Training Log Archive: ReindeerCounter

Event: Scenic Trail
 

Scenic trail in Tesserete.

So this is what would've happened at ViToDoJo if I'd been able to run properly on the downhill! That was wee fun! The race started from Tesserete, at 7 a.m., with a small loop in the village to stretch the bulk of runners before starting the uphill. There were too many runners to have a comfy first uphill, but it was fun nevertheless. I guess I probably started too fast and was washed out when we reached the first small summit before Gola di Lago - or so I felt. What's really tough with this race is that, unlike ViToDoJo or all trainings I've been doing up to now - it's not one continuous uphill with some parts slightly flatter, other steeper. Here, it's always changing between flat-ish, full uphill and downhill. This is something I'm not used to in races and I'm really bad at, as it turns out! At least I know what I have to be working on.

After feeling completely burned in Gola di Lago, I decided to stop pushing too much and do the uphill at a slower pace. A lot of people caught up with me, but it's still amazing the number of people a decent speed on a small downhill can leave behind. Anywho, we reached the first ravitaillement (mid-race-ish? for me) after about 1h31. It was really fun and I've never experienced something like that! The race is semi-autonomous, meaning you have to bring enough camping supplies to last a whole week in Antarctica, or, as they say, more than .5L of water and enough food for the race, as well a cup bigger than 15cl. A lot of people were eating, drinking, talking, thanking the volunteers, so it was pretty fun - didn't understand shit of what they were saying, but hey, it was fun. Noone seemed to care about the chrono. Maybe the fact that they only had done about a sixth of the race was a good reason?

After that, everybody seemed hit by a post-lunch nap-time sickness, and the uphill went pretty slow. Again, some small downhills just to make me feel better and catch up with 10-20 runners on each downhill. It's amazing (and sad) that you need to put a huge amount of training to be better at uphill and maybe win 5', but then some a**hole just isn't too scared of running downhill and takes you 10' on the downhill...

The race kept going with a lot of rythm variations and at one point we were kind of confused about where the track was supposed to go - a guy was running on a hill and we ran around it - before starting the real tough uphill to Gazirola. I slowly started having cramps behind the knees (same as at ViToDoJo, I should probably do something about it), so I couldn't push as hard as I would have loved to. I just took the elevator behind different guys to pace myself, and when we arrived at the summit I was fresh enough to take and lead on the downhill. AND GET LOST. HOW CAN YOU GET LOST ON A RACE. No but seriously, we were running in the fog at 2000+m after a nice uphill, and suddenly there was no track anymore. I was running in front of a pack of 10 people, in tall wet herbs between cliffs, for what seemed like long minutes. Then, finally, I saw a cross on a small top and was back on track. DOWN.WE.GO.

The last 4 kilometers were just a big downhill, I switched my breathing to 4 exhales, 2 inhales - and at some point I got so confused I was doing 2 exhales, 4 inhales - and ran to San Lucio. Caught up with a lot of guys before the finish, but I guess most of them were on the 54k loop, so they didn't care.

I already like the first Verpflegung, but this was near epic. To give you a short preview:

- orange slices
- bananas
- water
- salted peanuts
- cake
- cake
- even more cake
- watermelon
- haribo bears,

and this was just one table. I don't recall everything there was, but it was like paradise. Probably ate too much and too fast...

We then proceeded to eat polenta at the San Lucio, walk slowly downhill to a village where the car was parked and then drove to Tesserete to see the finish AND EAT A GELATI. And a damn good one.

I've run a trail today, I can eat whatever I want. Yes, this is a jar of nutella.

2x6x200m 100%VMA, 100m/3' R at the stadium.

Better feeling, but sometimes felt like I couldn't lift my feet off the ground. Also, I should really start working on running technique, I feel like my feet are just a huge mess.