Zugspitz Ultra Trail 2024: Overcoming Discomfort with Gratefulness and Tomato Paste

The annual ultra trail race that has been part of my plans for a few times now finally happened. I was looking forward to this for months with uncomfortable excitement, because I know from experience how tough these one hundred kilometer races with thousands of meters of elevation gain and loss in the mountains are. You need to be at your highest level of capabilities and still you will get your butt handed back to you at some point during the race. It is an exercise in grit and humility, every time. Find out how I did this year!

⏳ Previously On…

A little recap. It’s not just that I like these tough races in the mountains, there’s a bigger goal behind it. I’d like to qualify for and someday run the legendary Western States 100 Endurance Run, the first and most well-known 100-mile race in the world taking place in California. Tens of thousands of other runners from all over the world also would like to do that, but because there are only about 300 slots each year, a complex lottery system gate-keeps us all.

You can enter the weighted lottery drawing once per year only if you’ve successfully completed a difficult race from the officially published list in that year. Each year you finish such a race and enter the drawing your chances of getting pulled increase. I love this system, it provides structure to my annual race planning. I enjoy going through the yearly updated list and learn about all the races to see if they could fit my abilities and schedule. It’s very much a case of the journey being the destination.

Since starting this huge task I’ve done the following.

• mozart 100 in 2021: 108km, 4,800m of climb, a finish time of 17:30h with a qualifying time of 22:00h
• Festival des Templiers in 2022: 104km, 4,500m of climb, DNF’d after 40km, qualifying time was 19:00h
• Lavaredo Ultra Trail 120 in 2023: 120km, 5,800m of climb, a finish time of 25:27h with a qualifying time of 26:00h

That amounted to two successful entries into the Western States lottery and both times I didn’t get drawn. In 2024 I was planning on adding a third one to it.

If you’ve read the report about my DNF at Templiers in 2022 you know that I attribute the failure to a few different things, but the main one being the wrong choice of shoes for me and for the race. I corrected that mistake in 2023 at Lavaredo, but didn’t feel like I did the best possible job. After all, the shoes are the most important piece of equipment for such a long and grueling activity, so the better they work for you, the easier it will be. Which is why leading up to Zugspitz I took my time and put some effort into selecting the best possible ones.

👟 Finding the Perfect Shoes

I’m writing this down in the hopes of people searching for it will get some helpful information out of it because I felt somewhat lost with the problem and want to share my experiences.

mozart 100 went really well on my Altra Lone Peaks, which are minimalist shoes with a wide and comfortable toebox. They don’t have much cushioning, which can be a problem at the later stages of a race which has tough downhills.

So I changed to the classic Hoka Speedgoats for Templiers for their maximum cushioning. They didn’t fit as comfortably and are heavy and too big on a technically difficult race. My feet got in the way a lot and I even fell without any reason other than they being in the way.

So for Lavaredo I went back to what worked and got the minimalist Topo Ultraventures, similar to the Altras but with a more snug fit around the ankle. They performed well but led to back pain at a later time of the race due to too little cushioning, I know now. I spent months strengthening my back and core muscles and used the shoes on other ultra runs, but the back pain returned – only in these shoes. Topo shoes with a bit more cushioning like the MTN-Racer model would have been the perfect solution for me, and while they exist, they are very difficult to get in Europe. I ordered some directly from the US, but they actually got lost in the mail.

Another problem is my huge shoe size of US14 (EU49). So here are the candidates I checked out:

• Salomon Genesis: A recommendation from my friend Henning who works for Runner’s World and typically knows a lot about current shoes. I ordered them and loved them immediately, but their biggest available size, which is EU49, was too small for me to run an ultra in. Sad.
• Adidas Trail Rider: These are just bad shoes, all around. They feel cheap and stiff like you could get them at a discounter. Not much R&D could have gone into them. The new flagship from Adidas, their Agravic Speed Ultra were probably quite a lot better, but far out of my budget and quite possibly overpowered for my skill level.
• Asics GEL-Trabuco: They feel okay, slightly stiff and maybe causing blisters, but on the other hand the feet are securely in them and the cushioning made a good impression on me. They would be an option. Not a perfect one, but I could imagine running the Zugspitz in them.
• Merrell Agility Peak: Very comfortable padding, large enough, good fit around the toes without being too narrow, some arch support and a great outer sole made by Vibram. Cushioning seems very good, too. Only the heel fit wasn’t good enough. Too roomy. My heel can’t have wiggle room or on the steep uphills I will blister for sure. Too bad.
• La Sportiva Prodigio: Immediately when I put them on, I knew they were the winners. The heel fits tightly, the minimal padding seems good enough, the toebox is a tad wider than in most other shoes which is great. The downsides are the reluctantly designed outer sole (Vibram would have been a lot better) and the fact that they are apparently tempo trail shoes! Not a downside in itself, but for me it slightly is: The cushioning is optimized for fast rebound instead of taking off the impact edge.

How did they hold up?

These are very solid shoes and they did a good job. Reasonably priced, too. A weak point really was the sole, the grip could have been much better – especially on the muddy and snowy trails of this race. The materials used seemed to be of high quality and there was not one bit showing signs of wear and tear in the harsh conditions I put them through. I can recommend them and would use them again, but only if I can’t get my hands on new Topos with more cushioning.

🦵 Training for a 100k Mountain Race in Flat Northern Germany

My plan for the first half of this year culminated in this race. But the longest bit of it was devoted to increasing my city marathon speed since I set the goal to break three hours in the marathon. Can’t have too much trail running intervene with that, or it could be too difficult to pull off. Fortunately, my three hour marathon plan worked out even better than I could have hoped for: I broke the barrier not once, but actually twice. Adding in a great 1:22h result at a half marathon, I can definitely state my VO2max engine was on point going into the trail running training, and that’s a great basis to build on for sure.

For the seven weeks between my final three hour marathon race and this Zugspitz race, I planned to first focus on two key sessions every week. One to stabilize my cardio status by doing 3:00 minute intervals above threshold, and one really long and easy run on the weekends. All remaining days had easy runs according to what I felt like doing that day. Never underestimate the power of optimizing for enjoyment!

I threw in a few virtual bike sessions on Zwift were I focused on leg strength improvement by cycling uphill for two hours. As the weeks progressed I moved over to replace the VO2max intervals with long hill repeats on the 75m tall Waseberg hill we’ve got here in the area of western Hamburg. I did either six or twelve repeats of the full climb and descent, which would add up to 500m or 1,000m of gain plus loss, respectively. Over a full distance of either 21 or 27 kilometers, these sessions took some time, but prepared me quite well, I think.

Two specials were the “3 Länderlauf” flat marathon race in the Swiss city of Basel I did three weeks before the race and finished in 10th place after 3:13:58, and the 4th Munich Breweries Ultra a week later I put together with a few friends – an 80 kilometer guided run through Munich while visiting the breweries and drinking their beer. That one took twelve hours and was great preparation for spending so much time on the feet at varying degrees of intensity.

🚂 Why Zugspitz?

That’s a question I asked myself a few times, too. Of the Western States qualifier races, this is the only one in Germany. It’s the biggest trail running event, too. And the course leads around Germany’s highest mountain, the Zugspitze (2,962m / 9,700ft). That alone made it attractive to me. In ultra running circles here it seems like it’s a must-do race and that’s also because the company behind it does everything in a loving way without selling out to the giants in the industry or trying to greedily increase the profit by milking the participants.

