Amazing event in the Tyrol Mountains, the roof of Austria. Great place to run, stunning views, high alpine lakes, glaciers, super-steep climbs, technical terrain, all at altitude of 1600-2600m, brilliant event festival vibe.
Recovery went well from last week. Took a bit longer than normal, but bounced back well and by Wednesday was running up the ski field I learnt to ski on (+Strava crown of course 😂) in my Dad’s Austrian village.
However, more of a holiday week visiting Austrian family, so not the best race prep in the few days leading up including:
A few late nights, including a family party on Wednesday getting to bed at 1.30am,
Many days of passive smoking (Austrians sure love their deathsticks 😂),
Travel (a few long car journeys from east to west across the country). Austria is a spectacular place. The drives were beautiful and quite a few fun stops along the way for walks, castles, sightseeing. These equate to much time on feet (15-25k steps per day) :)
The day before the race getting stuck up a gondola in bad weather(leading to getting soaked, and eating very little throughout the day and pre-race dinner v late).
Not my best event prep, but sometimes you just have to go with the flow whilst on holiday and with family. Due to this, was treating the event as more of a ‘B-race’.’ I’ve done this before when lining up for an event post nightshifts for example. The main factor to limit performance in my mind was the fact that this was a race all at altitude, coming from low down in the Austrian valleys since arriving in Europe. My brother Tony asked me whilst driving to the start what percentage score I would give myself for freshness and fitness for the race. My answer was a solid 70% 😂. Lesgo!
The event is up a mountain pass with tiny ski villages dotting the landscape, most with beautiful fairytale spires and colourful old buildings. The mountains just take off straight up like a wall all around, with a few glimpses of snow and glaciers at the peaks. Event base felt like a festival, complete with large screen TV with live coverage for the full 24 hrs of racing (check it out on youtube if interested), drones flying overhead to get great footage, and all the food trucks and sponsors amping the place up.
(^^some race footage of me taken from the livestream)
My event started at 7am. Climb 650m in the space of 4.5k to start. Gotta love these Alpine races, often starting from the bottom of a ski lift! We were straight into tight switchbacks snaking up under the gondola. This 32min climb placed me about 500m ahead of everyone else. A slight descent before circling a lake, then another hefty climb up a waterfall. 2nd place caught up to me here, breathing heavily, and then stayed with me. I put in a few surges but unable to shake him. We got to chatting and ended up running for about an hour together talking the whole time. I was aware this was slowing us down, but we were still well above course record pace and lots to go. Quite nice to run like this learning about Johannes LÖW, a professional Salomon athlete. Altitude not an issue for him as he gets provided with 4 week training camps at altitude from his sponsor (v jealous)! At about 23k I took a slight wrong turn, and at this point he used the opportunity to shoot ahead and down some very technical terrain. Always just in sight, but unable to close the gap, I was definitely not feeling great here. Races often give you some highs and lows. This was a low energy take-it-easy section for me, over the highest points of over 2600m altitude, so likely the altitude effect hitting me after troubleshooting everything else.
The interesting thing about this course is that you descend massively back to the village and then do that same climb you started with again! I was kinda dreading it at the top, but by the time I had descended 1000metres I felt good again. The second time on that same climb I had to pass about 200 runners from the 15k race distance. Really chuffed with my performance of powering up that climb again feeling really good with 30k already in the legs, able to chat to others as I ran.
At the top of the climb, some fun technical terrain with stunning views to distract, more climbing, many runners to pass, then a glorious long descent back to event base. I knew I’d let 1st place go a while back and was sure I was way ahead of 3rd, so took it pretty easy and was OK with that, coming in just above the previous CR.
At the finish, great food, party atmosphere, an interview for the livestream, and then a drive to an amazing pool/spa complex for a few hrs of recovery in the water. One of my favorite things to do post race is get into water! This place was an incredible pool and spa complex with 35 degree hot pools and sourrounded by epic views.
(These herds of cows with bells on and random angry goats were an added obstacle. As the race leaders, myself and Johannes had to deal with at least 10 separate on-course herds/flocks/harems safely - mostly involved shouting various German phrases and jumping off trail. I did get softy headbut by one ridiculous goat half way through. Definitely added to the event 😅).
Absolutely brilliant support from my Mum and Brother Tony. They made sure I had enough gels for this one, did the driving, went up the gondola and brought their cowbells to cheer/ring me on at various places on the route. Always such a good feeling to see friends/family on course during an event!
(Aqua dome spa, Tirol)
Another great experience exploring a region/trail/race and doing what I love. Driving around Austria and now into Lichtenstein and Switzerland makes me see all the incredible trails I would love to do. Enough for several lifetimes.
……Next week. Swiss alps 50k. This one I am really looking forward to after getting to see some of the views and terrain this course covers when I was in Switzerland last year (see my pics of Aletsch glacier from instragram). One of the main reasons I can back to Europe this year! …
Amazing reading about your experience. What an incredible time David. love all the photos too xxx