Transalpine Race – Résumé Written on September 16, 2009, by andys.

Results (detailed results can be found here)

Men:
1. Andrew Symonds/Tom Owens – „Saab Salomon Outdoor“ – 24:02:47.2
2. Thomas Geisenberger/Michael Veit – Team Dr. Steinbauer – 25:57:59.4
3. Roland Osele/Michael Fischer – „Telmekom Team Südtirol“ – 26:21:10.4

Women:
1. Irene Senfter/Petra Theiner – „Team Latsch“ – 32:10:21.6
2. Martina Pfeifhofer/Elisabeth Egarter – „Team Sexten Salomon“ – 32:50:29.5
3. Regine Schlump/Carmen Schnindler – „Intersport-Salomon Womenice“ – 34:02:47.4

Mixed:
1. Angela Mudge/Ben Bardsley – „Saab Salomon Outdoor“ – 27:26:24.4
2. Iona Robertson/Casey Morgan – „TPC Freight Management“ – 29:21:35.0
3. Annemarie Gross/Ulrich Gross – „Telmekom Team Südtirol“ – 29:50:13.4

Master:
1. Anton Philipp/Dr. Thomas Miksch – „BLT Laufsport Saukel Haglöfs“ – 26:45:58.5
2. Oscar Perez Lopez/Eladio Guiller Lantada Zarzosa – „Team Elyos“ – 29:04:27.6
3. Joseph Gallagher/Sven Buchheister – „Team Schwarzwald Express“ – 30:16:32.2

Photo gallery

Résumé

The photos above give a pretty good idea of what a great race the Transalps is. Tom and I love this sort of running – long, tough and rough mountain races. The closest event in format we’d participated in before was the TransRockies in 2008. That was a great experience and excellent practice, but the forest trail-style running and rolling mountain scenery of Colorado simply didn’t come anywhere near what was on offer between Oberstdorf in Germany and Latsch in Italy, with some of the really impressive stuff coming in the early Austrian stages.

Tom and I were asked on numerous occasions throughout the week what our secret was, what whisky we had in our Salomon hydro packs, which shortcut we’d found and how we were managing to smash the stage records day after day. I think the answer is that we both managed to come into the race on top form, we got through without injury (credit due to team physio, Andy Walling), we looked after ourselves i.e. ate plenty & well during and between stages and sought out local ice-melt rivers and fresh-water fountains for post race leg therapy, and finally that we’d relaxed and simply enjoyed the running from start to finish – and that was easy to do with such a brilliant course.

With so much in the calendar, it’s always a bit of a head-scratching exercise choosing which races to do each summer. The problem with long ‘uns like the Transalps is that it requires some specific (long) training i.e. it doesn’t mix well with short to medium fell races and that it tends to leave your legs in a state of worthlessness for a period of weeks (we’ll see how the Two Breweries goes…). I had thought that I’d probably focus on slightly shorter events next year, but after the enjoyable and successful experience of last week, Tom and I are both going to be very tempted to line up on the start in 2010 to defend our title on the reverse, eastern course*.