The hills are alive with the sound of runners

Anyone who has ever seen the movie "Sound of Music" would have a fair idea of the scenery experienced today, steep mountain meadows, picturesque farm chalets and cattle wearing cowbells set against pine forests (after all yesterday we did run through "The Black Forest"). Lovely in theory but in reality damned cold. Bit of rain about when the 6:30 group left so decided to risk wearing bike shorts (considering the rather tender chafing problems the last few days rain would not be good !). Our 7AM group was up to 8 with 5 day runners. Two wrong turns (firstly by Trond and then by Hiroko) meant we wasted 10 minutes getting out of town (i suppose if i had been leading we would still be running around St Georgen). A bit of road and then steep downhill bikepaths meant again i was stuck in the no mans land of third. Passed early race leader Jürge before the 2nd aid station, a shadow of his former self through injuries but still gutsing it out to finish (and barring total disaster he will still finish in front of me 3rd overall). From then on steadily passed the earlier runners but the energy wasted just keeping warm meant running up the hills just wasn't an option so Trond was steadily getting away.