The funny thing is I ended my conclusion of last year’s ultra trail, the Lavaredo 120K, by confidently stating I’ll try to avoid another difficult alpine race as a qualifier anytime soon in favor of seemingly easier races, and specifically I’m not going to do the Zugspitz Ultra Trail. What happened between that day and me signing up for it after all?

At first, I had found a seemingly easy qualifier race in the UK and secured a spot for it. A one hundred kilometer race, but with only about 1,700m of elevation gain in rural England located between Oxford and London. Great. But then, the Western States people seemingly got wind of this cheap trick (which they themselves allowed to happen in the first place) and eliminated the race from their list of qualifier races. I don’t quite remember how it came to be, but I must have thought something like “well, then I might just as well do Zugspitz” – I guess the attraction of this cornerstone event in my home country won me over. And if I’ll manage the tough Lavaredo 120K, like I did last year, Zugspitz must be possible, too, right? The convenience of it also played a role since it’s just an eight hour train ride away. Unfortunately though, the train ride cost twice as much as the one hour flight to Munich, so I somewhat reluctantly switched modes of transportation to my guilty pleasure, flying.

🚠 Garmisch-Partenkirchen

With about two minutes to spare I made it to the race briefing in the center of the little town at the bottom of the Zugspitz mountain range Wettersteingebirge. Garmisch-Partenkirchen, or “Gamish-Patenkarkin”, as my late British-born father-in-law used to say, is a popular and relaxed village for outdoor sports in these mountains. The European Football Championships are about to start here in Germany and the national team from Scotland chose this pretty village as their home base for the tournament. The town had banners flying depicting traditionally dressed Germans and Scots with big beer mugs toasting each other smiling. Friendship comes first. Lots of people wearing dark blue jerseys and kilts were roaming Munich airport, because the first game of the tournament will take place between Scotland and Germany, right when my Zugspitz race would start.

Little side note, an Englishman named Russ Cook, who recently ran the whole length of Africa from the southernmost to the northernmost point, has just started with a little new running project: Running from his home near London to every England game in Germany. What a great idea! Follow his fun endeavors here. Fingers crossed for England making it far in the games, so he will get to run a lot more!

The final race briefing did not contain any new and important information apart from the good news that the snow on the higher mountains has mostly melted away and the previously recommended spikes, called “Grödeln” in German, were not deemed necessary anymore. A week ago, in an email, the race officials stated it might be a good idea to bring them, so I got a pair from a friend but I was really happy I would not have to carry them all the way through the race, as it was looking right now.

⏳ The Long Race Day before the Start

Zugspitz Ultra Trail will go off in the evening at 10:15pm of June 14th. After Lavaredo, this will be only my second time to run throughout the night and into the day. It’s not easy to pass these hours until the race starts, because the nervousness steadily increases and decisions about food have to be made quite carefully. I do a short and easy streak run and watch the other race, the “Garmisch-Partenkirchen Trail”, a 29 kilometer race including 1,400m of gain. The winner does it in just over two hours, incredible.

An early dinner at 5pm gets some carbs in my system in the form of tasty Italian pasta. Nothing risky.

At 7pm, something highly unusual happens: My dear wife Sophie arrives! This will mark the first of these races where she will be able to actively support me! It hadn’t been possible before because we have four little kids currently aged between 5 and 12, so finding babysitters for all of them for a whole weekend was next to impossible. Not so, this time. My 81 year old father, who just came back from a week of rowing with his equally old friends on some lakes in eastern Germany, decided to move into our house with his partner for the weekend, and they both took care of the four grandchildren. I am incredibly thankful for them to have risen to the task. And here’s the spoiler: It worked out perfectly, everyone was happy in the end.

So, not being alone during a race like this is new to me, and it’s a fun change from my usual routines. The alone time from before has been a plus for me as well, because I can focus on just my own thoughts and take my time with everything in a way I prefer. Sophie understands this, though, and is very supportive of it. At 8:30pm we leave for the race center, fully prepared.

At the check-in before entering the participant’s area everyone’s gear is checked individually. The volunteers make you open your backpack and show you a few of the items on the list. They ask a few specific questions to find out if you’re well-prepared. Safety first!

The Germany vs Scotland game was in full swing with Germany playing really well and already leading 2-0. The staff here have wisely put the live score on the LED screen of the starting gates.

For some musical entertainment, the German army marching band played a bunch of old classics of high quality, but these always tend to carry a bit of an uncomfortable Nazi vibe for me. When they switched to more modern fun songs and then to AC/DC’s Highway to Hell to celebrate the start, I felt relieved and ready to go. Compared to Ennio Morricone’s Ecstasy of Gold at Lavaredo, Highway to Hell made it a bit less dramatic and gave the daunting race a more fun and self-deprecating twist.

🔫 Start of the Race

The long wait is over, let’s do this! Building up the anticipation over the course of the whole long day makes this immediate release of emotion at the starting line even more impressive. And the people of GaPa (you guessed it, short for Garmisch-Partenkirchen) did their part. The crowds here at the start really went wild! The noise, the positivity, the transfer of energy, the smiles, the looks of awe in their faces, all was amazing to see from the perspective of being a runner. People with megaphones, holding up signs, clapping and screaming like crazy.

🎯 Reviewing My Goals for Today

In order of importance, sorted from most important to least important, these are:

1. Don’t die, don’t get injured
2. Make it to the finish line
3. Finish in less than 25 hours – the Western States qualifying standard
4. Get a good result I’m proud of
5. Dream finishing time: Under 18 hours

Note that I’m not including anything pain-related. That’s because as far as I’m aware, there’s no such thing as a pain-free ultra trail race, even for the professionals. It’s always part of the equation and everyone will spend a certain amount of the race battling it. During the previous two ultras I finished, I carried Ibuprofen painkillers both times, as a last resort. And in both races I reached points where I felt like those were the only thing which could get me through to the finish line. Although according to my knowledge this is pretty standard for many ultra runners, I felt guilty and bad about masking the pain this way. It must be and should be possible to get through it clean. So this time I deliberately decided not to carry these relief pills. If the pain gets too overwhelming for me to handle, that’ll be it. Quit or somehow suffer though it, just find a way. I do believe that my pain tolerance has increased because of these races, so I went into it more confidently but also sure I will reach a situation where I might regret that decision to leave the pills home.

As often the case, the first few kilometers of such a race are leading out of the town on wide asphalt roads. The roughly 700 participants need some time to spread out so the congestions on the first single trails won’t be too annoying. And while this worked to a degree, I think it’s not possible to fully avoid them. So when the first uphill section started after about five kilometers, we all got a little unplanned break to take out our folding poles and puzzle them together without any haste.

I was especially happy about my trail running poles. Last year, I got through my annual ultra trail with some Salomon ones, but I have since learned that the LEKI brand provides the superior product. The only problem, they also ask a premium price. Fortunately my friend Till F had a spare pair and gave them to me for this occasion. They are so much lighter that my own poles!

Running into the night wasn’t a problem for me. Although I did start the race slightly tired from the long day and my kid-centric rhythm dictates that getting all the available hours of sleep is paramount, I don’t think I even yawned once here. The racing adrenaline just takes over. Focusing on the headlamp’s light cone right in front of me is the secret. The first aid station appeared after just 10k, fairly early for a trail ultra. But I’m glad – the more aid stations, the better. It’s located near Eibsee, a pretty lake, or so I’ve heard. It was pitch dark of course. I use this aid station to have a quick cup of their electrolyte mix just to see what kind of taste will dominate my mouth for the next many hours. It wasn’t too bad! Less than a minute later I’m off towards the next aid station.

