VizesNyolcas at the Ultrabalaton

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I wanted to follow the time-line of our experiences in my blog but I just got back from the Ultrabalaton relay race and I'm still really high on the experience... so I decided to write about it while it is still fresh in my mind.

My friend Luca has told me about participating in the race last year. It's a 220 km (approximately 130 mi) run around Lake Balaton, the largest continental lake in Europe. This year was the ninth annual event. Here is the race's website for some images and additional info for those of you who are intrigued: http://ultrabalaton.hu. The race was this past weekend (Sat. May 30 – Sun, May 31). The Balaton is a major recreational area in the western part of Hungary with towns all around the lake. The lake itself is about 70 km long; at its narrowest about 1.5 km and at its widest about 14 km across. The terrain on the south shore is flat while the north is very hilly with some excellent wine-growing regions, like Badacsony. On the eastern end of the south shore, you can walk in 1-1.5 km into the lake and the water is still waist deep. I spent about a month of every one of my summers growing up at the lake (south shore, Balatonszabadi-Sosto), so I have very-very deep emotional attachments to it. It's definitely one of my happy places. The north shore tends to be a little quieter (although it has its own fair share of entertainment, music festivals, wine tasting, etc) and generally classier. The south shore, especially the town of Siofok is the total party capital of the country in the summer, with raging music, beach parties, restaurants, bars, music, dancing and totally out-of-control teens and college students. There can be a major meat-market aspect of the lake too, particularly Siofok. I've never been to Florida for spring break but this is pretty much how I imagine it. This is still pre-season until about the middle of June but there were signs everywhere that the resorts were coming alive, and, of course the event attracted tons of people and kept restaurants, pubs and cafes open well into the night.

Luca was getting ready to do the race again with a team called “VizesNyolcas” and was excited about it. I was envious, so when she told me about one of their runners dropping out due to illness and invited me to be part of the team, I jumped on the opportunity. I had no idea what to expect because I've never done a relay before. Individuals can enter the race too (in a separate category) and so can any teams with up to ten people. There are prizes for individual runners, pairs and the rest of the relay teams. I guess there was a cycling race too but I was not completely clear on the details – most cyclist seemed to be simply escorting the runners. We had ten runners on our team. There were checkpoints and aid stations around the lake about 3-5 km apart and teams could split up the distance any way they wanted to. The team was kind to me and I inherited two shorter legs – one a little over 8 miles and another a little over 3 for a total of 11.5. Most people on the team ran around 13 miles with a few people taking slightly longer stretches. A lot of people on the team had done this event before (in fact were part of the team last year). Many of them work together at the same place, at a foundation that supports disabled people, and this foundation was the team sponsor too.

We set off at the crack of dawn (5 am) on Saturday from Buda. I was in Luca's minivan with her husband, Pala who was also a cyclist escort for some of the night runs, Luca and two other women: Evi (cyclist/driver) and Andi (runner). There were two other cars, with another driver/helper and the rest of our running team - four men and six women altogether. Our start time was in Balatonaliga (a little over an hour from Budapest) at 7:50. There was a staggered start with the slower teams starting earlier, in an attempt to even out the finishing times. We got to Balatonaliga very early and had some time to go over logistics and do a meet-and-greet for the team. We took some team photos and got to run the start (first few hundred meters) together as a team.

In the morning everyone was still fresh and excited and we all showed up to cheer the first switch. Our first runner did very well – much under the predicted time. I actually thought it was very funny that everybody on the team was very modest and underestimated their pace in the prior estimates we had to give. But, nobody really cared much about the competition aspect of the event, so it seemed like this was pretty irrelevant. Along the bike path we followed, there was an almost un-interrupted stream of runners, cyclists, event organizers and onlookers. During the first part of the run, the towns have virtually grown together too, so you never really leave behind houses and people. Our second runner, Andi had a very long stretch (24 km), so most of us found a place in one of the little towns to sit and get some breakfast. Several people on the team were already (still?) drinking too. I'm pretty much a light-weight when it comes to alcohol, so this didn't even enter my mind. In general, I've noticed that people in Hungary feel totally comfortable starting to drink pretty early in the day – and they don't bother with contorted “it's five o'clock somewhere” explanations either. They just do it. For example, when I met Luca a few times for lunch/during the day, she'd always have wine (and usually not just a glass). I think I'd be totally worthless for the rest of the day if I tried to do the same. (Although I've been told that I simply need to work on my tolerance levels.) And, what was even funnier to me, several of the team members were also taking regular smoke breaks too. I don't think my team had exceptional dependency issues – all sorts of other runners were lighting up and drinking too throughout the day. But I digress.

