Samalya from Berlin, one of our two fastest runners, who also officially carried the Peace Torch at the start of the Heidelberg Halfmarathon in April 30, was just as delighted to finally run the Berlin Wall Race in a team as the rest of us. Everyone had their own personal reasons that inspired him or her - and to come all the way not just from Hamburg or Heidelberg, but also from Amsterdam (NL), Salzburg (Austria), Rome (Italy), Prague and Zlin (Czech Republic) and even Minsk (Belarus).

Our relay mostly ran as a small team of two or three, apart from the start and the last 3 legs - sharing the torch with other runners at times. At the end almost the whole team came together for a final victory oneness-lap before crossing the finish line emotionally after 16 hours 26 min. (Our fast runners, Abhinabha and Samalya had unintentionally missed running a few hundred meters into the sports field at VP 17, but luckily informed the organizers, and so we were allowed to make up for it by running an extra lap in the stadium at the finish - which felt like a blessing in disguise.)