Jungfrau Marathon

Home
Up

An unbelievable experience

Four runners from Boston & District Athletic Club took part in this Swiss Marathon on the foothills of the Jungfrau mountain.  Race day was the 2nd September, 2000.  The height climbed was 1638m (5374ft) with a maximum altitude of 2205m (7234ft)

See the website: Jungfrau Marathon

The runners and times were:

Name

Time

Age Group Position

Overall Mens Position

Shaun North 3h58m43.9s 154/1024

240

Geoff Johnson 4h42m58.0s 164/447

1158

Brian Laud 5h22m51.3s 459/525

2101

David Johnson 5h33m30.4s 478/525

2271

The winner this year was a Russian in 2h59m33.8s
3101 finishers (2691 men & 410 women)

Here are some pictures.  Click the thumbnail to see the full size picture, then use your browser's Back button to return to this page.

Before race.JPG (169050 bytes) wengen.jpg (175114 bytes) Route on sunny day cropped.jpg (160684 bytes) Nearly finished.JPG (112323 bytes) Medals cropped.jpg (70853 bytes)

A day in the mountains of Switzerland

I suppose I must take full responsibility for the torture inflicted on the other members of the group.  It all started 2 years ago when I was on holiday in Switzerland near the Eiger;  I had called in at the local tourist information office for some details on a nearby mountain railway when I saw a small poster for the Jungfrau Marathon.  My inquisitive mind then got the better of me and I asked for more information.  A quick glance at the leaflet showed that this was quite a challenge:  it was full Marathon distance, the first half being fairly level but the second half climbed 5000 feet to 8000 feet.  There was even an alternative route if there was too much snow!  That was it, I was hooked, I had to try this.  Could I find anybody else foolish enough to join me?

The first training night after my return I handed out some information about this Marathon.  The usual comments were: you must be mad.  I persevered with my plans however and eventually Geoff Johnson agreed to fly out with me to watch the 1999 race.  What a spectacular event.  We climbed up the last quarter of the course to watch the runners finish with amazing views until it started drizzling.  Then we walked down the 3rd quarter to see what the terrain was like.  It was just a track winding its way down a cliff through the trees.  How could we possibly describe this to the others?  The nearest we could think of was the South Elkington cliff but 3 miles long.

We distributed more information upon our return and eventually four of us met in Wainfleet: Geoff Johnson, Brian Laud, Shaun North and myself.  We all agreed that the longer we waited the less likely we were to do it.  So plans were put in place for the four of us to run the September 2000 race.

I flew out with my children 10 days before the race, my parents drove out 5 days before and the other runners and Brian's wife Jenny arrived 3 days beforehand.  The next day we climbed up to 6000 feet from the village with some fantastic views glimpsed through the clouds.  Friday was rest day, registration day and hang gliding day for the children.  I would of course have gone hang gliding myself had it not been for the worry of injuring myself before the race, it was nothing to do with my fear of heights of course.

Race day arrived all to soon with the rain pouring down at 5am.  There was no backing out now though.  We left for the start line at 7.30am with us all packed like sardines in a minibus, still it was much better than trying to catch the 6.45am post-coach.  We just had time to notice that it had stopped raining and the cloud was lifting before we were into the start routine.  Stretching, warm-up, hand kit in, say goodbyes all followed in quick succession.  Then the panic set in.  What are we doing here?  Help, we must be mad.

The start was at 8.45am with a lap of Interlaken before heading out to Lake Brienz.  The atmosphere was amazing; the streets were packed with spectators, well-wishers and even shop assistants, many of them had brought cow-bells with them which added to the general din.  The party atmosphere was apparent in every village we went through, with people ringing cow bells larger than I would attempt to lift as well as bands of every description.  Every where people were shouting hup, hup, hup as they do for the downhill skiing, maybe they thought we weren't going fast enough.

Geoff & Shaun had decided to run together for the first half aiming for about 1 hour 50 minutes while Brian & I decided on a cautious 2 hours.  The big thing was the unknown, none of us had ever run anything like it before.  We stopped at every drinks station to make sure that we took on plenty of fluids and food: chocolate, bananas, flap jack there was certainly plenty to choose from and we knew we would need it later.

Half-way at Lauterbrunnen arrived without too much difficulty: Shaun 1 hour 46 minutes, Geoff 1 hour 48 minutes, Brian & I 2 hours 1 minute.  Maybe we stopped too long at the food stations.  So far we had climbed only 240m but now we could see the mountains towering above us: the next 15Km would take us up a further 1600m.  We started up the slope but it soon became obvious that trying to run was using too much energy for very little gain so we decided a brisk walk was best which nearly everybody else was doing.  After about 45 minutes of this I had to slow down and told Brian to continue on without me as he was much stronger than me.  That was when the doubts set in, could I reach Wengen at 30Km? What about the climb after that when we were above the trees and there was less oxygen?  Come on keep those legs going, get to Wengen then it will seem better I tried to convince myself.  One last incline and there was Wengen: music blaring, cow bells ringing, people cheering.  Now where was our support team?  What a wonderful sight it was when I did see them; I have never felt as exhausted as I did at that moment and then at the same time my spirits were lifted so much by their smiling faces and encouragement.  I put a long sleeve shirt on under my running vest and took all the chocolate and raisins that they had before waving goodbye again.

No one had seen Shaun, was he so far ahead or did he have a problem?  Geoff & Brian had both "checked in" with our supporters.  The next 5Km was a steady climb that I was able to run/jog in places but mainly it was a matter of walking.  Then as we came out of the trees there was the Eiger straight in front of us with the cloud swirling around it.  The base of it was our target, but could those little specks snaking their way upwards really be runners, I hope not.  Unfortunately they were.

Then the final steep climb started, the tiredness and altitude set in.  Someone had placed small logs of about 6" in diameter across the path to stop erosion but it needed too much effort to step this high, the easier option was to step just to the side and then across and up.  I thought it was only me suffering in this way but all the other runners said that they did the same.  Then after climbing the ridge up into the clouds the highest point was reached with a bag piper there to celebrate the fact.  Hooray, it's downhill from here and I know that the goal is in reach.  My emotions get the better of me from here on, Shaun is cheering 200m from the end, then I am over the line, Geoff is there to help, it is all a blur and then I meet up with the support team and Brian at the finish.

With typical Swiss efficiency the baggage had been transported 1800m up the mountain, showers set up for 3500 runners, food and drink supplied and photographs taken.  Then it was a 2 hour journey back to the start by mountain railway, an experience in itself.

That night our meal together took on a special meaning as we knew that we had shared in something very special.  There was jubilation all round as we celebrated the end of a magical day.  The memories may fade a little with time but we will never forget our first Jungfrau Marathon.