I started somewhere towards the rear of the field and that’s no accident. Ever since my DNF at Templiers I learned how annoying it is to run on a single trail and have faster folks breathing down your neck. It was so bad for my mental situation, I decided to take the first few hours very easy until the field had separated somewhat and left more room for breathing. Overtaking people at a later stage of the race is the exact opposite feeling of having people desperately trying to pass you at a technical passage.

After around fourteen kilometers, we’re crossing into the country of Austria. I notice nothing. There might have been a signpost somewhere, but since we’re in the E.U. this isn’t even noteworthy.

🤕 And the Fight Begins

That’s early, I know, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. I just had some digestive issues for the first 3-4 hours and couldn’t really tell the cause. Fortunately though, this was just a mild discomfort and stopped later on. Same with some pain I had in my left adductor muscles which felt like over-usage and caused some instability. But I knew from experience that something like this might disappear, and sure enough it did, also after about 20-30 kilometers.

I second-guess my choice of shoes on the long uphill towards the first little peak at 1,600 meters above zero, because the heels of my feet feel like they’re blistering up. This concerns me, but I know I’ve got the ace of my sleeve, or rather, in my drop bag: My extra-comfy old pair of TOPO shoes! As the race progresses, this doesn’t improve and at times just the bare thought that there are new shoes waiting for me carries me along. What helps relief the pain a little is a change of technique and also every downhill part.

😮‍💨 The Pain Cave, the Good Pain, the Discomfort, the Appreciation

Somewhere around here I reach the threshold where this is no longer a run I can easily digest and go for another one like that tomorrow, but a run which will require serious recovery. Some people think it’s the goal of training to prolong the time until this moment happens, but I’ve recently heard ultra running legend Courtney Dauwalter say something smart about this phenomenon: It’s better to try to get comfortable with being in this pain cave instead, as she calls it. Because it can’t be avoided.

I am a bit surprised it happens this early, though. My training has been great and my fitness level is so high up there I thought I might make it through the night without that moment. That’s a downer for me, a mental dip. Starting now, it’s not the physical fitness that carries me through it alone, it’s mostly the mental fitness, helped by a bit of physical fitness.

What Courtney Dauwalter and several other endurance athletes call the Pain Cave sounds quite dramatic. It’s not pain in the sense of the pain an injury or serious illness causes, it’s more like a strong discomfort. I prefer that term because there’s the association of the “comfort zone” we need to leave in order to grow.

When leaving the comfort zone, what area will we enter? The discomfort zone.

That’s where I’m in. Right in the middle of it. But it doesn’t matter, it’s not a reason to worry, it just means it requires more willpower to continue on. And every minute spent here will make me stronger in the long run, no pun intended.

I’m currently reading the autobiography of Olympic track runner Alexi Pappas and she divides pain into two categories: The Good Kind of Pain and the Bad Kind of Pain. Her way of discerning the two:

The Good Kind of Pain happens when you’re wearing running shoes.

Yes, beautiful. We should be thankful. Often when I find myself in these situations, I think of my late father-in-law Peter, who had to battle the disease ALS for the last two years of his life, watching his formerly fit and healthy body deteriorate and lose its muscles slowly until he was too weak to eat and breathe. He knew it would get worse and worse and that there’s no cure. At one point before a meal, he stated he needed a minute to summon up the courage to start eating, because doing so would severely challenge his ability to breathe, giving him the sensation of suffocation.

THAT’s pain.

He was incredibly brave and that’s not the only regard in which he was a role-model.

It’s a reality check. We’re just voluntarily running on legs which feel like mushroom soup for a day here. There’s nothing to complain about.

I often draw my strength in these moments from thinking about Peter.

While some people have mantras like “shut up, legs!” – often seen written on the roads of bicycle races and meant in an encouraging way, I tend to go about it the other way. With utmost appreciation for my legs and the whole body on top of it. How lucky am I that I get to do this? That my awesome legs are taking me through these extremely difficult races?

I’ve got nothing but gratitude for that and whenever it gets tough I remind myself that the one step I was just able to take was a gift. I love you, legs!

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Leaving the third aid station 4:20 hours into the race is rather fast as far as I’m concerned. The body is holding up. We need to move up to about 2,100 meters in one go. There are always bits where the grounds change or the incline suddenly becomes a slight decline, so the muscle groups get some rest and others need to get active for a while. That’s how it’s possible to continue.

As with my previous races, I seem to be doing better than most people on the uphills and worse on the downhills. Nothing has changed in that regard. While the uphills require simple concentric quadriceps power, easily earned from fast running, doing squats, or climbing stairs, the downhills require eccentric contractions, where the quads are lengthening under resistance, which is harder to train for. But what’s more challenging in my individual situation is secure footing and trust in my own technique on the downhills. I haven’t got much experience in the mountains, basically it just stems from these few races and nothing else, so I am often overly careful not to fall, slip, or get injured. That translates to comparably slow speeds and leads many others who aren’t as fit as I am to overtake. It requires me to stay calm despite this and not get carried away and follow the faster, more experienced people on the downhills. That’s because of Goal #1: Don’t die, don’t get injured.

One wrong step and not only are you potentially landing on your butt, you might also involuntarily slide down the side of the mountain into oblivion.

The highest point of the whole course is reached after 31 kilometers and it’s at 2,200 meters. Still it’s completely dark when I pass through. Quite windy and cold, too. There’s a little tent with a couple of Bergwacht people inside, positioned here to take care of any runners who ran into serious problems. They have these experienced mountaineering doctors positioned near all the dangerous passages. I hope they didn’t have to get out of their tents often. Sometimes you see them snoozing, sometimes they have sat down in front of their tents, wearing thick clothing, sometimes sleeping bags, greeting everyone coming through. For hours on end! “Servus!”

During the bit up here in the high mountains I notice the first gleam of sunlight. At about 4:30am, a bit over six hours into the race, that’s a very welcome sight and my mood improves rapidly. It’s not that I was in a bad mood, I really enjoyed this part of the race. The end of the night is just something I’m looking forward to so I can finally really see and take in this incredible nature I came here for.

🏂 But First, the Dark Snowy Downhill

That’s the part which the race officials meant when they told us to bring spikes just in case but later revised that for a lukewarm recommendation that most did not follow, me included.

A rush of apprehension overcomes me. I stop and take a good long look at this mess ahead. It’s a steep downhill covered in mushy and heavy thawing snow. Must be around a few hundred meters long. The people in front of me are all struggling. Many are falling down, some painful short screams are heard. All are sliding involuntarily, some decide to stay seated after falling and make a few dozen meters of progress that way. My friend Till S advised against it, because there can be sharp rocks hidden in the snow suddenly ripping up your bum. For me it’s a bit like standing on top of a 10m diving platform at the swimming pool. I’m summoning up the courage by realizing that turning back definitely isn’t an option – and that there are no other options, really. What goes up must come down.

What I love about this picture is the headlamp snake making its way to the next peak. It’s a rollercoaster of emotions!

It doesn’t take long until I fall down for the first time as well. The poles are no huge help here. And the weak outer sole of my shoes isn’t either. But I don’t think that spikes would have helped much here, because the heavy, wet snow is moving down in huge chunks with us, it’s at times like surfing. That’s another situation where experience comes in handy: Just a few weeks ago I saw an Instagram selfie video by professional ultra runner Hannes Namberger, just sliding down such a snow field upright on his feet as if he was wearing skis, casually filming himself during it. There’s the difference.

In total I fall down about 5-6 times, but I only get slightly wet and cold from the snow, I don’t hurt myself. Some guys fall down a lot more spectacularly right next to me, and the otherwise quiet night is interrupted by lots of: “Are you okay? Do you need any help?” – Trail runners take care of each other.

