Swiss Mountainman Race Report

I had intended on writing a brief training update before flying to Switzerland on 11 August, but I simply ran out of time.  I had been tapering since the Thunder Run, so there wasn’t a great deal to write about anyway.

We spent the first 3 days of our holiday in Grindlewald, staying at the Youth Hostel, which had fine views of the Eiger north face.  Youth Hostels in Switzerland are nothing like their British counterparts.  We had a very spacious double room with an en-suite bathroom that was bigger than our bathroom at home.

View of the Eiger from Grindlewald Youth Hostel

We spent our first two days walking.  On day one we took a cable car from Grindlewald at 1060m to First (2166m) and then hiked to the mountain summit of Schwarzhoren at 2928m.  It started as a fairly gentle walk through high alpine pasture land with the sound of cow bells all around, but turned into a hard slog on steep rocky terrain, well above the tree line, over the occasional patch of loose scree and even the odd patch of snow.  But the views from the summit made it all worthwhile.  The weather was stunning, which we had taken for granted until we met two Scottish climbers who informed us that it had been overcast and raining the previous three days.

Ruth on the climb of Schwarzhoren

The summit of Schwarzhoren - Eiger and Jungfrau to right of Ruth

The next day we planned a longer 10 mile hike from Schynige Platte to First.  This involved getting a train to Wilderswil and then transferring onto the cog wheel mountain railway to the start of the walk.  Swiss transport is so joined up and efficient that we had just enough time to buy our tickets at Wilderswil for the cog railway.  There was absolutely no hanging around between trains.  The walk was also fantastic, although the weather wasn’t quite as kind.  To start with the clouds were low in the valley below us, so we had good views of the white peaks of the mountains in the Jungfrau region.  But as we climbed from 1967m to the highest point of the walk on Faulhorn at 2680m the clouds climbed with us and then hung around the peaks for the rest of the day.

The cog railway to Schynige Platte

View from above the clouds

The clouds close in

Descending to below cloud level once more

I had hoped that the two mountainous walks at reasonably high altitude would help acclimatize me to the heights I’d be running at during the Mountainman ultra.  We contemplated a third walk, but decided I needed three rest days before the big run.  So day three at Grindlewald was spent mostly on boats on nearby Lake Thun, where we visited three small towns.  Each town had a castle, which were more stately home than major defensive castles.  I guess the Swiss have never really been a warlike nation.

The next day we took the train to Luzern, which would be our base for the next week.  On arrival in Luzern we took a ferry around the lake to Alpnachstad, where I’d need to go the following day to register for the race.  From Alpnachstad we jumped on the cog railway (the steepest in the world!) to the summit of Pilatus, which was where the ultra marathon would finish.  We walked around the summit with countless other tourists and tried to work out where the finishing route would be.  I spotted a path that made its way to the summit at a fairly gentle gradient just below a ridge line approach from the south.  That doesn’t look too bad, I thought.  But after consulting the finger posts and trying to match the destination names to places I’d be running through I realised it couldn’t be the route that I’d be on.  We walked around and found a finger post with some recognisable place names that were on the route of the run.  The direction arrow pointed down a very steep slope to a valley far below the summit with a steep series of zig-zags connecting the two.  My heart sank at the realisation that I was looking at the final approach to the finish line after spending 80kms crossing a part of the Swiss Alps.  I knew it was going to be tough, but seeing the finish really brought home just how tough it would be.  At that moment I felt very nervous and wished I’d not made the trip to Pilatus.  A few hours later I had managed to convince myself that I’d done all the training I could have possibly have done, that I was ready for the challenge and that I was doing it precisely because it was going to be hard.  It was suppose to be the toughest physical challenge of my life so far, and that is exactly what it was.

The next day Ruth and I returned to Alpnachstad for race registration.  I met just one other Brit, an incredibly cheerful and optimistic member of the British armed forces.  He told me that this was going to be his first ultra marathon and he was confident his army training would get him through.  We didn’t hang around at Alpnachstad, we returned to Luzern to stock up on pasta and for an early night.

