...less than a month till UTMB

...ZUT: 3rd place; SIT @ 4th place when the race was cancelled and then another first place at the Chiemgau 100 Miles race (http://tomwagner.at/?p=172). A great season so far and more than a boost in confidence for the upcoming UTMB!

End of this month, quite some  trailrunners (2000 +) will try to get around the Mont Blanc massif as fast as possible, enjoying a beautiful landscape and a great atmosphere. I'm really looking forward to that event!

...till then, I'll try to keep it easy. Run when I want to and not if I feel no need to.

some impressions of a nice powerhike up the Schmähhausrücken to the summit of Hochreichart (2416 m a.s.l.): 4km distance and 1.2km vertical! ...4 days after the Chiemgau 100 Miles. taking it easy and enjoying the scenery.

the Schmähhausrücken halfway up; its getting more bouldery...

some more rocks...

nice evening twilight atop Hochreichart (2416 m a.s.l.)

just minutes before; summit in the clouds

the view towards Geierhaupt (2417 m a.s.l.) ...would be a nice link!  ...and on my way down.

Peanut Butter, milage and the upcoming Zugspitz Ultratrail

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....




  

How loosing a key makes sense!

That last Friday it should have been a short/quick afternoon session (as I could already get in a wonderful morning session), but ended up to be a bit longer than planned ;-)
More kilometers (or more time on the trails) means more fun, right!?

Equipped with 3/4l of juice and some new shoes to try I took off...

me and my key still with me...

...about 1:15 into the run, I took some pictures; realizing my apartment key is gone!
Sh..
Ok, must be somewhere on the trail. Back track and you'll see...

steeper than it looks like: some 400m climb on a distance of ~700m ;-)

Some climbing up and down that trail and another 1hr + later I really found it. Lucky at least!
Happy, tired, dirty and satisfied, and 3 1/2 hrs later I opened the door of my apartment again.

Great unplanned workout (but planning my training is anyway not a speciality of mine ;-)
 
Sidenote: the SENSE are really interesting shoes ;-)
(in which I did a 100 km this weekend with no real signs of wear)

after 50k on Saturday ;-)

 
Looking forward to some more kilometers...

Ice Saints

where to go to!? All seems just a view steps away ;-)

...according to plan last Wednesday to Thursday, temperature dropped and snowfall produced some wonderfull scenery. Perfect for a run, or two ;-)
...actually 3, cause of a Holiday that last Thursday ;-D

a view from the Lehrbergalm just North of St. Jakob im Haus (Tirol) to the lake Pillersee (838 m a.s.l.). To the right of the lake (East) the summit of Rothorn (2403 m a.s.l.) and the Ulrichshorn as the smaller summit just in front (2155 m a.s.l.).

picture taken on Thursday on the way back to my second home at about km 25.

due to pretty hot temperatures after the visit of the Ice Saints, snow melt was that effective that I could give it a try to summit the Ulrichshorn on Saturday...

on the summit of Ulrichshorn (2155 m a.s.l.) after occasional snow sections and some loose boulders.

 it took me 1:10 hr to reach the summit starting at the Pillersee (~1300 m of climb) after having done a 1:40 hr trip to get there through some deep snow on the North side of the Wallerberg with Silke. Luckily  we passed a section of the trail shortly before a snow and rock avalanche was triggered by the temperature rise.

minutes before the small avalanche passed...

...happy for that summit #1 that yeaer and hope that some more ascents will follow.

Had to fly down to the Pillersee not to let Silke get roasted in the sun. Did the downhill in 40min, which is a decent time for the slippery upper sections. We'll see what is possible if all the snow is gone ;-)

...then we enjoyed the trot back home and a cool watermelon on the balcony as well-earned refreshment.

...my salty hydration pack

 Another nice and already snowless run on Sunday to round up the weekend.
...another long weekend to come. curious for some more trails, climbs and summits.

Lago di Garda trail session

a wonderfull long (and too short) weekend on great and steep trails around Riva (Lago di Garda, Italy) with a bunch of nice people from Germany, Italy and Austria!
great weather, great trails, great people, great guides, great cappuccino. Just perfetto ;-)

Gege and me on the way up. Courtesy of Gripmaster.

some of us traversing a nice section. Courtesy of GM.

me with the lago below. Thanks GM!

whenever you go up, you usually will be rewarded with a nice downhill. GM.

...just some impressions. And as usual, they do not come anywhere close to what it really was like.
Thanks to Julia (aka Trailschnittchen), Denis (Mr. Trailmagazin) and Stephan (aka Gripmaster) for a couple of great days around the Lago di Garda. Thanks to all participants that I could meet and run with you!

151 miles since 9th of March...

since yesterday night the 150 mile or actually the 8 pack of Roctane Ultra Endurance Energy Gel mark is reached ;-)

and some nice "trails" were done!
especially the one on Sunday which had a lot of elevation gain and some great conditions for ski touring!
...as I was the only one without skitouring equipment besides Raven, a friends dog (well, my Avalung, shovel, probe and beacon was with me) I was kind of standing out from the crowd ;-)
...really enjoyed the uphill although it was quite frozen (did it in 1:51 hrs); then some distance back down and up again with friends; and down and up again the last section; on the way down I had to fight due to the sunny weather and firn conditions. good workout definitely!

view from the Marterlkopf (2445 m) down to the starting point of Hinterthal (1030 m)

me at the summit; first human being that day. Raven was a bit faster ;-)

 

view back up to the Marterlkopf (summit in the middle); did the section from the Torscharte 3 times

and now: departure to Italy, Garda Lake for some nice and sunny trails and some more climbs but without snow ;-)

100+ miles since 9th of March ;-)

...a week of running every day
...a total of 107 miles 
...thanks to the GU 100 Thousand Mile Challenge ;-)

the trail when I hit the 100-mile mark

 

 

 

me at the same moment (after some Roctane Pineapple)

keep on running!