CrispNZ Trips

Leonie and I spent the weekend in Oberstdorf. The weather was pretty rubbish but we still managed to sneak out for half a day’s skiing on Saturday at Söllereck. Katha and her brother Nico joined us. For the first couple of hours it snowed and snowed and we could see very little but after it stopped we had a few good runs down the mountain. Leonie and I ate out in the evening with Kathi.

Above left: It’s snowed heavily on Friday so we went for a wander around town stopping at the Holzofen Bäckerei for some delicious olive bread and tomato bread. Yum. Above left: The afternoon was spent wandering up to the Seealpe at Nebelhorn and sledding back down again.

Above: We went skiing at Söllereck on Saturday with Katha and her brother Nico. Here’s proof.

Above: It wasn’t long until I started being obnoxious.

Above: Fun with the GoPro.

Above: More fun…

Above: Still more fun…

After spending the week in Magdeburg with Julian slaving over a hot MRI scanner I headed to Allgäu on Friday evening. By some sort of miracle I arrived only half an hour late at 12:30 am despite the German train system pulling out all the stops to… ahh… stop me. Katha was no doubt overjoyed to see me when I banged on her door at 1 am.

As it had been two weeks since the Jungfrau Marathon I was starting to feel well overdue for another little jaunt. I therefore had had a bit of a nosey through the race calendar and found the Voralpenmarathon in Kempten. Fantastic. To appeal to the bargain hunters (Kiwis) the organisers had thrown in an extra 20% more marathon bringing the distance to 50.9 km. This has a positive effect on all sorts of important race-quality metrics, such as hours spent suffering per dollar spent; Chris and Greig would be pleased.

Above: I snuck down to Allgäu for the weekend and ran a marathon. Here’s proof that it was in Allgäu.

Before the race on Sunday I had an intensive lazing session with Katha, Franka, and Vero by a lake near Kempten. After successfully burning the backs of my legs it was time to leave. Johanna was kind enough to leave me the key to her flat while she was away for the weekend so after dinner, I left Katha and co. to party the night away and headed off to Johanna’s for an early night.

The weather on race day was quite respectable. At something like 23 degrees it was quite refreshing compared to the Jungfrau Marathon and Inferno Half . Perhaps a little too fresh one might say… I set off at an amble conscious of the fact that I had some bonus kilometres to run at the end of the marathon distance. The route took us up and down through the hills near Kempten. It was quite scenic with forested sections and meadows. It was thankfully not as busy as the Jungfrau Marathon with 157 entries in the 50 km distance.

The race went well and I felt pretty good for the majority of it. At around about 35 km I started to feel a bit sore and there was some premium suffering to be had during the last 10 km. Although the organisers had only extended the race by 20% they had succeeded in increasing the amount of suffering by a disproportionate amount proving that suffering or perhaps sufferage is a function of time and distance.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the ‘fun’ was over after 5:44:02 (h:m:s) and Katha, Franka, and Vero turned up at the finish line to greet me. We hung around for a while before meeting again later in Kempten for an ice cream. By chance I ran into Manu as well and we all ice-creamed together.

I stayed another night at Johanna’s before getting up at 4:30 am and hobbling to the train station to catch my favourite connection back to Freiburg. Amusingly I finished in 8th place in M30 and 90th place overall. A quick flick through the results indicates that there is definitely life after 30 for marathon running.

Above left: My lovely support crew, Katha, Franka, and Vero came to see me at the finish line. Above middle: Yup, it’s definitely gold… definitely… Above right: “Nice, nice.” Katha and I at the finish.

Below: Manu and I in Kempten later in the evening.

Voralpenmarathon Kempten Dst: 50.9 km Time: 5:44:02 Elevation gain: 1250 m

Below: A map of the route and height profile (courtesy race website)

Gitti convinced me to do a mountain race in the weekend so off I trotted to Allgäu on Friday afternoon (these days trotting can be accomplished by way of the German rail system – bring your own coconut shells). Unfortunately Gitti had been attacked by a vicious lurgi and spent the weekend trying her best to cough up a lung. She therefore opted not to do the race. Instead she and her friends spent Friday evening physcing me out. Saturday came and I felt somewhat physced-out.

The race is the Immenstadt Gebirgsmarathon. It’s a little family-organised running race that starts in Immenstadt in Allgäu. It’s approximately marathon length with about 2900 m of climbing. We began at 8 am. I started slow and got slower… Actually, I started slow and stayed fairly consistent but that’s a quote from someone doing the Transalpine run in 2009(?) which amused me. Completely irrelevant here… The route is fairly unforgiving. It starts off with a climb out of Immenstadt followed by a little flat section before continuously climbing and dropping until the turn around point at the Gondola station on Hochgrat .

Above left: Spot the punter… Above right: The Immenstadt Gebirgsmarathon starts. Photo credit: Christian Steinmüller.

Luckily there seemed to be a bunch of people who had pushed too hard to begin with and after a couple of hours I started to pass people. The organisers are a bit nasty and instead of the race finishing in Immenstadt you descend to nearly the altitude of Immenstadt and then climb back up another mountain (Mittag) to the top. I finished in 5 hours 52 mins and came second in my class out of… wait for it… three. I was a little dissapointed to see that I am now officially old as I placed in the M30 class. Gitti convinced me that they make a distinction at 30 years to give all the younger folks a chance against us older and wiser people.

Above left: There were great views from the ridge. The course essentially runs along a line of mountains and back. Above right: Cris with race organiser shows off his 2nd place.

