Arrived in Austria on the Saturday and was quite tired as I had been up since 4am. Set up camp in the hotel and helped myself to lots of food at tea in preparation. Met the other offices who were taking part in the race (Clarke Energy France and GE Jenbacher, Austria). Figured I had tough competition as the French MD had last year completed a 100km race in 11 hours
Sunday morning I was up at 7am for a healthy breakfast and we arrived at the lake at 0830. Lumbered up and realised I had forgotten my pace band. Was this a sign of things to come??
0950 Went to the start in the centre of Achensee, where all the villagers had come out to cheer us on. Couldnt understand the loudspeaker announcements as they were in German but I assumed someone would tell me if it was important.
1000: And we are off! Missed the first two km markers so really didnt have a clue what sort of pace I was doing. Reached 3km in 14:55 so figured I had done ok. Pleasantly surprised to find myself running on a FLAT cycle path around the lake. Not too many ascents either! Water stations were at 6km, 11km and 16km where they had water, orange juice, red bull and blackcurrant juice.
Was nice to have the locals cheering you on by the side of the road (even the women were ringing their cowbells as you ran past!) All very pleasant and enjoyable little did I know what was to happen next
Finally, made it to the far end of the lake just after 16km so was over half way there. Noticed that some runners were speeding up towards the mountain but I wanted to save myself. The mountain we were to tackle covered nearly the entire side of the lake. You could also just make out the little dots that were the leading runners.
So up I went on the path- if you could call it a path! It was at most 1.5ft wide and because some sections were so steep, they had built stairs into the mountain side which you had to walk up. If you thought red rocks was bad last week you aint seen nothing yet! There could be no over-taking as the path was so narrow and you risked falling 100m into the lake below! Now I understood why runners had quickened their pace. Because you would lose so much time on the mountain it was best to run the first16km as quickly as possible. At one point it took me 9 minutes to run a kilometre as we were reduced to walking on more than one occasion. This went on for about 3km although I was enjoying the challenge of scrabbling up the rocks and crossing the streams and waterfalls. There was also about 1-2km that took place in the forest after we came down from the mountain that was great fun (jumping over tree roots etc) and it was now wide enough to over take so I tried to make up some time here.
Finally got to 21km and it was back to the flat cycle path where I increased my pace. Usually the finish line seems to take ages to get to but before I knew it I was sprinting across the line in 2:14:22. The fastest person was around 1:20 so it shows how tough it was (and it was also 1000m above sea level!).
Got a medal, a salomon hat, a 15 euro sports voucher, pasta and a chewy bar in my goody bag. We also had a choice of water, orange juice, peach juice, water melon, Austrian fruit bread, bananas and many other delights to help our recovery (why dont we have this at English races??). All in all a good experience and I would definitely do it again (I came in 13 seconds behind my director so he better watch out!).
I have never completed a mountain run before and it does make a nice change. Would highly recommend it!
Well done Rach what took longer writing the report or the race itself ,get the handicap done you wimp its only a mile see ya