When Andi came in (looking very spry and yep, overachieving the time she'd predicted) Luca and I remained the only runners in our car, with our portions coming up in the evening and at night. This freed us up a lot and gave our group some flexibility in whether we wanted to go to each checkpoint. Initially, we watched all of the switches. (Some of the runners did legs that covered distances between 3 or more checkpoints, so not every checkpoint was simultaneously a switching point too for the team.) The day gradually grew hot, the terrain hillier and the towns were also spaced apart further. We spent a couple of hours in a cafe at the eastern edge of the north shore, chatting, enjoying the sun, drinking coffee (and beers... and smoking). Now that the going was getting tougher, the predicted times became more realistic and the runners were looking more and more tired at the end of their stretch too. The energy levels were still quite high at this point – the checkpoints had music, some had free sandwiches for runners and cyclists, and all individual runners were still looking in control of their race. Another longer, memorable stop during the day was at a rustic restaurant in the middle of the afternoon. The town we stayed in overlooked the lake and the garden of the restaurant where we were seated was shaded and full of flowers. Two of the cars had no runners on the road for a few hours, so we lounged in the shade and had a bigger meal. I was really enjoying getting to know people. I spent most of my time talking to Andi and Evi and I particularly clicked with Andi.

Chip times for the teams were posted on-line and we were about 30-40 minutes ahead of the printed schedule we were following but as the day wore on, it was getting a little harder to predict exactly when people would come in. On the initial schedule, I was supposed to run from about 7:30. I had to run through one checkpoint and switch with Luca at the second one. By 5, I was getting pretty antsy – by this time, all I had done was a whole lot of eating and lounging and watching others run. I was also getting a little stiff from all the sitting around. We got to Gyenesdias (checkpoint for my switch) pretty early and I made some feeble attempts to warm up. Szabi, the runner before me, got turned around somewhere and also struggled some with the hills, so I ended up waiting for what seemed like a really long time. I was super excited when he came and I finally got to run my first leg. I started with a downhill part, overlooking the western tip of the lake that was completely glassy now. To the left, you could see the ruins of the Szigliget castle perched on a hill and, in the misty distance, the Tihany peninsula was visible too. As the sun was getting lower, the temperature was beginning to drop too, to a perfect running weather. A few people passed me as I got through the first few minutes. Once I warmed up, I started catching up with people. I caught a guy who ended up being my running partner for the first leg. We chatted a bit. His name was Laci and we paced each other very well. I definitely hit the sweet spot of my running during this portion. I felt smooth, light and fast. The scenery was very beautiful. We had dropped down and could no longer see the lake and were running through woods and between reeds as the bike path weaved its way through a marshy part. As the sun was going down, the light was soft and filtered through leaves; the air filled with birdsong. (And bugs.) It was a relief to be running in nature again after all the city running I've been doing lately. I felt my spirit rise. I realized how deeply I miss the forest and the beach in Humboldt – how much being outside recharges me in body and spirit.

People were really nice to each other on the run – everybody had a word of encouragement, cyclists and runners alike. In Hungarian you say “hajra” and this is mostly what people would echo to each other as they passed. There were a number of individual runners on the road too, most of them with a cyclist. This was around halfway for them and some were definitely unraveling – caked in salt, limping along very stiffly and uncomfortably. I couldn't imagine how they must have felt, having gone this far but clearly having depleted their reserves, with over 100 km still left to cover... Some others still looked remarkably strong – small, steady steps and a look of determination on their faces. I am certainly in awe of the dedication ultra runners but seeing them up close and personal confirmed in my mind that I don't really have any desire to do what they do. There is a manic quality to their determination from where I stand – of course, others might feel the same way about the half marathon distance I love.

Laci and I passed quite a few people and entertained ourselves by racing a young woman in a red shirt. She didn't seem like an experienced distance runner but was pretty fast. We'd pass her (“hajra” - “hajra”) and then she'd come back from behind, charging ahead, out of breath. We finally left her behind not very long before the first checkpoint. At the first checkpoint Laci stopped to get water and I kept going. The second checkpoint I had to hit was not that far now (about 5 km) but I was beginning to run out of steam. I was still passing people but the feeling of lightness and speed was over. I did the middle (maybe most?) of this part out of sheer will. I had to laugh at my earlier thoughts of the woman in the red shirt not seeming like an experienced distance runner – I realized that I had committed the cardinal sin of distance running by going out too fast relative to my conditioning. And, all the cake eating I've substituted for my long runs was probably coming back to haunt me too. My legs and mind still remember what I could do... I just didn't have the endurance any more. Laci caught up with me a bit before the second checkpoint and this poured some new energy into me. A combination of a few words of encouragement and my vanity kicked in and I pushed through to the second checkpoint where Luca was there to take over. After I thanked Laci for helping me out at the end, I stumbled down to the lake and stuck my feet in the cold water for a bit before I went in search of the rest of the team. The water felt incredibly good...

