various trail conditions and some vertical gain

last week was a low milage week, however there was some vertical gain ;-)
and a fun range of weather conditions as the spring-time seems to be here at least for the southeast of Austria!


Tuesday: some midday slush up and down the Schöckl trail

Wednesday: same trail but at night, so basically pure ice (perfect to test my new crampons)

Thursday: some more temperature rise (~+8°C) and some sunshine, so running in shorts the first time this year. felt just great!!!

Saturday: raining most of the day. at night the Vertical Up 2012 took place: running up the famous Streif race track of the ski downhillers with the equipment of your choice (http://www.verticalup.at/).
...although it was pretty soft, I decided to go with spikes (actually flexible crampons) and poles.
Loads of fun and hard breathing. My first real speed workout this season ;-)

http://www.verticalup.at/

http://www.verticalup.at/

1st place: Urban Zemmer (ITA) in 0:34:41... WOW!
30th place: me in 0:44:24 for 3312 m of distance and +860 m to climb.
not too bad for a long distance fellow ;-)
  
Sunday: nice recovery run in heavy snowfall. great trails (thanks to the unknown for digging those out!) with loads of remaining snow in Tirol.

all in all a week with a lot of variations in weather and trail conditions with focus on the vertical.
just 38 km, but +3164 m climbed in just 6:32hrs...
actually on 3 climbs of a total of 120 min and less than 8km I managed to do 2200 m vertical ;-).

enjoyed it! and look forward to some more runs in shorts ;-)

final race schedule for 2012

...got a starting position (lottery) for the Chiemgauer 100 Miles (27th of July)!
and will try to go again for 1st place (this time I already know the trails ;-)

so finally my race schedule for the 2012 season is fixed.
- Zugspitz Ultratrail to get used to the distance
- Irontrail (3 weeks later) to try to get beyond the 200 km! in the beautiful mountains of Switzerland
Chiemgauer 100 Miles (2 weeks later) to defend last years results and enjoy this great ambience;
and as the big finale the UTMB 10th edition! really looking forward to this ;-)

...lots to be motivated and train for!

a first competition (or actually fun run, cause this is way to short for me to compete with the experts) this weekend: Vertical Up (http://www.verticalup.at/)! running up the Streif / Hahnenkamm (Kitzbühel) with whatever equipment you want to ;-)
...I'll go for spikes and poles.

...some winter training. perfect blue sky and the first on the trail (although it is midday ;-)

...some new shoes for winter motivation

finally got my pair of MT 110s to start into the season. really interesting shoe and the outsole works much better  than the one of the old 101s as far as I can tell now (besides along the icy spots ;-) 

probably not really related to this particular shoe, but new equipment in general that boosts my motivation to get out of bed early in the morning when it is still dark; however there is a second reason: perfect sunrise and the occasional glow of the trails. Just a beautiful time for running (especially if there is that little snow as here on the eastern margin of the Eastern Alps!)

 

my conclusion: when trails and faces are frozen (-10°C), the sunrise is the most beautiful ;-) 

forgot an important thing (especially in winter): be the first to leave a mark on the snowy trail ;-D

20120207 morning session