We had to struggle through the race on the sunshine island of Bornholm in eastern Denmark on the wettest rainy day of 2000. All the way round the island, up and down hills and cliffs, a distance of 100 kilometers gave the marathon distance entirely new dimensions. Can a marathon runner catch up with a walk racer? What happens if you pour a glass of whiskey down the throat of an exhausted runner?
This run began as I was standing with my legs apart in a Chinese field three months earlier. When a man equally in need of a pee as I was told me that he would be running all the way round Bornholm – a distance of more than 100 kilometres – on the same day, my diagnosis of him was clear. The man was stark raving bonkers. As fate would have it, I was struck by the same insanity and signed up. It was during this race that I realised that it’s all in the mind – not in your legs.