Transalpine Run – DAY 1 Written on September 5, 2009, by andys.

Day 1 - arriving at the finish

The first day of this 8 stage race couldn’t have gone much better. It’s not easy to judge the pace when you’re used to running hard for one off races, but when there are 8 tough races, back to back, traversing the Alps ahead of you, it’s important to start steady. And it’s particularly difficult when you’ve had a week of easy running and are feeling super fresh and itching to get the legs going over this awesome terrain. However we stuck to the plan of not doing any pace setting until at least the first drinks station. It felt slow, but it should do. At the first refreshment point, half way up the first main climb, we necked a mug or two of water, scoffed some gels and bars and took to the front to run at our own, self-dictated, steady pace for the rest of the day. The scenery was spectacular, which makes the running all the more enjoyable. We traversed a couple of rocky snow covered cols, there were section of ropes and chains marked as “Start of Dangerous Section” and “End of Dangerous Section” and some cracking rough and muddy steep descents. Tom and I summitted probably a couple of minutes ahead of two chasing teams and opened up the gap to about quarter of an hour by the finish. A great outing and a nice feeling to have a 15 minute cushion after the first stage. Let’s just hope the legs are in tact and up to the same again tomorrow, and the day after… etc..

Post race interview

Angela and Ben also had a good day out, setting off steady and pulling through to finish 7th overall and 17minutes clear of the next mixed team.

Andy

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