As well as my undivided attention, wide open eyes, and perfect headlamp light cone placement, this downhill requires the leg muscle coordination to be on top of the game. Not too easy doing that after seven hours of running 35k up and down through the mountains at night. You can probably guess my relief when the snow field is over. At first it morphs into a muddy wet patch from the melted snow at a bit less altitude, also tricky to run on. I can’t decide if using the poles makes it easier or more difficult, but when the number of times increases where I almost lose my balance on the poles, I decide to not rely on them on these downhill and flat muddy bits.

The little dip in altitude is right away countered by another uphill to reach nearly the same height as before. With a little difference once I’m up there: The sun is nearly out!

🌅 Daytime!

The literal high is also a figurative one for me: Not only is the toughest bit of snow behind us and the first double peak fully climbed, it’s now finally possible to enjoy the scenery. And what a scenery it is.

The clouds have removed themselves from the equation and we even get to enjoy blue skies. I couldn’t imagine a much better start to the day.

I don’t remember much of that long downhill to an elevation level of around 1,400 meters, but that’s probably because of being distracted from the views. These red glimmering mountains got to me. It’s warmer down here, I’m getting comfortable. Good thinking I chose to wear my Merino wool long-sleeve. Not only has it provided me with warmth on the peaks, it somehow also manages to cool me down now that the day has started. The material is a miracle.

At this fourth aid station right in the valley between the first and second of the total three big peaks of the race course, I drink vast amounts of Coke to replenish my sugar and caffeine levels. Another Maurten gel which I carry myself is on the menu for me as well, a bit of cake is looking good now too, a little salty pretzel maybe, and the bottles need refilling. I have three 500ml flasks with me, two in front and one emergency flask stowed away at the bottom back of my backpack. I didn’t need it at all. The two bottles up front were used regularly but I also never got to the point of emptying them completely. Into one of them I put water, the other gets electrolyte drink always. Works great for me.

Between here and the next aid station, we have to climb up the second big peak at 2,100m and go down even further than this place is located, to about 1,100 meters above zero. But that next aid station will be the halfway point and we will have access to our drop bags. So I’m looking forward to it, although I am surprised that the heel chafing in these shoes hasn’t gotten worse at all. In fact, I barely notice it anymore. And since I don’t have any strong pain in my back yet, I’m guessing the cushioning of the shoes can’t be too bad, either. This has changed my mind. I probably won’t switch shoes there. But maybe that next peak changes my opinion, I don’t know yet.

This is over faster than I thought. Difficult and still muddy at points, my shoes and socks are soaked anyways. A few short passages are highly dangerous, so I’m as careful as I can be.

📈 The Second Peak

Especially on the final stretch towards it my heart rate is again through the roof. When I reach the top, this is yet another case of “worth it”.

The people have made a mistake and put up a park bench at this spot. How can you not sit down right now? I search for excuses and come up with one: Having another energy gel. That justifies a short break of about a minute on that bench. So beautiful.

The next downhill is difficult, but not as difficult. There’s some more snow and lots of mud, but daylight is doing much of the work for me now and much more of my concentration can go towards proper footing as opposed to seeing, as weird as this sounds.

I’m still happy with my careful downhill technique, although people keep overtaking me.

And then something happens that makes me even more sure that my way is a good way.

A guy overtakes me on a rocky downhill going really fast, and about ten meters in front of me hits his foot on a big stone during a jump, flies up in the air, facing forward and vertical like Superman, landing on the side of his body including his face, sliding over a few more sharp rocks and coming to a halt.

Uh, that looked terrible.

He immediately groans with pain, actual pain of injury, and covers his face with his hands. Another runner and I stop immediately to help him. There’s lots of blood streaming down his face from a deep cut right above his right eye. It doesn’t look good. We get out his first aid kit, a mandatory piece of equipment, and quickly try to stop the bleeding while about ten runners pass us asking if we need more help.

Otherwise he seems okay, no broken bones. Able to walk. So we decide to continue on and notify the next Bergwacht guys of the accident. He will probably reach them fine walking. Hopefully a bit more carefully. The next tent with voluntary helpers is just five minutes down the hill, fortunately, and having notified them we feel like we’ve done what was necessary here. It’s a little shock, because these accidents can also happen to people going slower like me. So I go on a bit more carefully than before even.

It’s great running when the downhill is done and the track isn’t as tricky anymore. I still got energy left and am happy to get some distance in after the slow descent.

🍕 The Glass Is Half Full With Pizza

The two big peaks are over! The halfway point reached! Reasons to celebrate. And what best to celebrate with than freshly baked pizza?

A hot pizza is super satisfying right now. After all the sugary drinks and gels, something real to chew on, real food, is such a welcome change.

For me, this halfway point is a symbolic one, too. From now on it’s fewer kilometers to the finish line than I have already managed to run and that’s a huge mental boost. A majority of the elevation gain and loss is also over and there’s just one huge mountain towards the end to overcome. The next 25-30 kilometers are mostly flat compared to what we’ve done so far and that’s also great news for me. I’m looking forward to it. My racing strategy was influenced by what my friend Henning suggested: Keep your energy up for this particular flat stretch and aim to be able to run through the whole stretch. Because if you’ve destroyed your legs so hard you need to slow down or even walk during the flat bit, you’ll lose too many hours. So that’s what I kept in mind. For every uphill and downhill so far I have thought about keeping it together and not overdoing it in favor of having the energy for this bit in the tank.

A short check of my racing time until now reveals I have arrived here after about ten hours. I had hoped I could have made it an hour quicker, but I have also noticed that my watch measured 300 meters more elevation gain than what I remembered should have been accomplished until this point. It could have been a measuring fail, but I learned afterwards that everyone had a lot more elevation on their watches than stated by the maps. This takes more time to run, obviously. It doesn’t matter to me, though, I’m not disappointed at all to have missed my dreamed up split time here.

In addition to the delicious pizza, finding my drop bag is a very welcome sight, too. I’ve put so much stuff into it, just in case, so I now can choose freely what to replace. Over the past few hours, my La Sportiva shoes and I have become great friends, so I decided to keep them on for the rest, too. But since all the mud and icy water have made my feet and socks quite wet, it’s been great to be able to switch socks here.

Good as new! For the remainder I put on two pairs of socks: a thin injinji crew sock and a long injinji on top of it, to have more comfort for the toes and more cushioning for the potentially more damaging later kilometers. When removing the one pair I was wearing until now I was also glad to see my bare feet were in fine condition. No blisters yet, the heels were looking good as well. Just a bit soaked from the water and dirty from the mud.

I had prepared a full set of new upper body clothes as well, but decided against any of it. My Merino wool layer was just too good to let go. Mental note to buy more Merino stuff.

In my drop bag I also had four more large Maurten gels and four more Clif bars. All of them made it into my backpack.

That’s it, drop bag closed and thrown into the big bags for the staff to drive back home, a second piece of pizza on my palm for the road, and with a good ten minute break here I am super happy and comfortable to leave the aid station for some flat running in dry socks.

My plan actually works, I manage to do some real running! An energy conserving 6:00 minute per kilometer pace is what I’m feeling most comfortable with for the next hours.

On that picture above you can see a tiny orange dot on the road. That’s one of the ways the officials marked the course. Although it was mandatory to carry routing information either on your watch, your phone, or in the form of physical maps, there was no need for it today. Marking was done perfectly.

It’s great to finally feel like the kilometers are passing by. While in the mountains a single hard uphill kilometer can easily take up 15-20 minutes alone, doing three times the distance in the same timespan feels like flying.

