The Trans-Swiss Run is a 7-day ultramarathon stage race, 370 km long covering the most beautiful parts of Switzerland, from Lake Constance to Lake Geneva. This report was posted on the Ultralist and Peter Horner gave me kind permission to reproduce on Multidays.com.
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:08:23 +0200
From: “Horner, Peter”
Subject: Trans Swiss Run
Dear List
Last week I ran across my country. Never in my life before I thought I’d be able to say that about me.
Lucky me, my country is not that big 🙂
The Trans Swiss Run is a 7 stage (day) race with a total distance of 370km and an altitude change of 14’500 meters.
23 people gathered the evening before the race at Kreuzlingen, Lake Constance which is the Swiss-German border.
20 men and 3 female runners started on Sunday morning. Right before the start I touched the lake. I felt joy and also fear. Because I only had a clue about what would be waiting for me along the way.
The weather was a big issue for the whole week. It didn’t look too good and wasn’t promising for the whole week. The weeks before we had couple of floods and landslides. But for the first day we seemed to have
had a route which lead us right around the bad weather to the first stage finish. I was totally happy at the first stage finish but felt funny because this stage was called a warm up day and left me with lots of questions for the rest of the week. The next day was the day the bad weather really hit us. With its 57k and 1’500 hmeter it wasn’t considered a heavy stage but the constant rain and wind was pulling at our strength, mentally and physically.
Day 3 was really bad for me but also my lucky day. I am a diabetic Type II and after 1 hour I ran into hypoglycaemia. I had not eaten enough for dinner and wasn’t really diggin in at the breakfast. Lucky it
happened on a downhill. I started to empty the bottle with the energy drink in it, slowly, to make sure I was able to keep down the energy (I felt like throwing up). Next I hear that we had to speed up in order to catch the ferry.
But for my luck we missed it and had to wait 1 hour for the next one. I was now able to rest and refuel my body. I talked to the RD and we discussed the situation. Together we decided that I could go on. I was happy I was able to finish successfully that day. That evening I made sure I recovered well and refueled my body properly. As the days flew by (so it seemed to me afterwards) the big day came.
Day 6. The day with the biggest altitude change – the Queens stage, a total of 2’500 Hmeters and 54k were waiting. I told myself if you finish that day you will successfully finish also the 7th and last day.
Well I did finish the 6th day but it took me a full 12 hours which didn’t give me a lot of time to recover and so I ran the last day more with my head (and my heart) then I expected.
Coming around a corner and seeing the Lake Geneva brought tears in my eyes. I couldn’t help it any more – all the emotions came up and left me running crying through the crowds that were walking the Lake shore. On the last few meters I was guided by the RD and finished the adventure with cheers from the other finishers.
The next day I went down to the lake and touched the water. I felt pure joy and so much energy in me I have never experienced.
Would I do the same race again ? No, there is nothing that can be topped doing it again !
Would I do such a race again ? Yes, it is experience I wouldn’t have missed.
Have a great day !
Peter
Visit the Trans-Swiss website
Photos: Picasaweb.google.ch/
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