I left Pforzheim at 5 am and was accompanied by Tim for the first 30km, the weather being way more chilly and breezy than expected on the mountain tops. Ran on a comfortable pace on the first part but was still ahead of my optimistic 40 hr time plan by 20 mins when I first met my girlfriend and the crew car at Forbach. The rest of the first day I ran mostly alone, and keeping ahead of the time plan and even added 20 more minutes.
In Hausach, I had some warm pasta before tackling the long climb out of the Kinzig Valley with Lukas and Christoph. After warming up in the boiler room of a hotel around midnight, Hanna joined the gang as well and would stay with me until Titisee. The cold and breezy night on the exposed plateau of the Mittelschwarzwald sucked the energy out of us and by morning I was even with the time plan.
I left Titisee to tackle the climb to Feldberg with Henning and felt increasingly energetic as the sun came up and promised for much nicer conditions than on the first day. The next sections with Sophia, Alex, and Richard flew by quickly but I had increasing problems with sleepiness. I tried to have a nap in the car but then decided to solve the problem with more Red Bull and caffeine pills which worked well after caffeine fasting for two weeks. In Vogelbach, Lorenz took over pacing duty and we were able to push the pace a bit, my legs feeling surprisingly okay given the circumstances. After keeping me awake for the last four hours and keeping the pace high, Lorenz managed to motivate me to have a finish sprint in order to just stay below the 41 hour mark.