Low key event village at Alpnastad

On race day morning my alarm went off at 3:45am, much to Ruth’s horror and consternation.  I was then out of the apartment at 4.20am for the 20 minute walk to Luzern rail station.  Ruth managed to drag herself out of bed to wave goodbye.  It was surprisingly warm and I passed several groups of people who were clearly making their way home after a night out.  Our two worlds seemed poles apart.

At Luzern rail station us crazy runners lined up to jump on a 4.45am bus for a 20 minute journey to a small town outside of Luzern (there were engineering works on the line from Luzern that weekend), we then had about a 45 minute train journey to Engleberg, from where we got a cable car to the start of the race at Truebsee on the lower slopes of Mount Titlis.  Once at the start we had barely 15 minutes before the start of the race at 6.45am.

The start was very low key.  I wasn’t aware of a countdown; there was no starting pistol, not even a start gantry.  We simply congregated just outside the cable car station and at 6.45am precisely we were off on our way.  I didn’t even hear a shout of “go”.  Then again, I don’t know what “go” is in German.  A total of 206 runners set off from Truebsee.  We had a short downhill run, followed by a few hundred metres of flat running around a small lake and then we got stuck into the first major climb of the day.  The first climb took us from 1780m to about 2320m, a climb of 540m over a distance of about 3.5km.  This was the highest point on the route and was quickly followed by the first mountainous descent.

Now, I thought that I had become quite good at descending.  In my trips to the Lake District and to the Peaks I had been practising running downhill fast.  I knew I was pretty good at this because I could tell by the wide mouthed looks of amazement on the faces of the walkers that I passed at high speed.  I discovered that whilst I’m good at Lake and Peak District high speed downhill running, I am useless at Alpine trail downhill running.  No sooner had we started running downhill on a path littered with rocks and boulders that I found myself flying through the air and landing on my right side on a section of rocky path.  I was bounding over a small rock and felt the toe of my Salomon trail running shoe snagging in an overhang of the rock.  My foot and leg came to an abrupt stop whilst my upper body continued to career headlong downhill.  There was no way of finding a soft landing in the circumstances.  My right hand went out and I rolled onto my right side and then onto my back. 

My first thought was to make sure I hadn’t bust either of my two water bottles or my 1.5 litre bladder in my back pack, all seemed fine.  One runner stopped to ask if I was ok.  I said I was fine and then carried on.  Shortly afterwards I looked at my hand and realised I had a stream of blood pouring out of my middle finger.  We’d barely gone 4kms and I had my first injury.  I stopped to clean up my wound and put a plaster on my cut finger.  Loads of people ran past whilst I cleaned myself up.  When I set off again I was a lot more cautious when it came to running downhill.  I didn’t catch any of the runners who passed me until we started going uphill again. 

The next big climb came at the 9km mark and went up for about 4km gaining 250m as it climbed to just over 2200m.  The next section of the trail to the 24km mark was fairly undulating and probably the highlight of the run.  At times we were running along a ridge line with steep drop-offs to either side.  The views all around were simply stunning; craggy mountain tops to our right, snow caped peaks ahead of us and to the left, mountain lakes and lush valleys below.  I was in trail runner’s heaven.

From the 24km mark the next 9km should have been simple as it was all downhill.  This was where we had the longest descent of the day as we dropped from the high mountains at just over 2000m to a valley floor at about 1000m.  The descent itself was on a mix of rocky mountain paths similar to before, gravel access roads, and steep grassy slopes and the odd stretch of tarmac.  By the time I’d reached the 30km mark my feet were in agony from the constant stress of running downhill on reasonably steep gradients.  My legs weren’t doing too badly, but at that moment I kept thinking I couldn’t possibly run another 50km with my feet feeling the way they were.  I was running in my Salomon Speedcross shoes, which Salomon market as the best trail shoes for mountainous runs.  In wet, muddy conditions they are fantastic, but on the hard trails of the Swiss Alps they were crucifying my feet.  Fortunately, we were allowed to drop a bag at race registration which would be waiting for us at 34km with a change of clothing.  I had put an alternative pair of trail shoes in my bag, as well as a complete change of clothing.

