but it's all uphill(by far the steepest leg) and includes lots of stairs. This picture is taken right at the top of all the stairs which I believe is right when Sebastien thought he was going to pass out and had to walk a bit. Looks like there's a guy standing behind him taking a break too. I'm glad I wasn't volunteered for this leg.




Overall, it was a fun time, but we've all been paying for it since with really sore and tired legs.