The Trail Run, by Martin Gaffuri

Monday: 50’ run, 10’ warm up - 30’ tempo run - 10’ cool down
My legs were feeling pretty heavy after this week end but I was on it and did it all right as we were running all together under a roasting summer sun...

Tuesday: hills session 40’ at 8km/h, 13% ascent
I went indoor on the treadmills with a friend. I have to admit that it’s good to have someone to bring a bit of a chat during these boring indoor sessions; well a chat as long as you are able to talk... I had good feelings with my legs but still not strong enough yet and my heart rate goes too high… I’ll keep training until I become a strong uphill runner. I should know my level when I’ll finish this mountain race on the 13th of July, which is my focus of the month. The friend who’s training with me will also do this race. We’ll be training specific uphill together until the end of the week end then cool down before the race.

Wednesday: Off.
Fancy a pool session at lunch time? Impossible Is Nothing. Simply run 30’ back and forth – a good way to recover from yesterday - and let’s have some fun ! I love my job…

Thursday: 50' on trails
No big deal, just keep the mileage going.

Friday: Off
Way too busy to go for a run, shit loads of stuff to go through before the week end but that's ok, I know we'll go back to Ehrwald for a training camp with Ed and Corky.

Week end: Training Camp in the mountains Now we're on it, back to the mountain and ready to train hard. The main objective of this week end is to get to the top of the highest mountain of Germany called Zugspitze taking the route that we will have to take next week end for the race: Zugspitze Extrem Berglauf.

We took off on friday right after work and set up the tent at the same place we did last week end, you don't get bored of such a place ! We woke up at 8.00am went down the creek, washed our faces and ready for the trekk. That was amazing, the weather was not as good as last week but still decent. We got to the first path pretty quick,went down and up to the border between Autria and Germany, then we got pretty excited on the flat but technical rocky single track.


We kept the pace up until we reached the bottom of the final ascent, 1k left but when it includes 400m elevation gain, this becomes a freaking wall !!! It was sometimes that steep that we had to hold on to cables! And then we reached the top in 3.50 hours for an ascent supposed to take 7... But such an effort was woth it and the supe and the beer we had at the top was quite the reward...



On sunday we decided to run the first half of the race up to the first path and see what it's like in term of effort and possible timing. We alternated walk and run depending on the ascent gradient and got there in one hour. As we didn't start from the main place of the village we assumed we could get to the first path in 1.15. At that point we realized who good the 2h03 race record was... let's see what happens next week end. Once again a very good training week end spend with good friends. Good times.