Thanks to our friends in Bruck, the hotels Vitalhotel Glocknerhof and Hotel Latini, for hosting our team!

Well-prepared, we got ready for a big challenge: the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse!

This road over the alps reaches an altitude of 2504 metres. On a clear day, you can see Austria's highest mountain, the Grossglockner, as well as many other high and famous peaks.

In the past, we have crossed the alps here four times, always in July or August, but each time we had snow on the top! Last year, on August 4th, there was even a snowstorm! Quite a surprise for our runners, who were not prepared for this kind of weather in August and were running in shorts...

Fortunately, this year the weather gods were compassionate; we didn't get blue sky, but the sun was smiling through the clouds for some time.

Our core team was joined by a few brave friends, so altogether, 15 people took the challenge to climb the countless turns, all the way to the top! Some of us even ran the whole distance over the mountain, which is nothing less than a marathon with an 1800m altitude climb!

The road was winding up, turn after turn; a beautiful landscape with high rock formations and colourful flowers!

Finally, we reached the top! Happy faces everywhere because of this unique experience. We took a quick photo (this is the highest point our World Harmony Run reaches in Europe!) .

On our way down, we stopped In Heiligenblut, where we met the mayor, an old friend from last year. He greeted our team and provided us with refreshments, which were highly welcomed after our tough experience!

A few kilometres before Winklern, a school class waited for us. The brave kids did not mind running in the rain, which just started as we arrived. They had lots of fun and accompanied us all the way to the meeting place.

The mayor received the runners and invited us for some tasty snacks!

Our final destination for today was Lienz. Just 3 kilometres before the finish it started raining again, but we took it as a welcome refreshment.

In Lienz we were received by the Governor of Tirol, DDr. Herwig van Staa and the Mayor of Lienz, Dr. Johannes Hibler.

Both spoke very warmly about harmony and peace.

The governor has good friends in Russia, so he took the time for some small talk with our Russian runner, Svetlana.

The mayor hosted our team very generously, for an excellent dinner. In the evening, our Austrian friends departed, leaving our core team behind. Thanks again to all for this great running day!

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Distance: 101km

Team Members:
Dipavajan Renner, Pratul Halper and Gerhard Grünstäudl (Austria), Anita Borics (Hungary), Marlin Bernhard (Germany), Jarek Werner (Poland), Svetlana Gorshkova (Russia), Luke Armstrong (New Zealand), Tatjana Jauk (Slovenia), Roos de Waart (Netherlands)

Harmonemail:
You can send a message to the runners or read the messages.

Gallery: See more images!

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