Race report Eiger Ultra Trail 2019 E51 – my first Ultramarathon experience…

Saturday morning July 20th, 2019 at 7:00am the gun went off to one of my biggest adventures to date. Together with my teammate and life partner I was toeing the start line to embark on our first trail race at the ultramarathon distance, the Eiger Ultra Trail 2019 E51. In this post I will reflect on our experience on race day.

If you want to know how we even ended up at this event in the first place, you can read this post Embarking on a strange journey.

My goals

Since I never ran more than 25km on trails before I signed up for the Eiger Ultra Trail 2019 and therefore also never trained for a race with 51km distance and 3100m of elevation gain and loss I had no idea what to expect. Therefore, I decided not to go down the typical route and set a specific time as target but to focus on the following three goals:

1. Finishing the race – This might be an obvious one but signified to me that even if I cross the finish line 1 minute under the cut-off time I will be happy with what I achieved.
2. Don’t get injured during training or the race – My goal was to listen to my body and train as smart as possible to achieve my first goal. I didn’t want to just blindly follow a training plan which might push my body way beyond what would be sustainable for the fitness level I was at. I will share more about our training approach in a future post.
3. Be happy during the race – This was not only the combination of the two previous goals but also about having the right mindset, enjoying the moment and being thankful for where I was and how far I’ve come. Being able to see value in the hard parts of this process is key to keep a positive mind set.

When the gun went off

I started this race with a huge smile on my face and I kept it on for almost the entire next 10 hours. We started off with an easy pace to ensure we did not already spike our heart rate during the first 5km. After leaving the village of Grindelwald the racecourse pretty soon narrows down to a single track and the long train of participants settled into the first 1000m climb to the Grosse Scheidegg. There were only very few opportunities to overtake anyone, so we were forced to be patient, which was the only right thing to do anyways. We made it to the first check point at Grosse Scheidegg after 1h 43m feeling strong and ready for the first very runnable section of the racecourse.

After leaving Grosse Scheidegg it took us a little less than one hour to traverse to First where the famous cliff walk is located with a wonderful view over the Eiger and the whole valley.

Continuing from First via Bachalpsee towards Feld we encountered the first more technical parts of the trail with a little bit of a climb on a beautiful ridge and then a fun technical decent over a very narrow trail winding through big boulders. Slowly but surely, we started to overtake people and it became very clear at this point that never avoiding the technical downhills in our training paid of tremendously. We arrived at Feld after a total of 3h 49m and had to ensure we got our bladders filled with electrolyte drink since this was the last aid station where you could refill your bottles for the next few hours.

I left this aid station with a lot of anticipation because we were about to start the biggest climb of the day to the highest point of the racecourse, the top of Faulhorn. This part of the race was the biggest unknown for me, since the top of Faulhorn only marks the halfway point of the race distance, with most of the significant climbs done but still a descent of 3000m ahead to get back to the finish line. I knew that if I could conquer this climb and still feel good at the top, chances are really high that I would be able to finish this race. At the same time this was the part where I really struggled the last time we ran this trail in 2018 split in two days. Back then I struggled so much that my partner thought I might collapse on the trail. So, when we started the climb, I focused on blocking out all the negative thoughts, all the worries, staying in the moment and I simply had to trust in all the training we did. Even though it was still a hard climb, I was so happy to arrive at the top of Faulhorn after a total of 5h 20m still feeling strong and very much looking forward to the next section which is by far my favourite.

Descending from Faulhorn getting into the long traverse to Schynige Platte I was so thankful for being in the form I was and for having such a strong day. This part of the course is when you can truly shift into cruise control and just enjoy the run. Soon enough we encountered the first snow field during our descent which was to be expected considering how much snow we encountered in this region just one month earlier. Thanks to our endless training hours we had to do on snow covered trails earlier this year we were able to overtake several people simply by sliding by. It was shortly before we arrived at Schynige Platte when I realized how fast the day was flying by.

After finishing the traverse to Schynige Platte the long descent to Burglauenen started and again it paid huge dividend that we put just as much focus on training the downhills as the uphills. We just made short pitstop at Schwand (7h 46m) the last aid station before Burglauenen. The temperatures have risen all day and the humidity was very high at this point which took a toll an many of the runners. It was during this time I had to start to make sure I was staying in the moment and not thinking about the finish line already, since we were still a bit more than two hours away from actually finishing the race. It took us one more hour of descending until we reached the last aid station of the E51 course in Burglauenen after 9h 04m, which is where the E101 splits from the E51 course. At this point it was clear that we could finish the race, we were four hours under cut-off, and it was only 6 km to the finish line.

Finishing what we started

Only 6 km to the finish line sounds like nothing, however if you already ran more than a marathon distance and over 3000m of vertical gain and loss it all becomes relative. I thought a lot about this last part of the race leading up to it. I anticipated that it’s going to be hard to keep running even though this last stretch is on completely flat surface, nothing technical. Leaving Burglauenen with almost one hour to go to the 10 hours mark, we started to contemplate if it was possible to push to a finish under 10 hours. Well for me it was impossible at the time, I had not enough fighting left in me to keep pushing hard enough during these last 6km.

Nonetheless we kept on moving and soon arrived at the foot of the last insane climb… Yes, there is a though, very short but insanely steep climb at the very end of the 51km course up to the main road of Grindelwald. So, we buckled down and went back to the pain cave one last time. At the same time during the last 2km of this strange journey the heaven opened, and it started pouring rain. It did not bother us at this stage since we almost made it and we enjoyed the refreshment. It also added a very dramatic feel to this final push up to Grindelwald. Arriving at the top of the climb was an incredible feeling, only a few hundred meters left to the finish line. We started running again, cheered on by the spectators. After 10h and 07m we arrived back where we started earlier this morning, at the finish line of the Eiger Ultra Trail 2019 E51. We were soaking wet at this stage but also just incredibly happy and thankful for to be able to have finished what we started.

The aftermath

The days after the race were way less painful than I anticipated. We did not suffer from any major damage to our feet or anything else and except a bit of muscle soreness no aches at all. The only strange pain revealed itself during our pasta dinner right after the race. I was so looking forward to eating a hot meal but after the first bite I almost started crying because the top of my mouth was so sore. At first I thought all the electrolyte drinks were burned my mouth through high acid content but after consulting with Dr. Google I figured out that this is apparently a common issues people have after a very long endurance effort due to the prolonged intense breathing (especially mouth breathing) and can be expected to be gone after a few days, which it did. I guess it wouldn’t have been a true Ultra experience with at least one strange unexpected pain. One and a half weeks late we are feeling completely back to normal also energy wise and my mind is already looking for the next adventure.