It was Saturday afternoon and I was in what I called deathvalley in my racereport of 2014: the valley which keeps going up and up, never ending and extremely hot. This year it was even hotter, as temperatures in Cortina were above 30 degrees and in deathvalley it felt 10 degrees hotter (and probably it was). My feet were hurting: blisters I suspected; every stone I stepped on did hurt me enourmously. Deathvalley consists of stones: yes, many irritating stones. One of the most annoying things of deathvalley is that - despite this - it is incredibly beautiful with steep stony cliffs and many waterfalls. This was very useful especially this year as any source of water was used to cool down and drink from.
I knew at that point I was not going to reach my goal since I had been in trouble for quite some time and my speed had decreased to a rather poor level. I also knew that if I made it out of the deathvalley I would finish the race. Actually DNF was never really an option this time. But lets go back to the beginning.
I had arrived in Cortina one day before the race. I love this town so much and I got so familiar with it after racing Lavaredo in 2013 and 2014 and after spending our family summer holidays there last year. Also this time it felt like coming home, except for the exceptional heat. At 17:00 it was still 32 degrees! My preparation had been good: I managed to lose a lot of weight, had trained enough and felt rather confident about the race. I needed only to catch some sleep after some hectic working weeks. But that was also arranged nicely as I had a nice hotel 500 meter from the start. The only thing I did in the last 30 hours before the start was sleeping, eating, drinking, and meeting most of the other Danish runners for lunch on Friday, the race day. Most importantly, I was having somewhat ambitious plans this year. In 2014 I ran just below 24 hours, so this year I wanted to finish in the daylight and 22 hours became my target. This should be quite possible, I thought....
At 22 o'clock on Friday I moved to the start area with a pack that was rather light, as the mandatory gear was reduced for the heat: no gloves, no long trusers, no long sleeves shirt, no hat. Unlike the very hot UTMB in 2015, in which an extra liter of water was added, this time the mandatory equipment was only reduced. Gotto love the Italians :-). I wanted to start not too far in the back to avoid queues, so I spent something like an hour standing in a very packed box close to the startline. Not pleasant, and definitely not the right strategy, but more on that later.
The countdown was sharp at 22:00 and off we were. Very crowded for the first 500 meters, but then I could run quite ok. No queue at the first hill, where I nicely found my rythm. It was rather hot, but I was feeling ok and quite relaxed. I made it to the first top and a flat part started followed by a steep part down. There suddenly after passing one runner, I was all alone, which was very weird, as just before there were runners all around me. I could see only a light 100 meters ahead of me and 100 meters behind me: I enjoyed those few minutes before being surrounded again by runners.
I passed the first depot at Ospitale in 2:17, after 18 km. This was just slighlty below my schedule. I was doing well and cruised nicely up the next mountain. It was getting a bit chilly so I put a buff around my neck but otherwise I was still running in t-shirt in the middle of the night. The next depot at 33 km was again in 4:33 well below my schedule. So everything was going very well. During the next climb I was starting to feel tired. But I did not worry: this is something which typically happen to me when it starts getting morning. And I got a big smile on my face when I saw Misurina lake. It was light now and quite beautiful. The first third of the race was now done in a very good time.
But then things changed on the next climb to Auronzo, which I feared for its insane steep. I started to get stomach problems and every time I moved a bit too fast I was getting in the red zone: my heartrate would explode and I was forced to take a break. I struggled my way up and was focussing on getting into the depot at Auronzo, where I would be able to eat something, as clearly I was missing something. That section of less than 6 km took me more than 2 hours and I was overtaken by around 300 runners. But finally I was in Auronzo and I was able to eat; I stuffed myself with soup, bread and a lot of fruit. Leaving the depot I had hoped this refuel would do the job, but my stomach problems continued. Something needed to be done, so when I saw a bench I decided to have a short nap to restart the machine. The nap only lasted 15 minutes because it was still a bit chilly, but I felt resurrected. I started to enjoy again. When do you get to run through such fantastic landscapes? Maybe I had started too fast in the race? Probably I was missing salt (I relied on Tailwind which I added to my water). The thought occured that I am always very focussed on times and maybe I should do it differently next time: starting slow, enjoying and seeing what that brings me. That is one of the key lessons I will bring back from Lavaredo this year.
I was passing the highest point of the race and then the downhill. Here suddenly some fast runners from the Ultradolomites course, one of the other races which had started at 6 o'clock in the morning, started to overtake me. But runners were spread so much that it did not really bother me. The thing which did bother me was that my feet and knees were starting to hurt. A lot. That put a bit of a limit to my speed even though it was downhill, which is normally one of my strengths. By now I was slower than in 2014 and when reaching the bottom of the valley I was a bit in trouble again. Well, I 'just' had to make it to the dropbag depot, over a small mountain, then through my second meeting of deathvalley and I would almost be home...
In the depot in a fresh t-shirt, I put sunscreen on, tried to eat well, but had problems eating most things they had. Likely there were these breads with tomatoes and olive oil covered in salt. They tasted not too well (very salty), but somehow my body liked those. And in these conditions i trust my body to know best: so I ate many. As we had just gone through a river, my feet were refreshed and I did not change my shoes, which would appear to be a clear mistake. A huge mistake.
The next target was to make it to deathvalley which was reached nicely through familiar terrain as we passed by the waterfalls in Val des Funes, where I had spend some days with my family the year before. Deathvalley lived up to its name and became quite a struggle from the beginning. Blisters, heat and a path just getting steeper and steeper. I was very happy to make it out of it eventually. I knew the rest of the way would be painfull and I was just walking, but I also knew I would finish the race. The next 12 km were going up and down with some very steep climbs, but I made it through and then it was just 10 km to Cortina. A large part of those 10 km were going down very very steeply. After more than 110 km on the legs simply I couldn't run here, so I just walked. But I was amazed by some of the other runners going down full speed even though it was completely dark already (we were running with headlamps again). What are these guys and girls made off?
But so happy to arrive in Cortina, I started to run in the walking street. Stil very large crowds were cheering the runners banging on the boards when runners came in, even though it was past midnight. It felt like I won the race :-) Simply fantastic!
My time was 25:38, so more 3 h slower than my target, but still it felt really good. I finished even though I had a lot of blisters (4 on each foot to be exact - the biggest ones the size of eggs, "thanks" to the shoes) and I was and am damn proud of that. And I know I can do better: next race I will start in different shoes, start in the back and make my way through the field.
And for sure I will be back in Cortina as this race is sooo cool and beautiful. It is sometimes called the small sister of UTMB. Yes, UTMB is the best organised race I have participated in, but this small sister certainly is prettier and more charming!
