CRIScom travel experience flow – The personal website of Christoph Potzinger

Quick entry for now
. The 114th Boston marathon has been successfully completed, again under 3 hrs, the 5th consecutive time. While this marathon was one of the hardest because of ugly head-wind gusts starting after 5 ks and a hilly course with quite a few of 300 – 1.000 m climbs, the atmosphere was just outstanding – the Americans can get really crazy when it comes to sports. Sometimes the noise was deafening.

The second half was especially tough with the wind getting stronger and more climbs coming up, especially Heartbreak Hill, a hilly section in the suburb of Newton between miles 17 and 21. My feet worsened as soon as kilometer 15 and I had to run very carefully in order to avoid early cramps .

After Heartbreak Hill it is mostly downhill. But with sore legs this is quite a task to accomplish, especially when time is against you. I almost sped up too early but managed to overcome a cramp problem with just 1 mile to go soon enough in order to finish in 2:59:31 hrs: mission accomplished.

Then it was another long walk to gather my changing clothes and meet up with Sylvia, Jean-Pierre, Susi, Stefan and Julian and celebrate the successful run. We went to Jakobs Wirth, a Bavarian beer house in Boston city, and relished on Fish and Chips, Paulaner Hefeweizen and a Guiness. Spiro, a friend from Melbourne, joined us, putting a perfect end to a breath-taking day.

More on the marathon soon…

Sunday afternoon here at the Kallanian’s, waiting for lunch with just 18 hours to go for my 7th marathon. When I will take the first step into my 2nd marathon in the masters series at the oldest martahon of the world, I am already a winner since I was lucky enough to even have made it to Boston.
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With each day closer to our departure to Boston, things were becoming busier and busier, even crazy. Today was the worst with a web project going online while I was lecturing at university.

There had been a series of miscommunication in the project team and problems with the website only began to surface when the old server was shut down and it was too late to fall back on the old site. My phone buzzing constantly, I stood there in front of my class analysing Bill Gates’ and Steve Jobs’ presesentations.

I am still wondering how I managed to handle both situations, solving the problems with the website during breaks and video casts while entertaining my students. The afternoon would be no different . Customers, I hadn’t heard from for a long, long time, started to call, and the web project still demanded my attention because the moment we solved a problem another would resurface. As soon as I thought I had everything under control an e-mail from Jean-Pierre arrived, informing me about the eruption of a volcano on Iceland whose smoke brought air travel all over Britain and large parts of Northern Europe to a halt. Suddenly, it seemed as if we weren’t even able to go on our long awaited holiday . It was, to say the least, chaotic.

Now things have fortunately calmed down – for now. I still have not packed and I am tired. But there is a hot, rich chicken soup, which Sylvia has cooked, waiting for me . And then there’s my suitcase to attend to and an 18 hour journey to complete, my BIB to pick up and then I should be all set for the Boston Marathon on Monday.

More updates on our progress to Boston and the Marathon soon here… (gotta pack now, you know…)