Swiss Alpine K78: mission accomplished

I woke up 4:00 AM - half an hour before my alarm clock was set. My goal today was to finish Swiss Alpine mountain ultramarathon in under nine hours.

The 78.5 km K78 course is the longest one available in this megaevent with altogether about 5,000 competitors. The K31 and C42 runners start at the same time, 8:00 AM local time in Davos.

By the way, it would suit me personally very well if we K78ers were allowed to start separately, perhaps 30 minutes earlier than the rest. It would be light enough to start at 7:30, or even 7:00 AM. That would reduce traffic jams and give slower runners more time to finish.

The race day was a bit cloudy and thus somewhat cooler than usual. This was a good thing for me, as I had always thought it was too hot, especially in the valleys, where there is not so much wind.

It had rained all night, and the roads and trails were quite wet. However there wasn't too much rain during the race, and even when it rained the sun kept on shining most of the time.

In my plan I had divided the course into three sections, each of which I aimed to complete under three hours.

The first 30.6 km part, starting at Davos Sports Centre (1540 meters) to Filisur (1032 m).

I didn't have any injuries or other issues, so I thought why not take advantage of the nice cool morning weather and start fast.

My 5K split was about 20:20, which was quite fast considering we were running a mile high. I decided to slow down a bit.

If I remember correctly, my 10K split was about 47 minutes. I deliberately took the uphills easy. I ran the downhills fast though, but tried my best to stay relaxed.

I was way ahead of my preplanned schedule at every point until Filisur, as it was mostly downhill and on fast roads too.

Also the narrow single trail sections that caused bad traffic jams had been widened or rerouted to wider paths. The organizers had done a good job there. I didn't have to stop for any reason. Everything worked perfectly.

The first part of the race took me only 2:29:04. I say 'only' because it was over 64 minutes faster than in 2008 - but let's keep in mind that then I was DQ'd later on for being too slow.

In 2007 I had reached Filisur in 2:52:22 - that's not bad at all, but over 23 minutes slower than today.

I felt much better than in previous years at this point. I also wore Brooks ST racing flats instead of clunky trail shoes, which probably allowed me to run faster, at least in the early stages of the race.

Then came the middle part, which is the big 22.3 km long uphill to Kesch hut, the highest point of the race at 2632 meters, about two thirds (52.9 km) from the start.

Most of it is not too steep, but the only way is up and it gets steeper towards the top.

I arrived in Bergün town 39.2K checkpoint at 11:25:39 AM (3 hours 25 min after start).

They were announcing that the K42 runners would start in a few minutes, at 11:30 AM. So not surprisingly, when I had covered about 42K, the first 'ordinary' marathon runners started passing me left and right. There were about a thousand of them, so K42-competitors kept on passing me all the way to the top.

This has always been the most challenging part of the course for me. When running at high altitudes, the lack of oxygen inevitably makes my lungs hurt a bit, and unfortunately today was no exception.

The weather felt warmer and I started to feel dehydrated, so I took isotonic tea and sports drinks in addition to water.

I was also a bit hungry, but couldn't eat much really. There were sports gels freely available, but I couldn't take even one. In fact I took one, but gave it away at the next stop unopened.

The altitude combined with steep climbing made me feel a bit uneasy. The climbing power just wasn't there when I needed it.

My home town is at sea level in a relatively flat country, so maybe I should consider training a few weeks before Swiss Alpine in the Alps - like I did in 1995. I finished in 7:29 then, but the 72K course was quite different as it took a shortcut straight back to Davos via Sertig pass instead of Kesch hut, Panorama trail and Scaletta pass.

All I managed to eat was two little pieces of a musli bar and the local mountain bread with hot bouillon. I think it would have helped if I could have eaten more, but it just didn't seem like an attractive option at the moment.

I had to walk the steepest uphill from Valzana (48.7 km, 1952 meters) to the top, ie. Kesch hut (52.9 km, 2632 meters). It was only 4.2K in length, but the elevation gain of 680 meters made it a challenging 16+ per cent climb.