It was a great relief to reach the checkpoint, the fifth of the day so far, and find my kit bag.  It had taken me about 4 hours 40 minutes to reach this checkpoint.  I changed from my long running leggings into shorts, and also changed my socks and shoes.  My feet felt better as soon as I slipped them into my Brooks trail shoes.

From the checkpoint we then had the hardest part of the day ahead of us.  Over the next 6km we would climb back up to about the same height we’d just come down from.  The first part of the ascent was on a steep gravel path through pine forest.  The path was so steep that if it had just been a few degrees steeper I would have been on all fours.  I was mighty glad to have walking poles with me.  As we got above the tree line I tried to admire the views.  We were at the eastern end of Lake Brienze.  We could see the whole length of the lake with the snow capped peaks of the Jungfrau region to our left, and Interlaken at the far end of the lake and then Lake Thun beyond.  I tried to admire the view as much as possible whilst slogging up to just over 2000m in the mid day heat.  Every now and again we passed a trough of water that was for the cows to drink.  Each time I dipped my cap into the cool water and put it back on my head to help cool off.

Near the top of the climb, as I approached the 40km mark and half way point of the run I met up with the guy from the British army.  He was looking pretty low.  I asked how he was doing.  His optimising from the previous day had completely gone.  He was struggling on the climb, but had also suffered a serious piece of equipment failure.  His water bladder had burst and he had no other means to carry water.  He was really hoping that when he reached the next checkpoint that they would have a spare water bottle lying around that he could have.  I contemplated giving him one of my bottles.  My strategy had been to start with my bladder full of water, and to have water in one of my bottles and energy drink in the other.  However, I hadn’t intended filling my bladder at any stage, once it was empty I would just use my two bottles.  I wondered if I should give-up one of my 600ml bottles.

We reached the next aid station together, about 6 hours after leaving Truebsee.  It had taken about 80 minutes to complete the 6km of uphill slog from the previous checkpoint.  I went about my usual business of taking on some food; a mix of salty soup, fruit and energy bars, and drinking some water and energy drink, whilst also filling up both bottles.  I saw my fellow Brit asking the volunteers if they had a spare bottle.  I also watched as he tried to figure out if he could fix his bladder.  I then left the aid station whilst he sat down looking quite dejected.  As I started to jog away I once again wondered if I could give him one of my bottles.  Part of me felt that he should have been better prepared with his own backup, part of me also felt that the one 600ml bottle that I could give him wouldn’t be enough, and part of me also felt that I really needed to look after number one and stick to my original plan.  Despite that I felt guilty for not helping out.

I continued on my way.  The doubts I had at the 30km mark about whether I could finish had been left behind.  I was over half-way and had another 10 hours in which to finish the next half of the race, and felt very positive that I could do it in much less than that.

I have to say that much of the next 10km is a bit of a blur.  I’m looking at the route on the map we were given at the start of the race, but find it hard to conjure up any images from that part of the run.  Looking at the map again now, it looks as if it should have been another fairly easy 10km stretch as it was mostly undulating, this is probably why I don’t remember too much about it.  I was at the stage in the race when I just focused on running as much as possible and walking when I had to.  Taking in the views at this stage was a secondary consideration.  I have the odd memory of some of the checkpoints.  At one there was a band playing and one volunteer was sat on a pedal powered shower that I stood under for a few seconds, and there was a small pocket of spectators that cheered me as I continued on my way.  At another checkpoint, when he spotted an approaching runner, a volunteer would ring a huge hand cranked cowbell.  Further on we passed through a largish village which had the biggest crowd of spectators lining the streets to cheer on the runners. 