In the evening Gitti, Siggi, Constantin, the overall winner, and I went to the Allgäu Festwoche. I met Katha there and we spent the evening weaving in and around the drunken people and singing festival songs. The weather was fantastic again on Sunday and I cycled to Oberstdorf and caught up with Christine and Simone before paying a visit to Kathi at NTC. In th evening Gitti, Siggi, and I ate out at the Schiff. A good weekend in Allgäu.

Above left: The festwoche before the majority were drunk. Above right: Katha and I at the festwoche.

Above left: Salad with Simone and Christine in Oberstdorf. Above right: Eating out at the Schiff with Gitti and Siggi.

On Friday afternoon I headed over to Allgäu and met Kathi there. We went out for dinner in the evening with Ulli, Deidre, Sam, and Peter. I rode into Austria over the Oberjoch to pick up my race pack in Tannheimer Tal on Saturday morning. After riding back Kathi and I drove to the Niedersonthofener See and met Katha, and Franka, and Vero there. We spent a lazy afternoon swimming and… lazing at the lake. There was a platform in the lake that provided much entertainment for us as we tried to stay afloat and it tried to slide us off.

Above: A lazy afternoon at the Niedersonthofener Lake. Good company, warm water, and sunshine.

The race started Sunday morning at 7 am in Tannheim, Austria. Kathi was extra-specially nice and got up early and drove me to the race start. Oh yes, I am grateful to have friends like her.

I made my usual mistake of starting far too far back in the field and had to go on a passing spree for the first ten minutes until a group of us got together and chased hard catching the front bunch 20 minutes into the race. A waste of energy but anyway… It’s possible a crash had slowed them down because we rounded a corner to find cyclists on the ground. I made a quick escape past the mess through a field beside the road. The route had descended quite a lot to begin with and our average speed after 30 minutes was around 47 km/h.

Above: At the start line in Tannheim, Austria. I should have been standing much further up the field. Typical, typical.

The race progressed along nicely as we headed up the valley towards the turn-around at Dürnau. The bunch was spilling out over both sides of the road as the pace was not really on. I tried to stay near the front of the bunch but after a punter with aero bars passed me I decided I should probably move up a bit further. Too late. My usual crap bunch placement had failed me again. We headed right onto a small cycle path where we could only ride two abreast. I was stuck behind a bunch of slow pokes. Big gaps had opened up between the riders. Everyone seemed to be riding far too cautiously along the winding path that bobbed up and down by the river. I spent the next few kms along the cycle path passing people but sadly the first group had got away.

Once we left the cycle path I sat at the front of the bunch and towed for some time. After a while there were perhaps five of us rotating at the front. It was rather frustrating as we could see the front bunch perhaps 1 km in front of us but nobody wanted to work hard enough to catch them. I kept riding off the front of the bunch. Narghhhh. The effort was cooking my legs. After 15 – 20 km I sat up and decided there was no point towing the dead wood along. Instead I drifted to the back of the bunch and sat on.

We turned around at the head of the valley and cruised back down. There was now no chance of catching the lead group now. The pace was pretty leisurely but I wasn’t going to sacrifice my legs. Instead, I saved myself for the 200 m Category 2 climb near the end of the race that climbs into the head of Tannheimer Tal. Usually it’s a fairly easy climb. I moved to the front of the bunch as we started the climb and was in 3rd position for the first few corners until a couple of guys passed me. I spent the rest of the time chasing them with the 2nd female sitting on my wheel. She was suffering. So was I. At one point as I was pulling slightly away she said ‘Nimmst Du mich doch mit’ or something similar, ‘take me with you’. I wasn’t leaving in a hurry. It was the crux of the race. The climb flattens off near the top before climbing again. I struggled to keep a good pace and three guys caught up to us. We rode with them as the road began to climb again. I tried to pull but could feel my calf muscles starting to cramp.

It would have been a disaster to have cramped, 9 km before the end of the race. Luckily as it flattened off the twinges went away and I sat in behind the two remaining guys as they powered towards the finish. I took a couple of turns at the front but could not keep the pace that they were riding at going. Looking behind us there was nothing left of the bunch so it looked like we’d stay well clear of anybody following. My quads were on fire. It’s a good feeling though knowing you’re giving everything you have. We arrived in Tannheim and crossed the finish line with a total time of under 3 hours 30 mins.

A good race. A good route. I was happy with my legs but disapointed with my tactics. Ideally I would have started right up at the front and therefore not wasted any energy chasing to begin with. As we headed up the valley I should have been riding in the third row back so that I was not doing any work but wasn’t in any danger of having the bunch breaking up in front of me. I should have been like the other slack riders and have had sat on. Ideally the only work I would have done would have been on the last climb. Annoying…

It’s interesting to see the results. They don’t reflect what happened. We crossed the finsih line with one guy half a second in front of us followed by the girl and myself perhaps a quarter of a wheel distance apart followed by the other guy maybe a bike length behind. The results say that the girl crossed the line first. Strange. I wonder why the transponders are so inaccurate. It’s not like there was a high volume crossing the line at one time.

Tannheim Rad-Marathon 3:27:35 Dst: 130.63 km Avg: 37.76 km/h M 74.55 km/h Avg Cad: 85 Ascent: 930 m

I rode back to Sonthofen and lazed with Kathi for the rest of the day. A good weekend in Allgäu although it’s a strange feeling to be back there. I still miss the frau that used to be there with me.

Above: Kathi knitting in the back garden on Sunday afternoon.

Above: The race route…

I am on the train taking my favourite early connection back to Freiburg. I spent yesterday evening in Kempten with Katha, Franka, Katha’s brother Nico, and a English guy named Dave who is visiting. We had a beer at a beer garden near Katha’s flat.

Above: Drinking beer in Kempten with Dave, Franka, Katha, and Nico.