VCM – Now it has happened again!
1:59:40,2! That's how fast a marathon was run in Vienna under laboratory conditions by a certain Eliud Kipchoge in 2019.
We at JobCloud HR Tech are always very optimistic by nature and up for challenging goals, but coming anywhere near this time this year with our two teams of four seemed too far away from reality. We all agreed on that.
JobCloud HR Tech - Team 1
So perhaps it would be better to remember our times from last year and use them as a starting point?
In any case, the eight of us were highly motivated, had done one or two training laps together in the Vienna Prater in the run-up to the race and had also discussed one or two things with the help of a spreadsheet program: who would run which section of the course in which of the two relay teams, what pace could be expected from each individual, which would then result in the following finishing time. Every tenth of a second was haggled over. “Couldn't there be more?
Rumor has it that there were even secret agreements, internal poaching attempts, disinformation campaigns, injury rumors, … in order to put their own team in a better starting position. "Teambuilding” was actually misunderstood. We were a long way from the Olympic idea: it's not winning that counts, but competing together and peacefully.
But all that was water under the bridge on the day of the marathon. In cool but ideal conditions, significantly better than 2023, the whole of Vienna was firmly in runners: inside hands. As in 2023, the starting runners (15.5 km) were Bernhard and Wolfgang, who had set out to be faster than last year. They handed over near Schönbrunn Palace to Lucas and Szabolcs, who had 8.6 km to cover. Julia and Joachim were then waiting near the Friedensbrücke (6.7 km each), who then sent Yevgen and Thomas on the 11.4 km journey in the Prater. Everything went perfectly.
Both teams were able to improve their respective finishing times compared to 2023, but the team captain of one of the two relay teams, who shall not be named here, asked not to make a big deal out of the times, so he insisted that they not be published here directly. The compromise was to make the links available:
JobCloud HR Tech - Team 2