Swiss

Yesterday, I ran for a few kilometres with a Swiss-Maltese guy, one of many who have had their international lives torn apart by Covid. With the Omicron variant now making headlines, and a fresh wave of travel bans coming into effect, it is again uncertain to what extent international travel will be possible in the months ahead. Due to the strict lockdown in Austria, I have already had to cancel my award night at the Andaz in Vienna. Instead, I will now fly directly to Stockholm after Cyprus Marathon on Sunday.

Despite all of this, Swiss onboard service was as delightful as ever as we crossed the Tyrrhenian Sea on our way to the Alps. Once on the ground in Zürich, we had a chance to check out the newly reopened Senator Lounge in Terminal A for some “Nockerln”. Then, on the second leg up to Stockholm, it was time for the grand finale as we got to fly the brand-new Airbus A220 (formerly known as the Bombardier CSeries) and were served a traditional Swiss “Holzbrätchen” which I think will magically reappear at home any day ;-)

Reviewing the results from yesterday’s race, I was reasonably happy to see that I ended up as number 72 of the 109 runners who finished the race with an official chip time of 7 hours and 42 minutes (despite those four bonus kilometres). After all, these kinds of extreme trail races are more about finishing at all than anything else. Still, the guy who won the race did so in 4 hours and 29 minutes, a time that is quite difficult to comprehend considering how slippery the trails were and the 1500+ meters of elevation gain.