LSG Adventure

So my running group has a Vereinsreise (group trip) every year and this year it was rafting down the Reuss river from Bremgarten to Siggental (just south of where I work). The trip was quite a bit of fun, with almost no effort required. I don't have any pictures and no-one else on the trip has bothered to upload any, but the weather was great, and it was even warm enough (with wind, just barely) to swim. We had a few bruskis on an island, and had a big bbq at the end.

Inferno Half-Marathon

So, thinking I had the hang of this mountain running thing after Belchen was clearly, one of the most horribly wrong thoughts I have ever had.
So I was supposed to go sailing but because of the iffy weather, our plans got cancelled the night before. Not wanting to blow a good saturday I looked at laufkalender.ch and found a pretty good looking half-marathon mountain run, going up some trail near interlaken. I read 2200m of vertical climbing but for some reason it didn't strike me as too big of a number (had it said 7000 feet, I may have been more apprehensive)



It was brutal. The first half was a pretty typical berglauf, with some climbs and some flats, and it was easy to keep moving along. After that it basically just turned into straight up climbing. Easily black-diamond slopes for those skiing-inclined. The air also started to get noticably thinner. My lungs really started cranking/burning (we did get to 9,700ft after all). So basically it was two races, the first was a normal mountain run, and the second was a death-march to the summit.
The weather also was pretty unpleasant (certainly could have been much worse) with heavy cloud cover and a pretty persistent thick misting rain. Although I was soaked anyway with sweat, so it was hard to tell exactly how bad the rain was.
The support, however, was mindblowing. Stations what seemed like every kilometer, with plenty of food, gu, tea, isotonic drink (2 types), and near the end boullion and cola. They even had a new long energy isostar gel, that had solid objects that tasted like oatmeal from birchermuesli, it seemed to work pretty well (my delicious chocolate gu is still in my pack). Plus the freebies included a running waterbottle holder (nice), and the shirt is pretty sweet

Inferno Schilthorn Half-Marathon

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First Mountain Run

After getting back to Switzerland and being pretty lethargic for a couple of days (I blame jetlag), I decided to try my first "berglauf" or mountain run. It was called Belchen (perhaps gaspen would have been more appropriate), and it was in Olten (a city I have been through maybe 50 times, but never actually gotten off and looked around). Plus I didn't remember any huge hills near Olten (again my memory proving how poorly it sometimes operates). The run went up around 2400 feet in 8 miles or so. It had some pretty steep sections that occasionally caused me to walk, but it was doable. I was completely exhausted at the end. The scenery would have been much prettier had the weather been nice, but as it was, it wasn't too bad.
One of the things I really liked about this run, and I assume berglaufs in general, is after the start the field automatically sorts out into nice groups, and you really stay together till the end of the race. It helps you stay motivated, and keep your pace since you know the people around you are probably suffering just as badly as you are. It can also be motivating when an old man in a sweat drenched button-up dress shirt passes you.

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