Other blog topics

I decided that I'll also use this blog to write about our running races and things I sew. I'm hoping that it'll encourage me to do both more often. I started to sew something, but it'll take a while before I finish. I haven't sewed in 7 months, so I have to brush up on the basics. I even forgot how to thread the machine! Today's post is about the half marathon that Mike and I are running this Sunday.

Picture from the Emmentaler Half website

We are running the Lucern Marathon on October 26th. It's the biggest marathon in Switzerland and should be flat. I haven't run a marathon is over a year and a half so I'm really excited. Last month I decided we should race a half marathon in August. There's not too many to choose from (that's within an hour of Bern). I found one, showed it to Mike and signed us up. We are doing the Emmentaler Half Marathon. A quiet half marathon over hills and through farms. It was that or the Inferno Half Marathon which has a 7,135 feet (2,175 meters) climb! No way.

But now that the Emmentaler Half is less than a week away I'm looking at it's elevation climb. There is 2,230 feet of climb. Which is way easier than Inferno's but coming from Texas that is a lot of climb. In Texas the hilliest race I ran was the Decker Half. According to this website Decker has a 937 feet elevation gain. Less than half of Emmentaler's elevation. Texas has plenty of trail races with impressive climbs, but I never did any of them. The most elevation I've done was in 2012 when Mike and I did the Chattanooga Stage Race . It was a 3 day event, and the 2nd and 3rd day had 2,506 and 2,696 feet of climb. But those climbs were also over 22 and 20 miles. So the Emmentaler Half has a higher elevation gain per distance running (if that makes sense). We also did the American River 50 miler. It had 2,200 feet of climb. But it was spread out over 50 miles so I don't think it compares to Emmentaler or Chattanooga.

Yesterday, we did a long run over a hilly course. It was 14 miles and it took us forever! I won't even post how long it took, granted we did get lost and ended up running through someone's cow pasture and crops. I was convinced someone was going to come out with a shot gun and scream at us for trespassing. The total elevation gain was only 1,575 feet. 655 feet less than what we have to do at Emmentaler. Uggh.

And after completing my toughest half marathon ever, I don't even think we get a medal. The entry fee was cheap, so I'll be surprised if they splurge on medals. But I hope so, I need some Swiss Bling! The website says we get a "typical regional product". I'm very curious what that is. We are predicting a basket of vegetables. Though I hope it's wine and chocolate or cheese.

It's funny because I wouldn't even call this race a mountain race. Races here are tough. There's no causal runners here. Years ago Mike said he wanted to run the Jungfrau Marathon. Now that's a mountain race at over 5,000 feet of climb. It's on our bucket list, but it will be a long time before we are ready for that race. Hopefully, one day I'll look back on this post and laugh at being nervous over only 2,230 feet. But this week I'm not laughing.  I'm wondering why I enjoy putting myself (and my husband) through this torture.