Samstag, 13. September 2008

The "half" North Face Ultra Trail

Good evening all!

wow - my last post was in Febuary??? I can't believe it! So much has happened. Most imoportant is that my daughter Lucy was born on July 11 - of course the sweetest baby in the world!

The Vasaloeppet was real good fun - a wonderful tour through the countryside and not as painful than I thought. Mind you I did need 8:20 hrs for the trip, but it was worth it. Should in fact have gone even slower to relish the landscape!! That's what Rudi (WEhn) my mate from work will do next time. He said he WON'T be pleased if he completes the Vasaloeppet in UNDER ten hrs. Good thinking. You pay load of starting fee, it takes you ages to get up half Sweden and then you try to get the race over with as quick as possible - stupid! :-)
Or is it?

Well on August 28 2008 I flew to Chamonix for the North Face Ultra Trail Mont Blanc, the UTMB. A race covering 165kms 9500m positive elevation (and negative as well!) in max 46hrs.

A week before I was completely knackered. I could hardly climd the stairs without feeling my legs buckling.
The doctors diagnose was overtraining! Not really because of too much training, but too one sided training! Never ever had that in 30 years sports!
Actually I had too few kms in my legs - only covering between 40 - 70 mainly flat kms a week. There were all with backpack, I had a long run with 45kms inbetween but what i neglected - and that where the overtraining came from - cycling, Squash, Gym. So i was stale a week before the event.
So I stopped running completely for the rest of the week until the race started on Friday 29th at 18:30.
An actually I didn't fold completely but I must say I never competed in a race and thought so much about how hard it was as in this one.
Eventhough time still passes. I remember contemplating at around 22 pm what I had been doing the day before and two days before and that in 2 hours time I could It would be like 4 hours passed on thinking backwards because I'm two hours closer to the finish line. Does that make sense?...
Well anyway - the next I can remember is that it's around 3am.
But it got harder and harder and my aim was to beat the time cut for as long as possible becuse, really, going for this race with my amount of preperation was just a little cocky.
I was still 2hrs ahead of the deadline by 6am but then I started to really hurt on the downhill parts. Just couldn't run them any more. And that's where your time goes. So by 12 noon I was still 30min ahead of the cut off time with my back against the wall.
And - to cut a long story short I reached a place called Arnuva after 94kms, 5400m pos elevation and 24hrs and 36 mins. Also, it was 36mins too much and the frenchies grabbed my racenumber, cut off an edge and showed me the way to the bus for my return to Chamonix!
I'm still not sure how relieved I was - but it definately was the right deciscion. My legs were completly gone, my feet though, were great. Not a sinlge blister! And hey - I did manage half the run, covered a new record distance of 94kms, ran longer than ever before - what more can I expect after such a pityful preperation? :-)

So whoever wants to finish this really gruelling run: you need to train running downhill!!!!!
Going Uphill means strong legs and you usually power walk, but it's downhill where you simply can't afford to walk. You have to run to cover the distance.
My next run, the Roentgenlauf in Remscheind on Oct 26 will provide me with my final qualification point to attemped the UTMB next year!!!

Oh by the way: Fantastic organisation, food was at the check points plenty, and the scenry, the mountains, the valleys, the Mont Blanc... a b s o l u t e l y stunning!!! Worth every penny of the 140,- or so entry fee.