“When are you starting tomorrow?” Christian asked me on Friday evening.
“…”
“7:30?”
“No, 4:30.”
“Seriously? With whom?”
“Well, who do you think?!”
And yes – of course the idea came from Gina. Katja and I didn’t need much convincing. As agreed, we wanted to be back in time for breakfast – the plan: a run before Christian’s workday began.
The hardest part was actually not waking anyone up at 4:00 a.m. The two ladies had already left Vienna at 3:30. We started running from Preiner Gscheid just before 5:00. Above us, a clear starry sky; on the horizon, a faint red glow slowly appeared – exactly as planned.
After about 65 minutes we reached the Karl-Ludwig-Haus. 6:00 a.m. We were earlier than expected, so we decided to keep going – up to the Heukuppe. During dawn we thought: this is actually more beautiful than the sunrise itself. Headlamps off, complete silence – and that moment when the sky shifts from deep blue to pastel pink.
At the top: a sea of fog below us, then the first sunbeams breaking through the clouds. It wasn’t a picture-perfect, crystal-clear sunrise, but one of the quiet, intense kind – and it had everything we could have wished for.
The descent was pleasant, almost buoyant. By around 8:00 we were already sitting at the Waldschlössl, brewing coffee and making new plans.
A perfect start to the day – before the rest of the world had even truly woken up.