 |
| a view minutes of blue sky at the Mitterhorn (2506 m a.s.l.) the last weekend |
...yeasterday, I enjoyed my first GU Beanut Butter Gel. YUMMY!
 |
| my new favorite: GU Peanut Butter |
after the GU and Strava 100 000 Mile Challenge March 9th to April 9th I managed to record some 314 miles (not including the miles we did during the trailrunning camp in Italy).
Far from what #1 did: 562! impressive!
nevertheless it was enough to remain first European ;-)
...and because all of us did more than double the 100 000 miles (a total of 213 922!) a nice variety of GU Gels directly from the US finally arrived this week, including my first Peanut Butter Gel ;-D
didn't find the time to try it out earlier this week, but yesterday it helped me to enjoy an evening session even more...
...as this flavor will be available very soon here in Europe as well (check out my source of choice) it is going to be my constant companion during the upcoming events.
besides the milage stated above, I managed to do some 70 000 m of climbing and almost 2 000 km in total since January 1st (not including any other sports). Not toooo much, but - and this is what is important for me - without any real injuies.
as the season is getting closer to my first ultra event, the Zugspitz Ultratrail June 23rd, I am getting more and more excited and am curious to see how the first 100 km will work out this year.
Last year I suffered quite a bit on that first race of the year, and I expect some suffering this year as well; but this is part of the game and hopefully it will be a little less this time (at least avoiding the shutdown of my kidneys). I am really looking forward to that weekend and will try to improve last years time (not thinking about the position, cause I guess this years field will have some more of the faster runnners).
Most importanlty I am looking forward to run with like-minded people for a couple of hours and to enjoy the scenery and the atmosphere there, which was definitely great last year.
side note to milage: motivated by Anton Krupicka's report on scouting the Nolan's 14, I did my own summit collection that last weekend and again realized that depending on the trail conditions, even without the big elevation gains, the pace might be pretty slow (check out the great article by Geoff Roes on iRunFar.com: The Redefinition of Running): took me 6:01 hrs to complete a loop of ~23km and only 2007 m of climbing up. There was loads of scrambling and finding my way through the remaining snow patches, which didn't really increase the pace ;-)
However, a great outing and exceptional views (at times where it was not too hazy): Starting in St. Jakob (Tirol) via the Lastal I ended up after a short section of via ferrate at summit #1, which was the Mitterhorn (see also the first picture avove); then scrambling to the Rothorn (2403) and the Rothörndl (2395); then along the ridge towards the Seehorn. Unfortunately, this is not the actual path and I ended up at a cliff I couldn't downclimb; but didn't like the idea to turn around, so I made my way down the east side past some surprised chamois until finally finding the "Nurracher Höhenweg"-path again (thanks to some blue arrows!?); some more great ridges and then the Seehorn (2155) and finally arriving at the Ulrichshorn (2030).
 |
| Mitterhorn just before the haze cleared |
 |
| Rothorn (I guess?) |
 |
| Rothörndl (note the ridge thereafter; somewhere downclimbed this east face ;-) |
 |
| nice trail towards the Seehorn! |
 |
| at the via ferrata section before arriving at the Seehorn |
 |
| Seehorn |
 |
| finally, Ulrichshorn and the view down to the Pillersee |
There, I ran out of water (well, 1.2 liters wasn't too much anyway). So, I enjoyed the downhill to finally jump into the cold creek upstream of the Pillersee. After cooling off a bit, I trotted back to St. Jakob.
 | |
| view from the Ulrichshorn down the trail: great downhill! St Jakob is behind the little hill in the back of the picture |
 |
| my feets well-deserved refreshment |
Not a long run, not much elevation gain, and definitely not fast, but just a wonderful tour collecting some summits and some time on my feet (and hands ;-). ...hope that some more "runs" like this will follow.
But for now: get the final preps done for the Zugspitz Ultra....