During a bit through some woods, there’s a little sign saying we’re now leaving Austria and entering Germany. No big fuss about it, as always. It’s a good marker of progress, though. The time in Austria is done, the finish line getting closer.

In what feels no time at all, the next aid station, V6 Mittenwald, is reached. And Sophie is here!

She says I’ve got salty stalactites on my nose. Finally someone to tell me about it! 😄

I use the station for the usual refill and quickly down a full can of the energy drink they provide here, as well as two cups of Coke. Need to stay awake. And then, thanks to Sophie, I can pull another ace from my sleeve.

🍅 How the Ethical Sausage Gets Made

If you’ve read last year’s Lavaredo 120K race report here on this blog you know that race brought me to my knees in a new respect: After eight years of being a vegetarian, the food cravings got so crazy during that grueling race I spontaneously ate some Italian salami sausage at one of the later aid station. I immediately regretted it, knowing fully well how there’s no nutritious advantage to it. My body just wanted something fatty and salty, something that tastes different from all the usual things I’ve had to eat until then.

Understandably, I wanted to avoid that mistake this time, but I also knew that the cravings during such a race are not to be messed with. Having a special comfort food with you can lift you up miles. The other runners knew this, too, as I saw many odd things in their see-through backpack pockets. Big and clunky cracker packages and lots of gummy candy are two examples.

It was two weeks before this race I got the idea. The 4th Munich Breweries Ultra was on the menu the next day and in the group chat my friend Guy posted a photo of all the gear and food he was supposedly planning to take for the 80 kilometer run. And there I saw it. Please imagine an angelic choir singing right now.

The one piece that stands out in Guy’s picture, is, of course, the tube of tomato paste.

‘That’s it!’ – I thought.

It is delicious. A bit salty and sour, but the umami taste of the tomatoes will be a great change from all the other things I ate. Whenever I cook with tomato paste at home, I can’t help but have a spoonful of it myself. It’s a comfort food!

So I gave a tube of it and an emergency Lübecker Marzipanbrot to Sophie for when she would meet me.

It was just perfect. No salami providing animal had to suffer for this bliss.

What’s funny about this is that Guy didn’t even plan to take the paste on that run two weeks ago. It was meant as a joke! I didn’t think about this when I saw it because I was just so happy to have found the inspiration for a great comfort food to take to the race. In the years before, Guy snuck other joke items into these pictures. But this time, he unknowingly hit the bull’s eye. Thank you, Guy!

This has been a great little break and I’m happy to continue onwards to the next one on mostly flat terrain as well. This might leave an impression that it’s all fun and easy, but that’s not the case. There’s a lot going on that makes this hard and if it weren’t for the clear goal I have in mind, would make me stop to finally lie down somewhere and take a long nap. Here’s a short list of body parts which I notice hurting from time to time: Toes. The numbness, the punching against the ground, the swelling. The sore spot on my heels from the uphills. My knees on the downhills worry me, they hurt on each impact. The quads have been overused so much on the downhills. The ominous pain in my upper left leg near the hip has disappeared mostly, but I wonder where to, and if it’s going to come back with a vengeance? For now it’s good though. My butt is chafing, I should have been more generous with the vaseline before. Breathing: I often have the urge to yawn to get lots of oxygen in, but it’s just not possible either because of the thin air up here or the tight backpack blocking my lungs from expanding. When I put my poles into the ground I notice myself tensing my shoulders, which over time made them cramp up. I have to consciously relax them at each step, requiring more focus. My neck hurts whenever I change its position from just looking forward to, e.g. taking a sip from the front bottles in my backpack. Both my triceps are sore, too, because of using the poles for hours on end. Should’ve done more push-ups I guess! And finally, even though the LEKI poles are so much better than my previous Salomon ones, partly because of the glove-like pieces which click into the handles to more evenly divide the pressure across the hands, this squeezes my hands until they hurt and started bleeding. I had to clean up the gloves thoroughly afterwards.

Other than that, I’m feeling great! 😄

By this point I wouldn’t be surprised if you were wondering why anyone would ever do this.

It’s a fair question us ultra runners often face and answers differ individually, of course. What unites most of us, though, is that it’s quite difficult to put into words. You can’t really explain the positive emotions you get. Emotions in general are hard to describe, aren’t they? I tried on previous blog posts and I have refined my reasoning, but still it doesn’t really fit 100%. I think for me it’s mainly the combination of two things.

First, I love the prolonged single-focus task. It’s the only way I’m aware of for me to experience this undistracted meditative state. I have spent the previous twelve years running several companies and caring for employees which has been a job filled with constant necessary task-switching and distractions and lacking a break. From waking up to falling asleep, my thoughts circled all the challenges of the daily tasks and around implementing future plans. And having four little kids isn’t much different from that, especially now that I have sold all the companies and switched to becoming the primary caregiver of the bunch. Challenges never stop and it feels like it’s even more important I do a good job there.

There are very few activities that can successfully take your mind off of the responsibilities and (self-created) pressures to give you the break you sometimes need. Ultra running is one of them.

Second, it’s the simple sense of accomplishment I feel when I overcome something difficult. I’ve learned that this increases my ability to withstand pressure in the future and helps me stay calm in tough situations. My patience got better. And it increases my willpower. That’s the interesting bit, I think: It requires so much willpower to go through with a hard race, but it also increases willpower completing it. And willpower seems to be one of the key aspects to improving your own life, and also, by extension, society at large. Without willpower, nothing would ever happen.

When there’s a will, there’s a way.

🔥 How to Increase Your Willpower

I believe everyone has a finite amount of willpower which can be used over the course of a day. It can be depleted. But the maximum amount can grow. Here are a few things which have helped me grow it.

1. Habit: If you do a thing regularly and it has become a habit, it doesn’t require any willpower anymore, it just becomes normal. This frees up your willpower to do new other things or deepen the habit in some way. Over time, your natural resistance towards “doing the hard thing” wanes. These long ultra races, for example, are only sounding realistic to me because I have started with lesser races like a city marathon and worked myself slowly up via hilly marathons, a mountain marathon, a trail 50k, a hilly 74k, and a flat 100k.
2. Identity: It can be tricky, but using identity to your own advantage can hold a lot of power. If ultra running is what you do and you therefore think of yourself as being an ultra runner, you will surely go through with the tough bits any particular ultra race throws at you. Because that’s just who your are. I say it’s tricky because the doubts are often a companion. But I think that can also be healthy. Identities don’t have to be set in stone, they can change over time. You can choose to change them.
3. Gratefulness: One particularly powerful tool is gratefulness. In my experience it grows as the years pass by because we are exposed to more tragic situations. The more people in your circle you witness getting cancer and suffering hard from it, the more grateful you become that you haven’t got cancer. This increased gratefulness makes me want to make the most of everything I am able to do while I still can. Because a lot that can and will happen in each of our lives is just beyond our control.

When you put all this into the equation, the discomfort I’m feeling in some of my body parts turns to seem like a minor problem. That’s not to say that giving up never crossed my mind, it surely played a role. The attraction a big hot pizza and relaxing on the couch provide is not to be messed with. I was able to hold that thought at bay because I knew what it would feel like leaving this race unfinished. My DNF at Templiers in 2022 is still in my head at times. It’s not a good feeling. So today that’s a big part of where I draw my willpower and motivation for finishing from.

And a reality check reveals I’ve come really far already and none of the pain or discomfort is a show stopper. I’m especially happy that my lower back doesn’t give me any trouble, because that was so painful last year I finally relented and took the painkiller pills that day at Lavaredo. But so far, nothing. Quite possibly the new shoes are doing the trick with their better cushioning to soften the impact on my back.

