Innsbruck Alpine Trail Festival, Austria (61k, 1900m D+)

Although the Corona pandemic has put a stop to most trail running events, some smaller races in less affected (or cautious) places are still taking place in 2020. We had initially planned the Mozart 100 in Salzburg as our main event for the year, but its cancellation freed up time to hike the UTMB trail in 4 days in June (still images video). We also signed up on short notice for the Innsbruck Alpine Trail Run festival, offering several routes from 7km to 110km around Innbruck. IATF touts itself as the big trail running season opening, but postponement due to the pandemic has turned it into more of a season closer. While a fair amount of the courses are on asphalt and gravel forest roads, there is still a surprising amount of easy trails to be ran. Not feeling up for the maximum challenge, I opted for the 61k/1900m D+ medium distance, while my brother did the 42k/1700m D+ course.

We managed to book an AirBnB flat about 10mins from the starting line at the Olympia park, putting us in a comfortable walking distance for the 7.30h bus shuttle for the marathon and 9.30h start for the 61k ultra. As a surprising first, sole profiles were assessed at the equipment check - probably the organizers had some bad experiences with ultra slick soles, but my road Hoka Clifton 7s passed inspection without issue, and the trails (at least in dry conditions) really did not require much traction. Starters were organized in blocks and asked to wear masks and stay apart to keep the infection risk low, which was made a bit of a mockery of by the race commentator asking everybody to shout and count down to 0 zero as loud as possible.

After a quick first km which was severely overpaced as always, the first climb up to the Bergisel ski jump facility put most people into hiking mode. After a quick downhill, the next few km were a steady up and down on runnable single trails through the pretty wild Sill valley. I had secured a position in the top 20 runners at the starting line, but a wrong turn in the valley and a 4min detour put me and quite a few other runners in the mid of the pack where progress was not as fast as one would have wished for, and passing slower runners was fairly difficult given the narrow trail. However, we soon left the valley and climbed up to the first aid station at the Natterer Lake.

With the first aid station placed at km 12 and the second one at km 17, I decided to just keep on running as I was well supplied with food and water. After the somewhat traumatic out-of-fuel experience during the Columbus Trail in February I had decided to change my nutrition strategy to gels of which I carried what felt like half a kilo during this race. Immediately behind the second station we dropped down into the Inn valley to cross it and reach the next "big" climb (about 300 to 400m) up the Nordkette. Temperatures had surpassed 25°C by now which even led to some runners dropping out due to heat issues. 

We reached the midway point at the third aid station after about 3.30h. I was not feeling particularly fresh at this point, and the 20km along the mountains north of Innsbruck were a bit of a slog. After the fourth aid station we again traversed the Inn valley which was getting seriously hot, and started the last 10km and 500m climb before the finish. I had not aimed for a particular time, but joined up with other runners who tried to beat 7h and decided that I might as well do the same. 

As I was still or again running the easy climbs despite some queasiness and slight cramping I was starting to overtake a few other runners, and reached the final aid station with some time to spare given that it was only 4 more km downhill from here. Immediately after the station I caught up with a runner who decided that he did not want to yield his position, so we ended up chasing each other down a fairly technical downhill and along the last road km at a 4.30min/km pace. It turned out that I had met someone with a higher capacity for suffering, as I broke off the finish sprint which the other runner pulled through, only to collapse a few meters behind the finish line. 

I completed the course in 6.52h, placing 27th. While I wouldn't exactly call the race a fun run, I felt like I could have made good a few places by spending less time in aid stations, and capitalizing on my "advantage" of wearing road running shoes during the asphalt segments, without utterly wasting myself. Overall, it was nice to participate in a race during Corona times, and the organizers really did their best to keep everyone safe during the event. In a bout of post race euphoria, I also immediately signed up for the Chiemgau Trail in mid-October 2020 which runs over a via ferrata segment I turned back on during a hike in June.

 
Official race website: https://innsbruckalpine.at/

Course profile: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=13_2WnSlok29ulYHKbQ6bdh_S1Sei8R8_&ll=47.25678089986909%2C11.430590365680722&z=13