I was there when the chasers hit the crowd. I had to witness as the red-ribboned monsters ripped the blue souls out of the people around me. It had not been long. And for many it would already end. Here. Now.

But let me start from the beginning...

As the rain was pouring down on me on my way home from the library I had serious doubts about going to this strange journey I had discovered recently on Facebook. I remembered dimly that I read the best runner had taken 3 hours last time. Three hours!! I'd be lucky if I make 30 minutes at such a weather!

But... I had this thing on my agenda. And I wanted to see how something like that works. So I quickly went home, drank a few sips of water and a banana, equipped myself with gloves and a cap (both to protect myself from the rain - ha, how naive). Just as I was about to leave my flat I turned around, ripped a folder out of my shelf and took a plastic-wrap out of it. Who knows how this could come in handy?


On the way to the - very far away - place I met a some friends and walked up to the meeting point with them while chatting about how we would take it slowly and not be as insane as the guys who we could see already preparing like for a marathon run.

There were many announcements we couldn't understand accoustically and suddenly everybody started running like hell. Like hell!!! I didn't wanna be last! So I started running to.

[and now we change into present tense]
Somewhere. Down the road. Where are my friends? Lost them after 30 seconds. Doesn't matter. Will catch up. Just run. Tram standing there, not moving. Will surely take many minutes. I can be faster! Ha!
So, running, running, running, .... *huff huff* running... *huff* ... quite... a... long... way... *huff*... but... I will... be faster... than... ...
wait...
does that guy over there have a chainsaw? Ahhhhhhhhh!

The small crowd of runners behind me stop in terror at the same sight. Then they run uphill towards a side-street that doesn't look like it would lead in the direction of station 1 at all.
Wait for it... wait for it... wait for it... RUN!!!!
Whew... they didn't get me.

Running... running... *huff* ... come on... how... far... can it... be...?
Finally I see something like a park.
Hooray, I am faster than... the people in... the tram that is just arriving the same second... DAMN!!
Into the park! Didn't they say something about uphill?
Ok - uphill uphill uphill, where the heck am I?
From all directions people arrive saying "It's not in that direction". Ok, so another hill.
And there it is!
I briefly note that this must be some kind of alice in wonderland thing. Then I swallow the tea, get my stamp, collect another friend - let's call him Santa for our and his convenience - I found on the way, jump down some stones and jump over 2 fences.
Then the two of us are alone.
"Where to now?" Klaus asks. "Out!" I say and start marching confidently in one direction. After 12 minutes we are at the same hill again. "Um..." I say with slightly less confidence. Then we ask some 13 year old kid where the exit is.

As we reach the exit there are no runners nor chasers in sight. Are they all already ahead? Damn!
We rush towards the closest bus station, randomly enter the bus and try to figure out where to next.
We get off after three stations.
I should have paid more attention to map-reading. We spend 10 minutes till we figure out that we have to cross the street, then walk straight and then probably get lost.
So we cross the street, then walk straight and then get lost. After 100 meters of being lost we see some random guys sitting at desks. A station?

"Hey!" I say. "Peace!" the guys say and do some Startrek-Greeting. I think that was what they said. Correctly they should have said "Live long and prosper!". But that would have meant they all were nerds.
"Welcome to the nerd-station!" one guy says.
Then they ask us all kind of relevant questions about video-game characters and bookmark some porn-sites we recommend to them (of course it was all my friend Santa!). Unfortunately as I want to engage them into a deeper conversation about videogames their only answer is "You are a REAL nerd!" ... :(
We get our stamp and walk away. One of the "nerds" shouts after us "By the way, you were the very first ones here!".
What? The first? Us?
ME?

*FLASHBACK 16 years ago*
Dad: Do you wanna join the football club?
Me: No.
*FLASHBACK 12 years ago*
Dad: Do you wanna join the karate club?
Me: No.
*FLASHBACK 10 years ago*
Sister: Do you wanna go jogging with me?
Me: No.
*FLASHBACK 7 years ago*
Drill Sergeant: RUN!! RUN, GODDAMMIT!!!
Me: *cough huff sweat*

I've never won even a flower pot in anything related to sports before. And now I am first at the second station. Just as I want to burst into tears, Santa screams "Chaser!" and we run till we realize they are also runners like us. As they ask us for direction we say "down the road". Then Santa says "no, to the left". I say "no, to the right". Then I say "no, just kidding, it's down the road". They nod, show me a fuckfinger and continue running. So much for making little jokes.
By now our main map is reduced to a little, soft, squeezy ball. Luckily I put my runner-map into the wrapping I brought along. This should help me survive later on.

