Chiemgau Trail Run, Übersee, Germany (56k, 2600m D+)

At long last, my first race in Germany (not counting a 10k in 2010), and on partly familiar trails as well. Located just a 1h train ride from Munich, I had visited the mountainous area South of the Chiemsee many times over the years, and ran parts of the route of the Chiemgau Trail only this summer, so I was starting with something what I considered to be a home turf advantage. Making it to the starting line at 5am in Übersee turned out to be trickier than expected, though, and fortunately bibs were sent by mail, rather than collected in a different town 10k from the start on the previous evening which would have required hours of additional transit. While the race was initially supposed to hit the Kampenwand peak and the Hochgern, snow and bad weather led the organizers to switch to a shorter, lower and less exposed route.

We started in a light drizzle close to the shore of the Chiemsee and covered the first mostly flat 14k to the foothills near Grassau in about 1:10h. After a few ups and downs, the climbing started in earnest with an 800m ascent to the Hochplatte. Two thirds were very runnable, which allowed me to capitalize on an apparently good weight to power ratio and pass a couple of the faster flat runners. The last third was already covered in snow and drowning in mud, so progress was equally slow for everybody. The downhill turned out to be a steep gnarly nightmare with mud-covered roots (or root-covered mud), snow, rain and fog and thus very limited visibility and speed for bespectacled me. 

I reached Marquartstein at km 35 where we had access to our dropbags after about 4h. I had a bit of an unpleasant surprise as dropbags were left outside in the rain, and mine contained after-run clothing such as a puffy jacket as well. That's a learning not to skimp on plastic bags when it comes to stowing equipment. I quickly filled up on gels and then began the 700m climb to the Jochbergalm which was mostly easy but steep terrain. The race photographer ignored me when I passed the highest point (probably because my bib was well hidden on my backpack as always), but didn't miss the opportunity to take a less than favorable shot of me tying down laces for the upcoming downhill.

The route then switched between broad forest tracks and more technical, muddy single trails, until we hit the last aid station just before the final 300m climb. Taking a cookie here may have cost be a couple of places in hindsight, as I was struggling to both run uphill and force down a dry chocolate cookie which I gave up after 2-3 minutes. I chuffed by a few over runners who I so far had distanced on the climbs, but who caught up quickly on the steeper and technical downhill sections, either due to better skills or higher risk affinity. However, on the final downhill only one of them managed to slip by me again, and I finished the race in 6:44h in 16th place, one minute before the first female runner and 30 seconds behind 15th place (thanks to the cookie debacle). 

Overall, while the weather was less than stellar, the route was well chosen, marked and fun to run. The marathon variant may have had the more interesting route, though, as it skipped the initial road 14k and spent relatively more time in the mountains.