Morning Trail Run

Harder

Harder 🐛

Today was absolutely perfectly executed until kilometer 41.. then it was a complete disaster. 😂  

I had initially planned to sleep in Rossinière on Friday night, but 6 days of incredible good fortune made me greedy, so Thursday night I decided to just do a final push and get it finished. I looked at the climbs and distance and figured I could do it in 16 hours and make the last train to Basel at 22:17. Worst case I could still bail out in Rossinière.

I set out in the dark at an uncharacteristic 5:15 am. I noticed the Wallbachschlucht was closed because of storm damage and did a massive detour, but no problem, the sun is not even up and I was making good time. 

A few hours later I dropped my sunscreen and retraced a few hundred meters up a hill to retrieve it, but otherwise everything went perfectly and I was optimistic after grabbing breakfast in Gstaad. At Col de Jable my brother called and the decent flew by as we discussed our different taste for trail shoes but similar satisfaction with Nike carbon plates. I told him I was at 41 km, stopping in l’Etivaz for lunch but would definitely finish  today since I was ahead of schedule.  

As I sit down in l’Etivaz, strange things start to happen. The first is that my eyes tear up. I assume it’s the sun and just put on my sunglasses. 

Then when I get up to leave my left quad doesn’t want to bend. No need for alarm.. it just needs to warm up; so I hobble down the road for a few hundred meters, but my left leg just drags along. I don’t panic, I still have some anti-inflammatory gel, so I stop and rub some on my thigh. Another few hundred meters later I decided it just needs a stretch. Then I thought I’ll tape it up, but even after cleaning my leg with alcohol, the KT tape refuses to stick to the days of grime on my skin. As a last resort I try to ignore the pain by listening to music, but my EarPods soon die from listening to music and calls since 5:15 am. On the slight uphills it feels like I’m picking up my entire leg with every step and on the downs it‘s like my quad is being hit by a crow bar; no way I’m getting this leg over 2 more climbs and a long decent today. 

By now I’ve tried everything I could think of and write  to Cornel, who has finished the 330 km Tor des Géants, for advice on how to keep going. To my surprise he calls me and give me a proper pep talk that include anecdotes from his bad races, and tells me to get to my bail out plan in Rossinière as soon as possible and get my body ready to finish the last little bit tomorrow.

It ends up taking me 5 hours to do the last 16 km of the day with it’s unimpressive 200m decent. The time included a little sit in a river which I hoped would let my quad finally forgive me and a trip to the supermarket. Throughout all of this my eyes were still tearing from the sun or an allergy, so onlookers saw an incredibly dirty, limping, crying girl in the store who didn’t see the French signs that masks are mandatory in these parts. 😑    

At least Rossinière is a picturesque town and my hotel serves Vodka covered sorbet.  🤪


Thanks to Conor and Mez for checking in with me today and all the supportive comments. I really needed it this afternoon! 

Top Sports

Tina V

Via Alpina day 8: Lenk to Rossinière

12 Comments

Splits

Sign up to view more activities from Tina V

Morning Trail Run

Harder

Harder

Harder 🐛

Morning Trail Run

Want to see more?

The #1 app for runners and cyclists

Sign Up for Free. Track your progress and reach goals. Join 100 million active people on Strava.

See More from Tina