Things started to get a little blurry around the edges after this point. The team was pretty much past gathering at the switching points to cheer now. We all started simply showing up where we had to. After Luca was done with her longer portion too, our car drove to the next checkpoint where I'd be switching over from Szabi, with Luca following me again. It was completely dark now, with the only light on the bike path coming from the runners headlamps and the bicycles. The checkpoints were still well stacked with water and snacks and some places nearby were selling coffee, and, of course, beer. I was focusing on being done soon, trying to ignore my stiffness. I think I started the next leg (which was only about 5 km) around midnight. The wind had picked up from the lake but it was still warm. I had misread the wind and was dressed too warmly in a long sleeved shirt and tights. (Funnily, this is my most acute memory of discomfort from this part of the race.) For various logistic reasons, Pala ended up escorting me on a bike, although the plan had been for me to run solo. I was surprised by how quickly I feel into a rhythm again. I didn't really have a sense of my pace. As it turned out, I actually did OK in this leg too, overall not that much slower than my first portion. Runners had spread out by this point and the dark isolated me from everything. There was nothing, just my breathing, my headlight and the sound of the bicycle following me. I can't really say that this was fun – I was too tired for that – but in a sense this second run delivered the sort of meditative, almost out-of-body experience that I love about running sometimes. My body took over with my mind completely blank, and as it turns out, it was all good. The switch with Luca went very smoothly again and I was utterly relieved to be done. Luca's portion was similar in distance and she did very well too. Around 1 am (or maybe later??) all of us in the car were done running and we could finally drive to the finish – back to Balatonaliga. During the drive, Luca and I reminisced about all the dumb things we had done together as teenagers. The two of us spent a lot of time together at my family's cabin at the lake, and during one of our trips we'd gone hitchhiking. The most memorable part of that particular experience was getting picked up by cops and getting a huge lecture (and a ride). This reminded us of much else – like the time when we took a train to Leningrad (still called that at the time) and one night got stranded on the wrong side of town from our hosts when the bridges were opened; and several other trips, all of them involving dumb choices that seemed hilarious at the time. Both of us have teenagers now and are bewildered by our parents' faith in us, letting us go on some of these adventures.

It was past 2 am when we got to Aliga and I remember thinking how wired and awake I was just before I crashed. Five adults sleeping in a minivan stuffed full of sweaty running clothes and remnants of various snacks sounds just as appealing as it was in real life. Nobody got any deep sleep – we all alternated between fits of trying to arrange our stiffening limbs into somewhat comfortable positions, then passing out for a while. Dawn came with light rain but it was a relief to be able to get out of the car and reunite with the rest of the team at the finish. The walk back to the start/finish was a welcome relief for my sore legs. We were all supposed to run the last few hundred yards together as a team again but this was beyond our logistic abilities and we missed it. The team finished under 22 hours, around the middle of the field (133 from about 200 teams). It was fun to hear the war stories of those who had to take some of the long shifts during the deepest part of the night. We bonded, took pictures and enjoyed the bounty of very inappropriate snack provided by the organizers – ice cream and alcohol-free beer. Alcohol-free??? Either the organizers or I have deeply misunderstood the race demographics. After collecting our bottle of wine and medals and saying our good-byes, we all headed back to Budapest. I'm still super inspired by the event – I'm plotting to return next year, if at all possible. I'm even willing to train a bit more consistently than lately... sadly, there will be no temptations of cakes to overcome once I return to the US.

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Photos

prerace_planing
Pre-race gathering

team_organization2
Getting organized

focusing
Melinda and Marci - getting directions

Kriszta_main_organizer
Kriszta - team sponsor and one of the main organizers.

team_organization
Some more pre-race planning

Luca_after_a_rough_night
Luca, still recovering from a rough night. For all the smack I wrote about her, these were NOT her beers.

Pala
Pala - Luca's husband, proud supporter of the team.

at_the_start
Milling around at the start - Melinda and Andi

at_the_start2
Melinda and Andi

team_pic
Pre-race team picture

team_start
Team start. Szabolcs (in front) takes the first leg.

end_of_first_leg
At the end of the first leg - Luca, Szabolcs and I.

LucaAndBori
Luca and I.

andi_arriving
Andi arriving at the end of 24 km, still looking strong.

team_snacking
The team that snacks together, stays together.

team_hanging1
Hanging...

Kriszta_gettingready
Kriszta getting ready to run.

Melinda
Melinda at the end of her first leg. She ran another one late in the evening and one at dawn.

SzabolcsOrul
Szabi at a checkpoint.

checkpoint_midday
Waiting at the checkpoint - party atmosphere.

KrisztaAndEvi
Kriszta and Evi

team_hanging2
In the shade

midday_station
Zoli (main logistics guy) and Evi.

more_snacking
Andi and I - midday snack.

late_lunch
Late lunch at a very pleasant, rustic place.

beer_break
Kriszta, savoring her beer.