UTMB CCC, Courmayeur (Italy) - Champex (Switzerland) - Chamonix (France) - (99km, 6200m D+)

And then, suddenly, it was the morning of the 27th of August and the race I had been looking forward to virtually ever since I started running anything longer than a half marathon was about to start. I had picked up a slot for the CCC a couple of months earlier in a first-come-first-served reassignment round, after getting unlucky in the lottery and online contests several times over the course of 2 years. Technically, the 100km Courmayeur-Champex-Chamonix race which is part of the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc race series came a couple of years ahead of schedule for me, but after two races just a bit short of 80km and 5000m climbing I felt fairly confident that the addition of a half-marathon and a Zugspitz ascent would not completely derail any race, mental or fueling strategy I had cooked up so far. Furthermore, except for the initial climb up the Tête de la Tronche, I already knew all of the course from a 4 day Trail du Mont Blanc speed-hike in 2020, and particularly the first 20km from a week of pre-race acclimatization hiking around Courmayeur.

KAT100 Marathon Trail, Fieberbrunn, Austria (61k, 3150m D+)

The KAT 100 Marathon trail is part of a larger trail running event in the Austrian Kitzbühl-Fieberbrunn area with the eponymous KAT100 100 mile run as headliner. Attracted by the relative proximity to Munich and never having been in this particular area of the Alps, my brother and I decided to give this race a shot. For me this early August race was supposed to serve as a preparation for the CCC in late August which I was fortunate to enter through a last minute first come first served signup process in June.