Spot the Dummkopf in Grindelwald. 2019 Eiger Ultra Trail 51k

Spot the Eiger

Building on the season of oddly numbered races, I followed up Broken Arrow 78k (52k + 26k) and TVSB 111k with the Eiger 51k. Lotsa k's, ok? To do such races, one must be metered to be in their prime. A little too square for math puns? Eigentlich, yes 

Chamonix, France!

View of Chamonix from Bel Lechat

Reserve Carlaveyron from Brevant

Fun, technical trails above Chamonix

The vertical kilometer, 1000 meters up in < 5km

Some switchbacks on the vk

Cheesy tourist photo 

A typical running pack selection in a general sports store

The two weeks after my spectacular failure at Verbier was memorable but also forgettable. I spent several days in Chamonix, the world capital of trail running, wanting to run but mostly recovering from TVSB. My left quad was unusually cramping after very short runs. Active recovery meant I could still hike, maybe jog a bit. Of course, in Chamonix, most hikes seem to involve 3,000 to 6,000 ft of ascent at 20%+ gradient, or that's what I gravitated to. It's so hard to resist. It's like being on a diet in a donut store. Besides, everyone here is eating donuts. The level of athletes that I met in Verbier and in Chamonix was humbling. If I thought I could eat donuts before, I don't compare to a town full of Homer Simpsons. Donuts, mmmm…

The Eiger in the clouds

Lauterbrunnen Valley

Fresh cheese? 

The fast way downhill 

The royals - Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau

Spot a drink in front of the Eiger glacier 

Lauterbrunnen

Eiger and the Boss

Grosse Scheidegg pass above Grindelwald

First place in the shirtless, with stuffed animal category

Grindelwald, Switzerland was my next stop, home of the Eiger, a mountain that has drawn more than its fair share of idiots. More than a week after the cramps started, I still could not run. On a test run 3 days before the 51k, the leg cramped again just 7 miles in. Oh boy, this was not looking good. Unless I can figure how to run on one leg, I may well be out on a limb, but not two.

Indi and the idiot 

Our apartment for the weekend

I found a room to share on Facebook with some other Zurich runners, Mateusz and Indi, two more FB friends with benefits. The flat looked really close to town center on the map but the town is anything but flat  Unfortunately, maps are 2-dimensional and Switzerland is at least 3 if not 4 dimensional. The apartment was a short but stiff 300 ft climb up a 25% walkway. This is going to be real fun after the race, I thought.

Race day. The 101k runners started at 4am, and my 51k didn't start until 6:45. Yeah, odd start time, too, but they did that to break up the crowd as we funnelled to the single track. The 101k runners run through a quiet town in the morning, and as most average runners arrive after midnight, also arrive to a quiet town with no cheering. We humble 51k runners, on the other hand, start under the boisterous crowd out for their morning coffee and arrive in town  past the cheering aperitif chugging tourists in the afternoon. It's good to be lazy. Glory, at last!

Course profile

Queue up for the single track 

Glad I'm not back there 

The first climb starts immediately after passing through the village but unfortunately does not end immediately. Instead it drags on, for me an hour and a half, 5 miles and +3100 ft. A good warm-up. As we started later than typical, it was already sunny and getting quite hot before we got to the first summit at the Grosse Scheidegg pass. The climb itself is relatively steep but the crowd on the single track prevented me and probably most others from going as fast as wanted but as slow as we should. Even after cresting onto the flat-ish and modestly rolling dirt road, I ran cautiously, walking frequently so as to not blow up my thigh cramp early. Ok, so maybe I was the one slowing the train with my walking and taking pictures with a stuffed turtle and all that. 

Spot the turtle, for those that don't know, was given to me by my daughter to race with as I prepared to go away for a 4 day weekend to run 100km. That was 3 years ago. Spot has been with me on almost every race. She is not a good luck charm, or Glückspringer as I learned it's called in German, but a reminder of her and the family we leave behind as we trail/ultrarunners/morons pursue this stupid sport. I forgot any of my actual good luck charms, one of various rubber duckies. A French mademoiselle, upon learning that Spot was not necessarily good luck and I was sans canard, wisely decided to avoid me. It was that or when I broke out into song late into our second climb, "hey are you ready to win the raaaaccee?", the chorus of the Eiger's official song. Evidently, no. Nobody around me was ready to win the race whilst climbing their 5,000th ft.

Spot camouflage

Photobomb!

