Running with friends
I really appreciate any runs I can do outside Graz. For me running in Graz is what I do on a daily basis: I jump into my runners, head down the stairs and out of the building. Then I have to run for about ten minutes across the city in order to reach Augarten, a park situated at the river Mur, from where a bike track goes all the way down to the border of Slovenia
. There I get a taste of running in the nature but with the constant background noise of the city and the smell of cars it is nothing compared to runs I occasionally do in Gabersdorf or Leibnitz, approx 40 ks down south . Last Saturday morning, I teamed up with two excellent athletes for a long jog from Leibnitz to Heimschuh and Tillmitsch. Erwin (middle) is a triathlete, who has qualified twice for the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii . His record is an amazing 9.25 hrs for 3.8 ks swimming, 180 ks biking, and 42.195 ks running. I used to play soccer with him back in the eighties but now our heart beats for a different kind of sports . Christian (right) is alsow a friend from the old days of soccer. Like me, he is (just) a runner – but a very good one, indeed, one of the best in the region. His half-marathon record is 1.13 hrs. and at the Graz marathon last October he competed in a stunning 2.45 hrs. Running with friends makes such a difference and even such a long run over more than 30 ks and 2.30 hrs is a fleeting experience.
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