I’m also happy about most of the painful regions being able to be offset by changing technique. For example, if I lessen the pressure on the poles, my hands relax and the wounds don’t hurt. The quads will take more of the hit, of course, but I can switch back and forth to distribute the discomfort. That way I can make sure to evenly exert every part of my body for maximum output in the end. It’s all just maths!

The next bit from V6 to V7, that’s kilometers 64 to 72.5, is slightly more difficult to do than the flat section before, but I still welcome it. I don’t need the poles most of the time, it’s just plain running and eating kilometers. A bit leads us next to Ferchsensee, a pretty lake with nice wide paths along it. Trail running purists resent this, I’ve learned, but I love the variation. After a forest section with a bit of a downhill you can already hear the next aid station before it comes into view.

Sophie made it in time to this aid station as well. It’s great to have a short talk with her while I refill everything and take a few things from the buffet. Being here with her is like an interpersonal version of comfort food. A feel-good moment for me.

Until the next aid stations it’s a relatively long way of 13 kilometers and it’s also getting noticeably more hilly. Still most of it is fairly well runnable for me in my current condition. As is tradition, I overtake the people on the uphills and get passed by again on the downhills, often by the same people. It’s a mystery for me how this can happen on the easier downhills, because their legs must be about as tired as mine since we’re running at roughly the same pace in general. I’m thinking a lot about how I can best train for the more technical downhills without moving to the mountains or spending all our vacations down there, because that’s just unrealistic. There has to be a way. Let me know if you’ve got ideas!

On this part I was very much with myself. This late into the race you meet fewer other runners, but I also moved my thoughts from being directed at the outside into my own mind. One step at a time. This is the ultra-focus which I love so much. It’s my kind of meditation, something spiritual even. As you can see in the picture above, the blue skies have disappeared and I think this is the point when the first rain started falling. It was so light, it even added to the experience for me. Quiet rain falling on the ground as I continue on running next to these huge mountains. As it increases I reach the point when I feel like I need my rain jacket, so I stop to pull it over. The hood of it makes me feel like I’m in a tent, it’s cozy. The rain doesn’t annoy me at all and that’s also because my whole gear is on point today – I think I’ve got some of the best possible stuff and that’s such a relief.

The aid station V8 at Laubhütte offers some dark bread and cheese, which I really enjoy now. Both also has this umami taste and neutralizes the sweet-sour mouth we’ve been running around with all night and day.

At most of the aid stations I’ve spotted VIP shuttle style vans with a few sad looking runners in them who have apparently just decided to quit and DNF here. This one here is another test for many if you take a look at what’s ahead of us now.

If you take a look at the fine print though, you see the next aid station is just five kilometers away. Sure, 730 meters upwards make that much harder, but I choose to see the upside of it and when I leave this area and smile at two volunteers who have just thanked me for thoroughly discarding all my rubbish into the proper bins, they say: “Right, it’s not as bad as it looks, the worst that can happen to you is after five kilometers you’ll have to eat yet again!” – making us all laugh. Of course. Just continue, one step at a time. Rain hood on and let’s go!

🏔️ The Final Battle: Hochalm / Alpspitz Peak

These upcoming final 26 kilometers have about 1,000 meters of gain and 1,200 meters of loss in them until the finish line. For now that means it’s time for power-hiking.

I catch a glimpse of my message notifications when I take a picture, and there’s one from my friend Nico who is apparently watching the live tracker and tells me that I have moved through the ranks in recent hours and that a Top 100 finish is still within reach!

This is crazy to me. I can’t really believe it. Am I really that fast? I know here are about 700 starters, 500 of them will probably reach the finish line, and for me to finish in the top 20% would be surprisingly good. It’s hard to tell where in the field I am because I have no idea how fit everyone is and also, where they are. On the other hand, I have been overtaking a lot of runners during the recent flat kilometers. So it could be right.

Either way, it doesn’t matter much because I’m sure I will have to slow down compared to everyone else on the final long downhill. For now I use the information to give me a mental boost, though.

It also helps to know that the final mountain will not throw anything unknown at us. By now I am familiar with the type of trails in this area and I know that there are no new snow fields coming up. It’s graspable. The rain is a slight issue because it’s making the trails more muddy but that’s fine on the uphill.

As I progress on the switchbacks, there’s a situation where I realize it’s just another half marathon until the finish line. And as I’m quoted often by my running friends: ”A half marathon is always possible!” – so that’s good. I do some calculations regarding my dream finishing time of 18 hours. Right now I have three hours left to complete this last half marathon and I would reach that goal. At that point I have to face the reality that this isn’t going to happen. But I won’t miss it by very much, and that makes me quite happy. The Western States qualifying time of 25 hours seems extremely possible right now, and that’s what counts for me the most. I have ten hours to spare for the next 21 kilometers. That’s such an incredibly long time, something would have to go seriously wrong for me to fail. Of course this means I need to make sure more than ever that nothing goes seriously wrong. Easy! Taking no risks is my thing.

📣 ZeGaPa!

At one point in the rainy lonely woods, there’s a sign nailed to a tree saying: “Cheering Station: 2.5 km. 700m up.”

You can hear the noise they are making up there but you also know that it’s so far up it’s going to take a looong time until you get to see the faces making the noise. Till S told me that: Don’t get impatient when you hear the noise! It’s really steep at points and my hands are needed on the ground for real climbing so I question the poles in my hands. The heart rate is up again, sweat is dripping from my nose, mixed with the rain, and I enjoy it. Nobody is here. No one is faster than me but I’m also not overtaking many others.

And then, there’s ZeGaPa. I learned about this last minute. It’s the name for the cheering zone at Kreuzeck, a place where runners would come by twice. This is the first time. People are going crazy! So loud. Cowbells, party music, the smell of alcoholic beverages. The name is derived from a famous trail race in Spain called Zegama-Aizkorri where the crowds are notoriously loud and cheerful for the runners coming through the mountain passages. “GaPa” is short for “Garmisch-Partenkirchen” in case you haven’t figured that one out.

There’s an embarrassing situation when I see one of the cheering guys and suddenly think I know him so I stop and say: “Hey you look so familiar, have I met you at New York City marathon last year? Are you a friend of Henning’s?” – but he is surprised and stops his screaming to answer “Definitely not, man! But that must have been one good-looking guy!”, laughs and pats me on the back. Hm, okay. Was I hallucinating? I am very tired and exhausted, so it’s a possibility. Anyways, moving forward.

This party tent doesn’t double as an aid station although I think that’s a missed opportunity. We are currently at 1,700 meters and need to go up to a little over 2,000 meters. On the way there is where I find V9, Hochalm, as well as Sophie!

Sophie went up here using Alpspitzbahn, a cable car, and then walked down the race course for 2.5 kilometers to this point. She tells me the course is just a wide stoney road, which is a big relief for me because it makes it a lot easier.

Except for the new ginger soup I use almost nothing at this aid station because I just can’t stand it all anymore. The only thing that works without a problem is my Maurten gels. I’m so glad that this source of carbohydrates can be counted on.

I love how easy it’s looking for Sophie. As if she’s just casually moving along this 106 kilometer race. It’s great to have her here with me, but I feel bad because I am so in the zone I have trouble following her thoughts when she talks to me. When another runner suddenly turns around and says: “Tim, is that you?” – it’s too difficult for me to make the connection that there’s Jan whom I know from running in Hamburg standing right in front of me, supporting a friend of his. I even have to ask him his name and apologize profoundly! That makes me realize how tired and exhausted I am. There’s just no room in my brain for anything else except how to best finish this race. That’s the little downside of the meditative upside I like so much about exactly this.

