It was the first day of our holiday on the island of Borkum and of course we wanted to run a loop around the island. The weather forecast said that it was going to rain at noon but we thought it was still a good idea to get going.
And so we did. We set off along the beach front which at first was paved but soon gave way to lots of sand. Once we'd passed the village, there were no more people around and the sand got wilder: we had to run over sand dunes and kind of felt like competing in the Marathon des Sables. Steffi tripped over a sand dune and fell but landed softly - so watch out there. On we went for several kilometres that felt rather long until we reached the North-Eastern tip (as far as you can go without intruding in the nature reserve).
Then came the hiking path from hell that took us off the beach and into Hoge Hörn – with lots of deep sands and headwinds. The path soon became a dune path and then merged with a paved path that led us onto Neue Deich. Meanwhile, dark thunderclouds were looming and lightning struck in the distance. We knew that the weather around here is unpredictable and hoped that the rainclouds would pass. But then the downpour began, and things escalated quickly. We couldn't see anything anymore and almost got blown over by the storm. Luckily, the only hut of the entire route was just 2 minutes away (big advantage of the flat landscape: you can see miles ahead), so we took refuge there with a bunch of retirees and their bicycles. As we were drenched, we got out our emergency blankets to keep warm (always bring your trail safety kit along! See also our FKT report Spessarter Spechtweg). We lost 15 valuable minutes waiting for the worst of the storm to blow over and then continued on our way along the dyke. In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king and we felt like hardcore trail runners among those shelter-seeking cyclists, who looked at us admiringly (we thought) when we put our blankets away and trudged along like soaked poodles in the rain.
After the dyke, the route we'd initially planned to take was flooded (of course!) and impassable, so we took another path through Greune Stee and then rejoined the beach. After about 25k we made it to the finish line. It was harder than we had expected, especially the parts in the sand. Make sure you don't do this during high tide because it will be even harder to run in the sand and always check the weather forecast.