Here is my report on the Salomon Zugspitze Basetrail. This race was a real challenge for me, a
genuine peak experience. I’m writing
up my thoughts now (the day after the race) before they fade.
The place
The Zugspitze is the highest mountain in the Wetterstein
range straddling Germany and Austria.
The Wettersteins are steep, jagged peaks, very imposing. Our hotel was on the outskirts of the
town of Grainau, where all four of the Zugspitze races ended.
Roland’s brother, Holger, and the kids accompanied me down
to Grainau, a three-hour drive from Waldenbuch -- we took the A8 to Ulm, then
the A7 south from there. It’s a pretty drive over the Schwäbische Alb, then through
southwest Bavaria, all very lush and green.
In Grainau, we were reminded of how Germany manages to be so
green: it started raining and kept on raining all evening. It was pretty cold too, so I was
fretting about race conditions.
The weather reports on the internet were all over the place: some sites
predicting highs from the low 50’s to low 30's (Fahrenheit) with showers, others mid-70’s and
sunny. As of 12 hours before race
time, it was snowing on top of the Zugspitze. As it worked out, however, the weather on race day was
terrific: mostly sunny, not too warm, nice breeze.
The race
My race, the Basetrail, was the shortest of the four events
in the Salomon-sponsored event, roughly 23 miles with 6200 feet of elevation gain.
Here is the elevation profile, with the four aid stations shown.
Basetrail elevation
profile. Elevation in meters (not
feet), distance in kilometers (not miles.)
My idea going into things was to think about the race as two
separate events: a “normal” (albeit
difficult) 15 km trail race to the Reintal aid station, followed by a big
mountain hike. That proved mostly
accurate, although the most challenging part for me was the technical descent
to Reintal (km 13-15.)
At the start in Mittenwald
The starting line was in the town of Mittenwald, famous for
violin-making. Indeed, Obin and
Anya got to play some expensive violins and violas at a craftsman’s shop while I
was running.
The race started at 10am. We ran through the town center, out into the fields. Within the first kilometer we began a
steep, switch-backy climb on a narrow path past waterfalls. Given the size of
the race (more than 700 people on the start list,) this inevitably turned into
a conga line up the trail. Not a big deal, really. It was steep enough that I wouldn’t have gone much faster if
I’d been alone. But we were all in
the sun, all clad in those expensive high-tech fibers that smell like the
monkey house as soon you start to sweat. I was very happy to reach fresh air at the top, and hit the broader trail
toward Ferchensee, a pretty alpine lake.
Conga line out of
Mittenwald.
The first aid station came early, around 6km. Nobody in the Basetrail really needed
anything at this point, but all four races use the same aid stations, so it
made sense in the grander scheme. I took the opportunity to adjust my camelback, which was over-filled
with stuff and had been really bugging me. In addition to 2 liters of water (which I finished before
reaching the race’s high point), I had my rain jacket, a long sleeve shirt, cap,
arm warmers, an assortment of gels, and my poles. Much more than I usually carry. Not much to be done about the weight (it got a little better
as I drank my water), but I did manage to rearrange things so that the weight
was a little higher up and nothing was flapping around.
Green fields, shady forests,
mountains in the clouds.
After Ferchensee came about 10 kilometers of easy running
through alpine meadows. Really
lovely: sun shining on the mountains, cool breeze, calm lakes and lively creeks. Then into the forest for the descent to
Reintal along the Partnach River. Despite
having studied the course profile beforehand, I was surprised by how hard this
was. It was steep (more than 400 m over less than 2 km), rocky and very
slippery. It was also a narrow
single track, and the conga line formed again. This time, the conga line wanted to go down fast.
Anyone who has ever run with me knows that I’m really lame
on downhills no matter what, and the slippery conditions didn’t help. I hate holding up the people behind me,
so I spent a lot of time pulled over whenever there was space, letting the
downhill speedsters pass by. This
wasn’t a problem -- everyone was very nice, friendly and sympathetic. I heard lots of “Ach, ich bin auch nicht schnell” (“Oh, I’m
not fast either”) from the people I waved past me. But honestly, almost all of these German runners really know
how to bomb their hills.
