Afternoon Run

Morning Trail Run

Lunch Run

40:59:02 🥳

Major team effort! Thanks to everyone who sacrificed their time, energy, and bike locks to support me: Cordu, Kadda, Tim A. , Johannes, Lukas Liedtke , Christoph, Hanna, Henning Lulei , Joachim, Alexander Dyck , Sophia Heidecker , Richard Caron , Lorenz Sa  ❤️

I left Pforzheim at 5 am and was accompanied by Tim for the first 30km, the weather being way more chilly and breezy than expected on the mountain tops. Ran on a comfortable pace on the first part but was still ahead of my optimistic 40 hr time plan by 20 mins when I first met my girlfriend and the crew car at Forbach. After the climb to Seekopf there were plenty of opportunities to meet her and my friend Johannes who came with his bike, which managed to distract me from the uneasy feeling of tiredness creeping in with still more than 100 miles left. The rest of the day I ran mostly alone, keeping ahead of the time plan and even adding 20 more minutes. I had recce'd the section between Alexanderschanze and Hausach two weeks prior, so I could switch of my navigation brain a bit more and just get into the flow of running the long gentle downhills during sunset.

In Hausach, I had some warm pasta before tackling the long climb out of the Kinzig Valley with Lukas (navigating) and Christoph (pole carrying). After warming up in the boiler room of a hotel around midnight, the gang was joined by Hanna who would stay with us until Titisee. The cold and breezy night on the exposed plateau of the Mittelschwarzwald sucked the energy out of us and by morning the edge I had on the time plan was gone.

I left Titisee to tackle the climb to Feldberg with Henning and felt increasingly energetic as the sun came up and promised for much nicer conditions than on the first day. The trail was technical and had my beaten up legs climb over fallen trees and circumvent snow fields. The next sections with Sophia, Alex, and Richard flew by quickly but I had increasing problems with sleepiness. I tried to have a nap in the car at Wiedener Eck but then decided to solve the problem with more Red Bull and caffeine pills which worked well after caffeine fasting for two weeks. In Vogelbach, Lorenz took over pacing duty and we were able to push the pace a bit, my legs feeling surprisingly okay given the circumstances. After keeping me awake for the last four hours and keeping the pace high, Lorenz managed to motivate me to have a finish sprint in order to just stay below the 41 hour mark.

I'm super grateful to my friends who made this adventure possible and to experience a true adventure that I'll never forget. Huge respect to those who took on the challenge before me: Jörg Scheiderbauer, Christian Alles, Daniel Hernes. They inspired me to give it a go and I hope more FKTs on the Westweg by others will follow. Finally, a big thank you to Schwarzwaldverein to design this beautiful trail 125 years ago and keep it maintained and (in most parts) well signed till this day.

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Jakob von Raumer

FKT Westweg (Westvariante)

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Afternoon Run

Afternoon Run

Afternoon Run

Morning Trail Run

Lunch Run

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