Transylvania100

Epic Romanian Mountain Running

Here is a race report of my time at the Transylvania100 50k race. This event got a lot of media you may have seen doing the rounds. I can only speak to what I experienced.

We’d been in Romania for a week, exploring Bucharest and road-tripping around Transylvania. Hot summer conditions, with a few hints of the mountain conditions during a run or two up to 2000m above sea level.  Pre-race emails warned of extreme conditions and to be prepared, with advice to use either poles or microspikes, or both. I had already decided on using poles, and had not brought spikes with me. A few chats to some locals and this plan seemed to check out fine. Lots of images and videos were available of what the conditions can be at the top of the Bucegi mountains in May. This year had very heavy and late snowfall. I was initially eyeing up the course record, but realised this was pretty impossible when the race would be 10-11k on snow, compared to only small patches in previous years. The prospect of severe conditions always add a bit to the nerves, but all seemed to be fine to go ahead during registration and race morning, with additional mountain safety personnel in place.

Race morning: 

Lining up under Bran castle made for some cool pictures, including a man dressed as Vlad the impaler present to set the race off 😂.  Around 2500 runners from 47 countries all coming to this small village in Romania to run a tough mountain race. The first segment involved running out of town, and then quickly climbing 1100m in the space of 9km. Very steep in places, with a few slippery muddy sections. I enjoy running with poles when the terrain and conditions are right, and this was perfect. Stabilising on slippery sections and helping propel me up the climb, using back muscles rather than all the power coming from the legs. When I race an ultra, I am constantly checking in with myself, assessing how the body feels, next nutrition or hydration, how I can best move over the terrain. I knew on this climb I was in for a good day. I felt strong and fast climbing, with great energy levels. A few times I could look back at least 2-3 minutes and saw no-one following.  Ascending into cloud and then the snow line, the visibility became 15metres or less, and rounding a corner suddenly brought the strong wind with a cold -3 windchill. I knew there was a descent to the first aid station before climbing even higher to 2500m so was using this first summit as a tester to decide on whether to stop and put on my jacket gloves at the aid station, and decided the extra minute or so to do this was definitely sensible. 

By now I had caught the back of the 80k/100k runners who started 2 hours before us. Some sketchy passing on steep off-cambre snowfields and steep descents was just a taste of much more to come. Most of these runners had microspikes on their shoes and were walking. Many appeared a bit unsure of themselves in this mountain environment with very low visibility and cold wind. I saw a few people pull out and walk back down the mountain.

Steep descent done I rolled into the aid station, filled two flasks as there was an upcoming 2hour gap of no aid stations/water, and took the time to get my jacket and gloves on. I don’t have the full Leki pole gloves, which results in the faff taking off the Leki hands, putting gloves on, then putting the Leki hands back over the gloves. All this felt like it took way too long, but I reasoned doing this properly now would be important for the high points of this course. 

Leaving the aid station, the next segment involved climbing out of the valley via “the chimney”.  This is the one we had been warned about in pre-race emails. A near vertical climb up a narrow snowfield.  Feeling strong and ready to power up this, I was immediately stopped by a hundred people in a train walking up slowly. 🤦‍♂️ There was an established route in the snow. Passing on either side was only possible at a few places, and even then was challenging and held the risk of sliding down a veeery long way. I found out later usually this bottleneck didn’t really exist, but the record snowfall and conditions meant a slower 80/100k field now bunching up here and blocking the front of the 50k. One of the pack objected to my passing off the path and stabbed at my foot with his poles to prevent me or tell me off, nearly knocking me over into the almost vertical fall below. I was on all fours at this point climbing with my hands and feet up this steep scramble. Finding the funny side of this ridiculous situation, I continued up finally summiting the chimney which brought us back into the cold wind and 15m visibility. A further 500m of climbing over a few km to the summit. A lot of people hesitant here as it was impossible to see the next marker or even the terrain around you at times. I was comfortable in the conditions and my abilities and tried to make up some ground again, but often got stuck behind a queue at hard to pass places in the deep snow. After what felt like a ridiculous amount of walking behind people for a 50k race, I finally summited and started on the long descent. This was half on snow, slide-running and at times sitting down to sledge down a slope. Passing meant attacking the deeper snow at the sides and often causing a leg to go down a pot-hole. A Romanian 50k runner passed me here with a really strong descent and loud shouts in Romanian to the groups of people which had a lot more effect than my English “on your right” or “can I pass”.  With slowly increasing visibility and decreasing snow, the view opened up to some glorious ridgeline running, a long glacial valley with sunny green and golden fields below.  Soon I had to stop to de-layer as it quickly became super hot and humid. Checking in with myself, all systems great, fuelling going well. More descent down the valley to a ski chalet acting as the 2nd of 3 aid stations. Again, two flasks filled and a bit of a glove/leki sort and then time to go. However, as I was leaving I got the news I was in 5th position and 11mins behind 1st. It’s a weird feeling to learn suddenly that you aren’t 2nd but 5th! I spent the next km wondering if this was a mistake, a course cutting, or if these other runners had just passed me in the thick cloud. I later learnt that the latter was the case, passing me whilst taking a different line in the poor visibility or when I sheltered behind a rock to put my buff on. I knew I was going quite slow due to the trains of people that were hard to pass. My complacency here and lack of aggressive racing, put me pretty far back with less than half the race to go!