Most of the runners around me were walking, and those who did try to run didn't go very fast either. A lot of walkers passed me, so I must have been close to crawling speed.

Finally I arrived at Kesch hut, 5:49:59 from the start. My time for this second stage of the race was 3:20:56. In 2007 it had been 3:40:07, so despite all that walking business I was almost 20 minutes faster than two years ago.

Although I missed my goal of completing each stage in under three hours by over 20 minutes, I still strongly believed in breaking nine hours, as the first part had been so much faster.

The last part was 25.6 km from Kesch back to Davos.

I knew I had a little over three hours to make it, and paced myself accordingly.

This year there were more snow left on the mountains than usually at this time. When the snow melted into countless streams during the afternoon, it made Panorama trail quite muddy and slippery.

I took it easy and didn't take any chances. I tried to stay relatively comfortable.

I managed to hit the toes of my left foot pretty hard on some rock though. Surprisingly it didn't hurt - or probably my whole body hurt so bad already that I couldn't notice every little thing.

As the cold winds picked up towards Scaletta pass (60.1 km, 2606 meters) I tried to go over it as quickly as possible to avoid freezing myself.

Actually Migros, the new main sponsor, thoughtfully provided runners with transparent orange plastic jackets, but I didn't take any this time. I didn't feel too cold at any time because I kept on running. I didn't stop at aid stations, I just quickly took whatever I could get and continued immediately.

Then came the huge steep downhill which I normally would have cruised at full speed, but this time I decided not to risk anything because I fell down here in 2007.

In Durrboden (64.4 km, 2007 meters) I had about 74 minutes left and 14.1 km to go. So I figured that if I keep going at 5 min/km pace, I'll have a 3 or 4 minute safety margin to reach my goal.

Drinking a couple of cups of Coke seemed to give me just enough speed and endurance.

Everything went smoothly until the last aid station in Duchlisage (75.1 km, 1565 meters).

Right after grabbing a quick cup of water there was this 400-meter long uphill climbing up 35 meters. Compared to all those previous monsters this wasn't scary, but it nevertheless almost killed me.

I tried to follow number 1187, Tomomi Okajima from Tokyo, but he took off like a rocket.

Then a little kid run with me for a while, and he outsprinted me easily several times although I was going all out.

Digging deep I found secret reserves to keep going until the trail came down to Davos to the road that I knew was the final kilometer.

I kept checking my watch like I couldn't believe that I had so much time left.

Only now was I certain that I could make it under nine hours. The crowd support was great during the whole race, but especially in the last few kilometers near Davos.

The crowds at the sports centre made a huge noise, kids were high-fiving the stream of arriving runners and I heard my name and nationality announced.

My official finish time was 8:56:56, placing me 315th overall out of 1,022 finishers (including both men and women).

Mission accomplished!

I finished under nine hours as planned, and set a new PR of course. My previous PR got improved by over 46 minutes.

Amazingly I was able to run through all that rock, grass, mud, snow and water without falling down, not even once!

A couple of dudes who finished the race right behind me came over separately to congratulate me for pushing hard at the end. That seemed a bit odd as I didn't think my pace was that fast really, but I'm happy if it helped them. Exhausted runners often try to draw strength from each other. We shaked hands and agreed it was a great day.

Finishers received a high-quality UV-protected finisher T-shirt and a red/black/silver medal with a custom printed neck ribbon. The medal has the same basic mountain goat design as in two previous years, but with a new special icon each year. 2009 medal's icon features Kesch hut.

While rewarding myself with an ice-cold alcohol-free beer provided by one of the race sponsors at the finish area, I heard Sweden had a field day in Davos as Jonas Buud won his third consecutive K78 with a superb time 5:48:43, and Lena Gavelin (a 2:30 marathoner) won the women's race with equally stunning performance 6:41:30.

Both Swedes beat their competition by a wide margin, so what can we say, except Heja Sverige!

The local hero was Mr Ernesto Sicurelli from Davos Platz, winning the M60 age category (again) in 7:54:40. Wish I was that fit when I'm 60 - or even next year would be fine!