Café to Café 150

Nico Solomos

The CTC 150, the toughest 150 mile Ultra Walking Event, came to a successful conclusion on Sunday afternoon around 12:00, under clear blue skies and a warm sunny day!

The event was considered as the most challenging and most difficult ultradistance walking event held in America.

The CTC150 had a good representation of athletes in their 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's and even a few in their 60's, so all ages and sexes were well represented at this event!

The race started at exactly 10:00 am on Friday morning as promised by race director and participant Ulli Kamm, under ideal conditions and at a fast but comfortable pace,  and by nightfall most of us were still feeling great.

Saturday morning started a little too warm and by noon it had gotten really too hot for most of us and we started having problems with our swollen feet and developed lots and lots of blisters and the going got really tougher from then on!

This day also saw a number of dropouts and our group was starting to shrink in numbers! By the second nightfall on Saturday night, our drastically reduced group kept their spirits high by encouraging each other and by telling jokes as well as stories and by sharing humorous personal anecdotes, which made the pain a little more bearable! Around midnight Saturday, we could sense that our big objective was attainable in this extremely difficult event and this gave us that extra boost to continue even though we were completely depleted.

At checkpoint "#41/Champagne" (17th aid station), approx. 3 miles from the finish, we were greeted by good-old dependable Traudl with a great smile and a bottle of celebratory champagne; and after a taste of the bubbly we were all set for the final walk to the finish line, were all our joyous friends and relatives were awaiting us!

Overall I must say that this most difficult event could not have been possible if not for the direction, coordination and hundreds of hours of preparations and measurements and all the self sacrifices that both Ulli and his lovely wife Traudl had to endure to put on such a difficult Ultra event!

Our congratulations to both of them for an excellent job in putting on such a great and difficult event and also please accept our sincere thanks and gratitude!!!

                                                                             
           Sincerely,                                                                           
           Nico M. Solomos

Traudl and Nico - Mile 22