We need about forty minutes to make it up the final 2.5 kilometer uphill to the cable car station which will take Sophie back down to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. These last 300 meters of gain have felt harder than much of what came before.

🛝 The Dreaded Final Downhill

With Sophie gone I’m back with my own thoughts. Especially on the downhill it’s better this way, because I need all the brain-power I can have so I won’t make mistakes. I come across a make-shift aid station that’s offering Gin & Tonic and Whiskey-Cola to every runner passing by. But I pass.

The rain is on and off again, but the fog disappears as we descend.

It’s super hard on the quads, but also my sore neck. I think twice before moving my head down to drink some water from the front bottles again due to the pain. What adds to this tough part is that somehow I’m still getting overtaken a lot by people who are in the same race as I am and have apparently not been much faster than I until now, but are just so comfortable with the downhills that I’m blocking them. I knew that would happen again and probably cost me the Top 100 placing, but I decided to let go of my ego and keep playing it safe.

The downhill to Kreuzeck cheering station takes me another fifty minutes, making it 1:40 hours for this Hochalm loop. A long time for just about four kilometers. It’s all relative.

As the rain intensifies again, I reach the timing mat right before the final aid station, V10, Garmischer Haus.

As you can see it’s foggy, and as I eat some more neutralizing cheese the rain gets harder. A handful of runners have sat down here and look like they’re questioning everything and are ready to give up. The aid station volunteers seem tired, too. It must have been a long day for them as well – you have to appreciate the effort.

The sign at the end of the aid station is great. It says there are just 7 kilometers left, 0 meters of gain, but 640 meters of elevation loss. I thought it would be even more, so it makes me happy.

At this moment, the race is going on for 18 hours, meaning I have just passed my dream goal. But it won’t be by much and I do not care one bit right now. I’m all about getting to the finish line in one piece.

The elevation decline is slowly getting less technical. Some stairs help with footing and reduce slipping on the mud, too.

My quads don’t like this one bit, but they are still holding up. Here in the forest, the rain falls slower and wind isn’t an issue either. It’s not overly uncomfortable.

When I leave the forest it doesn’t take long for asphalt roads to replace the trails and for Garmisch to move into view.

At a pace of 7:00 minutes per kilometer I am flying through the town’s outskirts and across the train station area I knew from the livestream of yesterday’s race. The finish line is so close!

In order to cross a bigger junction, we need to climb and descent some final stairs, but these are so laughably small compared to what we had to do today, I don’t even really notice.

Incredible. Almost there. On the final kilometers. Pedestrians are clapping. I take a look at the watch, it says 18:57 but the seconds are not displayed. I’m moving at about 6:30 min/km pace, so will I maybe be able to finish in under 19 hours? I give it my best shot to accelerate but there’s just not much more speed left in my legs. The final straight, there’s Sophie, a turn to the left.

What a feeling. It never gets old. 19:00:24 – when I realize how close it got I feel annoyed for a split-second and reminded of my 3:00:40 hour marathon two years ago, but right away I realize how stupid that is and laugh at myself. I am a Zugspitz Ultra Trail finisher!

And I did it not only way within the Western States limit of 25 hours, but also three hours faster than I predicted after finishing Lavaredo last year! I have come such a long way.

All the training has paid off. I’m not injured, nothing went wrong, I’m here and everything is awesome.

Sophie is there, waiting for me and I fall into her arms so she has trouble holding up my weight. One of the first things I say to her is “NEVER AGAIN!”.

It’s so funny to me how often I have said this! Even funnier is that it’s one hundred percent true when I say it. It’s actually what I’m feeling at that moment. That goes away very quickly usually, but still it’s there. I think it’s just a few minutes until my brain starts wrapping itself around the race I’m eyeing for 2025: The CCC in Chamonix, France. Even more difficult, they say.

Here’s my Strava tracking of this race.

🫨 What Happened Next

I don’t care for any of the free food at the finish, my whole body is confused. I lie down and suddenly begin to shiver hard. I don’t feel cold or bad, I just keep shivering. I wonder why and can’t help but laugh all the time at how I’m lying here shivering, but also because of the euphoria and happiness I have for this great finish. Sophie pulls up a list of causes for shivering uncontrollably from ChatGPT and every single point she’s reading aloud is describing what I’ve just done. It would have been weird if I wouldn’t have started to shiver. It takes about five minutes and then just disappears. What’s left is the giant cocktail of emotions I carry around. I think I must have been smiling all the time.

It’s so nice to have Sophie with me here to talk to. Get her perspective on the race, tell her what I’ve felt like during the past hours, just being able to share this extraordinary experience with her. Usually I walk to my hotel alone, but today I can do that together with Sophie. In the comfortable and dry shoes I had put into my drop bag. So much better!

A hot shower, a twenty minute power-nap, some beetroot, almonds, and a protein shake. Fresh clothes, and I feel a lot better.

Naturally it’s now time to go for a run!

Wait, what?

My streak running rules require that I go for a run on every single date. And although I have spent the majority of today running, the run started yesterday at 10:15pm. So in order to continue my hobby, I want to go for a minimum of a 1 mile run, or at least 15 minutes. Today, those two minimums fit perfectly well together because my pace can’t get faster than 10:00 minutes per kilometer. It requires tremendous amounts of willpower from me, I’m not going to lie. But by now you know the aces up my sleeve to make that happen – and just now, with finishing ZUT, another willpower booster has joined the ranks in my brain. Not to mention, since Sophie accompanies me, it’s a lot easier, too.

During the short run we again went to the finish line where my friend Nina from Hamburg was just coming through the gates. I was super happy to see her and being able to congratulate her. Later I found out that she wasn’t allowed to do the Hochalm loop, because she was a bit too late and arrived after the fog had turned so bad the race officials decided to shorten the course and make people who reached Kreuzeck continue on without the four kilometer, 300m gain/loss bit up there. To make results more fair, these runners got two hours added to their finishing times. It’s a pragmatic solution to having a safety issue appear, but it would have given the race an “unfinished business” feel if that would have happened to me. For Nina, this came to a finishing time of about 24 hours including the added two, so she was also safe for a Western States lottery entry, if that’s what she’s going for – I don’t know that.

As the sun went down, I was glad to be able to continue straight with my usual rhythm and we fell asleep at around 10pm. It was a lot better reaching the finish line at 5pm instead of 1am after midnight like at Lavaredo last year. This way, everything’s almost fine again the next morning! Surely I felt the repercussions of a whole night without sleep for a few more days, but not that much.

In general, my recovery from this race was super fast. While on the next day another minimum 1.6 kilometer run was enough for me, I was happy that my feet didn’t rebel. After that I increased the runs to my steady 8k recovery standard, just watching the pace and doing it as slowly as I felt I needed. A few days later I was already back at my usual 5:15 min/km pace and exactly seven days later I even managed a somewhat spontaneous full marathon run in just 3:26 hours. The legs weren’t full fresh, of course, but just being able to run this fast for this long was a huge improvement for me. Also something to be surprised at: It just took a day until I was already comfortable to go down stairs! New personal best.

Speaking of food, just for the sake of documentation and maybe helping a few people who came here thinking about doing such a race in the future as well, here’s a list for you.

