Our first encounter with Johannes was at one of our info video calls about ALPIN8.
He took part in January, asked a few questions and then said goodbye quite quickly with the words “I’m signing up straight away, bye everyone!”
Less than half an hour later, we actually received his registration.
It was clear to Johannes: he was just going to do it.
Don’t hesitate and think about it, just go for it.
And that’s exactly how he approached his preparation. Or not – because Johannes didn’t prepare for his Everesting with ALPIN8 at all. He only ran up the Wendelstein twice. No stair climbing in the gym, no extended mountain hikes, no morning jogs or long night hikes. True to the motto: I’m just going to do it now.
“I’ll just take my chances.”
Johannes works in the construction industry and is on his feet a lot. His everyday working life is varied and he is always on the move. On vacation, he is always out and about on long-distance hiking trails and generally enjoys going into the mountains. Accordingly, he assumed that his basic fitness level would be sufficient. In fact, he was explicitly curious to see whether he could manage an Everesting without any special training and made a conscious decision not to do any extra training. Johannes wanted to know how far his body could go without training: “I’ll just give it a go.”
The decisive factor for Johannes was that an organized event like ALPIN8 offers a safe environment. A setting in which he can push himself to his absolute limits and know that he is not alone. “Of course, I could just do it for myself in the mountains. But then I’d end up lying somewhere and nobody would know where I was.” The safety aspect was the decisive factor for Johannes when he signed up for ALPIN8.
As Johannes sits in his hotel room the evening before the start and reads through all of our documents and emails, he slowly realizes what he has let himself in for. “I was getting a bit nervous. Maybe I was a bit naïve signing up after all.” But it doesn’t help. “Anyway, I’m here now, I’m going to do it,” he says to himself and is at the start at 05:00 a.m. the next day.
He is usually overtaken. But that doesn’t bother him.
Johannes goes at his own pace right from the start. Slow, steady and leisurely. “I’m a mule, I walk slowly,” he says about himself. Not a bad strategy when Everesting – because 8848 meters of altitude are damn long. If you go too fast too soon, you might not make it. He thinks to himself: “I have to save my energy.”
Most of the time he was overtaken, and some of the other participants overtook him two or three times during the event. But that didn’t bother him; he wasn’t interested in the sport, but in the experience itself. It’s about how his body and mind react to the challenge, how he deals with it, how he perceives his surroundings and what he sees, hears and smells on his way through nature. Johannes comments on the onset of rain: “That was great. Nature smells completely different then.”
What’s more, contrary to all expectations, the rain is a real motivational boost for him. “Now more than ever!” was Johannes’ first thought. The rain changes the character, the drama, of the event. It made the challenge of 8848 meters of altitude even more difficult. “I wanted to prove to myself that I could handle it!”
Close to running sore
Johannes runs three laps in the pouring rain. He really enjoys the change in the weather. But at around 9:30 pm, he meets another participant in the gondola who has chafed his skin with his damp clothes and is in great pain with every step. He gives him his jar of Kaufmann’s children’s cream because he knows he has more in the car and uses the situation as an opportunity to feel inside himself. “That’s when I realized that I was also close to getting sore.” He decides to take a break, drives to his hotel by car, takes a hot shower, sleeps for a few hours and is back at the valley station of the Palüdbahn at 05:00 on Sunday morning in fresh, dry clothes, ready for the next ascent.
For Johannes, the forest path on the night route works better than the narrow path through the forest that was intended for daytime. Due to the wet weather, both routes are open and he usually opts for the more boring and monotonous, but also easier forest path. “I need my steady pace.” This strategy works well for him and he never once has the feeling that he can’t go any further.
“There really could have been more!”
At the finish line, however, he abandons his steady pace and sprints through the avenue of flags in jubilation. Finish line reached: 8848 meters in altitude. Without any training and without any major physical problems. “I had sore muscles the next day, but on the whole I was fine!” He also had the overwhelming realization that he could have done even more. “I could have made another ascent, maybe even two. I really could have done it!”
Especially during the first two weeks after the event, Johannes often thinks back to the experience.
In certain everyday situations, he suddenly has a completely different perspective.
“It was very impressive. I’m still learning what I can take from this experience.”
But even now, just a few weeks after his success, Johannes knows: “So much more is possible than you would normally assume.”
He also tells this to his friends – and slowly the initial lack of understanding gives way to the thought that perhaps he could do something like this himself.
A really cool event!
“The event was just really cool. Really, really strong!” is Johannes’ final conclusion.
There’s only one thing he’s not quite sure about: “How do you deal with a day hike of 1,300 meters in altitude when you know that you’ve already run 9,000 meters in 34 hours?”
Text: Saskia Bauer
Images: Marius Holler, Sportograf, private