The second climb is appropriately named First. The hut here recently added a skywalk. So yes, ich bin ein Skywalker now. Was never much of a skyrunner anyway. (If my kids are reading this, yes, I am your father, young skywalker.) The rest of the summit went smoothly as I had given up on singing. Then we went on a long slow technical descent, another conga line until we reached the barnhouse aid station at Feld. What's deceptive is that on the map, this looks like it's at the bottom and the major climb du jour started here. I heard a runner behind me exhale f-words on the climb out. What was funny to me is that we weren't even starting the real climb. We still had a km or two before the real bottom and the real climb. Jokes on him. Well, the rest of us too.

The main event, a 3,000 ft climb up to Faulhorn, the first time scared the bejeezus out of me. Since then, I've gotten a lot more experience on long, steep ascents and gotten a lot stupider, too. I just don't have many more bejeezuses left to give. To my surprise, I didn't just hold my own, but found myself steadily passing a lot of people on the way up. Did I get my mojo back two weeks after Verbier DNF, or did my reputation for off-key singing scare runners away?

Welcome to the Hotel Faulhorn.. 

... you can check out anytime you want, but you can't refill your water bottles

Getting to the summit at Hotel Faulhorn was only sort of a relief. There was a huge queue for the actual aid in this cramped area. It should be called Hotel California, because we couldn't leave! By the time I got to the tables, 10+ minutes later, all the soup and fruits were gone. And this was the second aid station in a row rationing water. Hey, it really is like California!

The downhill started modestly from here through beautiful alpine meadows and views of the glacial blue waters of Interlaken to the north, though the trail touched perilously close to the cliff edge at times. We crossed a few snowy patches and it took a SoCal surfer boy to show the Swiss how to glissade down a snow covered hill. Odd, no?

Snow? But did I mention it was warm? 85F, humid, and we'd been exposed on the ridge since 9am. A third aid station was also dry. I was only allotted a half cup of water. As we were on the ridge, there were no creeks either. I managed until now but it was getting tougher. This suddenly started to become one of my slowest non-technical downhills ever. After running completely dry for what seemed like an hour, we finally came upon a barn with a hose. That we later learned a full aid station was only 200 meters away mattered not. I was getting water and rehydrating now! During this drought, I couldn't eat the food I had either since I couldn't chew it without being able to wash it down. A full on bonk was about to begin.

The aid station though had a full complement of beverages, water, Coke and soup, as well as plentiful fruits. It didn't take me as long to recuperate as I thought it might and I soon left, at first chasing a Chinese woman and then chasing a bull off our trail. Oh, one more uphill, a steep 500 ft climb and then the downhills began in earnest. Up to now, I hadn't mentioned much about my cramp because it hadn't shown much signs of life. Now with little more than 15km to go, I was ready to risk it all - run it all in or cramp walk it all in. I ran faster than I should, at one point intentionally missing a turn so I could use an uphill to slow myself down. "I have no brakes!", I told the volunteers there.

During this stretch, I was discouraged to find Indi limping downhill. As he had a big head start on me for his 101k, I didn't think there would be too much chance that I'd catch him, but seeing his foot hurting, just halfway into his race was not good. I hoped he could continue but he still had a lot of downhilling left for him on the second half. I did not catch Jules who was going to "cook rice" at the next aid station. I really wanted to see him doing that. Such Japanese!

After the last aid station, Burglaugen, it's a straight shot up the valley back to town. I ran most of the way with a German coach and his trainees. One house along the way holds its own aid station offering cold water and, better still, cold beer. Gotta love well supported races. And love beer. Up to now, I didn't hear much talking during the race. With this crowd, you never know what language the other runner speaks. I often caught two Swiss people speaking in English because they weren't sure. Once I tried speaking to a cashier in German but it turns out she is Polish and doesn't speak German. Sometimes I tried to pick up on someone's accent and respond in German, French or English, but when you're that tired it really doesn't matter. "Ugh. Grrrr. Fuuuu.." is pretty universal.

I rolled across the finish line, still crampless, just as the rain storm rolled into town. Got my medal, which is a rock with a hole in it. So it looks like a donut and we've come full circle. Time to get a donut. 

Indi pulled through and finished this very tough 101km run in 25 and a half hours! Mad props. I just missed Jules finishing at 4:25AM an hour earlier. That must have been some night for them. I can only guess because I was clean, fed and comfortably asleep. Mateusz dropped from his 101k, completing a still rock star worthy 62k. Met many other great people like Wendy, who got 2nd AG in her 35k, and Christophe, the oldest finisher of UTMB at age 73 and still charging hard four years later! Though my experience was somewhat marred by the lack of water, overall it was an amazing experience. Many thanks to the hundreds of volunteers, most of whom are not even runners themselves. See, Spot? Not everyone here is a Dummkopf.

Jules, Sina, Wendy, moron, idiot, random dude