Transalpine Run – DAY 7 Written on September 11, 2009, by andys.
Transalpine Run – DAY 7
Length: 35.5km
Climb: 2145m up / 2411m down
Andy & Tom: 1st team / 1st overall / 3hours 34mins 45secs
Ben and Angela: 1st mixed team (now with an overall lead of about 1hr40!)
Heart rate: ave = 147bpm / max = 168bpm (although I wasn’t sweating enough at the start to get the hr sensor working, so not sure the average is v accurate)
Much better form this morning – all cylinders firing again. We started off with a steady 10mile run up to the first drinks stop, traversing farmers’ fields and following their irrigation aqueducts – easy to fill up the water bottle! With a climb of 926m that was a nice 90 minute warm up (normally a pretty long run on its own!), before the real mountain started. Over the next three km we gained 1000m, climbing to the high point of the race at 3012m above sea level. There was even a bit of snow in the air at the top of the col, but it seems we were lucky as last year there was a meter of snow for the runners to bash through. Scrambling over boulders and dragging ourselves up the loose scree (one step forwards, half a step back – type running), we summitted to be offered Snaps by one of the race organisers – I nearly necked it thinking it was water, quickly handed the cup back and dived forwards for an awesome scree run down the other side. We covered the last 15km down to Schlanders, dropping 2400m in just over an hour (bit of a quad burner). The organisers weren’t quite ready for our arrival as we’d taken a chunky 40 minutes off the previous record for this stage. As a result we had to go back and re-run the last 100m so the media crew could get the photos and video footage!
Finished up today fifteen minutes ahead of the second team and we’ve now built up a cushion of 1hour38 on the overall standings.
Just one day to go now. We’ve had a great time over the course of the last 7 days. The event has been a brilliant experience, superbly organised and an excellent route choice on behalf of the race director – obviously a fan of real mountain running. Tomorrow we’ll be making the most of our last day of alpine running en route to the finish banner in Latsch. With the end now in sight I hope that last stage won’t hurt too much. Looking forward to that beer!…
Andy