So getting down to Reintal was not very fun. I had expected
the aid station to be right at the river (as shown in the profile above), but
they moved it up to the other side of the Partnach. It was a nice shady ascent, and the oranges at the aid
station tasted amazing. I tried to
be smart and eat more substantial stuff too -- a banana, some sausage and
cheese. Not eating enough during
long runs has been a problem for me, and I’ve learned not to trust myself when
I think I’m not hungry.
Cliffs past Partnachalm.
This was the point where (in my mind) the regular race ended
and the mountain climb began. Even
though the immediate path forward was a not-very-steep fire road, I broke out
the trekking poles as planned. I had eaten
a reasonable amount at the aid station, but as I left I was still feeling
light-headed, down-hearted, and bonky. I tried to distract myself by watching how other people were
using their poles and trying out different techniques. A very large fraction of racers had
been using poles from the very beginning; by this point, I’d say that 80-90%
were using them on the uphills. Some
people plant both poles simultaneously in front of them, others alternate
sides. The latter seemed to work
better for me, except when it got really steep. Anyway, the distraction worked -- by the time we got to the
next steep uphill (around 21K), I was feeling pretty strong and cheerful.
I loved the climb up to Längenfelder -- it was a steep
single-track, covered in trees, zigzagging up a cliff. As pathetic as I am on downhills, I’m
pretty good at finding my groove going up. Given the steepness, power-hiking was a better choice than
running. Now I was the person
doing all the passing on the single track, but here too, everyone was friendly
and supportive. About halfway up
this section, the leaders of the Supertrail race (the 60K event which had
started an hour before us in Leutasch) began overtaking us.
The weird thing about this section of the trail is that very
early on, we could hear cheering from the next aid station -- it sounded like
it must be very close. I was out
of battery on my phone (thanks, MapMyRun, why do you have to be such a power
hog?) and really didn’t have a good sense of where we were in the
course. And according to the map,
the climb was only 3K. (More below on this deluded way of thinking.) It seemed like we should hit the aid
station any minute. Finally, I
realized that the cheering sounded close because it was precisely overhead -- no ground at all to cover as the crow
flies, just lots of vertical (500m over 3K of switchbacks.)
We climbed out of the canyon to a nice ski lodge on a ridge,
and the Längenfelder aid station was just down the road. It was an abrupt change from lush,
green canyon to barren rocky high country. The Längenfelder locale served as both third and fourth aid
stations, the beginning and end of the loop to the top. This made for a somewhat complicated
four-way intersection, with some runners coming out of the canyon, others
heading up the road to the Alpspitz or returning on the steep path from the top,
yet others heading down for the
final descent to Grainau.
The loop to the Alpspitz was only 5K, and somehow I was once
again not factoring in the vertical.
5K, how long can that possibly take? Well, long enough to climb up another 400m and then go back
down. It was a little after 2:30
when I left the aid station, and I fully expected to be back in less than an
hour. Really.
After Längenfelder, the course became truly alpine. No
trees, just patches of viney-mossy things growing on the ground. Mostly just huge jagged rocks, coming
in and out of clouds. Somewhat
like the Devil’s Backbone approach to Mt. Baldy, but wilder in some ways (crazy
tall peaks towering above you, then disappearing into mist) and tamer in others
(lots of hiking families who had probably taken the ski lift up, milling around
with their little kids and dogs and grandmas.)
Of course, this loop from Längenfelder to the Alpspitzbahn
and back took much longer than an hour. I reached the top around 4pm.
The way up was steep but otherwise easy -- a wide road, easy
footing. I was mostly past the
point of feeling good or bad or anything else. Just doing my one-foot-in-front-of-the-other
dharma.
This was a pretty spaced out part of the run for me. Some weird things happened up there. First, I started hearing fiddle tunes
being played in the distance -- Calliope House, Whiskey Before Breakfast,
Willafjord -- tunes that my kids like to play. It sounded like there was a fiddler right above me on the
mountain. Okay, I’m pretty sure
that wasn’t real. Then, just past
what turned out to be a false summit, I saw a row of large swinging papasan chairs
-- half-spheres mounted on chains, with people sitting in them. One of the racers (a guy I’d been
playing leapfrog with much of the day) was taking a break and resting in one. This was real: the kind of cute weird
thing that one finds unexpectedly in southern Germany.