Ok - fastforward.
*Santa and me entering a tram, leaving, running, running more, running in circles around blocks, meeting the 6 main chasers who are as lost as we are, find the redirected station number 3, get attacked by the janitor of that house ("What the hell is going on here? Why do these guys wear labcoats? Do you have a permission?" - "Um... talk to the guys over there please"), find radioactive material, get informed that we are now number 2 and three, not first, run like hell upon getting to know this, get on a tram to go 2 stations, watch a guy jump in front of the tram*
Wait... what? The tram comes to a sudden halt. The chaser waiting at the station looks a bit puzzled and shocked about the guy in front of the tram. We didn't hit him, but the tram-driver leaves the tram anyway. We sneakily pass the chaser after ensuring that the guy in front of the tram wasn't badly hurt. "This is quite exhausting!" Santa says and looks at me. I take out the map and take a look at it while walking. I point with my finger on the map and say "This is where we are". Then I raise my finger and point across the street "and this is where we need to go."
My movement freezes for a second.
I'm pointing directly at a chaser standing two meters in front of us.
With incredible presence of mind and great responsibility I say: "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" and start running. With slightly less presence of mind Santa stays where is with a confused face-expression.

That is the last time I see Santa.
I receive a phone call from him some time later asking me where I was as he wanted to "catch up". Right. I hang up. They got him. Now I am alone. All alone.

Alone in the middle of... ... where the heck am I? None of the streets is written on the runner-map. After circling several blocks I enter an Italian restaurant and ask the (not Italian) owner if he knows a certain street (I show him the map and the name) closeby. He falls silent while his finger moves from street to street. He mumbles street names. Maybe it's incantations. Cannot really tell. After ages of standing there, he finally tells me the elaborate route he had plotted in the past 12 minutes - "down the street, and then turn left at the next crossing". I thank him and rush out into the wet night.
While I run towards my next goal I notice that the squishy wet sound at every step does not come from my shoes hitting the ground, but from my socks within my shoes.
As I run a guy passes me coming from the opposite direction. He is equipped with a head-light and a whole lot of other stuff. "That's number one!" I instinctively recognize.

I safely arrive at station 4. Just a few seconds later another person arrives. "What about some teamwork?" I ask. He agrees. And starts running. It was half past nine now. 2 hours of pouring rain and more running than I had done in the past year alltogether. My new comrade (let's call him Lausi) says "come on... run... run". So I run. I have no idea where we are going.
Lausi asks me for my map as his is not usable anymore. He takes it, looks at it for 5 seconds, gives it back and says "We have to run 300 meters down that road, then enter the XYZ-street before we turn right after three blocks." It's great to have some some kind of Map McGyver with you. Maybe he can build a tracking device aswell.

So we run and run and run and I think I gonna die and we run and run and run and don't find the station and run and run and then figure out we had run 3 circles around it. We arrive. Still number 2 and 3. Blabla, great, yeah, cool. On the way to the bus-stop we meet another runner and tell him the way to the station. Number 4. Also we encounter 4 chasers, luckily in the safe zone. We advice them on good spots to intercept runners around this territory. Eliminating competition. Har har.
As the bus approaches we scream towards station 5 - maybe runner number 4 can still catch up. But no answer.
So - leaving the bus, more running, passing some hookers "Hey guys, wanna have fun?", start crossing a bridge, are greeted by some girls "Hey guys, wanna play a game?" stop and realize we are at station 6. Hooray! Right behind us another panting person approaches. Runner 4! He ran all the way down here!
What a great greeting by the sweet "planets" at this station. So much energy, fun, food, drinks. We almost don't want to leave. But we have to. Because we were first to arrive here. Our lost former pole position runner must have lost his ways. Before we leave we briefly explain to a pimp who visited the "new competitors" (aka the planet-girls) that this is by no means another horizontal business. He is happy and leaves. And so do we.

The next 25 minutes are rather a blurr for me. We team up with "runner 4" and pledge that we would do go into the finish line at the same time as three first places. Unfortunately both the other guys are way fitter than me. All my "leave me behind, I will distract the chasers" doesn't work.

And so - finally... fantastically... we arrive at the last station.
As the first three runners.
We won!
I won my first sports-related event ever!
Unfortunately I do not learn much esperanto at the last station, because it takes me some time to recognize the flag and the language.

Now - as I sit here at home one day later - I am gladly looking at the trophy (