Sometimes you come across something so face smashingly awesome, you get super-pumped up to the max, rip your shoes off and go sprinting down I-80 screaming out how you want people punch you as you run by and throw their track spikes in your path like some sick version of the gauntlet at the end of football camp. It is rare this occurs in running and when it is usually something that someone, somewhere had to create out of thin air.  In this case, that someone was Red Bull (so you already know it will be something ridiculous).  That somewhere is Germany, I think it’s Germany but I can’t read the subtitles and am too lazy to open Google Translate and copy/paste.  Red Bull + Germans= ?  So without further ado:

Maybe you want to take another 2.5 minutes and go back and watch that again and make sure it was real.

Okay.  Yep, that was a race up a damn ski jump.  I am not sure anything like that exists within 500 miles of where I live.  Quarter mile, 45 degree average incline, what appears to be loose/soft dirt at the bottom, then what appears to be a vertical skating rink that you ascend hand over hand with no footholds, then they say screw you quad people here are some steps to deal with at the top.  Holy s***.  They also had them running into the sun like some sort of reverse Gandalf maneuver from the Two Towers movie.  I would like to loosely translate that dude at the end:  “I started going up hill.  Then the hill did not end.  The hill got harder.  Then the dirt hill went away and it became pavement.  I want to drink a beer and punch someone” or something like that.   I wish I could see heart rate monitors on those competitors.  Freaking freak that is stoopid.