With 20km to go we reached the next big climb.  Looking at the route profile it doesn’t look like it should have been to challenging.  It went up and over a peak that was below the tree line, we stayed in a forest the whole way.  The gradient on the route map didn't seem so steep, but I found the climb incredibly tiring and also unrewarding for all the hard effort I had to put in.  We reached a ridge line that would have had great views of the surrounding countryside if it wasn’t for the densely packed trees obscuring any potential vistas.  The trees were packed so close together that the trail made lots of very tight twists and turns as it climbed up, then undulated along the top before descending again.  The path was also covered in exposed tree routes.  It was like running through a twisting forest maze with roots ready to trip you at any moment.  Even if I hadn’t been so tired I don’t think I would have covered the 10km of the forest trail particularly quickly.  It was a relief to be out of the forest, back on tarmac and approaching the checkpoint at the 70km mark.  It had taken me about 11 hours 10 minutes to reach the 70km checkpoint, and the previous 10km had taken a little under 2 hours!  From here we had 4km of running downhill on tarmac, before we started heading up to Mount Pilatus, where Ruth was waiting to greet me.

Over the last 10km I ran with a Japanese runner by the name of Jun.  We pretty much ran side-by-side most of the way over the last 10km.  We discovered a lot about each other.  We were the same age, my marathon PB was just 2 minutes quicker than his, he now lives in Munich, but has also lived in the USA, and he is married with two kids and also wants to run the UTMB some time soon.  We gave each other a lot of encouragement over the last 10km, especially for the last 6km ascent of Mount Pilatus.  As we neared the top I spotted three mountain Ibex ahead of me.  They were pretty much the only wildlife I’d seen all day.  They were also completely unconcerned about the steady trickle of runners passing them by.

The last 200m of climbing on the zig-zag of path leading to the top of Pilatus was as horrendously difficult as predicted.  Ruth had spotted me from some way off and was surprised at how much I had to stop to catch my breath every time I reached a switch back in the trail.

Almost...

...there.

Final bound to the finish line.

I gave Ruth a quick wave as I passed her and then bounded up the last few stairs to the finish line.  I crossed the line in a time of 12 hours 53 minutes.  The finish itself felt a little underwhelming.  I expected big crowds of cheering spectators, but Ruth and the race organisers seemed to be the only people there.  I also expected to be greeted with a huge impressive medal and at least a T-shirt.  Instead, the only race memento was a running cap.  I had to undergo a very brief interview at the finish line.  I have no idea what it was or will be used for.  The only question I now remember being asked was what it is like to be able say that I am a Mountain Man.  I was so dazed by this stage that I don’t remember my answer, other than it was just a huge relief to be at the finish line and that I’m really happy to be a Mountain Man.

A few seconds later Jun crossed the line and was subjected to a similar interview.  I thought he gave better answers than me.  We then greeted each other and congratulated ourselves on finishing the race.

Very happy to be Mountain Men

I was then handed a free beer.  I had a few sips and passed it to Ruth to finish off.  After a shower we descended on the cog railway to catch the train back to Luzern.  A baguette I had at breakfast was about the only real food I’d had all day, but the idea of food as we headed home was quite unbearable.  We got back to our apartment at about 10pm; it wasn’t long before I was fast asleep in bed.  Food could wait until the next morning.

I think beer can wait until tomorrow!

Now that I am home I have looked at the race results so that I can give you a few stats.  There were 206 starters at Truebsee: 175 men, 31 women.  44 runners (21%) have the dreaded DNF next to their name (37 men, 7 women), which means they either abandoned at some point or were pulled off the course because they didn’t make one of the time cut-offs.  We were given 16 hours 15 minutes to finish the race.  The winner crossed the line in a staggering 8 hours 30 minutes, the last person crossed in 16 hours 8 minutes.  I finished in 78^th place overall out of the 162 who finished.

I ran the 80km Swiss Mountainman and all I got was one black toenail and this hat.

I might also add a write-up about my recovery in the days that followed the Mountainman Ultra in a few days time.  I do remember telling Ruth to shoot me if I ever mention UTMB ever again.  Of course, I am now thinking of applying for the 100km CCC again for next year (the race that starts in Courmayer in Italy, runs through Champex in Switzerland and finishes in Chamonix in France - hence CCC).  And now that one week has passed since the Swiss ultra my head is once again dreaming of the UTMB.