I knew I had to pull out my A-game to hunt those places down again. Reflecting after the race, I found this incredibly enjoyable. It gave me the impetus to tackle every part of the course as fast and efficiently as possible. Giving 1% away here could make all the difference. I set to work, again using my upper body and poles as much as my legs to attack each climb. There is a lot of vert packed into the last half of the race, including some crazy steep climbs. I gradually picked off each place, each time passing strongly on a climb and quickly creating a large gap. Some world class running in those mountains, valleys and forests with epic views and atmosphere.  

Filling up again at the last aid station with 11k to go was a much quicker affair. We now mingled with the 30k/20k runners so it became hard to differentiate competitors. Finally with about 8k to go I caught 1st place, again on a steep ascent. What followed was several long steep gnarly descents through forest and rocky gullies. This runner knew the course well and was an incredibly strong descender. I tried a few times to shake him on a descent by throwing myself down the terrain faster than I’d like, letting gravity do all the work. He was able to match and then pass me on this terrain. I decided to pull back and let him go. The patience paying off as on each climb I would pass him back. A few back and forths like this on each descent and ascent followed. I could tell with each new hill he was showing more signs of fatigue. I thankfully still felt strong and felt like I could go much further. Some days running just feels great. No niggles. Feeling strong. A few more solid climbs and descents and finally I could no longer see him over my shoulder. I ran hard to the finish, through some cool forest with fresh bear poop around and some agro stray dogs (not what I need so close to finishing!), popped out along the road from Brans castle and ran strong to the finish. I think sometimes tackling those steep long descents too hard destroys the legs a bit too much. The decision to take them a fraction easier and play my cards well was what allowed me to break my competitor and create a 3 minute gap by the finish.  Taking the tape under Brans castle in the sun was a pretty awesome experience and a memory I will hold😁.

They have managed to achieve a really friendly down-to-earth community feel at this event throughout. Hanging out at the finish chatting and enjoying the provided post race meal/beer/snacks was fantastic. Prizegiving the same the next day, I felt very welcomed and looked after and it was obvious the local community and Romanian runners had a real passion for this race. (I even spotted several Transylvania100 tattoos around). 😊

Conditions/organisation

There has been much chat and media about the conditions and organisation of this race. 

My experience was of a brutal tough mountain course, but no harder than many I have done before. In the 50k at least 10k of it was on snow, and anything above 2100m had 15-20m visibility. I had to pass many 100k runners who did appear to really struggle staying upright, or seemed to have limited experience/ability using poles or microspikes. I think the visibility freaked a lot of people out as it did look as though you were running off the edge of the mountain at times. Another thing I did notice in the lead up was a lot of influencer style posts on social media, as a cool destination race starting and finishing at ‘Dracula’s’ castle, so maybe not the best self selecting group for a tough mountain race when the conditions aren’t perfect. However there was some minimum requirements and previous ultra experience set by the organisers. Despite this, the finishing rate was as high as any other trail race. There were 11 people needing ambulances reported. Again, I have been at many events where an equal percentage have needed medical assistance. Moreso in hot races. Xterra world champs in wales last year for example had to stop the event due to overloading the capacity of the ambulances and local hospital due to so many with heatstroke and dehydration, plus injuries. 

There was also plenty of pre-race communication and details about what the conditions were like at the top of the Bucegi mountains at this time of year. The week out they said to prepare for -7 and poor visibility and recommended microspikes and/or poles. I talked a lot to one of the 3 RDs who was awesome and very supportive. 

This from the official race follow-up email put it very well:

‘Trail running is a spectacular sport, but one that naturally involves a number of risks. Whether we are talking about organized competitions or individual training sessions, accidents or difficult situations can occur at any time in the mountain environment. The mountains must always be approached with respect, personal responsibility, and increased caution, and every participant should be aware of the difficulty and specific nature of the terrain.’

UTMB index:

The other interesting thing I discovered was the UTMB index blind spot in Romania. In the lead up and afterwards I checked out some of the races that the elite Romanian runners had done and was surprised their scores were comparably low for some amazing times on technical terrain with tons of vert. I got chatting to a few people about this. A lot of Romanian runners stay within Romania as they have a very healthy trail running scene with an abundance of varied races and distances on some excellent trails. Because of this the UTMB index system won’t recognise these strong performances until some higher index runners decide to come to Romania or the local runners improve their scores overseas. With the strength of field factor being one of the main drivers in the calculation the scores will stay low until this happens. As I mentioned, I was blown away by how strong the Romanian talent was.  Interestingly UTMB recently updated their calculation method and this meant in this race the ITRA score was far higher than the UTMB scores. Previously this would have been a lot closer.

Wildlife:

Bears. 🐻  The population of wild bears in that region of Romania is a bit out of control. If you compare the density of bears to BC in Canada for example it is many times higher. Bear incidents are pretty common. Bear culling has increased recently to manage the increasing population.  We stayed in places with a perimeter of electric bear fences around the entire town, and regional alert systems pinging bear sighting alerts to your phone so you can avoid the area. On a few of my training runs and in the race itself I did see fresh bear poop or tracks which made me a bit nervous. Bears were sighted during the event.  Singing out loud, not using headphones, taking bear spray: not something I need to think about in NZ. I saw quite a few wild foxes during my running which was cool. A bigger risk are the sheepdogs that can be very territorial and have a go at you if you continue running near them. 

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Travelling to awesome new places to run epic events: perfect few weeks in Romania.

Let me know if you are interested in any more insights from the race :)