Also in the weird-but-real department was the Alpspitzbahn
Station itself: very modern and architectural -- sleek panels of steel and light wood
with huge plates of glass. Definitely not your
traditional Fachwerkhaus with petunias in windowboxes. I thought about my friends Lynn and
Jeff, who ran into trouble with the local authorities in Lake Arrowhead for remodeling their
house in ways that weren’t considered “alpine” enough. Yet here, in the highest reaches of
hillbilly Bavaria, I find exactly the kind of structure that their highbrow New York
architect had in mind!
Architectural sensibilities in the Alpspitzbahn Station: second
peak from the left, the highest
point in the race. I think the actual Zugspitze
peak is on the far right, in the clouds.
So, yeah, I had kind of a surreal, dreamy march to the top. Then
the descent started and I had to get my act together and marshal some focus. The
early part was actually run-able, and it felt really great to run a
little. Then the path became
steeper and much rockier. This
slowed me down, but I did feel pretty comfortable using the poles. The trail
was dry, which helped; also helpful that there was almost no-one else around. A few fellow racers passed me, but the
conga line (if there ever was one on this part) was long gone down the
mountain.
I realized at this point that my expected finishing time of
5pm (7 hours after the start) was not in the cards, and I knew that Holger and
the kids would be waiting and wondering what was up, and that Lissi back in
Waldenbuch would be fretting. But
there was really nothing to be done except keep going.
I was really struggling to stay focused. It seemed like
caffeine might help, but I had run out of water just before the top. My gels have caffeine, but I didn’t
want to have one without water. Focused or not, I made it back to Längenfelder, had some food, filled my
water, and studied the map. The
descent consisted of two long steep sections, steeper than what I’d just
done. Finally, it sunk to my
brain in that it didn’t matter that I only had 6 km to go, didn’t matter that the last 2K would be flat
through the streets of Grainau. The big issue was that I had 1300 meters to descend in the next 4K, and
that was going to take a while. I
left Längenfelder a little before 5 pm, ran about a quarter mile before realizing I had
left my poles behind, went back to get them. Still working on getting focused. I had revised my feasible goal to be finishing before 6pm,
and I was wasting energy worrying that I would not finish before the cut time
of 6:30. I don’t know why the cut
time mattered to me -- obviously I was still going to finish -- but I hated the
idea of not making it.
The trail down the mountain quickly disappeared into the trees. By now, I knew that trees mean wet trail
conditions with slippery footing, and that’s exactly what I found. The mud was pretty loose, the rocks
were sharp and slippery and there was a small amount of water (maybe a
centimeter deep) running down much of the path. Not enough to really get my feet wet, but it added to the
overall slipperiness. I fell twice
on this section -- neither time hard, though I did cut my hand on a sharp
rock. I saw two other runners fall
in the same way: going down in slow motion after some comically elaborate sliding around on
the wet rocks. At this point, I
was too tired to get frustrated; I needed all my energy just to get down the
mountain.
Up until the end, the distance had been marked every
5K. With 5K to go, each kilometer
was marked, and I was really happy with each sign that I reached. I remembered
that the “2K remaining” sign had been right by our hotel on the outskirts of
Grainau, and that thought kept me cheerful.
The trail was steep and completely in the forest right to
the bottom. Then another abrupt
change: back to civilization with 2 flat kilometers on asphalt to the end There were plenty of other Basetrail
finishers on this stretch, but they were all walking. That was not going to be
me! I might be finishing in the back of the pack, but I sure as heck was going
to finish running. And, actually,
it felt great to run after the endless downhill march. I didn’t want to stop to put my poles
away, though they were kind of a pain to carry. (They’re not heavy, but your hands
get sweaty.) Anyhow, I found a way to pour
it on at the end. Deserved or not,
I got lots of cheers from onlookers for coming in running.
The finish line spilled us out into a big tent where (as is,
I’m afraid, typical in Germany) the Worst of Classic Rock was blaring
from a sound system with way too much power for the space. Really, I
didn’t haul myself up and down that mountain to listen to Queen and Jethro Tull. But the kids found me quickly, and Obin immediately gave me an alarmingly
big hug. (“Akk! Sweetie! Mom needs to breath!”) I am now a Basetrail finisher.
I finished 10 minutes before 6pm, giving me a final time of 7:50. I was #172 out of 204 women. I’m not used to finishing this far back in races. But I
think this is mostly because I tend to pick races that are too close to my
comfort zone. So I’m scoring this
one as a win.