🍲 All I Ate During Zugspitz Ultra Trail

• 7x of the new large 65g Maurten gels which contain 160 calories each.
• 5x CLIF bars, my favorite variants are blueberry, peanut butter, and macademia white chocolate.
• 3x SaltStick pills, because eating salt doesn’t feel great after a while and even though there wasn’t much sun and heat, we lose salt.
• Water and electrolyte sports drinks: hard to guess but probably around 2-3 liters each.
• Lots of cups of Coke, 2x a can of energy drink.
• A cup of vegetable broth, a cup of ginger soup.
• A few little snacks such as a salty pretzel, a cube of cheese, a half slice of plain cake, a piece of cucumber dipped in salt, some dark bread.
• And not to forget, quite a bit of tomato paste!

What was missing, what could have been improved?

Not much, I think. The major cravings were taken care of, I was happy with everything I was carrying and the aid stations provided all that you might need. I feel like I’ve got this dialed down by now.

👟 The New Shoes Conclusion

The La Sportiva Prodigio did get me to the finish line. And they did so in a good time and without blisters or back pain such as I experienced from my former pair of trail shoes which had less cushioning. They are alright. I’m not completely over the moon, though, because I feel like some more cushioning and better grip would have helped me even more. These are for faster and more experienced trail runners, I think.

My current plan is to keep on looking for TOPO Athletic shoes in my size with more cushioning and keep my eyes open for other brands coming up with large new trail shoes as well. I might even give the new Hoka Speedgoat 6 a try, it looks like it’s an improvement.

🎓 What I’ve Learned for the Next Few Ultra Trail Races

I’ve thought about this for a while, but this time there were just small details. I seem to have these races down, I feel a lot more confident and don’t make many big mistakes anymore. That being said, it’s just my own perspective. If you’ve spotted a big mistake, please let me know! Especially if you think you know a way I can improve my downhill technique without having to move to the mountains or spend all my vacations there.

The optimizable details include the aforementioned shoe situation and the importance of having great trail running poles. I was very thankful to Till F for enabling me to take the superior and insanely light LEKI poles on this race. Those are the Ultratrail FX.One Superlite version. Don’t compromise here. I will buy my own LEKIs for the next trail ultra for sure and find a way to avoid the bloody hands from chafing on the special gloves. It’s a valid concern to find the correct size poles for your body height, but as I realized when cleaning them before sending them back to Till, maybe it’s not as important as we think.

One of the poles was five centimeters longer than the other! Neither Till nor I noticed during our racing. Maybe size doesn’t matter as much! 😅

🆚 How Does Zugspitz Compare with Lavaredo and mozart?

When reading race reports about Zugspitz to get myself familiar with the race, I was hoping to find some comparison between it and the other ultra trail races I’ve done so far, just to get my bearings right. Will it be tougher or easier? In what way will it be different? What can I expect? I couldn’t find what I was looking for, so in case you’re currently in the same situation as I was at the time, I will try to help you out here.

🇦🇹 mozart 100 vs Zugspitz Ultra Trail

mozart was my first big ultra race and I’m glad I chose it because it turned out it is one of the easier ones in this category. It has to be stated that there’s a difference between the route I ran in 2021 and the current one of 2024: Most notably, one major peak has been added and brought the total elevation gain and loss up to 5,500m from the 4,800m I had to climb back then. And while that is more than Zugspitz has, the regions differ quite a lot. mozart has lovely green hills and goes up to around 1,500m tops on relaxed forest paths, while at Zugspitz you need to go alpine and encounter snow fields and rocky trails. The steep parts are steeper at Zugspitz. At mozart, there’s a lot of time spent on flat and wider roads or paths, which is giving you more of a break from the climbing.

Being further down in terms of elevation also increases the oxygen intake, of course. It makes it easier to keep running at a high output. Both courses are roughly the same length with a hundred and a few extra kilometers, but all these factors make a big difference. My finishing time at mozart with its 4,800 meters back then was 17:30 hours, while here at Zugspitz with 5,080 meters (on paper, pretty sure it was more like 5,400m) I finished after 19:00 hours while I was a lot more experienced and two to three levels up in terms of general fitness. My guess is that I would have run mozart in 2021 with my current fitness level in around 15:30-16:00 hours. And today’s Zugspitz with my 2021 fitness level would have taken at least 21:00 hours, more like 22:00.

If Zugspitz is at 100% difficulty, my gut feeling is that mozart in 2021 was at around 65-70%, maybe now with the added peak at about 80% of it. When you have the same weather conditions, obviously. Those can be a huge influence. I don’t know much about the recent Zugspitz years, but at mozart there have been crazy 30C years and windy, muddy, rainy 5C years as well. It might be more unpredictable.

Both events are perfectly organized and great to be a part of. The areas are both stunningly beautiful. There’s a slight advantage to mozart in terms of starting times: You don’t run through the night, you start early in the morning. That might be another factor worth considering if you particularly struggle with sleep deprivation.

Here’s my blog post about the mozart race for more information.

🇮🇹 Lavaredo Ultra Trail 120K vs Zugspitz Ultra Trail

Lavaredo is more difficult to run than both races. It’s not only nearly 20 kilometers longer, but it also has more elevation gain and loss with almost 6,000 meters. And the elevation is further up in general. You’re never lower than at 1,200 meters and the highest peaks are at about 2,500 meters while a long stretch near the end is oscillating around the 2,200 meters mark. If you’re not used to the height, it really slows you down.

The trails are more difficult to run on, mainly because of the various sizes of rocks defining the area’s look. There are no long easy parts at Lavaredo, you don’t really get to relax in between climbs and descents. I only remember one 3-4 kilometer flat bit before the halfway aid station Cimabanche.

While organization was near perfect at Lavaredo, too, I did like the prettiness of the surroundings even more than those at Zugspitz and mozart. The mountains are taller and more impressive. I can’t say anything about weather predictability, but it can definitely get hot in northern Italy. That’s when the high elevation helps to cool down, it’s a double-edged sword.

Comparing the guessed numbers of it directly to Zugspitz, I’d say Lavaredo is at a difficulty level of 110-115% of Zugspitz’s 100%. If I had run Lavaredo today instead of Zugspitz, I might have made it in 22:00 hours instead of the 25:30 hours I needed last year with less experience and fitness.

And here’s my Lavaredo blog post if you’d like to get more into detail.

Let me know if that helped! Or if your opinion differs from mine!

🥅 Remaining Goals for 2024

With the first half of the year almost over, I have checked off two of my main goals. I ran not one but two city marathon races in less than three hours, which was a multi-year spanning goal for me, and I have now successfully completed the annual Western States qualifier race to be able to throw my name into the lottery bucket this coming winter. My third goal of the year is reading twenty books and running twenty marathons and I’m currently at eleven each, so that’s going pretty well, too.

This bears the question: What now?

I love that situation, actually. The sense of accomplishment feels good and it also opens up space for more new ideas. And I’ve had a few of those already! But first, I’ll enjoy the comings months to recover a bit and do all the fun sports stuff that would normally mess with my training in some regard. Such as a double triathlon weekend in mid July and going swimming with Jonas Deichmann. I’m looking forward to more flat marathon races coming up this year, because those never fail to make me happy. The big next highlight will be Chicago Marathon in October. Really looking forward to it. Right now I’m undecided if I am going to run that one as an easy tourist race or try to get my fitness up to 2:59h level again, burning American asphalt. Maybe I could even try to level up some more and do both at the same time! It’s a lofty goal, but it’s also four more months away, so why not.

Concluding the blog post, it was lucky that on the day after the race when we had just returned to Hamburg, one of my favorite bands played at Große Freiheit 36, making me race from airport to venue to see them play for the sixth time. It’s Polyphia and their music makes me happy. It’s been a perfect weekend.

Thanks for reading and I hope you had a good time during it. Let me know your thoughts, I’m always here for questions or feedback. All the best to you!