Doing the Hard Things: A Hike to Luzern
Brian and his students challenged themselves with an epic run from the Ecole d’Humanité to Luzern. Enjoy reading about this experience from Brian’s perspective!
One thing I love about the Ecole is that we welcome challenges and the experience and wisdom that can come from it. For me, running poses unlimited challenges and learning. But running is inherently a solo endeavor. And as a long-distance runner I’m always looking for opportunities to share my passion of running trails with students. Some weekends I offer a “donut run” where students opt to join me for a 4km run down the mountain to Meiringen early on a Sunday morning. I then buy them a donut at the train station and we all run 4km back up the mountain in time for Sunday brunch. Our spring hike usually involves wearing a full backpack for six days but one time I led a running hike, where students and I ran with only light day packs and our gear was shuttled to our camping site each evening. Running through beautiful forests for six days straight - with students experiencing that for the first time - was a new exhilaration for me.
So this past weekend when I was considering what exciting activities I could come up with, I liked the idea of an all day hike to see how far we could go in one day. Sometimes, on my day off, I will lace up my shoes and run from the Ecole all the way to Luzern, a distance of 55km with much of the route on trails and scenic paths past three lakes, a few forests, and quaint villages. I wondered if any students would want to try and hike it with me. I approached a few known student-athletes with my idea and they instantly jumped on board, then coerced a few others to join us. After all, once a 17-year-old has made a pinky-promise, there’s no going back. On Sunday morning, just before dawn, six of us left the Ecole on foot at 5am. We wore running vests loaded with water, sandwiches, and a significant number of candy bars. Though we should have had enough time to walk the entire route and still return by train in time for dinner 12 hours later, the kids asked if we could run portions of the route to arrive sooner. We had all agreed to wear running shoes rather than hiking boots and we enjoyed running much of the first section to Lungern and we joked that they could still catch a train home from there and return before the others woke up. As the sun rose behind the mountains and the sky turned a soft orange we worked our way along our first of three lakeshores and then down a big hill toward Sarnen, lake number two. The kids were amazed at how much distance we covered even before the rest of campus had finished brunch and dishes.
By this time, the sun was up but gratefully behind puffy clouds as it looked to be our first warm day. The hiking path along the lakeshore was getting filled with morning walkers and their dogs. We passed so many of them that we decided to create a melodic choral greeting as we passed. As I was in front, I held up my hand in a 3-2-1 fashion and when I closed my fist, everyone broke out in “Gutennn Moooooooorgen!” I would take the higher notes and draw out the “O” of “Morgen” extra long, changing the notes like I was singing the backup soloist’s last tones.
At this point we had been moving for more than 5 hours and since we started by running much of it, I told them how much time they had just erased from their total by running rather than walking. “Because we’ve run so much, we have just erased 2 hours from the total time it will take to get to Luzern!” They screamed in disbelief and asked if we could run even more.
There are some lovely sections of river and a calm lake with many Swans in front of towering cliffs in one section but then near Alpnach we entered a dry section. The route traverses a local airport and if you’ve never run the full length of an airport runway, you don’t know the definition of straight and long. This was six hours into our journey, the clouds had burned off, and the sun was in full effect. Additionally, the pollen count was high on those airport fields and one in our group was suffering from allergies. As if a six-hour morning run and now sun wasn’t enough to deal with! Luckily, I knew from previous solo treks that the boat marina in Alpnach had a tap for water coming up because several of the students had just run out of water. Many of us had already downed 3 liters of water each and we had just crossed the halfway point!
After putting on more sunscreen, eating more snacks, and filling up our water we were ready to start working our way around the southeastern most edge of Lake Lucerne.
The route there is on a wooden boardwalk literally hanging over the water and we also crossed into our third canton of the day. We passed a group of kite boarders, wind surfers hovering over the water with their foil just below the surface. It looked exhausting but I knew an activity more so, and we were doing it! Kids could see many buildings in the distance on the other side of the lake and they all wanted to know if that was our destination but we still weren’t yet within eyesight of it. At this point the route enters the outskirts of Horw, which more or less blends into Lucerne. We crossed a few neighborhoods, several factory complexes, and some long stretches of sidewalks. A few of them started feeling the distance. There were a few moans from the back of the pack. But I’ve run these distances many times and I knew what to look out for. Being tired after 7 hours of running shouldn’t be surprising; but it’s hard to distinguish exhaustion from calorie deficit. I pulled the group over and pointed out that one of them appeared to be especially struggling. They tried pointing out the obvious that we were all tired, but I explained that perhaps they were misdiagnosing what was actually simply a case of hunger. I reached into my pack and pulled out one of the several pieces of salt-laden focaccia bread I had saved from our dinner the night before and gave it to the struggling runner. A few swigs of water and we took off once more, not sure if my magic prescription would do the trick. Ten minutes later, the person who had been moaning in the back from apparent exhaustion, was now leading the group, doing kicks in the air, and encouraging everyone else to keep up.
Before we knew it we were on the final main city street which leads to the Luzern train station. Earlier that morning I dreamt aloud with them, wouldn’t it be amazing if we arrived so early that we actually had enough time to cross the historic bridge over the river and get a big bowl of gelato before getting on the train? That small suggestion propelled them and now that it was a reality, everyone hit cruise control and we coasted through downtown toward the water. It was 2:30pm.
We must have really stuck out on that narrow 800-year-old cobblestone street sandwiched between fish and chips shops, the river, and shoulder-to-shoulder tourists from around the world and Rhine River cruise ships. One lady behind us in the gelato line even said to me, “We saw you back in Horw and I said to myself, I bet those people are running to Luzern! And I was right!”
With gelatos in hand, we walked to some stone steps at the water’s edge, gingerly took off our shoes and socks and dipped our feet in the cool water while eating three-scoop bowls of homemade fresh gelato. What could be better?! With a few more minutes to spare, and a lot more calories to eat, we also went to some fast food places in the train station and loaded up on fries, burgers, and some fresh fruit for the train ride home.
It wasn’t until we were on that train, drowning in delicious salt, fat, and sugar, that some of them confided in me that the farthest they have ever gone in their life in a single day was 10km. We just did 55km. Valentine, one of the girls on the trip turned to the group with a look of confusion on her face and asked, “But wait, if we just did that, how will we know what we cannot do?” I’ve never been prouder of a teachable moment than that.
Next weekend they want to run to Interlaken. I’m a little scared of what I may have created, but I’ll pack some more focaccia just in case.
